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.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
What's up Solarpreneurs how are ya? My name is Taylor Armstrong, and we are here as usual to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry today. We're going to be jamming on some recruiting content. And the reason I want to talk about this is because recently I was at a, um, a little recruiting retreat, not retreat, but, um, our, uh, onboarding bootcamp with, um, my friend, Jerry Fussell, who's on the show at two episodes ago. So hopefully you listen to his podcast, ton of takeaways, and the guy grew over a hundred million dollar company, a solar company, and he's starting a new one. So some incredible takeaways from that podcast. But anyways, I was there at their, uh, bootcamp and we're jamming recording podcasts hanging out there, but I got to be just kind of a fly on the wall and see how they run their boot camps there.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
So I want to talk about a few things I observed. And then also next episode, we're going to have on Josh Peters, who is there, um, think director of experiences as title, but basically their recruiting experts. He came on the show was generous, generous enough to talk about what they do, um, you know, in their recruiting kind of their model. And then also just share the experiences he's had. He was an over, you worked over at door to door experts in, uh, in their recruiting department, recruited hundreds and hundreds of reps. So a ton of experience got to pick his brain as well. So I just want to give a couple of observations I noticed. And if you are in charge of your recruiting at all, um, you can get some takeaways from this, but also send this, um, it's nice to have someone that is over recruiting.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So if you don't have anyone that's helping you organize your recruiting structure, your recruiting. I think that is a big secret. So if you're a company owner, or if you, you know, if you're just our rep at a company, maybe send this to your, you know, management, have your guys get someone that can help with organizing the recruits that can help with setting up a structure and that can help just getting everything squared away. So people have the best experience coming in. Cause the last thing you want to happen is guys coming in, they say, Hey, what am I doing? What does day one look like? Am I going to shadow someone? Uh, who am I going to shadow in them? What I see it's the majority of companies being quite friendly is it, they don't, they don't have these things set up. They don't know who's a new rep is going to go shadow.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
They don't know the exact steps that a new rep needs to take to be onboarded. And a lot of companies let's be honest. They don't even have someone at running or helping with this. So maybe you're a one man show trying to recruit. Maybe you're a rep at a company, whatever it is, consider hiring someone that you can get someone to yourself to help with your personal recruits feel, have someone, or just figure out a way to implement these things. But trust me, it's going to be a lot easier. You have someone that is dedicated to doing these things. So I'm going to jump into three ways to onboard new solar recruits. And then you don't have to have someone doing this, but anyone that is recruiting new reps, you're going to want to figure out a way, especially the first one I'm going to share with you.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
This one is absolutely essential and make sure you're doing this one, but the other two, just some observations that I had while I was at the, uh, their bootcamp this past weekend in Vegas. So here's number one. Okay. Crucial, crucial, crucial. Make sure every new recruit is recording and passing off their door, presentation or pitch, whatever you want to call it. I call it presentation because I'm in the, uh, knock start mastermind right now. And at 2:00 AM recurrent, the Benz's over in Spain says if we say pitch, so trying to get that out of my vocabulary, but presentation, right? To make sure every new recruit, every potential recruit. Make sure anyone you're bringing on is passing off their presentation. Okay. Everyone should have a script they're following. Right? Make sure they're recording it, passing it off. And what was really cool this past weekend in Vegas, not only did these recruits, these new recruits have to pass off their presentation, but they have to do it live in front of everybody.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
And Jerry Fussell was up there, he was listening. And a couple people, if it wasn't, if it didn't make sense, if it was lacking energy, if it would just way off, he made him go back, practiced outside and come back in and they had to passed off in front of everyone. So I thought this was a great idea. So I think it should be two things. Get, have them record it, do video audio, some way to record it, have them pass it off word for word that way, but they can, you know, they could just be reading the script probably if they're recording it. Right. So that's a good way to do it. But I think if you want to take it to a next level and what I really liked about what Jerry and the boys were doing is if you make them pass off live, it adds that pressure element to it, right?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
It's almost like performing in practice versus performing in a game. And obviously that's not, you know, a hundred percent how it's going to be on the doors either, but adds another layer of pressure. Right? And it's going to make them think that not much more, you're going to see if they actually have the presentation memorized in kin, you know, overcome a few objections. They're not going to be impossible for them, but consider that. So make sure people aren't passed off. Number one in recorded setting and number two, have them do a live role play in front of everyone. Okay. And then the second key, the second, um, observation, second way you can onboard new people in your company consider doing some type of bootcamp. This has seen, um, this is something I'm seeing a lot of companies do recently, guys that are having all the success.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Jerry Fussell, they have all our guys flying in. They do this bootcamp and he doesn't have them all work in local in Vegas, but he flies him in and then some of them are staying. Some are going back to their markets, but they have groups of recruits come in a bootcamp style. And I know another company doing this is a true power. I've seen doing bootcamp style like this. They've been growing a ton recently had Alex Hogan whole on the podcast who is crushing it, doing some amazing things, growing a company done. I know they do boot camps. So success leaves clues, right? You're seeing these successful companies do these things. Maybe it's something you should implement. Okay. You don't necessarily have to do these things to be successful, but, um, it's something you should think about. Okay. So in Vegas they had all these recruits come in.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
