Losing a Team of 75 Reps Overnight - River Skinner

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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 what's up Solarpreneurs.

Speaker 2 (00:43):

We are back. We are alive from door to door Fest here in Dallas, Texas, and I'm stoked today because not too often, do we get to do a live interview like this. And we have got the man the myth, the legend river Skinner on today. So river, thanks for coming on the show. Excited to have you.

Speaker 3 (01:00):

Yeah. I'm excited that we do get to do it live because I think you've missed kind of like a element. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:06):

I know. I love it. It's cool. I've never done one from my hotel room, so nice stuff off

Speaker 3 (01:11):

View of unmade beds, you know?

Speaker 2 (01:15):

Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. My dirty clothes are sitting right behind, uh, you know, the mic, the camera here. So don't mind that if we don't get in the S what he smells there, did a few workouts. So if you smell smoky clothes, that's mere river, but I can handle it for 45 minutes. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, I'm excited to be here. So river, we just heard you speak here at door to door Fest and you gave an awesome talk on recruiting. We'll dive into that. And you're here in Texas. So we want to hear all those things our listeners want to know, but yeah. Do you want to kind of share maybe how you got into solar and your story with that? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:50):

Um, I I've always been into sales. I grew up, you know, eight years old. My dad will actually, you know, my dad, my whole life owned produce stands, and he's paying me $3 an hour to work at the produce stands. And he ended up telling him, he's like, Hey, listen, I can pay three bucks an hour. Or if you sell watermelons for me, I'll pay you 50 cents a watermelon. I'm like sweet. So every person that came through the door, I came through the door, but came into the sh into the produce stand I'd, sell them watermelons, make 50 cents a pop. And I was making more off my commission than I was on my hourly pay. I'm like, this is awesome. So, anyway, so I got recruited into door-to-door from one of my dad's other employees named Aaron, Aaron invited me to go satellite with him.

Speaker 3 (02:33):

And I went and sold satellite with him. Um, that summer, the summer I graduated, um, that following year, no two years later, uh, one of my good friends, um, just was like, dude, why are you not selling solar yet? I'm like, I don't know. Um, so I started recruiting. I got recruited in Utah to sell solar sold solar for a month. I sold eight deals my first month. And, um, back then I, that was like 10 grand or something. And I was like, ecstatic. I was like, oh my gosh, I just made 10 grand in a month. Um, I wasn't making good money previously, um, in door to door. So like, for me, that was like, awesome. And I just fell in love with the product. Uh,

Speaker 2 (03:15):

That's awesome. I know it's, especially in Utah, it's, uh, I got out of Utah, so scared of selling all the, you know, Mormons and stuff out there, and they're intimidating, but you know, lower rates. So I'm in California, but yeah. Have you been with someone and you died, you feel like, and I know now you're in Texas. What, what do you feel like the differences are between the markets you've like gets pretty similar to, I haven't experienced both Margaret. Um,

Speaker 3 (03:43):

I think Texas is unique in the sense that, you know, it's deregulated and, and, and a lot of the utilities they're deregulated. Some of them are co-ops where it's just one utility. So it's really different in the sense, like, you don't know, like, Hey, you're not with SDG and E you're not with Rocky mountain power. You could be with one of a thousand different power companies. And so they could be paying 8 cents a kilowatt hour to 22 cents a kilowatt hour. And you have no idea until you collect their power bill. And so that's something that's really unique to Texas is that you're kind of like Easter egg hunting. It's like, Hey, it may be a super sexy prop, or it may not be, um, you know, comparative to Utah, but, you know, Utah, I think, I think there's great. I grew, I started selling in Utah and I sold them Boise where rates are even cheaper than Utah. And so I've never been to a market like California, where, you know, you're showing people these crazy savings. I've just never, I don't even know what that's like. And so Texas,

Speaker 2 (04:37):

Anytime my friend, thank you.

Speaker 3 (04:39):

So Texas is, you know, if they have a large bill, great. If they're not paying anything, that's fine too. I'm used to some people with low rates. Um, but at this have a higher rate than great. Yeah. So that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (04:51):

So, yeah, I'm sure we'll talk more about that, but yeah, what I really wanted to hear, so river, you, um, you won the, the boot camp, they were doing the knock star bootcamp, right? You were at a winner for your group. Yeah. And so for our Solarpreneurs that don't know, um, knock star, if you guys haven't checked them out, they do great trainings. We're at the conference right now. And they have a bootcamp that they do, um, think three or four times a year or something like that. And then they have a tournament that goes on, may do just kind of head to head. They put you in teams and they pick a winner that sells the most during the, uh, six week competition. So river, he won his competition. How many deals did you do in that, those six weeks or

Speaker 3 (05:31):

Honestly, it wasn't like that crazy amount. I think it was like 13 or 14 deals in that amount of time. But, um, during that I sold them all out, you know, out of those 14 or whatever nine of them were in one day. Um, and so that was cool. I just didn't work

Speaker 2 (05:47):

As hard as I could. They saved all your, your work for that weekend. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:51):

