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 solopreneur, you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one.
Speaker: All right, we are live, and we are doing a little preview of SolorCon 2024, baby.
Speaker: I'm super excited.
Speaker: We got coming in, what, about a week from now.
Speaker: We're going to be at SolorCon.
Speaker: in utah hanging out with guys like jake kiss who is here live on the recording with us thanks for hopping on a live with us here jake hey everybody it's good to be here
Speaker: It's been a while.
Speaker: I've been on with you, Taylor.
Speaker: I think it was a door to door con year one.
Speaker: I did solar con.
Speaker: It was January before my first solar con.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: It's been a minute.
Speaker: I'm sure you're gearing up.
Speaker: I feel like we're on like David Letterman show or something like previewing the big release or something for like your next blockbuster hit.
Speaker: You ever feel like that?
Speaker: You're just like going and talking about the event endlessly, just waiting for it to release, waiting for it to happen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: People are curious about it.
Speaker: They want to know about it, rightfully so.
Speaker: But yeah, it does pile up closer to the conference.
Speaker: I would want to know the same thing.
Speaker: So I'm happy to come on and do this and chat about it.
Speaker: It's certainly something we've put a lot of effort into and we're passionate about.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Well, I was just telling you before we hit a live here, usually that's one of actually one of the episodes I look forward to is on the on my podcast as I get on and I do like a event preview for like door to door con for solar con.
Speaker: And I like it because I'm just kind of scrolling through the agenda and kind of like picking the ones that I'm most excited for and, you know, talking about just giving people recommendations and all that.
Speaker: So when, yeah, when I heard you were free for a little live, I'm like, man, it'd be awesome.
Speaker: Who better to do a SolarCon preview with than the founder himself?
Speaker: So yeah, it should be fun.
Speaker: But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: The first question I had, Jake, like what's from, from last year to this year, do you have any like big changes that have been made or can people expect the event to be like much different from last year or what can people expect?
Speaker: Well, you know, we have,
Speaker: We do have some things that have changed, but there's also some things that have not changed that we have talked about in the past that are coming to fruition now.
Speaker: One of the big things that we changed this year is we added a stage.
Speaker: And we added that stage to be able to facilitate holding state-specific panels.
Speaker: We didn't have the space for it on the other breakout, so we added one.
Speaker: And we brought in some experts that probably would have not have attended SolarCon unless we had done that.
Speaker: Because there's different levels of the solar industry that maybe not all of us are thinking about or ingrained with or deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker: Like the folks over at SCIA or we have political leaders that are coming like, um,
Speaker: you know, from like the governor's office, the government, the potential governor may even come as well.
Speaker: There's we've had we've had conversations about someone running for president that's interested in coming.
Speaker: Like there's there's different parts of the solar industry that are that are starting to get integrated into this conference.
Speaker: We even have the C-suite from Q-Sales is coming in there.
Speaker: 33 percent market share on panels to come check it out.
Speaker: So
Speaker: The stuff that we have brought is definitely attracting larger audiences and increasing the topics that are going to be talked about.
Speaker: Man, I don't even know where I'm going with all this.
Speaker: I guess not a lot of new stuff, but a lot of new things coming into SolarCon.
Speaker: Yeah, well, I bet.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, you guys just blew it up last year.
Speaker: I think even talking to you and Joe, I think you guys were even surprised with like,
Speaker: How well, when, how many people showed up from last year.
Speaker: Yeah, we're surprised every year it happened.
Speaker: Okay, that went well.
Speaker: Wow, that was magic.
Speaker: Because we don't know why it does.
Speaker: There's so many moving parts.
Speaker: If you think of all the sponsors coming, I think we have 130 sponsors.
Speaker: Do you think of all of them coming in every tiny shipment that they have to send just to set up their booth or the swag they give out or...
Speaker: If you think about all of that, with all of those sponsors delivering all of their posters and pop-up banners and everything, how do we get it all on the floor at the same time with carpet put underneath it and pipe and drape set up and speakers traveling across the country and panels being built?
Speaker: How does all of this planning that happens for one year, how's it supposed to happen and funnel down into a three-day experience where there are no hiccups or problems?
Speaker: That is intense.
Speaker: And so when it goes right, we are like, no way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I hope you get some sleep before the events.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was telling you, I'm doing, you know, as my listeners know, I'm doing my live events the day before solar con.
Speaker: We're doing it down at the aquarium, just in a Draper there.
Speaker: And even, even just preparing for that.
Speaker: I'm like, man, are people going to show up?
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: uh are we gonna get eaten by sharks at the aquarium like just like every possible thought shows up i remember yeah you asked if you asked if they were cool with it of course we're cool with it we we love events before ours um i asked tiger if we could do league of influencers before his door-to-door con and he was down with it it brings new audiences that maybe we don't get you have a big following so of course it's helpful what day is yours again
Speaker: Mine's the 17th.
Speaker: Yeah, just Wednesday.
Speaker: And I think SolarCon starts Thursday, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I'll probably come to your thing.
Speaker: I mean, I don't have anything going on.
Speaker: I will be in Salt Lake City on Monday, the 15th.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And it's like a big ship at the moment.
Speaker: It's already moving.
Speaker: There's no way I can turn it two days before the conference.
Speaker: It's just, we'll see you there with everyone else.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, the bonus, bonus.
Speaker: So if people were questioning coming to my events, we might have GACAS make an appearance.
Speaker: So there you go.
Speaker: I'd be happy to do it, man.
Speaker: But one thing you did ask, so like that I kind of brushed over was I said, we have things that we have talked about that are actually coming to fruition this conference.
Speaker: If you have been to the first two conferences, you would have seen things.
Speaker: The first one, certainly you saw the unification, you saw how the setup was going to be.
Speaker: We have the lounge chairs, we have the food, we have charging stations.
Speaker: We even have workstations this year.
Speaker: We have lockers for people to store things in.
Speaker: We have everything that you're going to need so you don't feel like you have to go back to the room and come back and forth.
Speaker: And that's something we pulled out on year one.
Speaker: And we think a lot of his success is attributed to that.
Speaker: But year two, if you remember, we did platinum day.
Speaker: Do you remember that?
Speaker: Uh, yeah, I think it was that just like day one before the event or something.
Speaker: It was the day before the event.
Speaker: And what we were doing was we were stress testing the model of renting out the facility and what it would take to build all of the structures and sponsored whatever the areas that they have.
Speaker: And we found out that we could not do it in the timeframe we had, so we have to extend.
Speaker: So there was lesson number one.
Speaker: We figured out
Speaker: the weight of our team, logistics, all of that that it would take to add an extra day to the conference.
Speaker: And then we did League of Influencers, which I believe you were also at, right?
Speaker: Yeah, that's super cool.
Speaker: That one was facilitated and built to be like a gala.
Speaker: Everyone was wearing tuxedos and gala dresses and everyone looked very nice.
Speaker: We have a lot of content and photos.
Speaker: But we did these two things with one goal in mind.
Speaker: We wanted to roll out the industry awards.
Speaker: And I don't mean like an award here or there that we just make up and here you go.
Speaker: I mean, we have committees that have been formed for each category, like manufacturing awards.
Speaker: There's a manufacturer category with like 12 different awards in it.
Speaker: for modules, inverters, anything that you could imagine.
Speaker: As far as manufacturing goes, we have an award for it.
Speaker: And the committee is not necessarily working at the companies.
Speaker: They're actually people that use it like distribution, receive solar panels, installers have to deal with it.
Speaker: CEOs of these install companies have to know how
Speaker: how easy it is to get these panels or, you know, there's so many variables to consider when you're thinking about what solar panels should get an award.
