Next Level Pros - #146: This is Why The Solar Industry is Dying

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Welcome to a new episode of Next Level Pros! In this high-energy workshop, solar industry expert Chris Lee breaks down the critical strategies for building a profitable solar business. Designed for solar entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and installation company owners struggling with low margins and industry challenges, this episode provides a roadmap to transform your solar business from surviving to thriving.Highlights:"There's no such thing as lazy people. Only unclear people.""Competition is only the pain that you are solving.""Customers do not buy because of price, and reps do not work for you because of commission.""I would much rather recruit a C player and train them up to be a B player."Timestamps:00:00 Industry Introduction: Solar's Current Challenges09:50 Attracting Top Talent Through Clear Vision13:58 Why the "Red Line" Model Destroys Businesses20:30 The Importance of Prioritizing Company Health22:58 Breaking Down Revenue and Margin Structures25:22 W2 vs 1099: Building a Valuable Organization28:02 Motivating Sales Reps Beyond Commission29:01 The Fallacy of High Commission Rates30:16 Recruiting and Developing Sales Talent35:00 Leveraging AI and Technology in BusinessWant me to teach you how to grow your business? Text me! 509-374-7554Want access to more of my content? Click the link below for all of our latest updates and events!https://linktr.ee/nextlevelprosWant to be a guest on our show? Apply here!https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1YlkVBSluEKMTg4gehyUOHYvBratcxHV5rt3kiWTXNC4/viewform?edit_requested=trueWatch my latest PodcastApple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/next-level-pros/id1687030281Spotify- https://open.spotify.com/show/1e0cL2vI1JAtQrojSOA7D2?si=95980cd4e55a437aYouTube- https://www.youtube.com/@NextLevelPros

The last two years, the solar industry has been an absolute bloodbath. Companies like Titan, Lumio, Solstice, ADT Solar, SunPower, and now Sunova is threatening bankruptcy. They continue to shut their doors. Why? Because solar businesses keep running their solar companies like sales reps, allowing the tail to wag the dog and running the red line model. In this episode, I am speaking live to hundreds of solar business owners where I tell them their model is completely broken. Why the Redline model is killing the industry and what you should do about it. In this presentation I'm going to teach you exactly how to structure a budget that allows you to hit 25% net margins regardless of the

industry that you're in. You're also going to learn how to keep your sales reps motivated on a completely different compensation model. In addition, we're gonna introduce you to the eight pillars for growth in which we teach God Mode. So let's dive in. Give me a round of applause. Come on, give me a round of applause. Let's go.

Let's get some hooting and hollering. All right, all right. Let's go, let's go. Okay, so here's what I know about you. So the solar industry is obviously in disarray. There's a lot, it's been a bloodbath. It's been a bloodbath for the last two years and so you're here because you're committed to the solar industry. There's a lot of guys that aren't committed to the solar industry that have gone through the grind and they are no longer at the table.

And so one, I just want to congratulate you because you are committed. You're not satisfied with mediocrity. You're here to learn, to grow, to develop. You're taking time out of your day to be here with me. So I appreciate that. And hopefully you are tired of the status quo in solar. Okay, so for those that do know me, know that I am not a status quo guy. All right, so everybody else built their solar businesses

this way, I was completely this direction. Okay, I'm one of a handful of companies that was actually able to exit in this space. And it was because of the way that we built. It wasn't the status quo. How many of you guys are currently involved either in the sales side or the installation side of the solar industry?

And of those people, how many of you are not on a red line model? So first of all, congratulations to those that are not a part of the status quo. I love to call the red line the status quo, okay? And I know that may hurt for some of you guys that are like, oh, but I'm a sales dealer, or I'm this or that or the other.