They had, uh, you know, food ready and they, what was really cool about it is we were all staying at a big mansion there. So I thought it was cool. Cause everyone was learning the same speed. Everyone's getting motivated at the same level. They're all kind of in the same boat. They didn't feel like they were just a brand new guy coming in and just getting thrown into the wolves. They're all doing it as a team. So what I thought was really cool is just the level of excitement as everyone was going in. Um, I've never been in like, I dunno, Marines or Navy or anything like that. But it's how I imagined like Navy bootcamp going, like you're going in with a group of guys you're forming a brotherhood and sisterhood, whatever. And they're all kind of in the same boat, you all feel like you're connected, right.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
And you all want to see each other succeed. That's the feeling I got from this. So if you're at a company, if you're recruiting guys consider doing something like that, maybe it's just a day bootcamp, bring him in, have him play sports. Um, I don't know, do competitions up, have some fun, have a box of Pop-Tarts. That's what I, uh, I ate so many pop tarts to this house cause they had tons of pop tarts laying around and I have little snacks and stuff. Right. Make it fun. And then do the presentation and recording and uh, you know, make sure they get all the training. They can that bootcamp. Hey, and then the third thing, third observation, a third way. Third thing to consider as you're bringing on new recruits, this was a cool idea. I'd never seen it done actually before I got to their bootcamp, but they did a scavenger hunt and what was cool about it.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
And I didn't really think about this is before these new reps even go up to knock a door, he was having them go out and do a scavenger hunt. So in a way it's knocking doors, but you're not actually like, you know, you're not going to pitch in your, when you're not doing a presentation. Yeah. So on biggest, this was a prime place to do it. Cause he just took these, uh, band full of recruits, dumped them off on the strip and plenty of, uh, interesting things going on the strip, plenty of interesting people that do a scavenger hunt with, but uh, Jerry, he had them do things like take a picture with a baby, go do a trust, fall on someone random, uh, go get a picture with a cop, go do a dance in public. I don't know, just crazy stuff. And then record a video of it.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Then he gave cash prizes to the ones that were the most interesting, the ones that were the craziest. And he had like three prizes with it. So I don't know, three winners, um, most interesting, craziest and longest. I can't remember what the third one was, but I thought that was a great idea. Send your guys out, uh, break the ice with them. And after they got back doing the scavenger hunt, everyone just came back like laughing, having a good time. They were out there essentially doing the same thing that we do on the doors. Right. And that's getting in uncomfortable situations in front of new people. That's what door knocking is soft. After that, he said, guys, you just went out and did basically what the job is. You didn't in a group, right? You did some wacky stuff. And people probably weren't really like mean to you, but that's what door knocking is.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
You're just going out in front of new people, doing something uncomfortable, but only now you're getting paid the big bucks for it. So maybe you're onboarding and bringing on groups of new recruits, go try out something like this. Maybe go to a scavenger hunt, get them to do something, to break the ice, get past their fears and show them that it's that hard. Sometimes we overthink door knocking so much prospecting really. That's all it is. And if you can learn to get past that fear, that's what it takes to be successful in the solar industry. So those are three just observations I had gave. Remember the first one though, I think is going to be your crucial and make sure any new person, even if you're just a one man band, you're a lone Wolf. And if you bring on anyone, it just makes sure they memorize a presentation, give them a script.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
And then if you want to take it to the next level, use a tool like Ciro talked about this on the podcast, but it is an app where you can record your presentations. It'll automatically transcribe it. It'll um, categorize it in the sections and objections. And it's great for training your reps in we'll help you take these things to the next level. So if you want access to that, go download our solciety app. You can join Solciety. You're going to get access to all these things, but consider using that tool like cereal for your company where reps can record themselves. So hope those things helped, whether you're, uh, you know, just recruiting reps yourself, or maybe you are the recruiting person at your company. Try that out. Let me know if it helps. We're definitely going to be experimented with them here in San Diego. And then remember on the next episode we're going to have Josh Peterson himself is going to drop some fire on what it takes to really build an empire and bring in quality recruits. So don't miss out on the next one, share this with anyone who needs to up level their recruiting game. And we will see you on the next episode.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
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