So, um, yeah. Was like 13, 14 deals. It was kind of in this time period where the net metering just changed in Utah. And I was like, ah, I don't, you know, I just kind of put my, I put my feet up, you know,

Speaker 2 (06:03):

Well, that's incredible nine deals in a day. And I remember when that happens, that's actually when I first hit river up to do a podcast, cause everyone was posting about it. Um, you know, a super crazy number nine deals in a day. My record was four in a day. So I'm like, wow, this kid did more than double what I did in a single day. He's gotta be on some sort of sales steroids or something like that. That's

Speaker 3 (06:27):

A skill that I, I was thinking in my brain the way I think I'm like what I see people doing when people do something amazing, it gets people really attracted to them. Right. And it's really good for recruiting because you establish yourself as an expert. So I started asking myself, what could I do that when people would start giving me more credibility? So people would trust me to come and work with me. Um, it was for, as for recruiting and as I was like, I could do, you know, try to do 50 deals in a month. I could start to do this or that. And honestly, I messaged Sam Taggart and I was like, Hey, what's the record for like the most in a day. And he's like seven, I'm like, sweet. I'm gonna make it. I'm going to do double-digit solar one day. No one's ever done it.

Speaker 3 (07:07):

And I know someone has, we'll get into it, but, um, I'll sweet. He said seven, I'm gonna do 10. And that's my goal. And so I started realizing like, cool, how am I going to do this? And it's I sort of asking myself that question. Um, and so I'm like easy. I'm just going to set up one Saturday, just as much as I can. And so I started just asking people like, Hey, would you mind doing a 7:00 AM appointment? And in my mind prior to that, I would never have asked that I might call 7:00 AM, boom, seven, 10, 11. So I had an, I had an appointment every hour on the hour from 7:00 AM to 10:00 PM. Wow. And that's the real trick. The solar, in my opinion. Yeah. Closing solar is easy, right? As long as you follow the process, you can enter the homeowner.

Speaker 3 (07:47):

They trust you. Uh, you answer questions, you know, how to, how to, um, rebuttal to, to the basic objections. What if I move, what happens to my roof, et cetera, it really all just comes down to opportunities, right? So the real challenge of closing 10, nine deals on a day, wasn't the closing part. It was getting in front of the homeowners. And if you get enough in front of enough homeowners, then the new close you'll close a high volume. That, that in my opinion is the real, the real trick to solar is just getting in front of homeowners that are interested in the product. And so that's, that's what I went out and did you know? It was really crazy for me. I closed, like it was like seven, eight, nine, 10, no, seven, no showed closed. My eight, 8:00 AM closed by 9:00 AM, closed by 10, 10:00 AM close by like 11:00 AM.

Speaker 3 (08:32):

And I heard back, I wasn't keeping up with the appointments then sort of picking and choosing which appointments were the best. Yeah. Um, anyway, so I had like seven by like two, 2:00 PM. And then I got caught up with a few customers, but long story short, I was at eight and, um, I had one other opportunity left and I went to her house, she there. And so I called her and she was like, Hey, she texted me. She came at a party. I'm like, how long is the party? She'll be back at midnight. I'm like, cool. I'll be at your house at midnight. She's like, perfect. So I went to my last appointment at midnight, ended up talking to her husband and close the last one. And at 1:00 AM is when we finished up documents, five of the nine got installed. I've heard some people talking crap. Like all of them canceled only four, four out of the nine. So, but you know, for me, I went back and you know, for me, I just realized like, wow, you can really do a lot in one day. If you put your mind to it, I later found out there's people that close, you know, 17, 18. And that, that boggles my mind because literally there's no more time in a day in my opinion. Um, but it was cool. Yeah. Well

Speaker 2 (09:41):

That's incredible. And no, it's, it's kinda like you hear the guy who broke the four minute mile or whatever everyone thinks these things can't be done, but then when you hear someone do it, it's like, yeah, that guy, right. It is possible. And someone's going to go and do the next thing. Right. So I'm sure you got a lot of people gunning for you and yeah. I've heard people, you know, closing more. We got a Ashton Bushworth. Don't know if you heard of him, but yeah. Let's do a podcast. Yeah. He closed, I guess. I think it was 22. I think he too. Yeah. So he claimed that it's probably true, but yeah, he had everyone lined up, I guess just like doc, obviously you can't be in that many appointments in a day, but yeah. I think you just set up something similar where it's like, okay, everyone signed the documents, you know, at 12 o'clock on a Saturday. Right, right. Yeah. But still it's like crazy. The amount of preparation it takes for that. And commitments and 7:00 AM till 1:00 AM. Yes. And the thing

Speaker 3 (10:33):

That I realized from that, and I think that I actually got a lot from KnockStar was you can, you, you can get a lot more deals than you think, and you can get a lot more than you think by asking certain questions. I think we stop. I think I stopped coming up with solutions a lot of times when I'm not committed enough to getting the results. So like my first customer, um, the, uh, what was the last names of Bradford's? Um, the Bradford's they messaged me and said, Hey, don't come over. We're not interested. Well, I already talked to them and I said, Hey, I want coffee for my ADA. It was at 8:00 AM. Hey, want to come back and want some coffee? So I had some coffee ready for me. And she texts me and said, Hey, I'm not interested anymore. I said, okay, that's fine.