But guess what, there's a reason why it's called the red line because that's what created the blood bath, okay? It's red for a reason, okay? It's not because it's profitable, okay? I've never seen any profits in red, okay? It's red for a reason, okay? It's not because it's profitable, okay? I've never seen any profits in red, okay? They come in black. So you're tired of it, hopefully. So what we do is we teach what's called

the eight pillars for growth. So now I run a company called Next Level Pros, and my intention today is that I can provide some value to you that you're gonna be able to go and take into your businesses that you're gonna be able to apply and that hopefully you'll have a desire to have an additional conversation with me. Okay so you'll see several different people wearing these shirts in the crowd and we're running a booth over here. My whole goal of this is that to give you value so much that

you'll want to book a call and dive in and see if we're a good fit. So we run a training platform, which I teach my exact model to be able to go and scale any company. I don't care if you're a solar company, any space. We consult hundreds of companies throughout the nation, in fact, throughout the world, on what we call our eight pillars for growth. I'm gonna briefly touch on these eight pillars, and I'm gonna dive deep into a couple of them, where we're gonna be able to

help create profitable organizations. How many guys wanna make a profit? Woo, yeah. So, how many guys are currently hitting 25% net margins? Okay, how many are not hitting 25% net margins? And how many of you guys are lying because literally only six people raised their hand? Okay, so 25% net margin is very rare especially in the solar industry and this is this is the model that we built on that we did this at hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue at 25 percent margins okay so we're gonna dive

into that so my commitment to you today is to get clear help you get clear on exactly what your next move is to help you take one step closer to that 25% net margin. Everyone good with that? Hey guys, it's Chris. Hey, a lot of you leave comments asking for help. Do me a real quick favor. Shoot me a text at 509-374-7554.

That's 509-374-7554. Shoot me a text, I'll answer and help you with whatever you need. Don't worry, I got you back. Let's go back to the show, baby. So why should you listen to me? So family man built multiple businesses while raising a family of five kids.

Love my wife, love my kids. Been in your shoes, taken very big risks, knocked on a lot of doors. I was, I was, I cut my teeth in the door-to-door industry, in the, in the sales industry. I was one of the top performers. I launched my first business when I was 24 years old. I had, that was my Mercedes CLS 500 that I had re-put out of my driveway after my first failed business. And that happened in 2000 end of 2010 beginning 2011 had everything ripped from me less than a thousand dollars in my bank account started completely over from scratch it sucked okay so I've I've been

there I've taken big risks I've lost big I've been hustling for 20 plus years I've knocked I've ran the teams I've done all the different things but I'm not just another sales guy I'm promised you that So I've invested over 1.3 million dollars in my personal income, just recently became a Harvard alumni, part of their owners, presidents, and management program. It's an executive program, three-year program there. And again, I built an 1,100 person organization00 person organization W2 employees not 1099 W2 employees out of my garage. Okay so these are just some of the behind the scene videos. They're things that from there. Okay again we did 233 million a

year revenue in less than five years. We're the six fastest growing company in the nation. Did all kinds of cool stuff, two different nine figure exits. One was one that I built from scratch, the other one I consulted from scratch, got an equity play on that. And then I had an additional business that I consulted, Denigit Equity, that I also exited for nine figures. Okay, so what we teach is what we call God Mode.

How many of you guys have ever heard the term God Mode? A little bit. So it comes from the gaming space. What does it mean to be in god mode? Can't be defeated. You play outside of the rules. Okay. Most of us are building our businesses in either player one status, right? Like we're sitting there, we're inside the rules, we have a little bit of autonomy of different things. Or sometimes we're even operating like a, my kids call it an NPC, the non-player character, right? Like we're just doing the same thing every single day. We hate our life and we freaking just show up and sell swords or whatever it

is that you do in video games. And so ultimately the goal is to work on your business, not in your business. And what I'm going to teach you is how we operate from Godmode. Get outside of the game, start working on it to be able to scale it up. First and foremost, the first pillar, again, I'm just going to briefly touch on a few of these things to give you an idea of what we teach and what it looks like to actually build a nine-figure organization. So it's what we call design. So designing is starting with a plan.

How many of you guys have a five-year roadmap of how you're building your organizations? One person, okay? One person in this room, okay? We call that the next level plan, where you actually design out five years and you work backwards from exactly the way you want your organization to look like, and you build it from what we call an execution chart. The execution chart is top to bottom,

how many salespeople, how many management, how many operators, how many installers, how many fulfillment, how many in finance, what does that all look like? That's top to bottom and next level plan with the exact roadmap of how you're gonna be able to do it. So one thing that I love to say is there's no such thing as lazy people.

Absolutely, there's no such thing as lazy people, only unclear people. When you do not have a clear plan of what you were building that sucks right like you're unmotivated to show up to work you don't even know why you're taking the daily activity maybe it's the way that you feel in the solar industry right now I'm just like dude I'm just grinding just trying to survive just trying to make it to my next paycheck next payroll next whatever else how many guys have ever felt that way? Okay.

