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Speaker 1 (00:03):

Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. online teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one. Come on. Y'all let's go.

Speaker 2 (00:46):

Taylor Armstrong here back with another episode, decided to switch up the intro a little bit, um, for those that have done that workout program, insanity, maybe that sounded familiar. Um, I, I do that intro because, um, during 75 Hard, the workouts, I was doing twice a day, decided to do some insanity for old time's sake. So for all my Shaun T fans, my workout friends, hope you like that intro for those that don't know what I'm talking about. Let's jump into some solar knowledge. We're going to be bringing some heat today, talking about the number one way you can train your reps. So this can be specifically talking to managers, team leaders, anyone that's trained to help grow their office, but guess what, if you are a regular sales rep, if you are trained to improve your abilities and learn as quick as possible, then this episode is also for you.

Speaker 2 (01:48):

So we're going to get into it. But before I jump into that to have a couple exciting announcements that wanted to share with my peeps, with my Solarpreneurs. And so, um, recently our team, we did a merger with, um, those of you that follow sells. Um, legends sells legends in the industry. Jason Newby may have heard of him. He was the top rep at Vivid for years, um, top alarm rep, and he started a solar company here in San Diego. So we did a merger actually with his team. Um, so I was working for a company called Switch to Solar. Now we are all combining we are future home. So if anyone is looking to make a switch and come join the revolution here, but future home and bring that up because Jason, his team, they are dropping a ton of value in things.

Speaker 2 (02:47):

They share things they post about. So definitely go shoot them a follow Jason Newby. And then, um, their Instagram is Future Home, go follow them. We're going to be posting and we're going to be changing the industry. Um, we're helping the team grow a lot. So that's the first exciting thing. And then the second is, um, just wanting to think or Solarpreneurs all our listeners for checking out the Taylor McCarthy episode on those two episodes today. And I really appreciate all the people that have shared it that have sent it to friends, sent it to people, trying to grow in the industry. Um, it has gotten away more downloads than a lot of other episodes. And matter of fact, he passed up. Um, yeah, he passed up a lot, a lot of past episodes that we had in such a short amount of time, just because of you great people that have been shared it that have been spreading the word, um, he's passed up, Danny Pessy actually, who is, um, you know, the other Knock Star guy, Taylor already passed them up.

Speaker 2 (03:52):

So I don't know if Danny's going to be happy about that, but we're all about spreading the wisdom, spreading the knowledge and helping each other grow. So go check that out and guys, please continue to share, continue to leave ratings. Been loving it. So it keep me going and really appreciate the comments that I get. So with that being said, let's hop right into the show today. Okay. And if you haven't caught the kind of the schedule of it's the way we're typically rolling out these episodes is I do too, where I share, um, things that things that are helping me and just kind of tell my experiences, um, things that are going on in my soul's journey. And then we have a guest. So that's kind of the formats is too with just me jamming on it and jam and the mic rocking the mic.

Speaker 2 (04:39):

And then we bring in a guest to share their wisdom, their knowledge. So, um, and I try to do sort of a preview for what the guest talks about just to kind of get people stoked for what they're going to share. So the next guest, um, is a legend in the door to door industry. And you probably have heard of them. If you've been in door to door for any amount of time, his name is Lenny Gray. He's written two books. Now I'm the first one is called a Door-to-Door Millionaire: Secrets of Making the Sale. And the second one is called more Door-to-Door Millionaire: Next Level Training. So if you follow me on Instagram, Facebook, you probably see me share just a little snippets of his book, a little, uh, things. I underlined things I liked about it. So I would highly recommend go check out his books if you haven't already.

Speaker 2 (05:32):

But one section, I just got done reading his more door-to-door millionaire book. And there's one section in particular that just reminded me of something that managers consistently fell to do. I see a lot of times, and even I, myself managing a team, I would, I forgot to do this with my reps for a long amount of time as well. So what is this thing? You might, what it is, it's recording your sales reps. It's having them send you recordings of their interactions on the door, but why is this so important? It's because a lot of times we think we're seeing something, right? We think we're phrasing our words a certain way. We think we're just crushing it and everything we're doing, but the mic never lies. And I'll be, I honest, I haven't gone back and listened to some of my, um, podcast recordings where I thought I was, you know, saying some super cool stuff.

Speaker 2 (06:30):

I thought I made perfect sense. And I thought what I've seen was on point, I've gone back to a few of my episodes and I'm like, man, what am I trying to say here? I sounded like an idiot. I apologize. There's been a few times where I probably sounded like an idiot gone off on tangents. Haven't made sense. But the point of that is when you go back and you re-listen to what you were saying, it helps you really learn what you need to improve, what you need to change. Same thing. I would go to Toastmasters. Um, I've talked about that in past episodes, but I will go to Toastmasters, which is public speaking training just to improve my speaking skills and to learn more about that. And I would go up present in front of all these people. I would think I had this presentation just nailed down and I would get comments that would just, just baffle me.

Speaker 2 (07:25):

I'm like, wow. I was actually doing that in something I've tried to improve, but I still struggle with these things. Sometimes it's just repeating words, repeating phrases. There's filler words that we all throw in as we speak that we don't even notice for me. Um, I'm trying to improve. But so, so sometimes I say, so this so that, so this, so that that's been a struggle. I've been trying to cut that from repeating way too many times. I say, um, sometimes way too many times. So I apologize if you've heard that way too much for me, but I am conscious. I am more conscious of it than I was before. I'm trying to improve those things. So this is something you need to have your especially newer reps. They need to be sending you recordings consistently. And it's going to amaze you. You're going to get recording sent to you that they're, maybe they're presenting, um, they're doing role plays in team meetings.

