Entrepreneurship Can Be Lonely

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
God. Entrepreneurship can be lonely.I remember when we started to Rise,
or I started to rise, Igotta start saying, I gotta say I
instead of weed. But when Istarted Rise two years ago, and I
left my big ass company where Iwas like almost like a celebrity. You
know, I was the top repfor the entire year. Every month,
I was, you know, topmanager of the biggest teams. And so

(00:24):
I third of these guys that lookedup to me, and they're like,
you know, people like I feltlike a celebrity almost, you know,
and it was awesome, it wascool. But you know, I started
Rise Solar. So I left thatcompany. A few people came, like,
you know, kids from the kidsthat I recruited from my hometown,
and some other guys that just weren'twith the other company's vision. And I

(00:44):
should have realized at the time thereason why. It was like some of
the worst guys that came along withme, and some really good guys too,
but you know, so and thenthose guys, you know, we
started getting in disagreements. They endedup quitting. I remember there was a
day, you know where I'm literallyalone, It's just me. Everyone had
quit I had zero employees besides myself, And so I remember like that morning

(01:11):
waking up, like what do Ido? What do I do? Do?
I just quit? I got nobody. I literally have nothing to show
for everything I've done. Do Ijust quit? And you know that was
probably like a year in and soyou can imagine how demoralizing. You know,
I spent two years making good money. Two years. It's not a
lot of time, but I wasliterally on top of the world, and
I felt like I threw it away. I'm like, why did I do

(01:33):
that? I'm left here with justme here now, and you know,
nothing, nothing to show for myteam. And so that day I remember,
I go and I hire this girloff of Instagram an assistant as an
assistant. I meet her out ofStarbucks. She starts working for me,
and we just get on indeed,and we just start recruiting and recruiting and
recruiting, and we ended up wehire a third party recruiter and we end

(01:59):
up growing this little team again.And uh, you know, we have
some guys that are doing all right. You know, they're getting sales.
You know, to me, aguy you can either sell or you can't.
You know, if you can sellone deal, you know, you
have the potential to sell tons.So I was proud of the like little
team we had. And dude,we were doing like ten a month,
which is crazy because when I wasat that other company, I would do
twenty twenty five deals a month.So my whole team now is doing ten.

(02:23):
And and you know that was partlyme, you know, on the
side, trying to recruit and doingeverything, and you know, probably also
just you know, not having thataccountability just being alone out there. And
so my own personal results were down. The team results were terrible, but
you know, I was kind ofpress so we just kept going. We
kept pushing. You know, Ihad everyone from that team. Nobody from

(02:46):
that team is here today. Buteventually we hired a dude named Hunter.
And Hunter was there and he's stillhere today. And you know, he's
a steady eddy. He produces everymonth, and he's really just like a
he's like a foundation. He's likea like a bridge. It's like a
pillar to a bridge. You know. He's just something that we needed to

(03:08):
say, hey, we are acompany. You know, there's people that
are employees here that will be hereand they'll stay here. Besides just the
CEO me right, and so wejust kept going and a lot of time
for a long time, it wasliterally just me and Hunter. Everyone else
had quit. We'd got our teamup to eight and ten and I'm six,
and then four and then and fora while there, a good while

(03:30):
it was just me and Hunter,and I got into this rhythm where it
was like, I guess this isjust it. It's just gonna be me
and Hunter, you know. ButI kept posting, kept selling, and
then linked up with a coach.So I got this coach five grand a
month at the time, you know, it was a lot, just because
the sales weren't where we wanted itto be. But I fucking did it.