Speaker: And these committees have formed that and we're going to talk about it at SolarCon this year.
Speaker: The committees are going to go over all the criteria listed.
Speaker: We teamed up with OMA Analytics, who runs the database for solar for the whole country.
Speaker: And we've all teamed up and partnered together to bring the Excellence in Solar Awards to the entirety of the globe of the residential solar industry.
Speaker: And you saw the testing of that, Platinum Day.
Speaker: So we're going to hold the award event the day before SolarCon next year.
Speaker: SolarCon 4, you will see the final brushed up build of this entire multi-hundred thousand dollar bill.
Speaker: these awards for the industry.
Speaker: We have Nobel Peace Prizes for academics and science and we have J.D.
Speaker: Power and Associates to Cars.
Speaker: Well, the solar industry deserves one.
Speaker: So we built it this year.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah, it's pretty incredible.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: Well, yeah, what's cool is you guys do, I don't know, because some of these other events, it's like they're all focused on just the technology.
Speaker: Like there's the one in San Diego.
Speaker: What's that one they do in San Diego every year?
Speaker: Inter-solar.
Speaker: Inter-solar.
Speaker: intersolar.
Speaker: Like, I don't, for me, I was, I was never like that interested.
Speaker: Cause I'm just like, um, sales, sales, sales.
Speaker: I know some people go to those, but, um, sometimes I get like burned out by just talking about like solar panels for two days straight.
Speaker: Like I want to hear like the sales.
Speaker: I want to hear like the marketing, um,
Speaker: And that's what's really cool about Solarcon is you guys are doing it all.
Speaker: Like, I think there's a really good balance of talking about, you know, maybe newer products, new equipment, but then there's also guys come in.
Speaker: And I really like how you're talking about the different markets are coming this year too.
Speaker: There's guys, there's like a, I think Texas panel, Florida, like the different markets are coming.
Speaker: So is that something you thought about a lot?
Speaker: It's like, okay, how are we going to balance it between just geeking out about panels and the products?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or like, how did you guys try to structure that?
Speaker: What was your like thoughts as you're trying to combine like, you know, cells, equipment, just all the aspects of solar into one event?
Speaker: Yeah, it basically boils down to I was traveling the country and doing some consulting for businesses.
Speaker: And I remember I met one family on the East Coast and I met one on the West Coast and both of them had an amazing wife.
Speaker: They both brought me home and had dinner for me.
Speaker: Their kids were playing like beautiful houses.
Speaker: Very kind people.
Speaker: And they hated each other.
Speaker: I was like, no way.
Speaker: Have you met them?
Speaker: Have you met this other person?
Speaker: They said, no.
Speaker: Wait, what?
Speaker: What are you talking about then?
Speaker: Social media?
Speaker: Like people get on like, it was literally, I think it was SunPower is literally like, no, that person likes SunPower and we know how bad they are.
Speaker: And I was like, but do you really, do you even know why they love SunPower?
Speaker: Maybe there's some valid points.
Speaker: I don't think like, no, I know our product is best.
Speaker: We've done our research, but have you researched SunPower?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Like, okay.
Speaker: And that's when it dawned on me how much, and it wasn't just that.
Speaker: I mean, if you look in social media back a couple of years ago when you were in there too, doing all this stuff, people were bashing each other for selling products.
Speaker: SolarEdge is better.
Speaker: And you don't see that much anymore.
Speaker: You see a little bit, but I think a lot of the animosity, there was a lot of healing that happened when we put it under one roof because finally,
Speaker: Everybody got to meet each other and then everybody got to learn about products directly from the resource that wasn't available until Solarcon was there for at least for the residential industry, the economy of the residential industry, sales reps, installers.
Speaker: We even want EAs, we want people, CAD designer, engineers, we want everyone there because this information is relevant for all aspects of the residential solar industry.
Speaker: So to answer your question,
Speaker: The way that we thought about it or the reason we did it was we thought, you know, it might heal the industry a bit and unify us in the collective goal, which is essentially getting solar on all the rooftops that we possibly can.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker: That's so cool.
Speaker: Yeah, because I don't know.
Speaker: Hopefully it's gotten a little bit better.
Speaker: But you remember, you know, the early like solar Facebook groups.
Speaker: It's just like endless bashing of equipment and, you know, companies and all that.
Speaker: And there's still a lot of that sometimes.
Speaker: But I think what's cool about like you guys and door to door con is it seems like everyone's trying to like work towards a collective goal.
Speaker: And hopefully, you know, and some of this drama and all that that we see in a lot of the Facebook groups and stuff like that.
Speaker: Yeah, we feel like we did a pretty good job of that the first two years.
Speaker: First year we were like, hey, let's unify.
Speaker: And then the second year, I really believe almost every speaker on main stage talked about how we've unified.
Speaker: And I'm not saying that we were the ones to start.
Speaker: I'm just saying that we contributed to that concept.
Speaker: And I think with all of the animosity and struggles that have happened in our industry this year, this last year, we thought it would be prudent to have the theme be together we redefine the industry because that is what's happening with technology.
Speaker: with these associations that are being formed like RSA and Mentis.
Speaker: And we see so many changes across the country to inspire better practices.
Speaker: It's not just these organizations, businesses are adapting new policy sales reps are believing they need to learn more than they ever have before.
Speaker: there's so many parts to it, but then, but then it's all kind of like, there's no direction.
Speaker: Everyone's learning about new things and kind of drifting off into the abyss.
Speaker: So solar cons meant to like bring them back and have all of us aligned together.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's so cool.
Speaker: Well, cool, man.
Speaker: So I wanted to pick your brain a little bit, Jake.
Speaker: Like I said, I always do a solar con preview episode.
Speaker: So it's cool.
Speaker: If it's cool with you, I want to go through maybe like some highlights you're looking forward to personally and
Speaker: We even pull up the agenda here.
Speaker: Just talk about like some of the ones you're most looking forward to.
Speaker: I know the one you're most excited about is the recruiting panel that I'm going to be on.
Speaker: Second is Gary Vee, but you know,
Speaker: I'll take I'll take the gold there but no so yeah I want to go through a little bit maybe some highlights of the event but yeah first of all how did you guys I don't know how much you can like sure but how did you manage getting Gary V to an event like this that's like oh that's like a unreal man like when I saw Gary V I'm like no way how do they pull off Gary V come to the event so was that like hard or what's I don't know what's the background on that how'd you guys pull off getting Gary V here
Speaker: I will tell you exactly how Gary Vee, Bradley, Andy, how any of these people that anyone knows, Jeremiah, I'll tell you exactly how they get to SolarCon.
Speaker: That would be Joe, because I have no idea who these people are until Joe says, hey, I have it because I'm flying around all these places.
Speaker: I literally one time I got a text message.
Speaker: This is bad.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: I turn my phone on slightly before we land.
Speaker: okay um but as we were landing i remember i was looking down and wheels were about to touch and he's like
Speaker: Hey, I know you have a meeting that you're going to go to, but there's enough time for you to stop at Bradley's.
Speaker: And I had the camera guy with me and I'm like, who is Bradley?
Speaker: You know, and then I got there and I was waiting in the waiting area and I was looking at the time and I was like, yeah, he's, he's making me wait five minutes.
Speaker: Like I'm not, I'm, I gotta go.
Speaker: And so I called Joe like, Hey, sorry, man, I'm leaving.
Speaker: Sure enough, Brad comes out like his Joe was like, do not leave, wait there.
Speaker: I got, you know, and then I don't know who this guy is.