Speaker 3 (11:14):

But I still want my coffee. And um, she's like, oh, I'm not ready. I'm like, well, I'm at your door. And I was just texting her. And then she came in, opened up the door and then I got into the home and closed it. Whereas prior I would have just been like, whatever canceled appointment, just wrote it up as not closed. Yeah. Same thing with, um, another appointment, that one, uh, you know, I was supposed to be there at 10:00 PM. I went there. She wasn't there. I asked to come back at midnight. People will do a lot more than you think if you just ask. Um, and I think a lot of times we give up too early and closes, although this wasn't a great story, I would have had 10, but I sat in this guy's home for three hours. I literally tried probably 20 different clothes on this guy.

Speaker 3 (11:57):

And he never told me no, he just was like, he just kept on saying, I dunno, you know, that sort of language. I just kept on going and going and going and going. And, um, you know, but I ended up closing him. But what I did learn was like, you can get a lot more people than you think you can, if you just continue to go and continue to move forward, instead of just being like, oh, there's an objection. Okay. No worries. And then you edit out. I think that's what I do. Sometimes I give up too early. I think some people give up too early as well. When really when they meet resistance, it's an opportunity to move forward. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:30):

And I love that you like set it up on a day too. I'm sure. Just having it all set up. You already decided, okay, I'm going to hit the nine. And then it's like, whatever, I didn't hit it.

Speaker 3 (12:41):

I had a failed credit and I had that dude, like, I was like, pull my hair out frustrated. I'm like, dude, just do it. That was my last closes. I'm like, I'm like, let's just do it. Like, let's just do it anyway. Close. Raise my hand. Well, I don't know. I know you don't know, but let's do it anyway. I just was like, I don't know what else to say.

Speaker 2 (13:00):

I mean, you're trying to break the record. So I imagine you probably had a few closes where it's like, look, I'm in a competition, but you helped me like close. Did you pull out that one to pull out the contract?

Speaker 3 (13:10):

I did it as a pre-frame. I just said, Hey, you know, I, I have a goal. Um, I've never done more than three in a day today. What we're gonna do is we're helping 10 homeowners move forward today in order to do that, um, I have some extra incentives for you guys to make it worthwhile, to help you move forward today. Um, to help you guys out for you guys helping me out. So at the end of this, we're gonna get everything moving forward. Does that sound fair enough to you? And it gave a logical reason, although I really didn't offer them anything additional. Um, they, in their mind, they're thinking, well, I'm getting a better deal than I normally would have for X reasons. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:44):

Cause it's crazy. I've started using that. And I mean, obviously we're not always in a competition, but if you bring that up with homeowners, say, look, we're trying to help as many people as possible. Um, in a way you're not lying to them, but you know, I'm trying to beat my record, trying to help this many homeowners have a personal goal. It's like, if you can get that emotional of all evolves, then sure you saw him that day. It really helps a lot. You're more motivated than people see. It's like, oh, this kid's really trying to help a lot of people trying to win the trip to Hawaii. I remember when I won my first like big competition that was like every close, like, Hey, will you help me win a trip trip to Hawaii? I'll send you a picture when I'm there. We please help me.

Speaker 2 (14:22):

And like, boom, boom, boom. People love when they're like on your side of the team. Right? Grant Cardone has that close. Like, come on, be my superstar. If you're going to be my superstar today. Right. Sign here. I love that though. I love that. Yeah. But no, a ton of respect for what you did, obviously, you know, top, top a 1% top would probably 0.0, zero one that have done what you've done. So well, thank you. Super impressive. Um, and so river, you gave an awesome kind of talk the other day here at door-to-door Fest about recruiting. And I like what you're saying, how you did something big to kind of boost your recruiting. So tell me about your results. Did you have a, I don't know, an influx or recruit recruits come in after I did this big, I can't

Speaker 3 (15:09):

Tell you how many recruits I got, but I can tell you, I, I literally, my DMS was like 60 people, just people, people cheer, like people are genuinely good. Like I didn't break an industry record. Like I thought I did, but people still were like, wow, that was impressive. And they wanted to cheer, cheer me on. People want to cheer you on too. So when you do something like that, people are like, wow, that's awesome. And so I just connect with a lot of people and you know, my, I kind of track how many people are looking at my stories. And that day, usually it's like seven, 800 people a day that they, it was like 2000 people, 2000 people, every single story we were just watching. And so that was really, really cool. But the thing that I believe about recruiting is it's not about, um, it's not about saying the perfect thing I used to think.

Speaker 3 (15:54):

It was always about like, what's the perfect line to say, what's the perfect this or that really what I found with recruiting is it's more of a networking than poaching. Like people look at it as like, I'm going to get this person. I'm gonna get this person. Instead. What I look at it as is like, how can I connect with that person? And how can I become their friend? How can I build a relationship with that person? And my goal isn't to recruit you. My goal is I have an, I have an abundance mindset. I think that's the best way to live. There's so many people out there that are wanting to come work for me. There's so many people out there that want to have solar on the roof from me. Um, so I don't need to get caught up on one person, one customer, whatever, like they cancel.