Everybody else who isn't raising their hand, you're lying. So creating a plan is part of the design process. You have to get crystal freaking clear to be able to know exactly what the next action is to take because otherwise you're sitting in a dark tunnel No light and you have no idea if I take a step forward even if it's in the right direction the plan creates clarity you see exactly where you're going and so you know that every single step actually matters and When you're clear again, you are motivated you take the action. You're excited again There's no such thing as lazy people, only unclear people.

And so with this is all about designing the vision, the mission, the core values, the execution chart. This is absolutely vital where most people absolutely miss. Again, they don't even know. Maybe they planned the next quarter or the next year, but most of them aren't even thinking big enough to be able to go on a five-year roadmap.

So that's like one of the absolute imperative parts. That's one of our pillars. And the thing is, is when you get clear on vision, you're able to attract the biggest talent. How many of you guys struggle with getting the right talent in the door? Okay. How many would love to just get unlimited talent talent in the door? Okay? How many would love to just get unlimited talent in through the door? It literally starts with what we're talking about from a design standpoint. Because when I sit down with somebody in

my garage and I've got three employees in there and I say, yo it may not look like it but this is what we're gonna do. So over in the next five years we're gonna have 500 employees we're going to design. but this is what we're gonna do. So over in the next five years, we're gonna have 500 employees where you're going to design. This is exactly what it's gonna look like. You're gonna be coming in at this part of the org structure, the execution chart, and then this is where we're gonna be able to go on scale. You cast a vision, you show them the roadmap

of what it looks like to be able to go and obtain that. And he who casts the biggest vision with a clear path, not just a big vision, it's not just, hey, we're gonna go do all these cool things, we're gonna do all these cool things and this is how we're going to get there, you're gonna start attracting your ideal employee. And because the reality is, Chris Lee has a very big vision,

but if Elon Musk called me up today and he said, Chris, I want you to run operations to getting to Mars, I'd be like, ah, she is. I'd just drop everything and I would go. Why? Because Elon Musk, Chris Lee has a very big vision, but Elon Musk is freaking going for Mars, right? Way bigger vision, and he has a clear direction on how he's going to get there

and so he would be able to recruit over whatever talent he wants, right? And so that's that is the basis of it. Culture, a lot of you guys, how many guys run sales departments? Okay, so a lot of you guys are awesome at this. Culture is all about the human development, the recruiting, recognition, competition, environment of trust. We're not going to go super deep into that, but just know that there is a whole lot more to why people are with you than pay. Okay. Just like customers don't buy from you because of price reps and employees do not work for you because of compensation. Okay. This is absolutely vital. We don't have enough time to go super deep into it. And at the end of the day,

people will bleed for two things and two things only. It's not pay, it's culture, and it's a piece of the pie, a way to be able to share in the upside in some level or direction, or at least a vision on how they can go and share in that. Okay, so this is where we're gonna dive a little bit deeper in and where most of you guys have things completely screwed up. It's the offer, okay?

And the offer is not just what am I charging, but what kind of value am I providing to my customer, both internal and external. What kind of value am I providing to my employee, to my residential solar customer, to what are the different services, everything like that, and going through and mapping out an experience. How many of you guys have your customer experience completely mapped out? Again, we have three hands.

Okay, so going through and actually understanding what differentiates you from every single other person on the block, because ultimately, this is one of my core principles of running business. There's no such thing as competition. Okay, no such thing as competition. Competition is only the pain that you are solving. Okay? Because just because ABC Solar down the street offers X, Y, and Z does not make them the same product or service that you offer.

So mapping out an experience and identifying ways that you are going to be completely different to your customer is absolutely imperative. And from that, you're going to be able to go back, and that goes back to the designs factor, and be able to identify what employees you need in your organization, but then also really develop out the offer and exactly what you're going to do to separate. And then there comes the pricing, okay? So again, how many of you guys are running on a Redline model? Why is Redline terrible?

Or, I mean, you guys all probably think it's fantastic. Okay, so we have a Redline installer, sales rep, whatever, this is what customer pays. Why is that terrible? Tell me, come on. You've thought about this. What's that? No, okay, so first of all, I think there's no morality in price. That's a bunch of bull crap. There's no such thing as a moral price.

