The Code To Winning - HOW TO BUILD A RELENTLESS SALES TEAM IN 2025 || JON SORIANO || EPISODE 037

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

HIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED 2 YEARS AGO we recently retrieved the data and files so excuse the quality VIDEO & AUDIO may not be up to speed.   This is the last of the 2023 batch.   HOW TO BUILD A RELENTLESS SALES TEAM Jon is a relentless solar sales leader known as one of the best in the industry and this interview covers what it takes to lead from the front and build and important door to door team

Hi guys, again, this is one of those episodes that recorded about two years ago. John Soriano is one of the VP of Sales for Legacy Power, one of the biggest solar industries, and one of the first few guests that we had as well when we went all the way to San Diego, the big 619. This interview is all about leadership, relentlessness, and going after your goals as well. Again, the reason why we always do these things is to give you a bit of a bit of a realignessness. rehash. This was done about two years ago and so please enjoy the video. Either you comment on the description as well. Thank you very much. On today's episode of Coat Winning, we actually have John Soriano. He's one of the leaders

in solar industry. Actually has a team of about 200 reps, aka known as the general. So it's my great honor to actually welcome our guest today on Coat Winning John Soriano. Thank you, boss. Thank you, KG. How are you doing today? Dude, I'm winning man. I'm great. I'm excited to be here. Thank you for the opportunity, really. It's an honor and privilege to be here, so appreciate you having me on. Before then, sorry for arresting you. I've been harassing you nonstop through DMs, through text, through phone calls,

but I appreciate the time you took to actually sit down with us, discuss a bit more about how you actually have a winning mentality and how you're winning life as well. Sure. No, and again, I appreciate you. Like, I'm huge on having a spirit of honor. You know, one of my mentors early on taught me what you honor flows to you. And so meaning if you honor somebody else, than what they have will flow to you.

So I appreciate that. I don't view it as harassing. I just think you saw something that you wanted to learn more about, and that's you honoring that. So I just want to say thank you to you, man, because I think more people need to be like that. I think more people need to seek and pursue what it is they want our life, and that's exactly what you did.

Awesome. Thank you very much. So just give us a background of who John Suriana is. Give us the background of who you are, where you are you from, and how did you start in the door-to-to-door industry as well? Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, quick 30-second. In the bio, I mean, I was born in Honduras, born in a third world country.

I was born in what's called the murder capital of the world. So at a young age, I actually saw a third world poverty. Moved out of the, my parents got out of Honduras when I was six years old. I was raised in Cleveland, Ohio. So I grew up in the snow. Definitely the cold is not where it's at for me. I always make a joke like I'm brown, I belong in tropical weather. But I was there from the age of six to about 19.

When I was 19 years old, I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. So then I got stationed in beautiful San Diego, California. Nice. And then that's been home since then. That was 2011, got out in 2014. And then I stayed here, you know, and then from 2014 to 16, I tried school, I tried different ventures and couldn't really find something that was like in alignment with what I wanted to do.

And then 2016 is when I started solar through a good friend of mine and started from the very bottom. They didn't know anything about door door or about sales, about solar, but I was hungry. I was committed to learn the process. I saw a lot of my friends making good money in solar back then. So I was like, you know what? If they can do it, then I can do it too. And then the rest is just a history.

You know, it's just history. It's been the first two or three years where the heart is. But, you know, once you kind of get that first momentum, I mean, it's a beautiful thing. You know, I think people underestimate the power of a compound, just taking action and just combine that over a course of a few years. So, yeah, fast forward today. You know, we have a large sales. division you know we're like last year we paid out about 20 28 million dollars and

rep commission so that's how much just my division alone paid out and it's a really cool thing to help raise up wealth creators you know because that's one of my passions too it's just to really raise up people who create wealth because I believe money is a weapon and that weapon can be used for good or bad you know there's people who use money for bad then there's people who use it for good and I want to raise up an army of people who use money but for the purpose is of good. So you've done solar in California from the very beginning. You've never used or been in a different state before. It's always been San Diego. Yep. And have you been any

other part of San California, like the Bay Area or Los Angeles? Just San Diego for the past? Just San Diego. Yeah. So been here. I've just known one market, one company, one product for the last seven years now. So yeah, it's been Southern California. So it's not just San Diego, but I would say more Southern California. We have teams all the way. from you know as far as kind of San Bernardino area or Bakersfield all way down here and then we just recently opened up an office in Orlando as well we're currently in talks in Maryland and then also we're strategizing building a team in Arizona as well so I mean this is my stomping grounds I'm a huge advocate of do one thing and do it really well before you start doing two three other things

I think a lot of people right now you know we see these quotes of like the average millionaire has like seven shoes of income. And I think people take that too literal. They're like, oh, that means they got to be doing seven different things. It's like, no, do one thing for a few years, do that thing so well that that becomes a massive cash cow and then branch off and do other things. And that has been my strategy with solar as well. It's like, hey, I just dominated one market. And that's what I've done for the last six years. So for six years, it was just Southern California. That's it. But just up until last year, is when I finally started venturing out into other markets. And then cool, now I'm going to build a team here, now here, but I'm doing all that with this being my foundation, right?