Speaker 3 (16:31):

If they don't go through this recruit, doesn't want to come on, no big deal. There's tons of other people that come on that want to come on. Um, I just want to connect with those recruits and I want them to win. And so if at some point me becoming their friend means that they're open to coming, working here. Great. But either way, what I want to do is I want to establish myself as an authority and I want them to feel comfortable going to me for help, and I can go out there to assist them. So I have four or five people I can think of right now that are messaging me through Facebook or Instagram that are out there selling pest control or different products or solar. And they're like, Hey, how would you overcome this? How would you do this? I'm struggling with this. And I just give them free advice. And maybe we get to work together someday, but more, I'm just trying to build my network and build myself as somebody that's truly wants to give value because money follows value. And I know if I continue to push value out that eventually the money will return and the re and the recruits will come. Um, because I'm building my, um, what's the word reputation. Hopefully, hopefully a good reputation as well. I like to think so for sure.

Speaker 2 (17:38):

And I love that in your, um, yeah. Your talk the other day, you just talked about be the person that you would want to, um, like have people look up to you basically. I can't remember how you phrased, but basically become that person that people would look at first before you try to recruit, because if you're not producing at a high level, if you're just, you know, if you're barely working yourself, then why would people want to come work with you? Right.

Speaker 3 (18:03):

It's it's like you write, like you use all the hut. You just told me 150 deals in a year. Like that's insane. Um, so like, people will want to work with you because you, they know that you can lead them to where you've gotten, right? It's not some secret that you sold 150. You're amazing. But what you could do is you could teach somebody the same way to be amazing, just the way that you are. And so now you have credibility. And so what I believe is when the is ready, the recruits will come. So now it's like, cool. The leaders now ready? Like you now know how to teach somebody to get where you're at, because you've gone where they want to go. And so the first step is always developing yourself to be a person that other people want to follow you follow, and then you'll start to see you'll, you'll naturally start to find more opportunities to recruit when you're, when you're a better leader. Yeah. I love

Speaker 2 (18:51):

That. So do you have, like, was there a time when it like shifted for you? Like in the beginning? I mean, I'm sure you were always like this, but yeah. I mean, did you have a big shift where you started seeing tons more recruits come in or any, like, I don't know, changes and, and you may not

Speaker 3 (19:05):

Like this because of your pod, your podcast. So forgive me. But, um, I, I went to Thailand and, um, I was, I was in 2016 and I was kind of depressed. I kind of always like asking about getting out of sales. Like maybe I can't do this. And, um, I actually took mushrooms for the first time, and this is why you might like it. But, um, I took those and what that did was it gave me a perspective and the perspective was, I looked at myself and I S and I said, why do I, why do I look at myself in such a, a small way? Why do I look at myself and think I'm not good? Why do I look at myself and think I'm sad? Why do I have this perspective, um, of the world and of myself? And when I, and I was like, that's really not serving me.

Speaker 3 (19:52):

And it really flipped my PR perspective to be like the only reason why I am insecure. The only reason why I am depressed or sad is because I'm choosing to look at life that way. And so when I got done with that experience, which I look at mushrooms as more of like a, uh, a medicine than a drug, when I got done with that medicine, I felt healed. And I, my perspective switched. And that's when I, when I got home from Thailand, I moved to Boise, Idaho, which that I believe that people have these, we're talking about it at the panel. People have these growth spurts, and it's usually over a three month period. And that was when I've truly, I came back to Boise and all of a sudden it was like, boom, I started getting recruits. I started selling more than I ever had. I started the team sort of doing better than I ever had. And, um, it was just crazy. And so that, uh, that

Speaker 2 (20:46):

Awesome shift, so moral of the podcast, do yourself a favor, get some shrooms in, if you feel called to do that, like makes you like see outside yourself and the effect that it, that it

Speaker 3 (21:01):

Gives you, but more than anything, it's not like you need something external to do that, but more, it was, I got, I got, that was the way for me to start believing in myself. And when I started believing in myself, that's when, when better things are to happen. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:15):

That's awesome. Yeah. He almost had me convinced I need to try shrooms, but I'm sure there's other ways. Yeah, absolutely not. Yeah. But no, that's awesome. And so, um, yeah. What are, as far as like recruits, how many people would you say you've like personally recruited or contributed to? Do you have a stat on that?

Speaker 3 (21:34):

I don't have stats. I'd say, you know, a couple hundred, um, I'd say personally, um, you know, there's, I worked with some great people like Jess Regan. Um, he recruited a lot of people for our organization. Um, over the past year, we, you know, but my team that's recruited a lot of people as in a lot, you know, over the past year, probably 450 people have been recruited organization, but that's not just me. Um, that's just from our whole team's effort, but personally like personal recruits over the past couple of years, couple of hundred, um, you know, some still work for me, some don't, um, by recruited a few people. Yeah. Yeah. But that's what I love about recruiting is I, like I said, I don't care if you work for me or not. I just hope that in some way, in some way that if I did get to work with somebody that when they leave my organization or if, if we no longer work together that they can say I had a positive impact on them.