Speaker: I'm Bradley.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think it gives us a little advantage.
Speaker: Bradley even grabbed my phone.
Speaker: He's like, are you even following me?
Speaker: He's like, no.
Speaker: And he had me follow me.
Speaker: But I think it gives us an advantage because I can talk to them just like anyone else.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, you want to come to the conference?
Speaker: What are you going to talk about?
Speaker: I don't know their prestige or their level, but Joe does.
Speaker: And because it does, it adds such a tremendous amount of value to the conference.
Speaker: People don't want to just come and hear you and I talk, Taylor.
Speaker: They might love us, but they do want some of those big names and Joe brings them.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: So did he did you hop on the phone with Gary Vee before he handled all that and just like Gary Vee's coming?
Speaker: No, Gary was the first one that we weren't able to chat with.
Speaker: I remember the whole form we had to fill out because once we got a hold of his people, the whole form that we had to fill out was asking us questions and even giving us ideas.
Speaker: They were like, okay, what are you requesting of Gary aside from speaking?
Speaker: Would you like to do a podcast with him?
Speaker: Would you like to have him do shout outs for you on social media?
Speaker: And we were like, oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Check mark that one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When you get it back, they're like, oh, yeah, we're not going to do any of that.
Speaker: It's just for speaking.
Speaker: Like, what?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: We were getting stoked, but yeah, $275,000 later, we get them for two hours.
Speaker: And that's about what it takes to get Gary V. It is.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, hey, guess money goes a long way.
Speaker: Guess it's an extra $275,000 if you want them for a podcast on top of that.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: But I'll tell you one of the most disheartening things I have ever heard was I got a call from someone at an Aspire conference I think he spoke at.
Speaker: And they're like, dude, Gary V, amazing, right?
Speaker: Like you guys are so lucky he's coming up.
Speaker: Totally worth the $75,000.
Speaker: serious like sorry what did you say but he was like I don't know I could be mistaken but I think I'm right and so I called John like what is happening why why am I hearing these words out of this person's mouth yeah uh
Speaker: Yeah, but no, and we didn't build this conference.
Speaker: I'll tell you right now, not just this conference, all conferences, they sell 80% of their tickets in the final month period.
Speaker: So we're spending millions of dollars building a conference and we're literally like hoping that people attend.
Speaker: That's why you see these discount schedules happening.
Speaker: That's why you see like us traveling around and like, that's why you see these things is because we're trying to get money into the account so that we can stop spending as much as we are knowing that people are going to come.
Speaker: And the crazy part is we have to wait.
Speaker: We have to wait until the final month before we even know.
Speaker: We hope that Gary Vee works.
Speaker: We hope the money we spent on him works.
Speaker: We hope that adding all these things in this marketing, we would hope, hope, hope, right?
Speaker: And Gary Vee definitely put a tremendous amount of stress on our cash flow and our processes because we won't see that money until now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That is stressful.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm over here complaining about like the, you know, three, four grand I had to drop on my venue for my events.
Speaker: And, but all of a sudden that doesn't seem too bad compared to 275,000.
Speaker: Well, it's, it's not a bad thing, dude.
Speaker: We, I'll tell you, it was,
Speaker: One thing I tell Trey to build Solarcon, and I can say this now because it's passed and I've proven it.
Speaker: But one of the things I had to do was kind of lie to the whole country.
Speaker: A little bit, this, this much.
Speaker: I had to say, yeah, we've got a cool kick-ass conference.
Speaker: Everyone's coming.
Speaker: Check out this marketing.
Speaker: Check out the social media.
Speaker: We've got these speakers.
Speaker: And the truth of the matter is a month and a half before the conference started,
Speaker: We had 26 ticket sales on year one.
Speaker: I was legit, and I'm not just saying this to be funny on here.
Speaker: I was legitimately like, okay, we've taken hundreds of thousands from sponsors and we're going to be the laughingstock of the entire solar community.
Speaker: And other people that had conferences were like,
Speaker: no, dude, don't worry.
Speaker: It all comes in the final month.
Speaker: You're fine.
Speaker: And I'm like, I'm like trembling from not eating food and like stressing out.
Speaker: And I'm like, really?
Speaker: Cause I legitimately was like, okay, like, what does this mean?
Speaker: Like I might, I have a baby mom.
Speaker: I might not be able to pay child support anymore.
Speaker: I might be losing my relationship with my son.
Speaker: I might, might be getting lawsuits all over the place.
Speaker: I might be like, I'm telling you the weight of,
Speaker: of all of this stuff crashing down on us with 26 ticket sales and a million dollars in sponsor spend.
Speaker: It was scary.
Speaker: It was really hard.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: I lie a little bit to sell it and then I get the sponsor's money to build it.
Speaker: And then we hope that the attendee money comes in so that we can break even.
Speaker: In the first two years, or the first year we broke even and then the second year we were barely profitable.
Speaker: this year we are definitely we're short about 500 000. so all right how are your tickets okay it's not everyone thinks it's a glamorous it's not it's not like it's a it's a super it's not like it's a big money maker for us it's not it's yeah yeah yeah well no makes sense yeah yeah well speaking of tickets um hopefully people see this banner going across but tomorrow at the time we're doing this live here
Speaker: and recording tomorrow is the last day for the discount you can get on the website so I would definitely recommend if you are checking this out or hearing this Wednesday I think it's the 10th at midnight there's not a discounts anymore I guess there's still a small one if you use our coupon code but
Speaker: the one for the website is going down.
Speaker: So hopefully people go grab their tickets and let's make some of that money back for Jake so he can pay his child support.
Speaker: No, that was your one.
Speaker: I'm just kidding.
Speaker: But, but no, like, yeah, it's definitely going to be a killer event.
Speaker: And yeah, let's go through a couple of the agenda.
Speaker: So I'm going to share my screen, Jake, and maybe you can give us just like your thoughts on like some of the highlights we got so far.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: Let me see if I can do this.
Speaker: So, yeah, I mean, I'm, I always like love checking out these agendas before and,
Speaker: I'm kind of marking down the ones I want to hit and everything.
Speaker: So it's kicking off 9 a.m.
Speaker: on Thursday, April 18th.
Speaker: And then you got registration.
Speaker: So it looks like you're kicking it off.
Speaker: So what are you going to be talking about in your little kickoff to us there, Jake?
Speaker: I'm going to be talking about...
Speaker: I mean, the message is basically going to be that, you know, we fight a lot about the planet and how we need to go green, how the planet needs to be saved.
Speaker: And most people probably don't know this, but it is actually a fact.
Speaker: It's actually been proven by scientists.
Speaker: No one, no one, no government is arguing this, which is why COP28 was just signed in Dubai recently.
Speaker: We all know that this has to happen.
Speaker: And there was companies before us, before me, when I got into solar, there were certainly companies before me.
Speaker: Not as many as there are now, but there are going to be companies after us.
Speaker: And if we do represent the solar industry, if that is us today, right now, that represents the entirety of the solar industry, I don't mean solar con, anyone that's listening to this, anyone that's participating, if we represent the solar industry and we know that bad things are happening in our industry right now,
Speaker: Business companies going out of business, banks having to switch things, switching from loan to TPO.
Speaker: We might be running out of tax equity partners.
Speaker: So we might swing back to loans or maybe we have to go to cash or home equity lines of credit.
Speaker: It's all coming.
Speaker: And so if we know that these things are here now,
Speaker: then how are the companies after us going to survive?
Speaker: If it is to turn the planet green and get solar on these homes, as we grow a little bit old 10 years from now, like when I started 10 years ago, who's going to be here 10 years from now and what policies are going to be set in place so that what happened this last year doesn't happen?