And then start breaking your into other things. Awesome. I've only done it for a year and a half. And there's people like the U, the Ashtons that are so experienced in this field. I know that there's been a lot of negative connotations about the new NEM 3.0 that's been coming out as well. People have actually been giving a scaring a lot of the wrecks out. And I actually saw one of your reels, which kind of like explained it in. depth of the opportunity regarding that as well. Can you kind of like just touch a bit on

base on the NEM 3.0? Yeah, you know, so big picture is this. NEM is bad for solar. Yes, right? NEM3 is bad for solar. Obviously nobody likes change, right? I like that you don't sugarcoat that. I like that. Yeah. And NEM is sure. Am I going to say it's good for solar people? Of course not. Or install or of course not. However, we have to look at the bigger picture. You know, NM3 is actually good for the whole energy infrastructure. Right now we have to understand that the grid is broken, you know, and that it needs, some change needs to happen. Now, there's two options that could have happened. Number one, the utilities could have invested billions of dollars to upgrade the energy

infrastructure. And if they did that, though, the cost would then be passed to the consumers. So then the consumers would just see an increase dollar amount, right? But then also, what do you do when in five, ten years you've got to upgrade again? Because energy demand is going up, right? And so we can't keep up with it. So that was option one. Option two, though, is figure out a way to kind of decentralize how energy is managed and handled.

And that's what NEM3 is trying to address. The biggest change, we all know this, with NEM3, is that to go solar now, you're going to have to pretty much get a battery, right? And what that's supposed to do is help take some of the stress off the grid. So then that way, there's not this imbalance of production in and out on the grid. Because what happens is right now during the day, so between the hours of like 10 to 3 p.m., that's when solar production is the highest.

So that's when you get the most production, but demand is the lowest during that time. Okay. So that energy has to get stored somewhere, okay? And then the grid has to store it. But then what happens is after like 5, 7 p.m., solar production dips, and then demand goes up. So then now they have to figure out

how to get more power on the grid because then we can rely on solar. So it's a really imbalance. A battery is just supposed to equalize that and make it so that during the day, when production is at the highest, is getting stored on the batteries instead of on the grid, and then during the nighttime, instead of pulling from the grid, you're not pulling from the battery. And that's going to help solve instead of us spending billions of dollars to, because people stay there,

like, well, the utility should upgrade the infrastructure. Sure, they can do that. But if they do that, who do you think they're going to pass the cost on to? They're going to pass it on to the consumer. So it's, there's no way. It's either, you know, you go solar, get a battery, or you just see an increased bill. There's no necessarily good situation. But I'm actually excited by an EM3 because I think the next evolution of solar is storage.

And I do think if we want to be a society that relies on renewable power, which is the whole vision of solar, we have to understand that in order to effectively do that, batteries is a part of that equation. And you definitely think, obviously, California is going to be the start and the entire country will actually implement the exact same structure that California is doing, right? Yes, 100%. You know, that's if we're going to go towards a renewable future, which when, you know, another big picture here is you look at the Inflation Reduction Act. Yeah. A huge component of the Inflation Reduction Act that was passed last year is there's billions,

I mean hundreds of billions of dollars going into the renewable sector. You know, there's money going. Of course, we know the tax credit got bumped back up to 30%. Now it's for 10 more years. Now you can get a battery, you can get a tax credit on a battery, stand-alone, install. There's also tax incentives for battery management. manufacturer. So now if you manufacture the battery domestically, there's also a tax share for that. So there's a lot of incentives going into the renewable sector. So I do

think as a nation, we're heading towards becoming more reliant on renewable energy, renewable energy than we are on the old school, you know, natural gas, fossil fuels. So but in order for us to see that vision be a reality, we're also going to need some type of storage. So I do think in the years to come, we will see other states adopt the same thing. I I mean, here's the thing about California. California has always led the way in solar. You know, we've been number one for, I think, forever in terms of, like, deployed kilowatt. So I think in a few years, we'll see how their markets start to adopt the same thing.

100%. Like I said, I've done solar for a year and a half. Before then, I was in pest control. The paychecks couldn't be more different. Like, it's opposite end of the spectrum. You know, you get like $200 per sale. And then compared to, like, my first self-gen, my wife and I thought, like, this is actually mind blowing as well. Now I've known that solar kind of sells itself.

You know it's 30% tax incentive, you know, increase the home value of the home. People get to own their own power as well, all these different stuff. My question to you, one of the things that attracted me to actually want to sit down with you is the fact that he's such a great leader. I could see it through your rails, through how while you're respected in the industry, people like to look up to you in my year as well. I have had a few guys under me this past few years, but I'm taking out an actual team. What's the best advice you would give from your six years experience for a person that's can actually be a district manager or a person that's going to be a regional or divisional? What's the advice you would give for those people and myself included?

Yeah, so you're saying for people that want to step into a leadership within solar, yeah. Not just with you guys, but actually leadership in the entire summer. And I want to say like, you know, this is what gets me the most past. passionate and fired up a solar. I love seeing lives transformed. I really do. I mean, I can tell you story after story after stories of guys that were once Uber drivers, you know, and then now they're, you know, buying homes, you know, or came in broken. They were maybe drug addicts, you know, a few years ago, and then now they're married and, you know, have homes as well and drives nice cars. And, you know, and not that money is like necessarily the root of

happiness. I don't believe that. I mean, I think money definitely gives you options in life, in life but that's what I get most passionate about is seeing lives transformed you know seeing men become better husbands men become better fathers or seeing like we have a story of a girl who she met her husband and she's going to marry in like a week but he was like installing one of her jobs you know he was an installer yeah yeah he in san diego yeah here in san diego like she showed up to one of the installs and he was the foreman and you know he was like asked he like asked her on the date and now they're getting married like a week you know But I love those stories.

I love seeing just transformation happen. Because she wouldn't have gone there if she hadn't learned how to be a good closer, right? You know, because has she given up, she would have missed on the opportunity. So to go to your question, what advice would you give? I think the biggest thing that holds people back the most is their own paradigms. We have to realize that a lot of who we are today, we learned it between the ages of zero and seven. That is when our true self was formed. And I know one of my struggles as a leader was dealing with this idea of I'm not worthy.