Speaker 3 (22:33):

Um, you know, there's people that I can think of that have gone off to do awesome things are in great spots of life. And I like to think that hopefully I had some sort of positive impact on their life. And that's why like to recruit is because I believe if they come work for me, that there'll be put in a better position than they were before. Um, if that's not true that I don't want to recruit them. And, um, that's why I love recruiting is because it's an opportunity to help change people's lives. So it, you know, and I don't know exact stats on my recruiting. I have, I have no idea. It could be 150 people. It could be 300, but yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Tough to

Speaker 2 (23:09):

Say. I mean, social media, you've pride. Lots of people you've maybe brought in indirectly and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (23:15):

And I actually, you know, kind of going back to it, I don't think I'm the best recruiter. I do think I'm a great networker though. I do think I'm a great networker, but I don't think I'm the best recruiter. Um, but I do know that networking over time is what's going to pay off. It's more a long-term thing than a short term thing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:31):

And I think the abundance mindset you have, that's one of the things I admire the most about what you're seeing is because there's so many reps, I'm sure you've been approached by people like, Hey bro, what's your red line? How much you make them per deal. I, in fact, I was in an, just like a month ago and this punk kid comes up. He's like, Hey, what are you doing on my turf? He's like knocking. I'm like, I've been here for a couple of weeks. Just, you know, getting some customers he's I gotta get that outta here. You don't even, you make trash and like stars in thinking he trying to like recruit me by like, say, I'm like, dude, do you think that that's gonna make me want to come work with you? Like, yeah, I can tack you mean saying, yeah. I mean,

Speaker 3 (24:11):

I think with recruiting, you gotta be, I mean, that's just a scarcity mindset, right? There's a limited amount of people in this neighborhood. Dude. How many times have you been through a neighborhood after another solar rep? And if you close deals in that neighborhood all the time, I've been to neighborhoods where people have come behind me and they've closed deals that I couldn't have. Like there's always going to be more homeowners. There's always going to be enough roofs. But when it comes to recruiting, timing is everything. And you never know when the timing is right. So if he would have approached you and said, Hey man, how's it going for you? Good. That's awesome. I've been in here. Just barely gotten here. Have you been in here for awhile? Sweet. I'm stepping on your toes. I can go find another turf. Okay. Okay, cool. Um, you know, this is what I've noticed in this neighborhood.

Speaker 3 (24:50):

You might like some of this, let me follow you on Instagram. You seem like a cool dude. And then you start talking to each other and you start communicating for the next three or four months. Let's say you're in a bad position with where you're at, which I'm not sh I'm sure you're not, but maybe you are. And then he helped you out in some way. He was cool to you. You're way more likely to go to him to talk about the opportunity he may have offered you then being like, you know, yeah. Being a Dick,

Speaker 2 (25:17):

Like, no. Yeah, no, that's you and you never know. It's like, like you said, maybe they have a pay issue. Maybe their company doesn't pay him like a year down the road or something happened. Maybe their company goes out of business and then who are they going to go to? They're going to go to the people who like cheer them on, who hit them up on social media, which I know you're talking about too. Just, you know, connecting with guys and networking. Like you're saying she has been huge for you, but yeah. Um, I want to hear a little bit about like the social media, uh, speaking of that, can you talk about just kind of what your, how you connect with people on social media and how you, um, I dunno, maybe strategies for guys who want to get better at the networking part on social media, because I'm not good at that. So yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:59):

I think one just being real and being vulnerable, right? Like sharing, sharing your things that you're, you're struggling with, right? Like you don't have to throw up on people, but just sharing your story, you know, Hey, I, I, I, I had depression growing up, you know, one thing for me, I grew up and I was on Zoloft. I was on antidepressants growing up, um, you know, struggle with that. I've struggled with, with being insecure. And when I share that part of me, there's other people out there that have dealt with the same thing and it makes me connect with them. And so by actually sharing your story and doesn't always to be sad, it can just be like documenting the journey. People will connect with you more, um, and sharing the good and the bad. And the next thing is spending time networking. And so I do what I do every day is I spend actually let me rephrase that.

Speaker 3 (26:47):

I used to do it a lot more. I can be better at it. I do a hundred touches on social media day, meaning that I, I talk to, or communicate with a hundred people a day, whether that's just sliding up in their DMS and just congratulating them. If it's a quick response of like, I see someone sell a deal, I'll just swipe, swipe up and say, nice job, brother. Um, you know, if I see somebody that, you know, whatever, I'll just find a way to connect. Just little comments, a little comments, I'll just talk to them and, um, just communicate with them. And then what I'll do is I'll just go find people that I'm interested in, in networking with and I'll follow them and I'll just start cheering them on, you know, over time, I'll just, you know, start to get to know them, sort to ask them questions, maybe take a video of myself, send them a video of me telling them, you know, what I'm grateful for about them.