Speaker: And I think it's the responsibility of everybody.
Speaker: I mean, what if banks were responsible for sales reps knowing how the tax credit works, right?
Speaker: Before they allowed us to sell loans.
Speaker: What if they were?
Speaker: And it's traditionally not their responsibility, but what if it was?
Speaker: What if regulation didn't come in and force us to learn that stuff and pass exams to do it, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We do need this industry to survive.
Speaker: And since it is us here that is doing it now, then I think it weighs on our shoulders to be able to provide not just the platform for the country or the globe to get solar, but also the platform for the companies and the sales reps after us to be able to perform at their jobs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: I'm talking about that a little bit, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: Yeah, I think so important, especially for new reps coming in.
Speaker: We just all complain about these changes in funding and, you know, companies paying after PTO now.
Speaker: But what I've seen is like most reps don't even understand these things.
Speaker: They just want to complain about how, you know, the banks and stuff are trying to screw us over.
Speaker: So, yeah, I think that's a really good message.
Speaker: A lot of people need to hear for sure.
Speaker: Um, okay.
Speaker: And then moving on.
Speaker: So yeah, like afternoon, th is is where you're doing the looks like different States, Arizona, Florida, California, Texas.
Speaker: Um, that's, and that's a cool idea.
Speaker: Was that, uh, who, who, who kind of like brainstorm that?
Speaker: What would you guys think about when you're like, Oh, let's do different States.
Speaker: Originally, it was actually David Williamson who was actually one of the major reasons SolarCon even took off.
Speaker: Him and Chrissy Coonrod and Matt Cronwell definitely supported SolarCon.
Speaker: In fact, David Williamson and Chrissy, Chrissy was the very first one to agree to speak.
Speaker: And then David was the second.
Speaker: They also promoted and advertised it and put a lot.
Speaker: And this was actually David's original idea.
Speaker: but we couldn't facilitate it.
Speaker: And then last year went by, we were testing platinum day.
Speaker: And then this year it was actually Casey Lopez out of Texas that reminded me, like he said, Hey, I think it would be a good idea if you did these.
Speaker: And because of him, we, we, we did it this year.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think, do you know, do you have the stats on like where, um, like what States most people come from?
Speaker: Do you have any idea on like where,
Speaker: If there's like a winner for the state.
Speaker: Yeah, we are not right now on me, but we are, we did start collecting that data, uh, stupid inside information, but a venue like the Salt Palace or any other conference center, uh, they usually team up with the city to, to fill those things, uh, because the city knows how profitable conferences can be.
Speaker: When people come in, they spend money on hotels, restaurants, uh, tourist stuff.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so we actually get preferential treatment.
Speaker: and rooms if we can prove that people are coming from out of state.
Speaker: So this year we started collecting those zip codes so that we can show that.
Speaker: But the answer, I don't have that answer now, but it apparently is a very important topic when it comes to these conferences.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: I didn't think about that.
Speaker: Yeah, okay.
Speaker: Well, yeah, so it looks like some more breakout sessions.
Speaker: Yeah, you got your boy,
Speaker: Taylor Armstrong here moderating the recruiting panel.
Speaker: So thanks for giving me the opportunity on that.
Speaker: Jake, you know how to handle people.
Speaker: It's my first time moderating, I think.
Speaker: So hopefully I don't crash and burn too much, but I'm excited to get up there.
Speaker: You're moderating right now, but you mean on stage?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: There we go on stage.
Speaker: So I'm just going to take it from virtual on stage, but I'll get it figured out.
Speaker: So, yeah, that'll be good.
Speaker: Some more breakout sessions.
Speaker: But yeah, any other highlights?
Speaker: I mean, you got Andy Elliott come in.
Speaker: The headliners are, you know, top notch for sure.
Speaker: But any other highlights that you think people shouldn't be missing from day one that you want to talk about, Jake?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: One of the scariest things I've ever done in my life is my first investment.
Speaker: I don't know, Taylor, if you've invested in things, but my first investment was actually just a health insurance type.
Speaker: It was tied to other... It was like a Roth IRA, but...
Speaker: Since I made too much to qualify for that, they told me how rich people do it.
Speaker: This is life insurance policy.
Speaker: And it made a lot of sense when they met with me and I did it.
Speaker: And the guy telling me to invest, he's like, dude, only do what you can afford.
Speaker: I want you to, what amount could leave your bank account?
Speaker: And you wouldn't even notice.
Speaker: Like you'd wake up and be like, oh,
Speaker: How much left my account?
Speaker: No, I want to know how much could leave your account.
Speaker: And I was like, 10 bucks.
Speaker: So I started my first investment with $10 a month.
Speaker: And I liked it because it gave me the language.
Speaker: I was like, oh, I guess I am the type of person that can invest now.
Speaker: And okay, so now I know what mutual funds are.
Speaker: And now I know.
Speaker: And it taught me a whole language in a whole world that I didn't, I was actually kind of afraid to do because I didn't think I was worthy of it or worth it.
Speaker: But no one really is when they're first investing.
Speaker: They don't think that it's kind of a roller coaster of excitement, Las Vegas style and
Speaker: Then when you do it, I remember in homeowners homes, I even had conversations with them I wasn't able to before.
Speaker: They said a lot of the liquid that I had was put into mutual funds recently.
Speaker: Before I had done it, I didn't know what that meant.
Speaker: It's like I said, oh, you guys are investing.
Speaker: And I look like one of them now because of the way that I responded.
Speaker: I know the tone and the intensity that I should do.
Speaker: you know pertinent to that conversation my point in doing all of this is uh alan swick and bryson hunter there alan swick is one of the ogs of vivant and we even have some really awesome guest speakers coming from vivant a really big one i bet you can guess who um we have jason brown coming bode gardner uh sean branchley is part of the awards so these people right here have uh we've invested into this fund with them
Speaker: Solarcon is actually building a large real estate, a big building in Las Vegas with a whole bunch of luxury condos.
Speaker: And these guys are the ones facilitating that.
Speaker: We partnered up with them and
Speaker: The people of SolarCon can invest with us too.
Speaker: We're doing it.
Speaker: We're super stoked about it.
Speaker: And they allowed it to be credited and unaccredited investors.
Speaker: That means even me, Jake, a long time ago when I did 10 bucks, they're even allowing people that are not used to investing or this might be your first one.
Speaker: There's a lot of people like that to come in.
Speaker: It won't be $10.
Speaker: It'll be like five grand, but that is so low.
Speaker: That is so low getting into this type of investment, like real estate stuff.
Speaker: That's so low.
Speaker: And we just wanted to bring something.
Speaker: So that's an exciting one for me because that's a, that's a big, I guess, I guess,
Speaker: I guess the reason it's excited is because we all talk about going green.
Speaker: We all talk about saving the planet and putting solar on houses, but we get so caught up in our day-to-day lives that who's really in our industry talking about making it green and a sustainable future for our families and for ourselves.
Speaker: For me, the reason we started getting into these funds and stuff is because not only can we help the planet go green and bring sustainability to that, but we can also inspire and help do it with families and bring opportunities where people feel like
Speaker: They can be in an environment where they can invest in that and around people, their peers doing it.
Speaker: And so I'm pretty excited about that one for the reason, not the reasons of other people investing.
Speaker: We don't get much off that.
Speaker: It's more about people having...
Speaker: I guess a future that they didn't plan on happening.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's super cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so that's what I was talking about before.