And every leader, every leader, no matter how big or how small, to some degree, doesn't feel good enough. I have days where I wake up and I don't feel good enough, you know. And I've been, I've also even, like, I've been blessed to be mentored by many people who are multimillionaires, you know, and they will even tell me that some days they don't feel good enough. And there's always this battle in the mind that's happening. And that's what takes out a lot of new leaders is they don't feel good enough to do it. And how we respond to that can be a different way. Like some people just went away from it.

Some people deal with maybe respond in anger. So the advice I would say is work on those paradigms. You know, do the work to go against that version of you that doesn't feel good enough. Now, how do you do it? There's many ways. I mean, you know, your mind is just programming. And just like how you would, the way. you would reprogram a computer by giving it a new code, same thing with the mind.

You know, read the books, listen to the podcast, do the work, you know, tell yourself, look yourself in the mirror. I know that sounds like simple, but it is supposed to be simple, but people just don't do it. You know, look yourself in the mirror and just be like, hey, I am worthy of this. I am worthy of leading a team. You know, something that I have on my phone, for example, that reminds me, you know, I want you to read this. Like, what is, what does this say right here?

It's on the front. It's on the front of my phone. I will be the world's greatest leader of men. Okay, I've had this for a year now, you know? It's on the front of my phone every single, every single day, okay? That way every time I see my phone, okay, that's me rewiring my paradigms. That's me telling my, and sometimes I don't even notice it, but there's some conscious mind is so powerful.

You know, our mind picks up thousands of things that we don't even, that we aren't even consciously aware. So there's a strategy behind this. I do it. Sometimes I'm aware of this. Sometimes I'm like, oh yeah, that's right. Like when I'm feeling down, you know what? Yeah, I am the world's great leader, man.

Or most of the times, most of the times I don't consciously see it, but I'm consciously see it because, you know, leadership is tough. You know, leadership, you know, sometimes you will do everything right and people will still think you did it wrong. Exactly. So, you know, but you have to deal with that inner critic voice that tells you you're not good enough because all of us think we're not good enough. And you have to be willing to do the work.

And that's one thing I do every single day. It's just I tell myself, no, I will be the world. greatest leader of men. And when I first would read that, there was a voice in my head that would say, yeah, right. That would say, yeah, but do they know that you did this? Oh, yeah, but do they know that you made this mistake? You know, there's always that voice, you know, when we're younger, we called it like the

angel and the devil and their shoulders, right? But there's always that voice. And that voice will never go away. And that's what I see takes out a lot of leaders, is they listen to that voice, or they do nothing, right? Being neutral is just as bad, actually sometimes just as worse. as doing the negative things. You know, being neutral is a very dangerous place.

Like, if you do nothing, that's actually bad. You know, do the work to rewire the paradigm so that when you do lead, you operate from this place of true, true confidence of like, and there's a fine line, right, between arrogance, and like you're like, no, I am good. Like, you know, like the Bible, for example, calls it being meek, right?

And the Bible is a passage that says, you know, the kingdom of God belongs to those who are meek. And, you know, people when they think meek, think you have to be humble and you have to be like kind of timid and like although that's partially true the best definition of a person that's meek is strength under control it's a person that knows that they're strong but they don't feel the need to show it because they're like it's an it's an internal thing they're like no I love that I know I'm strong right like if a guy comes at me and yells at me because I'm like a bad leader I don't react because internally I'm like no

like I know I'm the shit in a very in a very humble way yeah right right Not in that arrogant way. But being me, it's me to be like, all right, cool, all right. Where an insecure leader would react and be like, oh, yeah, well, you would yell back or whatever, you know. So I'm not sure that answers you a question. No, that's a perfect thing. Awesome. I don't know.

Do you watch soccer by any chance? No. I mean, I did it when I was a kid, but I'm actually not super, super big in the sports. Okay. So the reason I want to use. Example, I'm a big Ventures United fan. And currently right now, they changed management and a new coach as well. and there's been a significant difference on how it's implementing discipline

and trying to ensure that everyone's on the same level, just literally leading from the front. And you could see that a different coach with the same players has achieved far better results than what they achieved last year as well. Why I'm going with this, I found it to be sometimes discouraging when you're doing your best as a leader, even if you're starting off and people are not perhaps fulfilling their end of the bargain as well. maybe they're not really performing as well.

How do you overcome that form of discouragement? Because it's so hard when you're doing all you can. Sure. And you're trying to be the best person, but you're also trying to keep as highest standard in the level for you and your people. How do you, like, ensure and you overcome the kind of discouragement? Yeah. Well, first of all, I would say your best is enough, but your best is also required.

That's what one of my mentors taught me. Your best is enough, but your best is required, you know? So only you know your version of your best, right? You know, because you live with yourself, right? You know whether you're like, nope, I played full out, I did the best I could. Even though the best maybe didn't achieve the results you wanted. Okay, so just remember that. Your best is enough.

And in a sales organization, really in your organization, I think the cure to a lot of problems is recruiting. You know, recruiting really does solve a lot of things because at the end of the day, you can't fully, it's not 100% your responsibility. to have somebody act the way you want them to act. You know, a leader is more of a coach, right? It's like, think of it like a personal trainer, right? A personal trainer can tell somebody how to squat the right way, how to bench press the right way,

can tell them literally every small detail where to put your elbow, how to grip the bar or everything. Does not matter how good the trainer is if at the end of the day the person they're working with is not willing to lift the weights. The trainer can't lift the weights for them, okay? And as a leader, it's a similar job, right? We can teach people how to sell.

