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D2Con is right around the corner with Mastermind Day, January 16th in Salt Lake City, Utah with Tim Grover, Author of Relentless and Michael Jordan’s coach.

Sam Taggart 00:38
Hello everyone, this is Sam Taggart. The DD podcast I’m here with Matt Crowther in San Diego, and we are live and rockin So Matt, he is solar top performer over 550 installs in over six years. That’s impressive. So never hit golden door though. Like 97 was his best year. Do you know that? I would have been I had a year I did 298 accounts, you know, so like I’ve had that year it’s like why don’t I just do two more? Three more Come on. Like I know. Back then those probably wasn’t there was no golden door was it?

Matt Crowther 01:13
No. You know, I like if I would have known that it was a thing to hit 100 like I probably would have worked a little harder. But yeah, the past past two years. I’ve done right around 90 each year. And I just like my vacations too much.

Sam Taggart 01:29
You traveled over what 30 country?

Matt Crowther 01:32
Yeah, I have traveled to 36 countries so far. And I just turned 32. Little bit. I just love to travel.

Sam Taggart 01:40
We just met we just met two people at the this restaurant. And you know, they’re just talking about life and she was visiting from Chicago and then you were like, what do you do is in like the club industry, whatever. And he’s in the restaurant business and there’s just so funny to watch. Like, I’m like, man, like they’re This is like their first vacation and like who knows how like he you know, he’s just funny. Like, I’m like, man, we’ve been a lot of countries and door to door is a blessing, man.

Matt Crowther 02:07
Door to door is like kind of an unreal lifestyle when you figure it out.

Sam Taggart 02:12
Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s we cheat. It’s cheating life. Sometimes

Matt Crowther 02:15
it’s it’s cheating. Like we can live four lives in one life with door to door kind of, you know, well, I’m excited to have you on the show, man. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me.

Sam Taggart 02:24
So we’re diving in today on multiple things. And the first thing that’s interesting about Matt is he comes from the background of Cutco and I’ve worked with quite a few Cutco people. And one of the things that you guys master is the referral game. And I remember seeing Did you ever notice him? Yeah, he’s a little bit good dude. He shows up to my office. I trained him in the Vivint world, you know a lot of those guys switchover alarms. And he’s like, imagine doing your job, where you’re not allowed to knock doors, and your sole income is built off of referrals. And I was like, interesting, I would definitely be broke. It’s like, I don’t ever do referrals, like I sucked at referrals and alarms. And so you’ve obviously taken some of this hybrid Cutco referral game of preset appointments is what they call them, right? How do you like how is that translated into solar, and gonna kind of shed some light on like best practices there.

Matt Crowther 03:24
So So back in the day, when I was doing Cutco, I basically would get about 10 referrals, each appointment. And if you’re listening to that,

Sam Taggart 03:36
most of you probably have not gotten 10 referrals each year. So, you know, yeah, like,

Matt Crowther 03:41
Yeah. So it’s like our training was this, we basically would, and it was kind of funny, but we would literally take a sheet of paper, full sheet and label it to 30. So we had like, label it to like 30 or 33, whatever it is filling the whole page. And during our appointment, we would basically say, Hey, you know, I’m sure that you’ve probably got some other friends that might be interested in what I’m doing. As a reminder, I just need to get the appointment, I just need to sit down with them, like they don’t have to buy or anything like that. I just want to show as many people this product as I can. If you could just jot down, you know, everyone that you know, I’ve only got 30 names here, but just fill up as many as you can. And if you need another page, I can get you one more and I literally just put it right there. And then kind of just start going into Who do you know who loves to cook Who do you know who has like the the kitchen that every all of your friends just in the because they’re always in the kitchen cooking? Who do you know, that is the social butterfly of all their, you know, friends and family. So that was kind of like the start of it and people would feel awkward to write two names down with a list of 30. So I remember one person I got over 100 names from them and numbers at that moment. Like they fill up the whole 30. And then they’re like, I need like another couple pages. And they were grabbing their church directory, they were grabbing their neighborhood directory, like they were just writing everyone down. And I was like, yeah, obviously, like, I don’t want to just call them randomly, like, let’s, let’s make a plan and make a phone call so that you’re prepping them for this meeting, just so that they’re not like caught off guard by hearing from me. So I was I was really good at setting the stage and framing that really well for people so that they could like, get excited about what they were working with me on. And so it became like, almost like a game. And so what I would do is we would give them like something for free, if they could, if they could fill up the page. And so, so that was like the goal. And we literally like you know, in Cutco has this amazing ice cream scoop that like just like melts, like just by touching it. Have you ever seen that? Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Like you can put an ice cube in it. And it’ll just melt the ice that

