Transcription:

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. 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 bring in 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 sore anywhere you might ask? A solopreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery. And you are about to become what's going on in solarpreneur

Speaker 2 (00:44):

Nation Taylor Armstrong. Back with another episode here to help your life easier in your solar sales journey, helping you crush it, helping you get more referrals, generate more leads and dominate. That's what we're all about. So I wanted to give you a couple updates on the things going on around my neck of the woods here in San Diego, just got back from a Mario kart tournament with our sales team, and you'll be sad to know that I came in second place. Did not, um, pull out the win, but we had a hundred dollars go to the winner, had a cool little tournament. So if you're not doing fun, little activities like that, I would highly suggest it. Do that with your teams, get types of, uh, events, activities, go on. We, we do one weekly, but it can be a little much sometimes. So I would suggest maybe every couple of weeks, get your team together through an awesome activity, get some food and, uh, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:45):

Do tournaments. People love it, but yeah, came in second place and uh, I grew up on Mario kart. Um, if any of you want to challenge me? I am down anytime I lost a one match cause that freaking blue shell came and hit me at the very end. If you know Mario kart, you know what I'm talking about, but anyways, so that's, what's going on here. We're keeping the activities going we're gearing up. Um, spring is coming quickly to this summer months are flying by and guess what it's already almost done with Q1. So take a step back to look at where are you at in your goals we're already done with the first quarter. We're going into the second quarter pretty quick here. So if you're not crushing it this year, start to analyze where are you at? And that's going to lead us directly into the episode, which is why should you have a coach?

Speaker 2 (02:40):

Okay. Um, and the reason I'm doing this episode is because next um, episode we have coming up, we have coach Michael Burton coming on. If you haven't heard a coach Burt, he is pretty high profile. Dude. I saw him speak it. Um, actually grant Kurt owns X con and he's coached hundreds and hundreds of sales people probably into the thousands business leaders, entrepreneurs. He has I think a dozen or two books. Anyways. We introduced him in that, in the next episode, but you're not going to want to miss out on that. And it got me really thinking about why is coaching important? Hey, obviously we're going to talk more about that in the next episode do, but just made me start reflecting. Why should we have coaches in when I first started in sales, that was pretty much unheard of. I was like, I was like, no one needs a coach in sales.

Speaker 2 (03:36):

You got a manager. You need, you don't need a coach. But then as I've talked about in some previous episodes, I actually have hired many coaches and it has been, I would say one of the single most important things to my growth, helping me close more deals, help them keeping me accountable and helping me grow as a sales person and entrepreneur. So start to consider if you've never had a coach, I want you to consider getting one. Okay. And what, what top, you know, business people, entrepreneurs they're investing in themselves. So I think that's the first principle with this. If you're not investing in yourself, you are going to have a tough time growing. I mean, I'm sure it can be done. There's guys that do it, but what you're doing by hiring coaches, you're accelerating your growth because you're talking with someone who's already taken the steps that you're looking to take.

Speaker 2 (04:30):

And that's something that you should look for in a coach. Who's been there. Who's done the thing that you want to do. Okay. My background with this, I'm always kind of improvement background wanting to be better. I think I've told some stories with this in previous episodes, but I was actually a music guy and nerd, I guess some people call me the band geek, the band nerd, back in high school. I was the one going to the band camps going, um, you know, practicing. And I played this instrument called the marimba it's percussion. Um, so for those who don't know marimba, it's basically a giant xylophone. You hold the four mallets and you play this thing. People say, you look like Wolverine or something. Guess you're only holding two in each hand, but you play this thing. And um, yeah, he just jam out on you.

Speaker 2 (05:21):

You got four sticks in your hands and you're um, yeah, you're practicing a ton. Learning the grip, learning the technique. You're getting callouses on your fingers. So that was my background in high school. I was percussion. Now I want to be the best marimbist in the world. That wasn't my goal. And what I did is I would go and do pretty much what I'm telling you right now. I would go and look for the best people to learn from. And then I would go look for their summer camps. They had these summer camps. You could go to every top marimbas had, um, you know, you'd pay, you'd fly out to wherever they were. I flew the one in Orlando and I flew to one in, uh, Michigan flew to one Texas. Yeah, Texas all over the place, going to these camps, trying to learn from these top marimbas.