We can teach people how to know. We can teach people how to deal with their emotions. But at the end of the day, it's their responsibility to do the work. And you can be the world's greatest trainer. I have people who we give them the best possible resources, and they still don't do it. And so the best cure to that is just to recruit, it's just to keep recruiting. Because sales is like, when you recruit, it's like a big of cards, right? There's 52 cards.

52? Yeah, 52 cards and a big card, right? Well, how many aces are there? Four. Four, right? So it's like pretend as if though every time you recruit somebody, you're taking a card out and you're hoping you get an ace, right? But sometimes you get a two.

Then the next one, you get a seven. Yeah. Then you get a 10. Then you get like a king. Okay, this guy's pretty good, right? But there's only four aces, okay? But the more you recruit, the more cars you pick out, the higher the odds become of you finally get that ace.

And that's been my journey all these years. I mean, I have, we have recruited hundreds of people over the last seven years. But out of those hundreds, probably only like 20% or less, have actually stuck around. You know, and I never like stopped and been like, like instead, because if you are doing everything you can with one guy and that person is not doing it, move on to the next one. Exactly. You know, it's move on to the next one. Because eventually you do it long enough, you will find one guy who will just run with you. Like those, they're out there, you know.

I think of this guy Stetson Sofer, you know, he did about 340 plus accounts last year, you know, one year, right? 340 solar accounts. And from the get-go, he was a runner, you know. He wasn't someone we had to, like, you know, motivate all the time and encourage. Like when he was, when he started as a setter, he was the best setter. Then he became a closer, became a really good closer. Then he became a mentor, became a really good mentor. And then now he's a manager, became an amazing manager, now leading the number one team within Legacy.

But from the very beginning, he was a runner. You know, and by your job is to find those people, find those aces. But just know that they, just like a digger card, you only have, out of 52, there's only four of those. But the more you recruit, you eventually come across those, you know. You actually answer that perfectly. I think the next question I was going to ask is, what could increase your chances? What are the qualities you look at when you actually interview a person and say, listen, I want this guy in, like, my division, that could increase the chances of them being an ace.

You know what I'm saying? I mean, we see a lot of people that are into sports that were very great at sports that just automatically picked it up with that competitive edge. People that are good at school sometimes. Sure. You know, and so like is there any one or two qualities or attributes that you see or you look for in a sales rep that could potentially make them like the ace? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I mean, I've seen a correlation. I mean, it's always hard, right?

Because people in interviews will tell you what you want to hear. That's true. Like, I've had guys who, like, tell me everything I want to hear. Like, they, like, they answer every question perfectly, you know. And in my mind, I'm like, oh, they're going to be studs. And then they, like, suck, you know. But then there's guys who, like, I look at them or I talk to them and I'm like, yeah, this guy's going to suck.

And then they, like, surprise me, you know. So it's always hard to tell. But I have seen a correlation that usually guys that have an athletic background do well, especially in sales, right? Because sales is a sport, right? In sales, there's a scoreboard, okay? And that's the number of sales, right? Whether you sell solar, alarms, pest control, cars, mortgages, whatever.

It's a sport, right? In a sport, there's a scoreboard, right? You have this many points, your competition is this many points, right? Now, your competition can be who you were last quarter, last month. It can be a friend. It can be another team. It can be another company, right? But you definitely, like, for the leaders in solar, like,

you better treat it like a sport, right? You better have a competitive type of environment. Like we're huge in competitions. So that way when we attract the guy who played maybe basketball and high school or college or football or soccer, he'll see that correlation of like, oh, wow, this is just like being on a basketball team. You know, it's like, you know, we get fired up. You know, we, you know, we get sales on the board, which is, you know, again, that scoreboard.

So I would say guys with a leg background, previous military are good because in the military you're kind of forced to work hard. And you have the discipline actually. And the other, yeah. So you learn these things, right? Like the military has done a great job at instilling discipline into others. So I would say that people with a military background. I would say probably some of the best people, though, are people that have families and are married.

Because they already have a deep why, right? If you hire a guy that's like 22 years old, single, living with roommates, like, he doesn't have a lot to lose if this doesn't work out. where you hire a guy that already has two kids, is married, and then maybe the wife is a stay-at-home mom, he knows if I don't work, okay, like my kids literally don't eat, right? So, my experience, I've actually found those are some of the best people to go after. However, you have to know every of those people I just listed, they're looking for something different in the organization

because, okay, the guy that has an athletic background, right, if you hire him, you better have a competitive culture in your office, right? Like when you show up to this meeting, it better be high energy. Otherwise, that guy who played competitive basketball, they're going to be like, all right, this is kind of lame, I'm out. Right. Now, on the other end, let's say you hire that guy that has a family and kids, right? I'm going to venture say this guy is probably a little bit more professional, right? Because if he shows up to a sales meeting and it's like very fratty and it's very like, you know, like, woohoo, like just fratty and everyone, everyone parties and everyone's going to the club at night.

That's probably not what he's looking for. so he's also going to be out. So you also have to be like, like, because you can recruit the best person, but if your culture doesn't align with what this person's value is at, then they're going to be out as well, right? So it's a combination of, yes, the person, but also the culture that you bring.

So, you know, as the leader in a way, you've got to be a chameleon, right? You got to make sure that your culture is competitive, but also professional, but also fun. It kind of caters to at least the main people you are looking to recruit. And I like what you just. just mentioned and I noticed that I took a blitz out in the Bay area and one of my friends as well didn't particularly do well got like one sale there but he was on the phone

every single night with his wife you know the day could have gone better this thing that thing and I mean there are others that had more sets than he did but he was just more like had that drive and that you know driven motivation you can tell people like that I would assume see the end goal and so they're willing to put the effort in order to reach that next server as well okay the next question I actually had so Before I go into it, one of my favorite leaders, I did pest control like my first year in New Jersey. His name is John Taylor.