Speaker: It's like, not only are you talking about solar, about selling, you got guys coming in and talking about investments and yeah, I mean, just cool that we get to hear every, pretty much every aspect you could think of when it comes to solar all in one event.
Speaker: So for those just joining the live here, if you're just joining in, we're talking about the schedule for SolarCon.
Speaker: So drop us some fire emojis, drop us some likes.
Speaker: If you're excited to hang out with your boy Taylor and your boy Jake at SolarCon 2024.
Speaker: And then moving on, Jake, we got day two on Friday.
Speaker: And so like this is I don't know about you, Jake, but a lot of people, they sometimes they party hard the first night.
Speaker: They don't end up showing up the next day until like 11 or 12.
Speaker: So do you think it's worth people showing up early to catch some of these first these ones at nine o'clock?
Speaker: Like, why should we wake up early to get there on time to the events the next day?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If people think that nine o'clock mountain is early, then we should change that definition to start off with.
Speaker: I usually wake up Pacific.
Speaker: I usually wake up 435.
Speaker: I think that's early.
Speaker: But nine o'clock is lunchtime, guys.
Speaker: Do something.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: But no, we did put the most dynamic panels, the ones that we know that people are going to want to hear and see with some of the largest names.
Speaker: starting in the mornings because we want people to get the full value of SolarCon while they're there.
Speaker: It's the reason they're there.
Speaker: I understand going out and playing and facilitating parties and stuff is pretty fun to do.
Speaker: But also, we want people to have fun.
Speaker: But also, I think you can have fun and go out and stay up till 1, 2 in the morning and then come back and
Speaker: and be ready at nine o'clock.
Speaker: I don't think that's a hard thing to do for three days of your life.
Speaker: You put these big panels on here and these are the ones that people are really asking for.
Speaker: Oh my goodness.
Speaker: The top one right there, installers across the country are looking for a different level of salesperson.
Speaker: Salespeople might be wondering like, wait, why aren't these companies picking me up as much?
Speaker: What is happening?
Speaker: Why are they getting attention and we're not?
Speaker: it's like this veil that the salespeople have had over their eyes, but all of the, all of the installers over here in this club, like laughing, like with their mustache is like, Oh, we picked these, these sales reps for these reasons.
Speaker: And it's like a veil to the sale.
Speaker: Like, why aren't we telling them?
Speaker: So that's, that's that first one there.
Speaker: Virtual, obviously a big one.
Speaker: What's trending in door to door.
Speaker: Sam Taggart is moderating that panel.
Speaker: We got Jack Pastrana.
Speaker: Who's like one of the top is the top person over at legacy.
Speaker: And we all he's in my office, by the way, just was at a meeting with that guy.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How and why should installers use social media?
Speaker: Are you kidding?
Speaker: I mean, Gary Vee is coming.
Speaker: He's going to talk about it.
Speaker: But installers traditionally have not used social media to recruit.
Speaker: And they haven't used social media to deliver their messages.
Speaker: But now I am seeing social media grow like crazy.
Speaker: Like Goodly has amped it up.
Speaker: Qcell has amped it up.
Speaker: If you start following some of these, like you'll see...
Speaker: the social media has gone like, whoop, people are taking it more serious.
Speaker: I think in this down, in this down market that the solar industry has put themselves in, I think more and more people are turning to media.
Speaker: Even social media itself has changed.
Speaker: Like it's used to be high-end, ritzy, high-developed content where people are traveling on yachts and sipping champagne.
Speaker: And now,
Speaker: when I'm scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, it's granulated images.
Speaker: It's kind of thrown together.
Speaker: Those are the things I'm finding I stop on because people are saying the economy is like down a little bit and people are wanting to see more genuine and more real stuff.
Speaker: And I think...
Speaker: That's what's happening in our industry.
Speaker: People want to see these businesses before they make a decision and jump.
Speaker: They're tired of the fluff and the smoke and the glitz and the glamour.
Speaker: They want to know the raw data.
Speaker: And I think they're starting to follow these organizations more for that reason.
Speaker: So I think that's a big one.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My only complaint with this, Jake, is you put too many good sessions all at the same time.
Speaker: So that's going to be a tough decision, man.
Speaker: Waking up, figuring out which one to go to.
Speaker: We wouldn't, you know, a lot of thought and a lot of psychology goes into this and I don't mind telling all my secrets here on your show.
Speaker: uh it the reason we do this is because we don't want someone going there feeling like they gained everything they could have from solar con we want them to come back next year okay i see your evil plans i like it that's good that's good um all right and then moving on um yeah i mean
Speaker: Alex Smith, good friend of mine.
Speaker: That one's going to be good.
Speaker: Alex Hall, anyone that's named Alex and Solar, they're going to be good for sure.
Speaker: Alex Smith.
Speaker: Oh, Dan Dunn.
Speaker: He's going to be a fun one.
Speaker: He's playing the piano.
Speaker: We actually rented a separate piano for his stage because he's phenomenal at the piano and he's going to be playing the piano while he's doing his talk.
Speaker: That's going to be fun.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, because he's like a musician, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: Dan's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, so quality ones right there.
Speaker: Let's see who else we got.
Speaker: Elliot Group.
Speaker: Yeah, a lot of breakout sessions.
Speaker: I didn't realize how many breakout sessions there were, but it seems like that's most of the day on Friday's breakout sessions, right?
Speaker: Goes breakout and then it goes back to Maine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker: All right, and then Jeremy Minow.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: John Allman, he's the CMO of SolarEdge, the chief marketing officer of SolarEdge.
Speaker: We have the founder of Enphase on here.
Speaker: We have executives from Qcells coming to speak.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So with those people, like, I'll be honest, sometimes the executives for like the solar, you know, like the manufacturers and all that, they don't like spark my interest as much because sometimes I'll go to them and they're just talking about like their newest, uh,
Speaker: micro-unverter, all the features, whatever.
Speaker: Not always, but sometimes, right?
Speaker: So do you think as like a sales rep coming to SolarCon, what would be the advantage of going to some of these, you know, presentations by these guys?
Speaker: What a beautiful question.
Speaker: And thank you for being honest about that because, yeah, it allowed me to think of this answer.
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: As a sales rep, door-to-door, I'm thinking when I was 25, why would I go?
Speaker: Why don't I hear the CMO of this company?
Speaker: I don't care, right?
Speaker: But what's kind of happening in our industry now is education is starting to take a knowledge, product knowledge, solar knowledge is starting to take a precedent, starting to take a, it's being valued more by organizations, by business owners.
Speaker: It just is.
Speaker: And I'm not saying that you have to go listen to John, you know, talk about marketing for SolarEdge, but
Speaker: The entire point, the entire point of anyone getting into any career or growing or listening to Tony Robbins or any anyone that you listen to Joe Rogan to excel yourself is to get yourself into the circles of the people that you want to be.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If you want to be at a certain level in your career, in your industry, then go get in those circles.
Speaker: Because maybe listening to the CMO of SolarEdge might just be like way up here, right?
Speaker: But at least you'll learn something.
Speaker: At least you'll get to say that you met with them or talked with them.
Speaker: At least you'll be able to understand to some capacity what owners or people at that level are talking about.
Speaker: Because then it gives you an end goal.
Speaker: Could you imagine GPS not knowing exactly where you're going to go?
Speaker: They just send you on a path and you're kind of like...
Speaker: Like, where am I going?
Speaker: But when you know the end, when you know, when you know what it's like to communicate like that or how they even talk or the way that they carry themselves or how politically correct they're being on stage, like all of these things are things that you can pick up and learn from so that you can, so that you can operate in the circles that maybe you aspire to be in.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think it would be silly not to go listen to him talk because we're talking about one of the most recognized brands in the entire world for residential solar.