Speaker 2 (06:12):

And the thing about it was I was already at a disadvantage because I went to a small school, can have high school, Southern Utah town, old Blake, 3000 people had 200 kids in my school. So you can imagine with 200 kids there wasn't a ton going on with music. Um, there wasn't a ton of going on, uh, with anything really. I mean, barely had enough kids to have even a school band at that size of school. So I was already at a disadvantage, no one even had no one even knew what a marimba was really in my town, let alone had one. There was one other guy I knew that had one in my town. But besides that, there was not even this, this instrument didn't even exist. So I saved up, worked hard. My parents helped me buy a marimba. Um, it was kind of like Christmas work and combined, they got me a marimba.

Speaker 2 (07:05):

And um, I would practice this thing sometimes like five, six hours a day. So I was going all out and then I was just trying to be the best they had this competition called the Utah day of percussion. So I was like, all right, I'm going to go beat out all these big kids in the city, all these big time kids. And I slapped that gold down and that was my goal. And that's when I started going to these camps. And then I think was it 2010 or something? I went, um, after going to all these camps, after practicing my butt off six hours a day, I went in, I locked down the first place and everyone heard this kid get up on stage Taylor Armstrong, first place, marimba Canab high school. And all these kids that the huge score is like, what the heck?

Speaker 2 (07:55):

Who is what's Canab high school. I don't even know that that town exists. No one even had been to this event at my school didn't know existed. So the big key with this, the reason I'm sharing this story is because I think you can apply it to anything in your life. If you want to get good at something, you need to go seek out the best people, go with some of their content. And that's what this podcast is about is we're surrounding you with the top guys. We're getting the best of the best in the industry. We're putting them in your ears and we're giving you the shortcut to it. I would have loved when I was learning marimba. I would have loved to have like a marimba podcast or something like that to listen to didn't exist at that time. Um, but that's the key you needed to be obsessed.

Speaker 2 (08:40):

Like Grant Cardone says be obsessed or be average. Anything you're doing there's success leaves clues. I think, uh, Jim ruins says that scene. You can go seek out these guys, see what they're doing? Yeah. Go to their events that they have him pay them, do whatever it takes. If you're not the top guy in your office, go see what the top guy is doing. Gain your, if you are in a smaller company, maybe you're the top guy, but that's the disadvantage. You have a fear of smaller company gall and go to events, surround yourself with the top. Guys, you got door to door con, that's an event. You got these guys at knock star. I was talking about, um, you got this and we're planning on future events and things to help you grow. That's the key with this. Go out. Be coachable. Don't be afraid to invest in yourself in any top, all these top entrepreneurs, top guys, their messaging.

Speaker 2 (09:39):

Um, the number I hear is 15 to 20% in yourself. So start thinking about that. Are you putting 15 to 20% of what you earn into personal development into growth? Okay. So if you're making six figures, which hopefully anyone in this industry is, are you putting, what does that 15 to 20 grand are you missing 15 to 20 grand a year? If you're making 200 grand, you should be doing double that 30 to 40 grand. Okay. So think about that. Start investing in yourself if you're not already. Okay. Um, but just a couple, a couple reasons, I guess why you should have a coach, number one, they're going to help you see things. You can't see yourself. Okay. A lot of times when we're just analyzing ourselves, um, we're not, we're not good at giving yourselves feedback. We're not good at being honest with ourselves.

Speaker 2 (10:34):

And when I first hired a coach talked about it, but for my competition, ourselves competition, he helped me see that I wasn't, um, being honest in my routines and he helped me break apart. Okay. What are you doing in the mornings? How much time are you actually spending selling? And that's the first time to that point. I started actually tracking how many, how many hours am I putting on the doors? How many appointments in my booking? How many appointments am I sitting in? And then when I first started tracking it, I said, no wonder, I'm not getting results. I'm always sitting in like two appointments a week. It's going to be pretty tough to close multiple deals a week. If you're only sending into, so I've been going to help you see things, you can't see yourself. And number two, they're going to hold you accountable.

Speaker 2 (11:21):

At least a good coach should they should hold you super accountable. Um, and again, put your money on the line. If you're paying someone, that's going to add another element to it. If you have money invested in something, you're going to be much more likely to do it. I, right now I have a trainer fitness trainer. He gives me workouts every week. I have to send them videos. I'm the guy at the gym. That's taken videos of my squats, which probably annoys people have made dead. This stuff like that. I have to send them the video, every workout I do. And he breaks it down and he says, Taylor, your butt's not down far enough. And that that's a big thing. He helped me improve by the way I was doing like those half squats. Okay. But your legs need to go below the parallel point and get down.