I don't care who you talk to or whatever else. Doesn't exist. There's only morality in the way that you offer something to a customer. If they know exactly what they're getting and exactly what they're paying, there is no morality in price. Okay? So, red line, the reason why a red line is absolutely death is that this is what it takes to deliver that customer. Right? This is the cost of goods sold. This is the experience.

This is all the talent that's directly related to that customer getting it. So it doesn't matter where they pay, they get the same exact experience. Okay? So my plea to the solar industry, to any industry as a whole, is to stop letting the tail wag the dog. And what I mean by that is sales organizations, sales people wagging the dog and determining what price the customer pays and the value that you're actually able to deliver to that customer. Because again, this customer could be paying $3 a watt, they could be paying $4.50 a watt,

they could be paying $10 a watt, and still they get the $2 and 20 watt experience. That freaking destroys the industry. And I am going to be the, I'm going to shout that from the rooftops. You're going to disagree with me. You're like, but Chris, it's so great to make all these commissions and all these different things. But guess what? Why do you think we've been experiencing what we've been experiencing in the industry for the last two, three years? It's because of this crap. At the end of the day, if I as the company want to set the price, I should be able to have the additional benefit of charging more so that I can go and add additional to this experience.

I can hire better people. I can provide a better product, I can go into my total customer experience mapping versus the sales rep charges more and I get nothing more to be able to deliver to that customer. Hey guys, it's Chris. If you're finding value in what you're hearing, go ahead and like and subscribe. That way people just like you can find this content for free here on YouTube now let's start

back in the show so first of all kind of stop running our sales sales companies our businesses like a sales rep I come from a background of being a sales rep and this is the hardest thing about being an entrepreneur is not to put myself back into the shoes of where I once was okay and think like oh I want the highest commission or I want this I want that whatever right so priorities in fact I was having a I was having a discussion with the guy earlier and he's on the install side and he's like yeah you know I make all my decisions based off of like,

do they put the customer first? And he's like, don't you agree? And I was like, no, I don't, I don't agree. In fact, I think most people have their priorities completely jacked up. So most guys, their priorities are customer, employees or reps, and then company. And what happens, it's like I either charge the customer more or less or whatever, do what I think to take care of the customer, then I take care of the reps. And if there's a

little bit of money left over, then I take care of the company. The reality is the only way that you're going to run a business that is worth anything and going to provide value to anyone, number one has to be company. And I tell you this from personal experience, my very first business I made decisions on this model. Okay. I charged the customer less. I paid the rent more. Right. So it was like this is where I should have been charging. I charged here. This is where I should have been paying and I paid here. And just with that little leftover I was trying to survive. Okay. Versus if I build a model that takes care of the company first, then I can take care of those people that I employ and I'm going to dictate. Again, I'm not going

to let the tail wag the dog. I'm not going to pay on a red line model. I'm not going to overcompensate from a commission standpoint. I am going to dictate and provide an incredible experience that's going to be able to take care of these people and provide a steady paycheck, opportunity for growth, development, potential equity upside, whatever it is. And then, so that's my employees or my team, and then the customer will always be taken care of because ultimately when my first business went out of when my in a second when my first business went out of business when we filed bankruptcy guess who got screwed the customer the customer got hosed.

Nobody was there to answer their phone calls. Nobody was there to service their systems. Nobody was there to like take care of any of those type of things. Totally hosed because why? Because I put them first. Because I did what I thought I was supposed to be doing to serve them. Bullcrap, I got to serve the company. I got to make sure this thing is super freaking healthy.

It's going to be in business for the next 20, 30, 40 years. And the way I do that is with high profit margin. And I can't do that under a red line model. And then, guess who got screwed? Man, I had people calling me up, like, Chris, you screwed me. I had people calling me up like Chris you screwed me I'm out here in Houston I have a 12 month lease and I've been here three months I know I don't have a way to put food on the table but I thought

you wanted to hire PayScale right like that's literally what was going through my mind but guess what because I didn't put the company first, I could not take care of them. So ultimately, we have to build a model that is this. So this is the model that I teach and I preach across the board, okay? Direct cost needs to be 40%. And the way that you're gonna calculate this if you are a sales dealer is you have to calculate in your EPC model into your direct cost because that's your direct cost. Okay? And you got to take the total revenue that you

received after any dealer fees. That's your true revenue. Okay? That's what's getting paid. Even though your installer may. That's what's getting paid. Even though your installer may be paying you after the fact, you paid for their services. Now, one key thing to realize here, I teach how to get to a 25% net margin, but it is impossible if you are splitting those margins. So the only way that you can actually successfully get there in the solar industry is you have to do sales and installation. If you don't do that 25% is going to be split between you and the installer from a net profit standpoint. And so you have your revenue, which is 100%, you have your cogs, which is 40%, giving you a 60%.