Speaker 3 (27:32):

What I see in them, what what's powerful about them just spending time investing in other people, like just, just constantly be outpouring, love, gratitude, appreciation, value, and give out all of that for free, give out all your tips and secrets. If anybody wants to know, you know, anything I do that has got me to be, you know, somewhat, I feel like successful, at least I'm, I, I feel like I'm in a decent position and I have a long ways to go. I'm an open book and I want to give that to everybody because I believe the more I give out the law of reciprocation is going to give me back that tenfold. And so, you know, that's kinda my goal with social is how can I just give more out to the marketplace? Hmm.

Speaker 2 (28:11):

Yeah. It's sweet. Yeah. We just got, had the, uh, Mr. Thank you. You spoke here at door-to-door fists. Want to get him on too, but writes down, you know, five, thank you cards a day for a year. Yeah. And it's like, you don't have to be that extreme, but I mean, you did kind of your version of that on social media, I think, or that's what you've been doing.

Speaker 3 (28:29):

One of my, what I call them DMO daily method of operations. Um, you know, I believe in routines, I believe in a morning routine, very strongly, you know, work out every day, drink a gallon of water a day, re read, read a book every day. Um, meditate every day. Um, gratitude journal every day. But one thing that I've been working on is sending three people, a text message or a message every day of why I love them and why I'm grateful for them. Awesome. And, um, it could be anybody, like I mentioned, will Smith the other day will Smith. Is he going to respond to me? Maybe not, but if I send three texts a day, I got this from Jessie yet. So if I sent three text messages a day, that's 300, that's almost a thousand a year over the next 10 years. That's 10,000 messages.

Speaker 3 (29:12):

If I send 10,000 messages out over the next 10 years, do you think that one, one person liked will Smith would respond to me maybe? Right. And I made a connection with somebody I normally wouldn't have. Or you messaged somebody. He, Jesse talks about that. You have three things you consult, you congratulate, or what was the third one you can salt based or you can soul meaning if somebody has something that, um, or compliment, I was the third one. Okay. So consult, like somebody lost somebody in their family, something happened, you send them a message of con you know, consoling them hate, you know, I know you're going through a hard time. I just want to let you know. I love you. And I appreciate you. Um, and I'm here for you. If you need anything, you know, I'm thinking about you consoling, complementing, Hey, you know, I was thinking about you.

Speaker 3 (29:59):

One thing that I think you're really good at is I think, you know, specifically you, I think you're very, very sincere and you're very genuine, but more than that, you're a really good listener. And you're very, very attentive, which I love that about you. Right? So if you can make compliment somebody every day, that's awesome. Or you can congratulate somebody, Hey, I just saw that you, um, closed 10 deals this week. Congratulations. And that shows a lot about you. I just wanna let you know, I watching you, I'm seeing, you know, I'm rooting for you or whatever, right. But console congratulate or compliment. And you do that three times to three people. You can just open up your phone, go to your contacts list and just start scrolling through people until you feel someone that's on your heart. Boom. And then you can just record a video type out a message, whatever, but it takes what, five minutes, a day.

Speaker 3 (30:47):

Super easy to do. Super easy. Not to do, but once again, I'm a networker, not a recruiter. And then boom. Yeah. Or go, just go through your messages on Instagram or on your phone. Just scroll to the bottom who haven't talked to in two years. Okay. Boom. You know, you still love them. You still used to like them. I just haven't talked to you in two years, so, boom. Hey buddy. I know I haven't talked in a while. I know we're not super close friends, but I do want you to know, I I'm thinking about you and blah, blah, blah. Right. Just making touches every day.

Speaker 2 (31:16):

I love that. That's awesome. And yeah. Think of every solar person did that. If every solar printer did that, that'd be crazy. I mean, we'd be getting more deals for sure. Because yeah. I mean, think of even just from a sales perspective perspective, if you're doing that, I bet you get at least a few people you're being like, Hey, what do you do by the way? Yeah. Can you get me some solar panels? I mean, that's a side effect, but even besides that, it's like, you're not trying to recruit every person, but how many recruits have you gotten by doing stuff like that? Probably dozens, same thing with cells. Um, yeah, I think that's a huge key in anything we're doing, just having that mindsets and not looking for their award, but just doing it anyways. And then, you know, karma results are going to fall and to have success. So yeah. That's super cool. You're doing that. Yeah. That she got trained by Parker winder, right? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:05):

He had a conversation with me like four years ago, a long time ago and he taught me something, you know, be highly intentional, but lowly attached that always touched. Did he teach you that? I think he did. He's talking about my quadrant. So anyway, I, you know, I think that's how it is with life. Like, you know, just expect everything you want in your life, as long as you're putting in the work and you're being that person that will come. You just don't know when. Yeah. But so I'm highly intentional, but I'm lowly attached and you don't know, you don't know if that's going to be the customer that's going to buy. You don't care either way. You're not controlled if they choose to choose to buy or choose not to buy, but you are highly intentional and going into it and just live in a space of like, you, you trust God, you trust the universe, whatever you believe in that, what you want will come eventually, as long as you're doing the right thing. Nice.