Sam Taggart 05:59
How does he do that?

Matt Crowther 06:00
It’s not like some chemical or something I don’t even remember. But it’s it’s pretty awesome. And so I would do that in my demo. And then I would take the ice cream scoop out and say, Hey, if we can get to 30 Today, that’s yours. And I would just put it there, just like lay it there on the table. And people are like, really, it’s like, yeah, that’s yours for free. We just have to get to 30 names. And so there were all these tactics that we use, right. And, and I would get a lot of a lot of names I was generating anywhere from probably 10 to 10 to 100 a week, depending on the week. And it was it was nuts. Right? I was getting all these different referrals, we’d have, you know, these blitzes where we would make phone calls for two or three hours just calling our different lists that we would gather.

Sam Taggart 06:48
So you’ve had these like phone Blitz moments? Yep. Cuz I think is key. I used to get names and then ever call them.

Matt Crowther 06:55
Yeah, so right. And then I would get like the top 10 people or the top five people from that list. And I would say, Hey, who would you say is probably like the most likely to want some of this stuff? And they would say, oh, probably Cindy. Yeah. She She? And maybe Lisa, I don’t know. And I say okay, just circle them just circle where they are on the list. Because those are the people I’m going to call first, I want you to call them tonight and let them know that I’ll be calling. And so that was like, that was me. You know, 10 years ago when I was 21 years old, not even knowing whatever I you know, I’m not even knowing really anything about what I was doing in sales. Yeah. I was just trained that way. Yeah. Right. And so that’s how it started. When I got into solar, I started knocking doors in Colorado. And it was like, in the middle of the winter, it was super cold. And I just wanted to get in front of people. And so I remember like, I push really hard my first month I had over, I think it was 10 Welcome calls that that first month. And and from those 10 people, I got like 100 more people. It was crazy. And I kept knocking while working in that referral game. But I just took the same exact thing that I was doing. Right then as I was leaving Cutco, I took it and just implemented it into my my solar thing. And I just made a list and said, Hey, you know, let’s see if we can get 10 people for me to show this to like I said, they don’t have to buy or sign up or whatever. But I just need to get in front of some people. And so it was like the same exact principle. But I just put it into solar. And from there, it’s kind of morphed into something else where I really have people that are on my team that are partners with me as referral partners. And all by them vacations are literally like I do all these crazy things for my top people that are that are sending solid consistent business over to me, how do you keep engaged with those types of people? Because,

Sam Taggart 08:56
you know, we’ve always been like, Hey, dude, like, I’ll pay for vacation. I’ll do some cool. And then, you know, they don’t think about it on a day to day. So like, how do you keep them? Do you have like some kind of touch points checking in motivating them?