Speaker 2 (08:22):

You're going to get recordings that sometimes are complete 180 than what they, from what they did in role-play in front of the team. Cause that's just how it is, is when we get under pressure. When we get to the stage, a lot of times we can't handle the heat, we can't handle the pressure and we need outside eyes to see what's going on, or I should say outside ears in this case. So I actually did this with my team once I read this section. So for those that have the book, it's actually on page 208, Lenny Gray. He talks about this. And just to summarize a little bit of what he says, he says, every sales rep has weaknesses and these weaknesses can be exposed and corrected more quickly. When a rep has customized sales training, then he goes on to say, his company row pest control sales reps are required to send me audio and or video clips of them interacting with potential customers.

Speaker 2 (09:19):

So I can analyze their techniques and provide instant feedback to help them in areas they need to improve. Sometimes the timeline timeliness of the feedback is just as important as the feedback itself because it prevents sales reps from developing bad habits. So I can attest to this for sure. I actually did this with my team. Um, a couple of weeks back now, we had a newer rep on our team. Um, she went out and she was confident. She seemed like she should be having tons of success. And she'd booked a few appointments initially. Um, I think had a couple of deals closed, was doing all right. Then she started slowing down. So I said, okay, can you go after this? I'm like, all right, go record today and send me your courting of your door, approach of your presentation. Let's see what's going on. So she sent me this recording.

Speaker 2 (10:15):

I pull it up and to my surprise, she, he was saying nothing from the actual, um, door pitch that we given her. We give them to the script, not one word was from our script. And so everyone thought she had the stripped down. Everyone thought she was saying what she needed to, not one word was from it. Yeah, I know no this, she went on say the Surfer's door. So, um, if she's listening to this right now, nothing against you, we're going to help you improve it. But it just goes to show that a lot of times we think our reps are saying what they need to, we think we're improving. But when we get that recording, when we see what's actually going on, it makes it so much easier to help these people. It makes it so much easier to really break down their freezing breakdown and even better.

Speaker 2 (11:08):

If we can get, you know, a video, then you're getting them, you see body language, then you can see, um, posture, all those types of things, how they're actually positioning themselves in relation to the door, but at a minimum, just get some audio going, figure out what they're saying. And you can tell from the tonality of the voice, are they coming across confidence that they actually have the pitch down? So this is a must. We need to have our teams do this. And again, this is more for managers, but if you are just, um, say you just started, maybe you're new to the area, send this in. Okay. Most managers probably aren't requiring this of their reps, but especially if you are in a down period, even if you're, even if you've been doing this for awhile, maybe you've your production has gone down a little bit and send in a recording of what's going on to people that are crushing it out of your company.

Speaker 2 (12:03):

To guys that more are more experienced. See what they can tell you, see what they notice about your presentation. And that's why it's important to even for people that are experienced, continue to do, role-plays continue to get recordings of yourself, continue to get the outside analysis. Because even myself, I've been doing this five plus years. Now, there's still times where I record myself where I'm like, man, I made no sense at all. There's still times where I get up in front of my team. I do role-plays and sometimes even to this day, sometimes I make a fool of myself. It's important to practice and it's important to continually be improving your craft. I remember when I first started in door-to-door pest control, the number one thing that helped me improve is just drilling, practicing and rehearsing. Every single night, I would go to one of the top guys on our team.

Speaker 2 (12:53):

I'd say, Hey man, can you help me? Luckily, I had a cool guy, Micah, my boy, Micah, you're listening to the game. He would drill with me every night for an hour. We'd just repeat after, repeat it, repeat and go over it. So this is the number one thing that we need to be doing with our teams, get them to drill, get them to practice, get them to rehearse. And then most importantly, get them to record those door presentations. And if you're in a slump record it, send it to your manager. Even if they're not asking you take the initiative, you get a recording of yourself and send it in. And even just, if you listen to it yourself, like I said, it's going to expose is coming. You're going to hear the truth of what you're saying. Even without getting outside feedback. It's something that you can go back and listen to and make a huge improvements even without hearing from a manager or other people.

Speaker 2 (13:46):

So that's the tip. And we're going to hear more about that. When my friend Lenny gray, he's going to be on the next episode. So don't miss it. Let's blow it up. Just like we do with Taylor McCarthy. Uh, send it to people that need it, um, share this. And then anyone that's managing. If you're a rep, send this to your manager, send this to anyone that you think could use it when you think that needs to be recording themselves, because that is a huge key to success in this industry. That's what we got today, guys. I hope you liked it. Um, let me know what you think and we will see you next time for Lenny Gray. You're not going to want to miss out. It's a huge privilege having him on the show. And then let me know if you guys have any other guests you'd like to bring on the podcast. We'll talk to you soon. Peace.

Speaker 1 (14:33):

Hey Solarpreneurs. Quick question. 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. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new solar learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with the top performers in the industry. And it's called Solciety. This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give solar pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and to help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds. For, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently society's closed the public and membership is by invitation only, but Solarpreneurs can go to society.co to learn more and have the option to join a wait list. When a membership becomes available in your area. Again, this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to www.solciety.co to join the waitlist and learn more now. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you again in the next episode.

The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.