Now, this is a target. Sometimes it's not completely attainable. Sometimes it's a little bit difficult to get to. We ran our solar business between 56% to 57%. Now I understand markets change and all like all the excuses everybody's got everyone's got an excuse of why you can't do this or why it doesn't work or whatever else. I promise you this is possible this is being implemented today in today's markets by solar companies by roofing companies by freaking all different types of service

companies across the board, they're using this model and having success. Okay. From there, you have sales and marketing. This has to be 20%. And we're talking 20% of the total revenue, not 20% of what is given to you as a sales dealer, 20% of the total revenue. So for example, if you have, if you are net charging after dealer fees and everything, $4 a watt, you have 80 cents to sales and marketing. And the key thing here is to understand, first of all, what is sales and marketing? A lot of guys are like,

well, I run a door-to-door program. That is both sales and marketing. Marketing is when they knock on the door and get somebody interested. Sales is what happens at the table, right? So marketing on Facebook is your marketing, sitting at the table over Zoom is the sale, okay? And typically, the way that I structure this

is a 10 in 10 model, 10% to marketing, and 10% to sales. Again, no red line model, we're talking percentage of revenue that you pay, okay? Now the key thing here to understand is we're talking 10% to the whole sales organization, not 10% to your reps. We're talking about full stack, five year plan, exactly what it's going to look like to have a vice president, a director of sales, a regional manager, a team lead, and seven people under each one of those each one of those team leads. That whole stack has to be paid with 10%. Now if you have

again a door-to-door model and you're purely door-to-door now you have 20% to deal with But the key thing is like when you bring on other marketing type strategies whether it's Facebook or cold email or whatever whatever it is That is coming from here And you have to reduce the amount of compensation and you have to have a completely different structure for that type of marketing strategy. Okay. So you had a question. So I built my organizations off of W2. I mean the

reality is regulation is completely changing. You've seen it happen across the board of California, whatever else. And 1099 is really difficult to be able to have any real equity value, right? Because for somebody to technically be 1099, they have to be able to have contracts with everybody else, right? Like they can't be using any company tools, they can't be showing up and having mandatory meetings. All the things that actually build a real organization you can't do under a typical 1099. You may be able to do with like five to ten people, but if you want to build something that's actually worth value, you can. So again, so when we're talking like top to bottom, this is the ideal

Stack that you're looking at again if you are not the sales and the installer 10% of the total revenue stack should be what the installer is making From a net profit standpoint and let me give you an idea They are taking 10% say this is like $4. Well, say this is $4 and they're taking 10%. They're making 40 cents and say they're redlining to you at 210, 220, they should be able to run their whole operations off of a buck 70, a buck 80 and make 40 cents

does that make sense it's fallen and so 15% of the total stack is what you should be netting out of four dollar a watt if you're just a sales only installer this is the ideal structure okay again not always obtainable but if you have a target if you know what your numbers are and you're actively designing and working towards it, it becomes way more obtainable versus what has gone on a lot in the solar industry where guys don't know their numbers,

operating off of redline models, right? Just completely destroying their market because of this red line. Again, the reason why a red line is red is because one, red numbers aren't profitable, and two, that's where all the blood comes from in the streets right now. Dude, it is the destruction of our industry.