Matt Crowther 09:08
Yeah, that’s a good question. So So basically, people will forget about you if you don’t stay on their mind. Yeah, right. And they’ll they’ll, they’ll forget quick, right? Especially if you’re just meeting them door to door, whatever, or however you met them, like, unless you become a part of their life, they’re not going to remember Yeah. And so basically, I have some very, very strong seeds that I plant in my presentations with them. And I’m planting seeds. I’m showing them the spreadsheets that I have for my top people that have sent me 27 people and have 10 of their friends installed. And they got their trip to Hawaii that I paid for for them. So So kind of the way that I do it is if we can get to 10 installs, I’ll pay them $4,000 for whatever vacation they want to go on. And so that’s like a big number for me. And then there’s There’s little stepping points as we go. But like number 10 is like where it gets good. That’s where they’re like, Oh, wow. Okay. So what I’ve learned is that I don’t want just one referral from someone, I want 20. And I want to help them to get 10. Because if we can get to five together, five installs together, now we’re working together, they’re not going to give up on it. They’re going to keep sending people to me, because I can keep bringing that up. Hey, remember that trip to Greece that you told me about? That you were like, super excited about, you know, you’ve wanted to do that trip for over 20 years, five more people. And we’re there. Okay, that should only take us about six more months to get there. And then I’m buying you and your husband that trip to Greece that you’ve always wanted. So it’s like I’m almost interjecting myself into their life, but in a way where they know that I’m sincere, and that I’m helping them. Yeah. Then I build even more credibility by showing them pictures of my people that have gone on those vacations that I paid for. That’s cool. So I actually have pictures of it. It’s like, Hey, this is Lou. He went to the Philippines, I paid for a three week vacation for him and his wife to go to the Philippines for his mom’s 70th birthday. These are 22 pictures that he sent me from the trip. I just wanted to share those with you.

Sam Taggart 11:13
It builds that like, the liquidity to, you know, because I know people that do referral incentives in every room pay it there. Oh, yeah, I forgot. I gotta like Venmo that one guy. 100 bucks, right?

Matt Crowther 11:24
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, when, you know, I’m paying 2030 $40,000 in referrals, you know, because most of my business is coming from referrals. And every single time that you drop off a check to someone, guess what happens? They trust you even more. Yeah, they want to keep working with you. And so one other thing that I do that I’ll just give you guys as a little, you know, part of my process is all do freebies in my area. So if I have a solid customer that’s either installed or getting installed, I’ll do freebie referrals for them, where I’ll pay them for their neighbor as the referral if the neighbor gets it, even if they don’t know that neighbor. So I’ll give them the first check as a freebie. And guess what, every single time I’ve done that, I get more referrals, interested every single time because it’s that law of reciprocity where people want to reciprocate, they want to give back. And so when I do it so freely, where it’s like, hey, just to let you know, and I just actually did this like a couple weeks ago. One of my customers he hadn’t heard from me for probably three or four months. So it’d been a while but he’d sent me a few referrals that got installed. And so like we were, we were working together, and two houses down, his neighbor got installed, it was a fresh knock that happened to get installed. And I went back to that customer and said, Hey, here’s that check. Your neighbor to house has got the system installed. Because of that, because you got it first. And he probably saw your install that helped me that helped build momentum on your street. So because that I just wanted to give you that as a little little bonus. And I kid you not three days later, he sent me seven numbers. No, seven phone numbers I didn’t even ask. It was just that freeness and sincere, like appreciation, where he said, Wow, okay, Matt solid. He’s gotten a few of my people set up, I can trust him. That’s huge. And building that relationship of trust through actually following through with what you say. Where it’s not just it’s not just words. It’s like, okay, Matt did say that. He works with a lot of people. He said that he made one guy over $10,000 in referral money in a year. You know, that could be me. Yeah. What could I do with $10,000? More? That’s only for 12 referrals that get it with with my program. That’s awesome.

Sam Taggart 13:51
So one last thing on that a lot of people work leads referrals, their pipelines. What How do you avoid becoming a herbivore versus a carnivore? Right? There’s like, Well, you know, I don’t need to go out today because I just like work referral or two. And, you know, you see a lot of guys get kind of like, complacent. Yeah, you’re like you worked a total of an hour today. Yeah. What are you doing? Like this is like, and and I’m going to saying it just it bugs me. So you manage a bunch of guys? Yeah, I mean, you guys are in your office 60. So 60 dudes on his solar team. Imagine that guys that had 400. And how many last quarter?

