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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 I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I 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. What's going on Solarpreneurs?

Speaker 2 (00:45):

Secret Hack to book an extra two appointments this week and much more that's what's going to be in today's episode. We're going to jump into it. But before that, just want to give some thanks to all the people that have listened to the show. So pads, um, massive support and appreciate everyone that shared it. Appreciate the comments I receive. Appreciate everyone that is crushing it in solar. And let me know about it. That's what this podcast is all about, and that's what we're here to do with the Solarpreneur movement. And again, that's what we're doing with the podcast is helping you close more deals, generate more referrals, and have a lot more fun, hopefully, as you are out there selling some solar panels. So before we jump into the topic today, wanted to just invite you. If you haven't already checked out Solciety, go check it solciety.co have been getting great feedback from those that are already on it.

Speaker 2 (01:47):

Um, and if you don't know what that is, go back and listen. I think it was four or five episodes. Um, we did the Solciety breakdown on what it is, what you can expect in the training platform and why you should, you and your team should be on it. Go listen to that. If you haven't already and check out Solciety, it's going to help you close extra deals every month. And really just implement a lot of these things that you're hearing in the podcast. And it's so affordable. You guys, so go get on it. It's the best training platform that I've seen for solar. I've, I've done a lot of different training platforms. I think it's the most convenient because it's an app it's literally right in your pocket. So you can go train at any time at any hour. You don't have to have a log in.

Speaker 2 (02:36):

You don't have to remember your password. You're clicking on the app, you're logging in and then every month you're getting new content from the best people in solar. So if you're on an already update for this month, we are adding someone that knocks our content. Taylor McCarthy is going to be added on there, here, hopefully in the next couple of days. So you're definitely gonna want to get into that. Let's jump into the episode with all that being said, okay, I want to share with you guys something that I had forgotten about last week that helped me book an extra appointment. Okay. I only got one appointment from it, but, uh that's cause I didn't do it until later in the week. But if you follow what I'm going to tell you, it's going to get you an extra two appointments guaranteed in a week and who doesn't want an extra two solar appointments for the week.

Speaker 2 (03:29):

That's an extra two opportunities. You have to close up more deals. So here's what it is. Well, before I tell you what it is, um, I'll preface it. I had a rough week last week. I didn't close anything. And that's the first week that I haven't closed anything in probably a couple months, at least so definitely was frustrating. This was one of the bright spots of the week is what I'm going to share with you here is I don't want you to think that, you know, all the top guys, sometimes there's days where I go without closing, sometimes there's days where I go without booking an appointment. So for those that are listening to this, if you had a rough week, if you had a rough day knocking, if you had a rough day in your closes, just throw that to the side, focus on the positive and make it a better week next week.

Speaker 2 (04:26):

That's what I'm doing and that's what you should do to it. So that's why I'm focusing on a couple of things that went well for me last week, I'm sharing them with you so you can focus on the positive as well and focus on the things that are going to move the needle. And I'll be honest, there was, there's always the element of not working enough hours. So that's partly why I didn't close a deal last week. Cause I didn't have my fish in the line as much as I should have. Okay. But here's the technique that I was happy about. The, did it get me an extra appointment on the week? Okay. So this, I actually learned from surprisingly enough, I learned it from, uh, missionaries in my church. And the reason I forgot about it is because as many of you know, I did a two year service mission for my church.

Speaker 2 (05:16):

I was down in Columbia, south America. And the reason I got into sales is because I'm like, all right, if I go and knock doors. So in pest control cell and Jesus is going to be so easy because I already talked to people. I know how to knock doors. It's going to be ways you're knocking doors and my mission. And then I do a summer pest control. I get out to my mission and come to find out. We didn't even knock doors in Columbia. Our mission president was like, nah, you guys don't mean to knock doors. He just sent us around talking to people on the streets, doing activities with people playing soccer. So who knows maybe if I would've known that I would've never gotten into door to door cells, but glad I did change my life. But the reason I bring that up is because before I was getting ready to go on my mission, I remember I was asking some of my friends that had done their missions, like, Hey, do you guys knock a ton of doors?

Speaker 2 (06:11):

What's the deal? How do you go about knocking doors? And what I was hearing from a lot of them, they said, Taylor, we don't knock a ton of doors, but here's what we do. Every time we go to an appointment, every time we get like our referral, every time we go to someone's house that we're trying to follow up on, we have this little technique. We do, we knock the two houses to the side of it. And then we knock the three houses across the street. And that's it that's most of what our door knocking is. I'm like, oh, okay, that doesn't sound too bad. And so I started thinking, huh? Maybe that's a good idea. And maybe that could be applied to solar. Obviously I'm thinking this a lot later now, as you know, this was back in like 2012 when I did my mission and was talking about these things a lot.

Speaker 2 (07:03):

But I'm like, ah, that could definitely be applied to solar. So last week, for whatever reason as I was going on appointments, this just popped into my head again, Jay. And I will say the reason I'm talking about this is because last week I was going to a lot of appointments from our ciders, from our guys that were setting up appointments. I went to a decent amount of them. And so this is more, I guess you'd say applicable for those that are going to maybe online leads, you had to drive out to an appointment or maybe have a team people knocking the doors and you're going to some of their appointments. Okay? So it's going to be more applicable for that, but it also can be applied if you're knocking your own doors everyday, if you're doing purely self-generated leads, you could also do it with that.