Speaker: And he was able to market that.
Speaker: But we have sales reps wondering how to do lead generation.
Speaker: I mean, talk about a massive gap in a spectrum there.
Speaker: Complete opposite sides of the spectrum of being known and not known.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I'm just thinking, too, from like a sales standpoint, especially if you are offering some of these products, like how much more if you can go and hear like kind of the vision behind their products and everything they're doing to advance the technology and all that.
Speaker: then I don't know, that makes it that much more powerful in a cell when, because we all know it's like, you know, the person with the most conviction wins, how more powerful, like how I don't, I can't think of a better way to get more conviction in your product than going and hearing from like, you know, the guys behind it and what their vision is and all that.
Speaker: And like, it's like next time you're in a home trying to sell somebody, you can be like, Hey, I've literally met with the CEO of this, of this company, this product.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Think if you're a sales org owner, right?
Speaker: Like, let's say you go up to John and I know John, I text him.
Speaker: I text him.
Speaker: Like I've been, I convinced him to be in the movie that we did last year.
Speaker: It was awesome.
Speaker: If you go on my Instagram and you watch the solar edge one, the, that looks like the Italian job.
Speaker: He's the guy in the trench coat that comes walking out.
Speaker: He wasn't going to be in it, but I'm glad he was fun to hang out with.
Speaker: But the, the cool part is the cool part is, um,
Speaker: Imagine you listen to him talk.
Speaker: He's going to be walking around the floor just like every other person in there.
Speaker: Let's say you have someone that heard him talk and someone that didn't.
Speaker: I don't just mean John.
Speaker: I mean anyone on here.
Speaker: Someone that heard him talk and one that didn't.
Speaker: And maybe you got something inspiring from it and you walked up to him and said, hey, John.
Speaker: I really appreciated when he said this, this, and this.
Speaker: And he responds back to you like, no way.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: He's a person that means something to him.
Speaker: It means something deep to him.
Speaker: It means he inspires him.
Speaker: It's the whole reason he's up there talking.
Speaker: You didn't get paid to go up there and talk.
Speaker: And to answer your question, they're not allowed to talk about their products, by the way.
Speaker: Oh, right.
Speaker: An education only conference.
Speaker: Now, that said, we do work in the companies that we do.
Speaker: And just like I'm on here, you want me to talk about Solarcon.
Speaker: There's many other things I could talk about.
Speaker: He may talk about SolarEdge and refer to him simply because that's what he knows.
Speaker: But he was also the CMO of Xerox, if anyone knows that brand.
Speaker: So the man knows how to market at a high level.
Speaker: So if he said something inspiring to you and he's walking around and you can actually go up and have an intelligent conversation with him, then maybe you are likely to get his phone number in your phone.
Speaker: Could you imagine that if you were, Taylor, and I'm picking on you just because you're here, if you were to throw another event or maybe a virtual one and you said, hey, we're going to have the chief marketing officer of SolarEdge come and speak to us simply because you walked up to him and said, hey, what you said meant something to me and you got his phone number.
Speaker: That's the kind of circles I'm talking about.
Speaker: Not a lot of people in the country get to say that, right?
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's incredible.
Speaker: Good point.
Speaker: Very good point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so moving on for time's sake, we'll skip around all the air, but Jeremy Miner signing books.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I got to love.
Speaker: I'm going to see if I can get him on a podcast.
Speaker: I'm going to go cornrowing and come on a podcast, but no, I love Jeremy.
Speaker: Yeah, more I listen to that guy, this guy's got some killer word tracks and just like the psychology around cells that, you know, his background, his NEPQ stuff.
Speaker: It's an absolute fire.
Speaker: So now I'm definitely looking forward to that one.
Speaker: He does.
Speaker: He does have some good stuff, but I think it's cool that he's just posting up, going to sign books.
Speaker: He's going to be at his booth.
Speaker: He's coming to speak.
Speaker: He, the, all of these main speakers, David Meltzer, Jeremy minor, they hooked us up, man.
Speaker: Like they, they truly believe in solar.
Speaker: They truly even go in green.
Speaker: They, they traditionally charge and Jeremy was going to charge us last year.
Speaker: But we didn't have the budget for it last year.
Speaker: This year we decided to go for it and he didn't want us to pay him.
Speaker: And neither David Meltzer.
Speaker: They wanted to come and speak to all of you.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: and that's cool yeah i was listening on his podcast and i think he said that solar is like his third i mean he trains like millions of sales guys and solar i think is his number three industry yeah i'm at a million the sales guys so that's pretty cool um cool okay and then we got a breakout session man you got you got our guy ben at maxwell coming back huh that's a
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A little bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He, uh, freaking stud.
Speaker: I will have him everywhere I can.
Speaker: He's, he's just an incredibly kind guy and super smart.
Speaker: I know it's cool.
Speaker: And so, yeah, for those that listening to this, um, this is kind of a full circle type thing.
Speaker: Cause we got Bennett Maxwell, Earl Capule, another good, uh, friend of mine.
Speaker: And right out of way speaking on the, on a panel up there.
Speaker: yeah brand out of the way so i mean this takes us back what was this i think 2020 or something um i think that's when you're consulting all of us over it switched to solar and is it was me bennett maxwell uh earl uh brent attaway and that was really good old days man i remember going i remember going to your event at that uh
Speaker: that movie theater in La Jolla there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That was like the first time I heard you.
Speaker: It's, but I was actually just over there last week.
Speaker: We were there and I walked across the street from that movie theater and it, yeah, brought back all the memories.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: There it is, man.
Speaker: It's, uh, yeah.
Speaker: For those listening, when I stopped, when I stopped selling, when I stopped the whole, um, Helio Gold, the business thing of, you know, running sales work, uh, I started the solar Academy and, and Brent Attaway and, and, uh, Bennett Maxwell were my first clients and, you know, Taylor and Earl worked over there with them and,
Speaker: help them with their business.
Speaker: And, and I got to work very closely with all of them years ago and they were the first, they were the first.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I didn't realize you were the first.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Well, Hey, you didn't, you didn't make it seem that way.
Speaker: The way you were talking, I thought like, man, he must be doing this for like for decades.
Speaker: So you had me fooled.
Speaker: Well, I mean, I, I had done it for my own company and, and I had helped all the people that broke off of us start their companies and everything.
Speaker: I helped them too.
Speaker: yeah gotcha that's cool though um so yeah those are will be some good panels again um yeah gonna have to rack my brain about which to go to but i much i might have to be just like jumping between them um going one of my favorite ones is and i know we talk about social media a bunch on here i i i genuinely think and if you hear gary v speak
Speaker: He says this line, he's like, if I hear one more business owner, and that goes for sales reps too.
Speaker: If I hear one more business owner coming to me and say, but Gary,
Speaker: I don't know how to use TikTok or Instagram.
Speaker: He goes, no shit, Don.
Speaker: But your customers do.
Speaker: Your clients do.
Speaker: He's like, if these owners are not agnostic to where their customers are, it's not about what the owners think where they should be.
Speaker: Oh, I'm used to doing emails.
Speaker: I'm used to knocking doors.
Speaker: I'm used to doing virtual phone calls.
Speaker: He's like, get out of here.
Speaker: all of your clients are on social media, every single one of them.
Speaker: And you must be absolutely agnostic to where your client's eyes are.
Speaker: He's like, you need to pay attention to where the attention is.
Speaker: All of the attention is on social media.
Speaker: You need to be there.
Speaker: He's like, when it was phones, it should have been phones.