You probably know him. He's a door-to-door golden winner. I like him already. Good name. John Taylor. So I've never come across. It was my first year. And this, he was relentless.

So he did a thousand pest accounts that year, which is like a golden door in 2019. But what separated him from any other sales rep came across at that time while leading our team was he never gave. a single excuse. Every single day he was number one on the boards, you know, every single day, like relentless. One rainy day, I want to give an example, it was drenching, it was raining. And he kept saying, guys, stay out on the doors, stay out on the doors. And he was like on like one account that time. And he's lowest at like eight. Boom, four at five o'clock. And then boom, eight at ten o'clock. My question to that, the best way a leader shows leadership is through actions, how can you avoid complacency? Because sometimes solar is so much of more money. I want to

spend time with my wife and blah, blah, blah. How do you avoid that level of complacency to always lead from the front? Yeah, that's really good. There's a saying in the Bible that goes, without the vision, people perish. And I think how you avoid complacency is you always got to have a vision. And when you accomplish that vision, you then got to have a new vision, because that's how you avoid being complacent. think complacency starts to happen when you start drifting through life. You know, it's a great book called Outwitting the Devil. I'm not sure if you read it. But it talks about how the vast majority of people just drift through life.

They have this vague idea of where they want to go. You know, and the book says it's like, imagine you have a sailboat and you put it in the ocean, but you don't give it a direction. And you just kind of like, and then the wind or the ocean just takes it. It's like, what are the chances that you will land on where you want to go? It's very unlikely. But now put a person in there that knows, okay, I need to get to this island and they know exactly they get there, they're probably going to get to the destination.

And that's how most people operate in life is they just drift through life, right? You know, I'll ask guys like, hey, what's your goal this month? You know, oh, I want to do 10. Like right off the bat, I'm like, cool, you're just giving me a vague answer. I'm like, okay, cool, what's it going to take to do 10? I don't know. I just kind of knock doors. Okay, like, no, you better.

reverse engineer that, you better like work backwards. Okay, if I want to get 10 deals, okay, how many, how many appointments to get 10 deals, then how many, how many conversations to get one appointment, how many doors to get, you know, one conversation, okay, how many working days am I working this this month, you know? So you always got to have a vision, okay, because I would venture to say this guy had a vision. You know, I think of, I go back to that guy, Stetson, you know, I remember early last year he told me the vision he had for his life or for that year is he wanted to have a Kobe year. That's what he said. He's like, because he's big in the basketball. He loves Kobe. But does he know LeBron's better? Debatable. But, so, you know, he was like,

I want to have a, he's like, I want to have a Kobe year. That's what he said to me, you know. And, but he knew what that meant for him. He's like, in other words, he's like, I want to have a record breaking year, a year that nobody else has had. And so that's the vision that propelled him forward. because this is a guy that was making like a hundred grand a month. And how easy is it to be like, oh, I made a hundred grand a month? Like, I'll just chill. But he's like, no, because his why, his vision was larger than money. But the guys who get complacent are the guys who don't have a vision.

You know, they're like, oh, I'll just work really hard. And then they work hard. They make good money. And they're like, okay, I'll just chill now. So have a why because the moment you don't have that vision, it's very tempting to get complacent. You know, like I had a vision for a very, very long time. I'm like, hey, as a leader, like, hey, 100 sales in our office. Okay, cool, we got that.

Then it became, all right, a hundred cells a week. You know, cool, now we're doing that. We're doing 100 sales a week. Just keep breaking the ceiling all the time. Now my new vision right now, and call me crazy, is I want my team to be doing 100 sales a day, 100 solar sales a day. And we're not there right now. Right now, we're averaging about 25 sales a day.

So we have to 4X what we've done, you know. But that's my vision now. So that's what keeps me going. Okay, cool. What do I got to do? Like, how can we tune this process or, you know, how can we make the onboarding better? How can we get more, more closers, you know, so that's what keeps me up at night, you know, is knowing that cool, my new vision is 100 sales a day.

But if I don't have that, then what am I working towards? And then what's crazy is a lot of people are complacent and they don't even know they're complacent. And that's even more dangerous, I think. I couldn't agree more. And I know the, I want to go back to the Kobe thing. I admire his work ethic. how relentless he was. I admire how he just, he separated himself and everyone else because he believed that he was the greatest. And he acted in that way as well. And so I, and I think that's the hardest thing because sometimes you don't even realize we can place.

We're like, oh my gosh, I've never made 200K ever. But I worked hard, but did you really, you know, go above and beyond? Did you, you know, break your ceiling? Did you know? And I think it's very important as sales, because it is a sport at the end of the day, you know. It's a definite sport. question which is pretty much your brand it's a lot about masculinity bringing that back into leadership bringing that back into sales how important is masculinity especially in today's world I would say it's probably one of the most important thing you know there's a saying I might butcher it but it's like strong men create good times good times create weak men weak men create hard times and hard times create strong men.

Boom. Boom, got it. That's clipped right there. And it's true. The men are the leaders of this world, right? You know, I'm men of faith, right? I believe the divine order of things. I think men are the leaders of the household, right?

And as the leader, it doesn't mean that, for example, the women are, they're not capable of that. It's just that we have a divine role to protect and preserve our people. our people, okay? And so I think masculine leadership is very important. I think right now it's under attack, not to go on the political spectrum, but right now, you know, we're seeing a generation

that is being raised, not even knowing what gender they are. You know, we're seeing a generation being raised, believing in buying into being a victim. That being a victim is more noble than being a victor. You know, I was very blessed that I saw my dad be a victor growing up. You know, I mentioned that my dad came, We came from a third world country.