Speaker 2 (32:53):

Yeah. It's money. Boom. See, I take note of that. Um, said money tip right there. Um, but I wanted to ask you too, um, river, do you have, like when you're reaching out to people, something that's, um, is tough for me on the social media thing is just, I get distracted, super easy ADT start wasting time on the social media and um, you know, end up just watching cat videos. Yeah. All that kind of stuff. So for you, when you're doing all the, obviously we know social media is good for all these things reaching out to guys, did you have like a set schedule or are you doing it? I know you're probably doing it intentional, but what's your kind of process as you go on social media and not get like distracted and actually have intention. When you're on social media, I spend

Speaker 3 (33:36):

So much time on my phone and it's not good. Um, so a lot of is I'm just strolling and I'm just watching people's stuff like not being intentional. And I just naturally will. I'll just naturally at the end of the video, I'll just type something on that. Mainly at stories. Yeah. Um, but no, like when I do it intentionally, it would be, I do my morning routine and then I'll after a morning routine I'll send and then I'll, then I'll get my phone after I've done my stuff and then I'll get my phone, open it up. Then I'll send the text messages, then I'll do the a hundred reaches, like reaching out when I'm doing it optimally, but I'm not as consistent. Yeah. Well,

Speaker 2 (34:10):

Yeah. I'm glad you struggle with it too. Not just me.

Speaker 3 (34:13):

It literally knows exactly what you want to see. It, it knows. I want to watch golf videos, fighting videos and motorcross videos and success videos. Those are like the four thing. It's like all of that. And I'm just like, oh, this is so entertaining.

Speaker 2 (34:27):

Oh no, they hate it. Um, yeah. So, no, I think that's key though. I was trying to be intentional, obviously easier said than done. Yeah. Um, but yeah. The other thing you talked about too in your presentation is just, um, I know he had the top golf story, recruiting guys at top golf the other day. How much of what you do? Are you like constantly as you're out just doing, I don't know, bowling activities, are you always looking for guys to recruit or do you have kind of like a set thing you try to do when you see all these guys could be good? Yeah, I can,

Speaker 3 (34:57):

I can be better at it. You know, Taylor McCarthy says, you know, you don't go anywhere to recruit you, recruit everywhere you go. Um, and for me it's more of, I'm not like that's not what I'm searching out. Like, you know, people that are do MLMs. Yeah. My, my, my dad is, that's what he does for, he has a produce stand and he does MLM. So I have a lot of respect for that, but I also get the, um, the NFL, the no friends league with MLM where it's like constantly, Hey, how you doing? Cool. Well, guess what? You can make $7 million tomorrow. If you get three friends, I get eight friends, but you have to be one of my friends, I sign up and it's just like, you're always looking for the pitch. Um, I just more as I go throughout my day, if I see someone open up the opportunity, Hey, it seems like, you know, this is a really good line for recruiting than I learned from Taylor.

Speaker 3 (35:41):

Um, he's, you know, Hey, especially like, let's say it's a waiter, let's say it's someone that's not really in a high level position. Hey, you seem to be really good at your job. You know, you're like I was at, um, four seasons and the person that was cleaning my cup clubs, I said, Hey, you seem to be really good at this. Um, is this a career for you? And obviously no, either like, no, it's not my okay. Cause you would do really, really well at what I do. And then you kind of pause really? What do you do? Well, I basically do the same thing that you do. I just serve people and I talk to people. Um, but I just get paid a ton of money for it. You know, I, our company actually just got off a hiring freeze. I can't, I, you know, I couldn't promise you a job, but I could get you an interview. Uh, I could promise you to interview. If I got you an interview, would you show up? That's like a great word track that Taylor taught me that I use quite a few times. Copy and paste word for word it's the money line. And I didn't create that. I just, I just, I just learned from everybody and try to try to take what works for the people and apply it.

Speaker 2 (36:48):

Yeah. Well that's Moneyline and yeah, I don't know if we mentioned it, but you won, um, what was the best recruiter at door to con but would've by the people, the people. Yeah. Once

Speaker 3 (36:58):

Again, you know, I don't think I'm the best recruiter. I just think I have influence in social media. So I got voted the most.

Speaker 2 (37:04):

Yeah. Well, and that just shows the influence you have, like, even if you're not people still recognize you and you have the amount of influence that. Yeah. It was good for seeing the results. Cool. So, yeah. Um, yeah, you know, your stuff and obviously you've had a ton of success. Um, so yeah, we appreciate you all the stuff you've shared river. Um, and then last thing I wanted to ask you just like in Texas, um, or yeah, you had the story about the guys at top golf that you recruited the other day. How, how big have you grown in your, um, um, you told a really cool kind of story about your transition from Utah to Texas, just kind of the struggles you, um, you went through and I know there's a whole, um, thing that changed in Utah with the net metering. So for our Solarpreneurs, can you kind of tell that story? Just, um, we like to hear about, you know, the failures, the struggles, and obviously that sounded super tight.