Matt Crowther 14:32
A year ago Q3, we did 430 as our team,

Sam Taggart 14:37
one quarter

Matt Crowther 14:38
one quarter. And then last quarter we did 300.

Sam Taggart 14:41
So, you know, a lot of people don’t realize like, what that means. But that’s, that’s more than most companies do. But um, yeah. How do you avoid when you’re managing reps? And they just say I’m working referrals and that’s their cop out?

Matt Crowther 14:57
Yeah, that’s a great question. So one thing But I always do is, is stay consistent on the doors. And and this I learned from, you know, one of my mentors and a leader that I work with Dave Mattson and Dave is one of the best of the best. He’s like, shout out,

Sam Taggart 15:15
guys shout out to Dave, then 30 solar deals in a week, tag him and be like day when you get on a stinking podcast.

Matt Crowther 15:23
But yeah, he’s over 1000 installs for his career in when the guy hears that. Yeah, one of the goats. But so you know, he still consistently knocks weekly, even though he’s got a crazy schedule and could be working in other places like he still prioritizes knocking, because one thing that he taught me is knocking keeps you hungry, right? It’s like when you’re knocking, you are sharper, you’re more alert, you’re more aware, you’re more able to help your reps because you know, what’s actually going out on what’s what’s going on out on the doors. And so like, even today, I had kind of a crazy day, super busy day, I still knocked five doors, you know, like, I can’t let one day go without knocking at least one door. Even if I have three referral appointments, that’s big. And, and for me, my goal is actually 20 to 50 doors a day. And so like, like 20 is a good day. But 50 I do 50 consistently. And I know exactly how long it takes me, it takes me four to five hours to do those 50 doors, depending on how many people answer, but you have like, like numbers that you are committed to. And I either say I’m getting five accounts, or I’m knocking 50 doors, whichever one comes first, like that. And so like, I just won’t let myself off the doors because I know that a lot of business comes from the doors, and it has come from the doors. I’ve got 180 installs in one zip code in California. It’s crazy. And I’ve saturated that that city I literally have it literally, I have people call me because six of their neighbors have solar for me. Yeah. And that just comes with persistent effort. And it’s funny, because reps will come knock with me in my area. And they’re like, dude, you’ve been here for two and a half years. How are you still here? It’s like, people move. People come in people come out. You know, some people, they’ll see me a year later. And then they sign up with me because I never went away. Yeah, it’s timing. It’s, it’s time ility. And granted, I’m not saying like don’t close a sale on the doors. I’m just saying with the solar market. It’s very different. Because solar is on someone’s house for 20 years. Yeah,

Sam Taggart 17:32
there’s no repeat. There’s no repeat.

Matt Crowther 17:35
And it’s so like people will see solar and especially if they see four of their neighbors Get it? And then it’s like, Yeah, I did. Cindy. I did. Cynthia. I did Jose, and I did you know, Patti, just right across the street. Do you know any of those people? Oh, yeah, I know, all four of them. Okay, yeah, they probably mentioned this to you. Basically, I just want to show you what, what the reason why they did it. Because at the end of the day, it might actually help you. And I’m not going to, you know, forced you to save money by switching to a better provider for your electricity. But you might actually like what you see just like a bunch of your other neighbors did, by and so like, I can follow up with people way down the road, and still sign new business, love the know. And if you listen to this, my two cents are