Speaker: When it was email, we all got on the emails.
Speaker: Now it's social media, be on it.
Speaker: And I think I see that trending absolutely in the industry.
Speaker: But one of my favorite panels is
Speaker: the social media panel that we put together, because it's not about people that are good at social media or they're on it.
Speaker: It's the people that actually create it, all of the elements of social media, the videographer, the manager, the manager, the business behind social media, the game plan.
Speaker: So if you truly want to build your social media, not just go hear a bunch of people that are already good at it, but if you truly want to build at it, they're going to give tips and tricks on how to use AI and implement
Speaker: A new thing coming out, not a new, a big trend coming out in social media is utilizing micro-influencers to sell products like solar or other businesses.
Speaker: I mean, I'm pretty excited about that one right there in the middle.
Speaker: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And definitely like even for sales reps, it's like, yeah, just social media is so huge.
Speaker: You know, I think the guys that have that actually take the time to build their brands, whether you're installing, selling panels, it's like it just makes it so much easier to recruit people to like, you know, have credibility on your team.
Speaker: And yeah, it's definitely changed my career for sure.
Speaker: I don't know where I'd be without, you know, podcasting and social media.
Speaker: So it's changed mine.
Speaker: When you when you met me in La Jolla, I didn't have any social media at that at that point.
Speaker: Literally, literally everything that everyone sees that we do, that I do all of that stuff.
Speaker: It was literally built in the last two and a half years, three years now, three years.
Speaker: Solarcon, we did not spend any money on ads.
Speaker: It was all built off of our social media.
Speaker: A multimillion dollar conference built off social media on year one.
Speaker: And if we drop a line like, hey, I have a company looking for sales reps in this state, we can get hundreds of applicants.
Speaker: I put an ad up there that I, hey, I have some free time after SolarCon last year for anyone that wants me to come into their business for six, seven months.
Speaker: And I charged $240,000 just up front just to hire me.
Speaker: And then there was a salary after because all from social media.
Speaker: How in the world would any of them know who I was unless I didn't do it?
Speaker: So if anyone's afraid of it, in less than three years, you can do whatever.
Speaker: It changes your career.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you don't have to have huge followings or whatever either, because I know that's an excuse.
Speaker: People make, oh, I don't have thousands of followers.
Speaker: Like I see guys with like five, six hundred followers that, you know, do awesome recruiting on social media and building their brand and all that.
Speaker: So I have three thousand.
Speaker: I only have three thousand followers.
Speaker: Yeah, that's about what I have to do.
Speaker: But we convert, but we know that it's not, and Gary will talk about this too.
Speaker: It's not about the followers.
Speaker: It's about how many people see it.
Speaker: And even if you have high followers, because I've used influencers to promote SolarCon and we can literally track how many tickets are sold from them.
Speaker: And I'm telling you, it's not the only value that an Instagram account has is if you can convert money off of it.
Speaker: I mean, right?
Speaker: Or you can use it to market something else that you're converting money off of.
Speaker: But if you have a big audience and you can't convert anything off of it, then why are you doing it?
Speaker: You want to be famous?
Speaker: You feel good waking up in the morning?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So converting off, it's a whole different story.
Speaker: And I've done it with thousands and thousands, like tens of thousands of followers and they might sell two tickets.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I can have 3000 followers and I can sell thousands of tickets.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's your dad accurate, Taylor.
Speaker: It's not about the followers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So huge.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Well, yeah, that's going to be super important, super good.
Speaker: And then this is kind of cool.
Speaker: You got Latin Solar Convention.
Speaker: Are they doing one in Spanish or something?
Speaker: Is that what this guy's doing?
Speaker: No, it's just a little short window.
Speaker: They're super supportive of us.
Speaker: We love what they're doing.
Speaker: So Angel is the owner-founder of it.
Speaker: So we're having him come up and kind of address the audience and everything, talk about his conference.
Speaker: And they...
Speaker: Yeah, Frampton, always good seeing.
Speaker: One of the OGs, John Frampton in the house.
Speaker: Big time.
Speaker: Yeah, oh, Latinos in Fuego.
Speaker: Is that one going to be in Spanish?
Speaker: That one is, again, that's a panel.
Speaker: That's a Latin panel, so likely it probably will be in Latin.
Speaker: They picked their own people.
Speaker: I let Caesar there pick his own panel and gave him autonomy to do that.
Speaker: And I think they're going to go pure Spanish.
Speaker: They also have a big, between Caesar and Angel that you mentioned earlier, they have a very big space on the conference floor that they're building for the Latin community as well.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And solar objections championship.
Speaker: I think that was from what I remember last year, that was like the most packed, uh,
Speaker: breakout session that I saw it was the solar objections championship well Joe likes to do a big when he has a solar objections Facebook group yes gotta do a panel yeah so yeah that'll be good yeah he got like a chain like so with a thing that people can wear that they won nice yeah no I remember last year was super good and yeah this Anthony Fiorentine guy I just did a podcast with him but
Speaker: This dude, he did like 100 deals in the month of February.
Speaker: So should be some some fire up there.
Speaker: I'll be good for sure.
Speaker: And then, yeah, a few more breakout sessions.
Speaker: A.I.
Speaker: should be good.
Speaker: And then wrapping it up, you got the main stage.
Speaker: Of course, you got to have Michael O'Donnell on the main stage.
Speaker: I mean, how can you not?
Speaker: Is it even considered a conference if you don't have him?
Speaker: Is it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're not even a solar conference until you get Michael O'Donnell.
Speaker: There's nothing.
Speaker: We could bring in Michael Jordan, Gary Vee.
Speaker: We could have Elon Musk come in.
Speaker: But if Michael's not there, we got a Mickey Mouse operation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, John Dodar.
Speaker: That's a, oh my gosh, he's exploding.
Speaker: Do you know who he is?
Speaker: I think I heard of him, but I hadn't really checked it out.
Speaker: Does he do legal stuff for solar?
Speaker: What's that going to be about?
Speaker: Basically, we used to work at Olive Garden together.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: No way.
Speaker: Yeah, a long time ago.
Speaker: He actually came to League of Influencers, and he was going through a divorce or went through one, and he broke the rules.
Speaker: I don't know if this is incriminating or not.
Speaker: I should ask him.
Speaker: But he went in, and his wife was threatening, like,
Speaker: You're breaking the rules.
Speaker: You're not supposed to be.
Speaker: He dug through a box and found a trainer pin from the Olive Garden and brought it at League of Influencers to remind me of the time of being at Olive Garden and how far we've come.
Speaker: He's an attorney in multiple states and he's done all of my stuff from Helio Gold to Solar Academy, the Solarcon, and then all the new stuff we're rolling out.
Speaker: He's done all of it.
Speaker: And
Speaker: And he recently built Lawyers for Solar.
Speaker: And he's been around playing around the industry for like the last four months.
Speaker: But he has more clients than we probably have attendees at SolarCon.
Speaker: He's super smart.
Speaker: He's fire.
Speaker: And a lot of people are looking for legal representation right now.
Speaker: And with his personality type, I think a lot of people are going to resonate with him on that stage.
Speaker: He's a stud.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: That's long ways from all of a garden.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Bet you'll tell that story at a solar con.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then wrapping it up, Brian Kim.
Speaker: What's, what's this guy about Brian Kim?
Speaker: So he's one of the main guys over at QSales.
Speaker: When you talk about market share, market share is like, depending on the industry you're in, you can't have more than 50%.
Speaker: That's a monopoly, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so, organization or whatever, the government comes in and regulates that, moves them around.