(03:53):
And I got really good reviews froma friend that I really trusted,
who was where I wanted to wantto be, wanted to be, and
you know, so we get thiscoach and and dude, it was it's
almost like it changed everything. Andall they had to do was tell me
to do what I already knew howto do, right, like double down

(04:14):
on what I'm good at. Thereason I started this company, I felt
like I had the audacity to startmy own company after leaving this big,
big successful company is that I'm agreat salesman. I mean, I you
know, I'm a great salesman.I believe no one can outsell me when
it's just straight doorknock. So specifically, I'm not only a great salesman,
I'm a great self generating door knockingsalesperson. What does that mean? I

(04:38):
can knock a door and get rightinto that house and close it at a
higher clip and better than anybody else. You know, some of the best
guys in the industry that have thehighest volume, I always, you know,
realize they're getting a lot of appointmentsset by other guys, or they're
getting online leads, or they're gettingyou know whatever. Me, I am
the best door knocker in the world, and I think that there's a lot

(04:59):
of value to that, especially withall these door to door companies. I'm
like, I am the actual bestdoor knocker in the world. So,
yes, you know, you canget the online leans and the marketing in
but that's not what we're doing.You know, you gotta pay for those,
and those guys don't make as muchmoney because they gotta pay for each
deal they get. So that wasmy unique value proposition. So I just
doubled down on the selling, andI went back to being like, you

(05:20):
know what, dude, I'm gonnago back to selling you know, ten
a month just myself, which stillis only like half of what I was
doing, but they're solid deals andI'm building the business. So when I
went back to selling at a highlevel, everything changed. Hunter started selling
more. We were able to postmore success, more wins. People could
feel it, people could feel thatwe were winning, and so so we

(05:43):
posted that stuff and we got peopleto click on and then we got you
know, we got Andrew a coupleof months ago. And Andrew is the
best sales guy. He actually outsoldme the past two months. So he
outsold me the past two months bylike, you know, a couple of
deals month. And like I remembertalking to my mom. I'm like,
Mom, this guy, this guy'sout selling me, like far a crap,

(06:05):
And she's like, dude, likethis is what you wanted ever since
the beginning, Like you wanted yourguys to be out selling. You used
to complain to me that you're theonly ones selling, and I'm like,
yeah, you're right, And wehave this joke where it's like, yeah,
I'll never be happy but no,really, that is what you want.
And I remember a mentor of mindtelling me actually the CEO of the
last company, and he said,you know, you want guys that come

(06:27):
in that make you look silly.They make you look silly at selling.
You don't want to be the bestsales guy because you means you're not a
great recruiter. Right, If you'rethe best sales guy, you're not a
great recruiter. And I'm like,man, so that's what you know,
that's what I want, and that'swhat we're going to continue to do.
And now you know, we gottwo other guys from a solar company.

(06:48):
Those guys came in like a weeklate into the month that each had like
three weeks this month, and theyboth sold seven and eight deals seven and
eight deals respectively. So basically,you know, with one more week,
they sold ten a month. Sothe more ten plus I mean the amount
of value you know, a tenplus a deal ten plus deal a month
guy is is is a lot AndI think a lot of it comes down

(07:10):
to our training, but also justattracting the right people that you know will
be coachable and will be follow andwill follow the path you know, and
that that is not what we weredoing for the first two years. We're
taking anybody that had a heartbeat.And I think a lot of companies make
that mistake, and I heard aboutit and I was doing it. But

(07:30):
it's hard, you know, likewhen you're new, you have nothing to
prove, nothing to show for forthe most part. You know, I
wish I had invested more time buildingmy social media when I was out at
that other company, you know,crushing gals. But you know, you
learn from that. You get reallygood from that when you don't have those
crutches, those handicaps. So anyway, yeah, man, the entrepreneurship can

(07:53):
be very very lonely upfront, upto the point where you're a year in
and you are your only employee.But you just have to keep pushing.
You have to keep pushing and realizewhy you're doing it and you know,
do what you have to do toto you know, it can be freaking
depressing, you know. So Ihad a good friend group of other entrepreneurs
in Tampa, you know, GuyOwins, a roofing company and an HVAC

(08:18):
and now they do solar and thosewere some good friends of mine. I
spent you know, I would hangout with them a decent amount when when
it was just me but