Speaker 2 (12:08):

So that's something I didn't see myself. He helped me to it. And since I'm paying this guy, I'm paying a trainer. Guess what? I'm going to be way more likely to go to the gym. Cause I'm like, well, freak. I don't want to waste my money. I don't want to pay this guy. If I'm not going to show up to the gym, wasting the money. So it's the same thing. Don't be afraid to invest in the coach. Make sure they're holding you accountable. And number three, like I mentioned in the beginning, they are going to save you tons of time, because guess what a good coach has already done. The thing that you're trying to get to, Hey, Tim Ferris has a book, um, for the four hour week work week. If you haven't read that one, but he talks about go and model, not the best person in the world, but the second best person in the world, I thought this is a cool little hack.

Speaker 2 (12:58):

Something you can write down right here. So go model what? The second best person in the world. Cause guess what? The first person in the world, they're going to charge a lot to coach people. They got the credibility, they got the credentials. They're the best. Right? But what about the second best? What if you went out and paid the guy that got second place to Michael Phelps, that was like millisecond behind them. Okay. Probably more than that, but maybe he was two seconds behind me. Michael Phelps. Do you think he's going to be a little bit cheaper and then Michael Phelps to pay and get results from probably his and he's still pretty freaking good, right? Second best in the world. So that's a hack. Anything you're trying to get good at. You don't need to hire necessarily the best in the world can. Sometimes they're not the best teachers anyways.

Speaker 2 (13:50):

I know I'm not the best in the world that so in solar, but I think I am better at teaching then, then probably some of the best in the world. Okay. So the best aren't going to always be the greatest teachers. But think about that. Go look at the second best person in the world. Go with the people that are getting results and model after them. So little hack. Okay. They're going to shortcut your success. Any coach that's and that's a way to find a good coach. We talk about this with, um, coach Burt in the next episode, but how do you know who to actually trust and who to hire a coach? You okay. I think Jesus said in the Bible, by their fruits, you shall know them. Right? So, same thing. If you're looking for a coach, look at their fruits, what have they accomplished?

Speaker 2 (14:40):

What have they done? Okay. If they have not sold anything, if they have not gotten, you know, decent results better than you, then maybe you don't model. And I'll be, I mean, I'll be straight up and say it, I did 150 deals in a year. If you've done more than that, then maybe I'm not the coach for you because that's more than I've done. Right. But if you've done less than that, then I think there's things I can share with you that are going to take your skills to the next level. Okay. But look at who's ahead of you. Look at what results they've had and then that's the people you want to follow. That's the people you want to learn from and anyone that's trained to coach out there, don't be afraid to say, Hey, what results have you had? Okay. Especially if you're going to pay someone, you want to make sure these people are legit.

Speaker 2 (15:29):

You want to make sure they have walked the path that you're trying to fall and gotten the results that you're trying to get. Okay. So just some thoughts I had, don't be afraid to get a coach Powell and already, and guys, we are opening. Speaking of coaching, we're opening very soon, our new coaching platform. Kay. And I can't share all the details, but it's going to be game changing. You're not going to want to miss out on it. It's going to be super interactive and yeah, no one in the industry has done something like this before. So if you're not hurting on this wait list, go get on it. It says solciety.co. That's S O L C I E T Y . C O . We have the wait-list open right now. So go join the wait list. And you're going to want to be first to get on this.

Speaker 2 (16:21):

Okay. Let's me special pricing. And we're going to have the best of the best in the industry on our new coaching platform. Okay. And if you want to surround yourself with the best, this is where you start go to solsociety. Okay. So we can't wait to see you on the next episode, coach Burt is going to drop some value bombs. He is the best coach, I think for sales, probably in the game right now. So don't miss out, share this with someone that you think can be improved by it and then make sure you're on the next episode. Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you soon.

Speaker 1 (16:56):

Hey, solarpreneurs. Quick question. What if you could surround yourself with 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 and brightest minds for, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently solciety's closed. The public and membership is by invitation only, but solar printers can go to solciety.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 wait list and learn more now. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you again in the next step.

Speaker 3 (18:25):

[inaudible].

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.