Speaker: It says other people need an opportunity, creates perks for other organizations.
Speaker: But these guys, these guys have 30%, a little over 30% of the entire market share in the world of creating solar panels.
Speaker: And that's Qcells.
Speaker: The largest panel distributor and manufacturer in the planet is coming and talking right before Gary Vee.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's pretty big deal.
Speaker: That is cool.
Speaker: That's huge.
Speaker: They don't do this at the other conferences you mentioned.
Speaker: They'll do it at solar.
Speaker: Like this is, I think this is incredible.
Speaker: I think SolarCon is in, I think, I think after this year, I think year four, you're going to see another, because year one was a big spike.
Speaker: We kind of leveled out a little bit with growth.
Speaker: I think year four is going to be a massive one.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Well, I'm I'm stoked.
Speaker: And then, of course, Gary V to wrap things up.
Speaker: And I'm glad I almost booked my plane ticket for like eight o'clock that night.
Speaker: But I'm glad that I booked it for the next day because I'm like, man, I can't risk missing, you know, the last speaker to to get on my plane.
Speaker: So I'm excited for Gary.
Speaker: But do you know exactly how he's going to tie it into solar?
Speaker: Is it just going to be general social media?
Speaker: Or do you have any idea on how he's tying solar into his presentation or anything at the event?
Speaker: Yeah, I think he's going to spend about...
Speaker: 30 to 40 minutes talking about me.
Speaker: And then that's why it costs so much more is he had to pay him extra 200 grand to talk about you.
Speaker: Jake is my best friend in the world.
Speaker: I actually, I hope he's, I hope he doesn't listen to this, but I actually, I'm like, who's, who cares?
Speaker: Like I, sure.
Speaker: I've been listening to him on social media.
Speaker: He says some genius stuff.
Speaker: You've heard me quote him now because he's really as smart as hell.
Speaker: But this is Joe's dream.
Speaker: You are watching one of Joe's dreams come true.
Speaker: It has been his dream for like years, he says, to have Gary Vee or be able to get to meet him.
Speaker: And sure enough, he builds a conference where he's able to do it.
Speaker: Joe asked Gary to talk about social media and how to utilize it for yourself, for your business, to gain new clients.
Speaker: How do you use social media
Speaker: to gain business or to gain money.
Speaker: And that's what Gary's going to talk about.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: There you have it.
Speaker: Well, that's, that's a wrap for, uh, that's the event right there.
Speaker: And hopefully guys got fired up just hearing about some of the, uh, upcoming presentations, um, the upcoming, uh, breakout sessions and everything.
Speaker: And so, guys, if you have not purchased your tickets yet, remember today is or Wednesday the 10th is the last day to get that discount, extra discount.
Speaker: And so if anyone's on the fence, what would you say to people listening, Jake?
Speaker: Maybe some people haven't bought a ticket yet.
Speaker: They're still on the fence.
Speaker: What do you say to these people to get them to stop dragging their feet?
Speaker: What's your what's your final call to get these people here?
Speaker: You know, I struggle with that one.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I guess people need to see value in... People have to invest in themselves.
Speaker: They wonder why they're stagnant or stuck in the same place.
Speaker: And I'm not saying that's you listeners.
Speaker: I guess I'll talk about myself.
Speaker: I have noticed that every single time I invest money into something, even as small as a conference ticket, it's come back to me.
Speaker: When I invest in my career about myself,
Speaker: I've invested, I invested the very first conference I went to and I talk about this.
Speaker: I only went to a conference, two conferences before I decided to build Solarcon.
Speaker: I wouldn't have known what direction to go unless I had spent the money to fly out there and go to that event.
Speaker: I wouldn't even have known that it was a passion or I would have been inspired.
Speaker: And so I'm not saying that any of these topics that we talked about here are going to be the thing to get you to come.
Speaker: But what I am saying is, I don't think that you can go wrong investing in yourself and exploring new possibilities that you may or may not think are relevant to you at this moment.
Speaker: When you surround yourself in an environment where there is this much ambition,
Speaker: You can't go wrong.
Speaker: A lot of times in our lives, we're stuck around people that want to go to parties or host barbecues or we're going to a place where there is a massive amount of ambition and dedication and perseverance, resilience.
Speaker: Like where else are you going to be?
Speaker: What other atmosphere are you going to be?
Speaker: in where you get to experience the masses that have those attributes and qualities.
Speaker: And I think if any of you are on the fence, I think you'd be surprised at the magic that can be generated just based out of the sheer act of you putting some action behind your thoughts.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: So there you have it.
Speaker: And yeah, I'm super excited.
Speaker: Like echoing what Jake said, just the power and networking there, connecting with people that maybe you only talk to on social media.
Speaker: It's like a big solar family reunion for me every year.
Speaker: And, you know, just seeing all the familiar faces and there's so much power just in networking.
Speaker: We don't know, maybe we don't know exactly where solar is going to be in three, four or five years, but
Speaker: Like, you know, if we're all connected and pushing towards a common goal, I think there's a ton of power in that.
Speaker: Then on top of everything that Jake is talking about, if that's not enough for you, then you're also going to get a free ticket to our event.
Speaker: And guys hopefully should know about this by now, but we're doing our event on the 17th before Friday.
Speaker: Solarcon.
Speaker: So if that's not enough, then hopefully you guys can come and just get a ticket.
Speaker: I'll share our screen for that real quick.
Speaker: But it's a $297 ticket.
Speaker: You are getting it for free if you get your tickets to Solarcon with our coupon code.
Speaker: And then I got some other bonuses that we're rolling out for guys that want to take advantage of that.
Speaker: So go grab your tickets.
Speaker: Join us at the referral bootcamp.
Speaker: This is going to be great too.
Speaker: You're hearing from Ashton, Brent, a lot of guys that are crushing a ton of referrals.
Speaker: So it's a lot of bonus thing we're doing.
Speaker: I totally believe in this.
Speaker: You should definitely go to, if you're coming to SolarCon, come a day early, go to this.
Speaker: Brent Attaway has changed our business.
Speaker: Taylor, thank you for everything that you do that you've done for me and that you've done for Joe.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Because you have a massive audience and we weren't known until you gave us a platform.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ashton there, he's on a committee for us for the Excellence in Solar Awards because he just represents a lot of good for the industry and he can sell lights out.
Speaker: I can talk about the others, but Crowler there, he's finally stepping into a new realm.
Speaker: And you gave him his first opportunity.
Speaker: Taylor, you are a badass at what you do.
Speaker: And if you'll allow me, I would like to go to this if that's okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: We'll get you a free ticket.
Speaker: Just for letting me go to SolarCon, get your free ticket.
Speaker: But yeah, so guys, come hang out with myself.
Speaker: Come hang out with Jake.
Speaker: It's going to be right in front of the shark tank.
Speaker: So that's going to be, you know, awesome.
Speaker: Just sharks swimming around while we're talking about solar.
Speaker: I mean, come on.
Speaker: It doesn't get better than that.
Speaker: And we're going to have some good food there, a little Hawaiian lunch, pulled pork, you know, all this stuff.
Speaker: So hope you guys can join us at these events.
Speaker: And Jake, appreciate you coming on and just giving us a little demo.
Speaker: I like it way more that you could come on and demo it instead of me just giving my opinion on things.
Speaker: So we appreciate you and can't wait to see you at SolarCon, man.
Speaker: But it's going to be going to be awesome.
Speaker: So thanks again for coming on.
Speaker: Thank you very much, Taylor.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Peace.
Speaker: See you.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, 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.
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Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to soulcidity.co and join.
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