Does anybody have any more questions regarding this stack and how to properly build that out from an overall budgeting standpoint? That's a great question so how do you keep guys motivated? Here's the thing that I'll tell you about sales reps that I've seen over the last because I've been in this industry since 2014. 2014 the industry in California was almost where it is at today like it was super saturated 2014 almost like nothing is drastically changed so here's the thing if you pay a sales rep everybody has a number I don't care what who you are what

what you believe everybody has a number where it don't care what who you are what you believe. Everybody has a number where it's like I need to make that number. Okay if a sales reps number is 20k a month and I'll give you two different scenarios. One you use my model and they make let's say $2,000 or two you use a red line model and they make $10,000. How many deals do you think that they will sell under this model? Ten. How many deals do you think that they will sell under this model? They'll sell freaking two and we've seen it. We've seen as the whole industry has shifted over to a red line all it's done is decreased the actual volume of

accounts that are being sold on a per rep basis. Those reps aren't making more money and guess who's really getting screwed? If as an installer you are doing it for less and less and you're getting less and less volume nobody freaking wins and so how do you guys keep them motivated first of all help them understand this principle like like and be transparent with the sales rep is absolutely imperative like yo look you can go and work for somebody else and yeah they're gonna tell you to do this or you could be here where we're actually gonna take care of your customer we're gonna provide value we're gonna train you and develop you you're gonna have you're gonna have five times the amount of

referrals because you have a large customer base you're actually gonna feel motivated and fulfilled because you're doing real work instead of treating this like some half-a job on the side and doing two deals a month. And you actually provide value outside of pay. Again, customers do not buy because of price and reps do not work for you because of commission. It is the biggest lie that has ever been told and I'll tell you from personal experience, when I owned my business, my home security business, I could go out and sell and make $1,500 in account. And in fact, after my first company failed, I started up a small home security dealer and I did that. I made

$1,500 in account. Okay. Then I decided to swallow my pride and go back to work for somebody else, go work for Vivint. Guess how much I made at Vivint? $550 in account, okay? A third of what I was making as a dealer, okay? Where do you think I made more money? I freaking made three times the amount of money working at Vivint at $550 in account than I did working for myself at $1500. Why? Because Vivint provided five hundred and fifty dollars an account than I did working for myself at $1,500 why because they've provided the systems the support the culture the

Development the brotherhood everything that I loved about knocking on doors came from Vivint and There are and if you continue to pay on a redline model You just will not be able to invest in that type of an experience. So this is the typical structure under a 10% model. I'm gonna provide them leads, okay? And a sales rep is going to make between 3 1⁄2 to 4 1⁄2% if somebody else set it for them and it was a lead generated, okay?

And this is going to this is going to fluctuate based on monthly production. Okay? Then there's a team lead that's going to make an override. Okay, and Then there's also a setter that's involved and a setter is going to make between 1 to 2% But again, we're providing we're providing leads for that. And then what that does is it allows for the full stack to be able to fit within 10 total compensation incentives, management, development, training, all fits in my total 10% stack.

And what happens when you pay on a compensation structure like this? Instead of guys selling to a month These guys are gonna sell 12 to 15 a month so this is another one of my theories I hate recruiting a players Okay Why a a players think the world is owed to them a? Players think that they already got everything figured out.

A players think that they should be your boss. A players like all the negative things. I would much rather recruit a C player and train them up to be a B player than I would ever to get a B plus or above. And so the vast majority building my sales organizations is training guys where I can identify characteristics of a killer versus somebody that's proven themselves in

somebody else's model that is completely broken. I would much rather recruit a C-level player somebody that's maybe had a job at a coffee shop or whatever else but has demonstrated certain characteristics. I use something called the disc analysis. The disc analysis is absolutely phenomenal to be able to identify great characteristics. A high D, high I is a player from a characteristic standpoint, even though they may have not demonstrated it in their previous work experience. How many guys are getting some value? You getting some good stuff? Alright. Again, if you are getting some value, I would recommend that you book a call. Again, we can dive into your individual needs and what you're building in your organization. I will go over it. Again, no high-pressure sales. If it's fit, if it's not,

that's fine. The only reason I work today is because I love training and development, providing value to two different industries. Like it's what gets me excited. I tried retirement for six weeks, absolutely sucked and I'm like I gotta get back. I gotta get back. I love being in the ground. I love being with the people. I love building teams. So again, so if you find a value from what you're seeing, book a call. Happy to go through some different things. So I'm gonna touch on the last different pillars I think we got about six more minutes and then we'll so we'll do some Q&A real quick