And from the ages of like six till 18, you know, I saw both my parents work hard. You know, they were immigrants, barely knew any English when they came here. But my dad never once got food stamps, never once got welfare. And he could have. He could take him the victim route. I mean, like, oh, let me let the government take care of me. But he did it.

You know, instead he worked hard. And he was like, no, I'm a victor. I'm going to determine the route that this family is going to go. And so at a young age, I saw that and I've adopted that. You know, because I saw that, hey, as a man, you know, a man's role is to be a victor in the family and not expect others to do it for them. And it's sad. I see this generation being raised up.

That's like, oh, I'm going to be a victim. Like, oh, like, you know, let's have the government take care of me. Like, oh, you know what? It's a lot easier to point the blame at others and tell what others are doing wrong instead of looking inward. So I say all that because masculine leadership is very, very important. and masculine leadership right now is under attack. You know, there's a lot of people who think that if you're a masculine leader, you're like, you know, an abuser or misogynist or whatever.

And it's like, no, I think we need more men to step into their divine calling to be the protectors, to be the, yeah, to be the protectors of this world. Otherwise, we're going to see bad men take it over. You know, we're going to see like, you know, sometimes I worry about the world my son or my grandchildren who live in. with kind of where we're going right now. You know, there's like freaking 36 genders apparently nowadays. It's like, what?

No, there's just two genders. That's it, you know? But that's happening because we have weak men that don't want to call out bullshit for what it is. He's my language, but for what it is, you know. So we need it. So that's big picture. I'm not to get on the political spectrum, but also, you know,

we need it even in, like in sales. I know it was Candace Owens, and I also think Barack Obama's, spoke about a stat saying that eight, I could be paraphrasing the stat, eight out of ten fatherless homes, usually children end up like in jail. And I think five out of ten, like I said, it's paraphrasing, could be wrong as well, end up like doing drugs and so forth as well. How I'm going into this in terms of masculinity, we have seen the importance of fathers in the home. Like my dad is to this day my biggest role model. Like, that's the reason.

I actually went enrolled I wasn't in school for two years and he's like listen you went to America to go finish your degree and I don't care how much money I'm making how successful I am like I respect my dad and he brought me here for that reason as well that's just one example as well and I still feel having a dad in the home just the presence is so underrated like it is so underrated like now my question to that is how important is fatherhood you know like I love how you talk you know talk about your kids and your wife as well but I want to stress a bit more in fatherhood. How important is that?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, extremely important. The nuclear family is the bedrock of a good society. You know, when you look at any civilization that has fallen, it's because we've strayed away from the nuclear family. You know, essentially understanding the role a father and a mother brings.

You know, a father creates structure and discipline. That is the role of the father. You know, a mother creates a nurturing environment, right? She creates a home that everyone feels safe in. So a mother role is not necessarily discipline. Now, can a mother discipline? Of course she can. Right, but that is the role of the father, you know, and I think we're seeing a lot of fathers are afraid of discipline,

or, you know, they think they'll be judged for it or whatever. So a father is very important. There's, there's, there's, every son and daughter desires to hear, I'm proud of you from their father. Everyone. Like, you ask anybody, right? I, I think actually a lot of, I think a lot of, I think a lot of our trauma stem from maybe a lack of something we didn't get from our father, you know? Like for me, for example, like, I love my dad. You know, my dad's my dad's my hero too. And my dad did the best he could, but I will say that, you know, where my dad lacked. And not because he didn't want to was my dad wasn't physically there for me a lot.

Not because he didn't want to, but because he was an immigrant with broken English, he worked 16 hours a day. So I rarely got to see him. I didn't have a father that was like, here, son, let me teach you how to throw the football. You know, here, son, let me, you know, let's talk about sex. Let's talk about relationships. Like, I didn't have that father like that. Again, not because he didn't want to, but my dad was a great dad,

but he did the best he could with what he had. So I lacked that from him. So guess where I had to learn about sex? Guess where I had to learn about what, you know, puberty was all about. I had to learn from the world. I had to learn, like, I learned about masturbation through jackass, you know, and not to get a little graphic, but that's where I learned about this concept of masturbation. That's a conversation I should have had with my father, right?

And so because of that, I made a lot of mistakes in my early teen years and my early, in my early 20s, right? I did a lot of things that I shouldn't have done, you know, which caused me a lot of pain and a lot of traumas. And I'm very blessed, though, that now at 32 years old, I've been able to work through that and I've been able to use it more as a superpower than something that brought me down. But I could have avoided all that, you know, had I had a father that taught me these things. Because I think on the sun spectrum, like, that's the role of a father, right, to teach him about life, right? Because I think sometimes, you know, we call them helicopter parents, right? Sometimes parents believe that if I just hover over them and, like, they'll always be protected.

But the truth is, is all of us will eventually go out into the real world. And, like, the parents can't always be there. So I think the role of a father and a mother is to prepare the child for what the real world is. And that is sometimes having uncomfortable conversations, you know, Like right now, my son's five years old, and me and my wife are you ever talking about, okay, what's the appropriate age to start talking to him about sex? And guess we're having the conversation? I am, right?

Because that's my role because, you know, he's a boy and I'm a man. So, yeah, to answer your questions, it's extremely, extremely important because I think Ronald Reagan said this, but he always says, we're one generation away from annihilation. You know, all it takes is one generation of men to be raised up that don't know their identity, that operate, that act on feelings, you know, like I'm a huge advocate also of Stozoism, right, which is pretty much, you know, managing, controlling your emotions. It doesn't mean that you don't show emotions, because that's another lie that men believe that showing emotions is a kind of weakness.