Speaker 2 (07:52):

Because a lot of times you're not going to talk to all the neighbors around the appointments you book, right? So that's the technique is every time you go on an appointment specifically, make sure after the appointment, do what these missionaries told me, they were doing. Knock the doors next to it. The two neighbors to the side of it, then go across the street and knock the three neighbors across the street. Why should you do this? Because you already have a name right there. You have a name you can use. And the line that really worked for me last week, if you're driving or something, write this down, this is fire. So you say, think of the name of the appointment and maybe it's Joe. They say, Hey, did Joe tell you I was stopping by today? Did he let you know? He's the one with the Navy flag out front?

Speaker 2 (08:45):

Did he let you know, was coming by? This worked super well for me last week, it's a name someone they recognize and lucky for me, the appointments that I booked last week off this technique, everyone knew this guy in the neighborhood. So it works even better. If it's someone, uh, that people recognize or something they have out front of their house, this case, it was a Navy flag. A lot of people knew this guy. So use this start applying it. Um, what happened to me is I went to this appointment and he was one of those where he's like, okay, you got 10 minutes. I got to go soon. So I'll pop, open my truck bed in set your iPad down there, show me what you got. And anytime it's that, it's like, come on, man. We can't do this on the truck bed. I didn't tell you how many deals.

Speaker 2 (09:41):

Maybe in the past five years, maybe one or two deals have been closed, standing on a truck bed outside, not many. So of course it's, you know, basically a situation where you're just gonna give them some basic info and then try to reschedule, which is what I did. But that's why I started thinking about this. I'm like, okay. I drove clear out here. It was like 20 minutes out of my way to this appointment. And I'm like, all right, I need to get something out of this. If I came clear out here, I can't be wasting my time, just showing up to these appointments and not getting something from this. So I went over a couple general details with the guy rescheduled for one, his wife was there. And um, when he had more time now that's when I decided to implement this. Like, I, I know this, I know someone was in this area.

Speaker 2 (10:33):

It was one of our newer reps that was knocking it. I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to do it anyways. Who cares if they already talked to him? And this is something that ran through my head before is I would be like, yeah, I'm not going to knock the neighbors of appointments of my setters. Um, they probably do talk to all of these people, but guess what? Every door approach is different. What you're seeing is probably a lot different than what the guy in the area saying, even if it's from your same company and maybe they caught the people at a bad time, Hey, if anything you can say, Hey, I'm just following up on what they told you. Okay, bye. I went and then none of these people had been talked to. So I don't know if the rep maybe didn't, you know, get to them or whatever, but even if they have been talked to just try it out this week, if you're going to appointments or if you're getting out of your own appointment, make sure, just try it.

Speaker 2 (11:28):

Knock. The two sides knocked the one across. I went and knocked the one across to the left. So not the house directly across, but looking across to the left. And that's the house I ended up booking and the line worked perfectly said, Hey, did Joel let you know I was stopping by? So I go know what's going on, created the curiosity. And then after that, it just became super easy. It was an add on system too, which that's another pro tip. Make sure to not overlook people that already have solar or new homes that were built with solar. A lot of these people are still paying true out bills. A lot of them still have excess money. They're paying to the utility to make sure you don't overlook that. But I went and worked like a term and got a solar appointment out of it.

Speaker 2 (12:17):

Okay. So that's the tip start doing that. And then another bonus tip with this is if you haven't already go listen to Michael Donald's, uh, episode Michael O'Donnell. He was probably, it's been a little bit, you're going to have to go back probably 50 episodes or so, but he's been on the Solarpreneur podcast twice. And if you don't know who Mike O'Donnell is, let's be honest. You might be living under a rock because this guy is probably the top installer in the industry gets multiple golden door awards every year. But Michael O'Donnell one of my top takeaways from the podcast we did with him actually really relates to this. And it is every time he goes to appointments and he does do a lot of preset appointments from his team guys that he needs to go to their closes. So his thing is every time he gets out of them appointments, if he has any time at all, then what he does, he'll go.

Speaker 2 (13:15):

He calls them mini habits. So you can go listen to his episode here. He'll, it's one of his kind of core topics he talks about. But what he does is he goes and he knocks until he, he gets at least one, no. Okay. And so he has some stories with it. He tells stories of where sometimes unlock after and he'll get four or five yeses. Everyone wants to see if proposal for a, their home. So he asked to keep knocking until he gets at least one, no that's related to, if you want to take it to another level and implement that bonus tip, do what Mike O'Donnell does go till you get at least to know. And I know most days he doesn't leave. He doesn't go back home until he gets at least one no on the day. And he tributes just that little mini habits to, um, you know, dozens and dozens of extra closes on the year just by doing that.

Speaker 2 (14:14):

And if you are going to these, you know, preset leads or, um, appointments that other people on your team book, then make sure you're, you're also getting some self-generated deals in there. Everyone knows that's where the money's at. It's nice. You're showing up to appointments. If you do have a setter closer model, but do these little things, that's going to get you to make sure the extra money on the year, that's going to be the difference, the separator for you. And just these little things. It's the small and simple things that are going to change the outcome of your, of your story and of your success. So don't overlook those things. Hope that tip helped you guys start doing that. It's going to get you an extra two appointments again. If you are just knocking your own doors, then just try and make sure even if you have, you know, a late appointment or something that you booked yourself, go and, you know, knock the neighbors Cain, do what Michael Donald's says and get at least one note before you leave there yet. So hope that helps hope that gets you an extra few appointments this week, share it with your team, share it with someone that could use an extra appointment or two this week. And we will see you guys on the next episode. Peace.

Speaker 3 (15:32):

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 level 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 learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.

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.