So expansions that the other pillar which is your marketing your sales your financial growth strategy impact quadrant This is like a specific thing to make sure that you are not wearing the wrong hats within your organization. A lot of us are spending most of our time doing unproductive tasks in our in our business where we could actually go and hire and replace ourselves being in the things that what we call quadrant four which is high energy high value that's the goal in business don't have too much time to go through that. The systems the procedures processes the checklist the tool software stack, AI integration. How many guys are utilizing AI right now in your business? Okay, so let me give you just a couple good goodies to take away. There's a lot of software that you can download on your phone which are

great, but you've got to remember to turn them on and everything else. This little guy that I'm wearing, you guys have probably seen it, the Plot Note is absolutely game changing. I've been wearing it for three, two, three weeks now, and it is unreal, unreal. So I am training a GBT on exactly how I interact. The level of feedback that it can do from a sales, if I was sitting in your guys shoes and had a sales organization, I would require that a guy wears this every single day. It could go for two days recording based on one charge

and literally just get every bit of transcript in there. You could plug that sucker right in GBT and say, give me feedbacks on my sales interactions. Boom, you're gonna have it all right there. 30 bucks a month. 30 bucks a month and you're gonna be it all right there 30 bucks a month 30 bucks a month you're gonna be able to do that plod pl-a-u-d don't even got an affiliate commission on that sucker you just go get it so like and this is also a way

that I'm building my SOPs I'll go and interact with somebody I'll be like hey make sure you do this this is this and I'll go back to I'll go back to so my assistant downloads the raw files of this and I'll be like hey make sure you ask about this SOP make sure you ask about this and it'll literally design out all my SOPs all my sales feedback all my interactions everything based off of what I am doing on a day-to-day basis I would be utilizing this with my sales organization top to bottom, easiest, cheapest money you ever spent. Any questions?

Other AI stuff, dude, there's freaking all kinds of AI. We go super deep on this. Somebody had a question? No? Okay. Impact is what is our name for KPIs, is indicators, measuring performance, achievement, change, and trends,

having proper dashboards, analytics, training, development across the organization, accountability, which all kinds of different things from a feedback loop standpoint, performance reviews, firing, finance, budgets, break evens, knowing your numbers. It's remarkable to me how many people don't know their numbers.

Like, I was freaking, asking a couple guys out in the hall, I'm like, hey, what is this? And they're like, I don't know. Like, you're going to have to talk to my account. And I'm like, dude, that is the most important number you should know. We were just talking about net profit. I'm like, how do you not know where your net profits are?

Or how do you not know what your revenue is? Or, you know, different things like that. Creating the educated budgets top to bottom development of leadership cadence of meetings hard conversations crisis management perfected communication and mindset frameworks these are all the different things that that we teach within within our community again and invite you to be a part of it the cool thing is to be in our community it's less than the cost of a of a minimum wage employee it's's like having a business, a business partner in

your corner without giving up equity. It's the absolute most remarkable thing ever. But the best thing I can tell you, I don't care if you join my community, really don't. Like don't need your money, but invest to be in the right rooms. That is the number one thing that I would say has changed my life. In 2015 I made a decision that every single quarter I was going to do something. I was going to be at a workshop. I was going to be at a mastermind. I was going to be in the room with somebody that was kicking my a in a total performance level. And since 2015 I've spent 1.3 million dollars to be in these types of rooms. I've been trained

and developed and and mentored from some of the greatest like the things I share with you are just a conglomerate of everything that I have taken from these different mentors. So the best advice I can give to you today is the number one the number one cost on your PNL is opportunity cost and the way you fix this opportunity cost it's what I could be doing what I could be obtaining the number one way that you fix that is you get in the right rooms of people that have ran that map people that have gone and developed a built it out like when I'm hanging with my friends one of my best friends in the world

Otto Sajan he nets 4.3 billion dollars a year nets like that is a cool guy to hang around that is a guy that I want to be rubbing my shoulders because that blows my mind I have no idea how to get to 4.3 billion dollars a year in net but I'm gonna continue to hang around and and do everything I possible to be in those right rooms. So get in the rooms, network with the right people, pay for the right programs. Ultimately the dollars don't change, it's the time that it takes to achieve those dollars. A million over 20 years or a million over two days is the same exact number. The only thing that changes is time. Figure out ways that you can compress time.

But again, the best way that I know how is getting in the right rooms. Guys, I appreciate you coming out. If you haven't had a chance, make sure you book a call. Would love to chat with you and appreciate you guys coming out.