It's not that. It's more about, you know, feeling the emotion, but not letting your emotions dictate how you live your life. Like, Andrew Tate talks about that, you know? Exactly. men who they act out of emotion. Like something I tried to do is I never try to make a big decision when I'm in my emotion because I feel them, but I never try to make a decision when I'm in my emotions.

I always try to make it from a place where I'm neutral. 100%. And my wife's big influence was her dad. And you could actually tell a difference. And I don't want to like trying to distinguish the difference between the two, but like a woman as well that was well raised by a dad who had a big influence. But I also want to interject and say that sometimes people don't have fathers, but they may gain father figures along the way. And that's where, like, your sales comes in.

Sometimes you come across people that may be from broken homes, but may seek father figures. And father figures still play as an important role as fathers do. But obviously sometimes, you know, you want to have, like, your own, you know, father just, just, like, teaching you the way. Of course. It makes a big difference. Like, you know, just thinking of the stuff I did with my dad, just think of the stuff, like my dad has told me just, like, that stuff. That stuff is something I'm going to implement for my kids. I want to try and do it that way, you know, a little better as well because I think

how you taught me in my generation was a little different to where we're going. The reason I'm going to this is my wife and I have these talks and conversations all this time. We've only been married for like two years. It's scary. It's scary. Every time you turn the news and you get to see what's happening in the world, it's almost like, I don't want to try and like make them live like under a bubble, but I want them to implement and certain principles that we teach, like other through the gospel and through what we teach them,

but for them to make their own righteous decisions, which is going to be a little harder. Would you say that? Yeah. Yeah. No, of course. And, you know, like I told you earlier, your best is enough or your best is required. You can't fully protect your children from, I think, everything in this world, like, there's going to be pain, and that's okay. You know, but instead you teach them how to manage that.

Like, you know, I'll give an example. Like, our son can get angry pretty fast, right? And, you know, we, we can take the approach of trying to tell him like, hey, it's not okay to get angry. But instead, we're like, you know what, let's teach him instead of how to process this emotion. So whenever he feels angry instead of like being like, hey, you can't be angry or stop yelling or don't throw things like, hey, breathe. And then he takes a breath. He takes like five deep breath. And then what happens most of the, what happens most of the time is because then that's teaching him how to, how to process that on his own.

Right. And the more he does that when we're not around, then now he's like, okay, when I feel angry, let me just do this. And what happens, anyone can do this. If you feel angry, just take five really deep breaths. But you do it like five times. And you'll discover that you're like, oh, I'm actually, I feel a little better now. And so, you know, that's one way, right, that we are teaching him how to process, you know,

because sometimes kids with old tantrums and then parents are quick to like yell and be like, no, you can't do that or why are you throwing that? You know, we do that. but that's not really teaching them, like, what to do. You know, me and my wife, one thing we try to do with our parenting style is, we try not to tell him what not to do. Because the mind doesn't understand the concept of don't. Like Simba, they don't go to the elephant graveyard.

Yes. If I said, hey, KG, don't think about elephants. What did you just think about? Elephants. But I just told you not to. I pictured it. Right? The mind doesn't understand the negative, okay?

Kids are no different. And if I tell my kid, hey, stop yelling, all he heard was, yell. He doesn't understand the stop, right? So, you know, on, like, we try to teach on, hey, what behavior instead do we want him to do? So if he's being angry, and so he'd be like, hey, stop angry. We just, hey, wait, why don't you breathe? Right? And then he breathes.

And then usually he self-regulates himself. Okay, 100%. So, yeah, you know, just on fatherhood and all that, like, I think that's one of the greatest things the father can do is just teach their kids how to self-regulate themselves so that when they go in the world because I worry about it too but the best thing I can do is just be like hey how can I equip my son the best so that when he goes into the real world you know he's prepared like you know you know I'll give you another example like recently someone told my son that heaven wasn't real like a relative you know so like hey you know you know heaven is real right and uh and then he came to my

my wife and he was like hey you know so-and-so told me that that heaven wasn't real and then my wife instead she could have been like well heaven is real and try to push our beliefs right on him but instead you know we we instead we we instead we we we instead of like well what do you think and he stood and he thought about it and he goes mom I think heaven's real and then now it's his choice instead of us trying to find what to do right but that's an example of like instead of like try to teach to self-regulate so that they can make decisions on their own. Awesome. I know you spoke a little on Andrew Tate.

I think one of the things I want to ask you was your thoughts on both Andrew Tate and Dr. Jordan Peterson. But the reason why I'm asking that is because I feel like how you expressing your definition of masculinity is similar but different in a way where it's not like condescending towards women. It's not bringing down towards women. It's more like identifying yourself as a man and knowing who you are fulfilling your responsibility and role. I think I mentioned when I called you that I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, that are the United States.

You probably work with a lot of people that within my faith as well. We have something called a family proclamation, pretty much giving a blueprint of a man's role and a woman's role, you know. What are your thoughts on Andrew Tate? Yeah. And Dr. Peterson.

Overall, I like Andrew Tate's message overall. I mean, I would say 80% of what he says I vibe with, 20% I just throw out. And that should be really almost anybody. Like, you're not going to 100% agree with, I think, what anybody says. You know, something I learned is like, you know, it's like chew the meat, spit up the bones. You know, it's like when you eat, right, something, you like chew it. But then like the meat you eat and then the bones you spit out. I think the same thing when you're digesting content.

It's like, cool, you know, whatever you vibe with and like, cool, eat that, you know, digest that content. and then whatever you don't, spit it out. So like you say, I think Andrew Tay, I think where he sometimes doesn't, I don't know, I don't even align with, is he doesn't see the value that a wife or a woman really brings to the table. I vibe with where he believes as a man's role,

like a protector, a provider, right? A man is meant to be strong in mind, body, and spirit. You know, like he talks about victimhood. Like, hey, a man should not adopt. the victimhood mindset. You know, he's based on what he's saying, he's huge on ownership. Like, hey, all the man stuff, I vibe with, you know.