Speaker 3 (38:00):

So the net metering changed in Utah and long story short, we went on a blitz while we're trying to figure out a solution. We went in that blitz and Boise came back, thought we had a solution last minute we found out we didn't and there was a meeting. And, you know, I basically, we basically, you know, I, I basically didn't do a good job, um, in that meeting, leading those people, which led to a few of our main leaders, uh, in Utah leaving, uh, which led to about 75 people leaving the company over the past. That was pretty much starting in December from December, like April, we went from like 160 reps to like 75 reps and keep in mind we were recruiting people through that time period. So we will ask them a lot more than just the one 60 to 75. It was like, we probably lost like 80, 90 people.

Speaker 3 (38:51):

And then we were still recruiting people at, does that make sense? Um, and so we just lost a ton of people and, uh, you know, it, it, it literally brought me to like a place of like, man, I, I should not be, I should not be in leadership. This, this sucks. This is, and a lot of people that are very close to me left and, um, yeah, it was very emotional. And so the thing that I, uh, you know, I learned from that was one to be upfront and honest when you don't have a solution, because I pretend like I didn't feel like we were fine. The second thing is, is when there were, we pretend like we had a solution, I told everybody else to go and sell. It's going to be fine. You're gonna love it. And I, I was like, it was during that time I was kicking my feet up.

Speaker 3 (39:32):

And during that competition, I was because I shouldn't worry about it. I don't want to have to deal with the new net metering and have to learn it. So I was just like, put my feet up. So the thing at the second thing I learned is I need to do so if I'm going to ask someone else to do something hard, I need to be right there beside them and doing it with them. Um, and there's many more lessons I've learned, but what I'm grateful for is where we're going. We want to have a thousand reps and where we're at today. And the lessons that I've learned from that is gonna help me become the leader that can lead a thousand reps that I may not have learned without that, without that lesson. And so it's, it's given me a huge gift to, you know, the thing that I learned, John Frampton, I listened to that talk.

Speaker 3 (40:15):

He said, go look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, would you follow you? And I did that. I went into the mirror is in my truck. I could almost do it in my truck. I opened up my, my, you know, my little sun visor popped it open. I looked at myself, so what I follow me and I had a notebook. And a lot of, for some people I would like in these situations that would fall, man, I'm doing this well, but there's a lot of situations where I was like, hell no, I wouldn't follow you. And, um, it, it led me to see my weaknesses. It led me to see some of my downfalls and, um, now it's time to improve, right? It's now time for me to work on myself, to forge myself more into the leader that people need to have to be successful. And so it's been a gift, but, um, one of those gifts were crying. A lot of those games were some, some dark nights where of self doubt and insecurities and frustrations and heartache. And, um, but going to the darks where you get to the light. So I finally feel like I'm through the dark little house a couple of weeks ago, so,

Speaker 2 (41:20):

Well, I feel for you. Yeah. I was just glad when all those net-metering changes happened in Utah, I'm like, dang, I'm glad I already sold my parents' solar grandpa. I'm glad I'm in San Diego and Utah. Yeah. So yeah, I feel for you, man, didn't seem like, you know, super tough, all that changing overnight. I mean, kudos to you, but no, I really respected dude for being super honest, super raw with all the people that follow you. Cause there's a lot of like, as I'm sure you've seen a lot of people, I know that it's just flashed their, you know, cars flashing their money, but that's all we know about them. And people really respect the things you're talking about and not just seeing the money though, you know, Lamborghinis and all that. So one day, one day I'll get saved. So yeah. Um, so river, before we wrap up here working, do you want to tell people a little bit about your podcast, your brand, your, your, or gear and all that, where they can find all those things? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:15):

Um, so the valid morning podcast, you can find on all social media platforms or on all podcast platforms. I upload one, I try to do it, you know, five to five days a week. Um, but I haven't been consistent lately, but there's, uh, over almost over 200 episodes on there. Um, so tons of content for you to sift through and to, you know, kind of hear what's going on inside of my head and my perspective. So go to the valid morning podcast, listened to that, um, river James Skinner on Facebook and then river Jay Skinner on Instagram, just shoot me a follow and a DME. If you, you know, if you, if you heard this from the solopreneur DME and, uh, you know, let's just chat and I'd love to love to connect with you and, and help and serve given anyway. Awesome.

Speaker 2 (42:55):

Well, we appreciate you coming on. So guys go out, hit river up, tell them you appreciate them for being raw for sharing his story on the podcast. And we'll have guys in touch with you river and any last, uh, I dunno, words of wisdom you want to share with our Solarpreneurs before we say goodbye here.

Speaker 3 (43:11):

No, just be grateful. Be grateful. Your situation's better than you think it is. So just be great. Cool.

Speaker 2 (43:15):

Awesome. Be great guys. Go out and share this with someone who can value from it and, um, tell wherever you appreciate them again. And we'll see you guys on the next show. Thanks Ken river. Thanks.

Speaker 1 (43:28):

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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.