But I think where, you know, even he himself could go to a whole new level is really understanding the true value a woman brings to the table. A woman is much more than looks, you know, although women are beautiful, you know. The right woman in your life can really take you to new levels.

You know, one of my mentors, he told me when I was single, he's like, you know, I don't consider anybody a real man until they're married and have kids. And at the time I was single, I was like, okay, that sounds good. But now I understand why. Because when you enter into a marriage with the right woman, you know, the role of a man is to be sacrificial. You know, like both of us are men of faith, right?

And, you know, Jesus modeled a husband by saying, husbands, love your wives, like Christ love the church so much that he gave us life for the church. And so I think the role of a man is to be sacrificial. and his love, right? Where, you know, God doesn't command the same thing from the wife. He says, you know, the Bible says, wives respect your husband's, right? You know, because men don't necessarily want love, they want respect and honor. Where women, they don't want necessarily respect and honor. They want love. I actually saw that real recently, and my wife sent it to me and we agree. That's truth. Yes. You know, now, do I want love? Of course I want love, right? But really what I, where I actually,

I feel love is when my wife displays, like, this sense of oneness, of reverend. towards me. There's honor, like, this respect. Like, that's where I'm, like, I feel a lot of love for my wife, right? Like, I don't need my wife to necessarily give me flowers, you know. Now, if she gives me flowers, do I feel loved? Of course I do, right? But, you know, when instead she, like, tells me that I'm crushing it at work and respects my role, like, that's what makes me feel, you know, really love, things like that, you know? So, you know, and I entertain and all that, like, I think he's done a great, great job at helping men be men because the message that has been going around for men for a long time is, you know, being a man is bad, you know, your privilege.

Like, don't speak up. If you speak up, you're bad. And I think he's helped a lot of men kind of get out of depression. He's helped a lot of men take over their body, you know. I mean, Ender Tay has helped me a lot, you know, but on, I, but on the woman side, That's where then Jordan Peterson comes in. I think Jordan Peterson is a huge advocate of marriage and fatherhood and all that. And, yeah, I mean, love Jordan Peterson.

I think he's one of the most intelligent people in the world right now. I mean, the way he articulates, it's just amazing. Awesome. I know we're a little over time. I wanted to ask one last question. What, I see that a lot, how much you value your wife, how much you love your wife, how you guys collaborating a lot of stuff as well. well, as a newly weird myself, in a field that I'm in solar as well, obviously trying to

like work my way up and continue to be like the best version of myself, how do you end up bringing that same balance while still like keeping that beautiful like spark and love and dates within your marriage as well? Yeah, I will say the challenge, you know, you know, me and my wife have been married for three years, right? So we've been together five years. And I don't think the number of years matters. There's no different than there's guys that have been sales for 20 years, but their best year has been $200,000.

But then there's guys who've done sales for two years and their best years to $100,000, right? The time doesn't really matter, you know. So I would say, like, you say, we're newlyweds. Like, don't let that be the reason as to why you don't think you can, like, have a, like, I don't think the number of years you're married really matters, right? So there's your question, you know, it's different because of the seasons you're in. You know, there's seasons where I'm called to work more, and then there's seasons where I'm called to be with my family more. So more like understanding, right?

Say again. More like her understanding. Yeah, and I think where I know I have needed to grow over the years is communicating to my wife kind of where our family was heading for that season. So, for example, when we had our newborn seven months ago, that called for a time where, like, I need to be more with my family. right because we had a newborn right my wife needed help you know she just had a baby so that was a time where I'm like okay cool the rhythm of that season needs to be more family less work but then you know

we enter like n m 3 happening in six weeks I've already prepped her and told her like hey I want you to know then when this happens it's going to be a lot of change can be a lot of transition there'll be a lot of unforeseen challenges and so I'm already mentally prepping her that hey that's going to be a season where, you know, it's going to be a little bit more work than it is relationships. I'm like, hey, I may come home late more often that day, right? I may have to leave more early that day. So I think, like, communicating kind of where, because, so I go back to the vision thing, right? The man needs to have a vision, right?

That's why the Bible says for wives to submit or submission, right? But a wife cannot submit to a mission that isn't there. Exactly. Right? The man is responsible for creating the mission. And then if the mission is in alignment with the values of the family, then that's where submission comes in, right? But you can't have a, you can't submit without a mission. So the man needs to create that mission and constantly communicate that.

So, and then that's how you create rhythm, you know, because there's not like a black and white answer. I mean, I haven't found it. If somebody has found it, I wouldn't have to know it. But it's just understanding the rhythm and the seasons you're in and then communicating as the leader of the family, right, communicating, hey, this is what needs to happen. And then, yeah, and then, you know, check in daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly with your wives and see where it's at. But, you know, I go through seasons where I get it wrong, you know, where I spend more time with work when I show my wife and then we get invites, you know, and I think everybody does. Awesome stuff. So if our viewers want to get a hold of you or what are your social media platforms, YouTube, Instagram, if people want to find out more about sales and trying to, like, start it out, like, how can they get in contact with you?

Yeah. So I'm the general John. John is J-O-N. So the General John on all YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Truth Social, on that one, too. So you gave away your political views. Yeah, yeah, too, social. So, heck yeah, Trump, 2024. Anyways, so, yeah, let's...

You're on the centers. But that's where I'm at, the General John, yeah, like, you know, I'm huge on business, family, marriage, all that stuff. So that's what we can find me. Awesome stuff. Thank you so much. P. Pleasure. Thank you very much.

Appreciate that.