Sam Taggart 18:22
you, I love the fact that you’re like, I don’t miss a day, that’s a nugget. And I don’t miss a day without knocking at least one door, you know what your consistency needs to be, you know how long it takes you, you schedule a time to do that you prioritize time for it, because you know, it keeps you hungry. And herbivores, they could starve if they don’t have a constant deal flow constant pipeline coming in. And that’s where you watch a lot of these, you know, people in direct sales and DVD or whatever, they literally, they they weed themselves out of such an amazing opportunity because they never they don’t get hungry and then they pipeline dries out then they blame everything but themselves for not being willing to get out there and actually grind. You know, it’s like one of the things that you know, I look at these guys like like Dave that make millions of dollars and I you know, he still wears the shirt with pride. I knock doors. Yeah, nothing. Like it’s so funny. We go to that restaurant Chinese people. And we asked him like, what are you doing? He’s like, I work at a steakhouse. The lady’s like, is that like beneath you? Like Like, cuz you know, Dustin’s in his Tesla or whatever, right? He’s like, is that beneath you? And we’re like, no, it’s not beneath us. Like, we knock door. She’s like, just like, like, she literally like was trying to defend his job as a server. And I was like, how many times do we defend our job is like, I’m not going to be the guy who’s gonna go door to door I’ve started to do referrals that I’ve got, like, I’m already past the doors. I’m in the pipeline management now. Right? I’m better than that. I’m better than that. Yeah, like I love that. You just said that because it’s so Funny I hear that all the time. No, no, I’m on leads now. Like the doors are for like, it’s a graduation period to become a, you know, a senior and then, and then all sudden you go to college and that’s where you kind of just get leads and stuff, you know, and I’m like, oh, give me an ice cold. Like, you know. Yeah. But I think that by coupling like what you said it’s like you’re able to master these get 10 names every home and pipe like I remember seemed called leapfrogging yeah jumping. You’re like tonight I

Matt Crowther 20:30
Need you to call those. Yeah, I’m gonna meet with them right after this. Yeah, like I have. I have an opening for the next hour. So I can go over there right now. Like check if they’re home, then I’ll just stop by. So good. Yeah. And I’ve done that. I’ve actually done that with solar with neighbors. If someone is super solid, I know that that thing is getting installed for sure. I’ll even do that, you know, in the very beginning or later, well, I’ll have where I’ll have my customer walk me over to a neighbor’s house and introduce me in person. Yeah. And I and I do that often. I would say at least a couple times a month, if not weekly. That’s so good. Okay,

Sam Taggart 21:07
so let’s shift gears a little bit. You’re training for an Ironman in six weeks? As Ironman is? We are first your door to door con. Did you come that first year? Ah, no iron cowboy spoke. Yeah, so fit the Ironman if it is, and it didn’t hit me until he’s like, you know what an Iron Man is. And I was like, it’s a marathon after swimming. two miles and 2.4 miles and biking. 112 miles. 112 miles. So you did 1550 days but just doing one I ran a marathon. And I was like, passed out could not move. I can’t imagine if swimming 2.4 miles and biking before that. Like

Matt Crowther 21:47
Yeah, in the end, the bike ride is seven to eight hours long.

Sam Taggart 21:50
Yeah, you’re just straight eight hours on a bike?

Matt Crowther 21:52
Yeah, no, no, really no stopping. You know, so it’s, it’s probably one of the most intense physical things that someone can do. Yeah. at it for David Goggins coming to door Yeah, totally. endurance athleteSeriously, he’s Yeah, I loved his book can’t hurt me.

Sam Taggart 22:10
So if you’re haven’t got your ticket to DDD con, that I it was my number one pick last year, you can come. He was my number one pick this year couldn’t come. And then I think COVID switched up his schedule. So he could now so he’s coming next year coming. So January 8, and ninth, it’ll be cool. So you’re doing this thing? I trained for a marathon. So I want to kind of jam on this. But and why am I talking about this and door to door? Like, have you noticed? Just your persistence to training, prepping? Do you find there’s some correlation that discipline like

Matt Crowther 22:43
That is totally, it’s all discipline? Yeah. You know, this is the thing that I tell my team, I say, it’s not about motivation. It’s about discipline. Okay, because motivation doesn’t last motivation doesn’t get you out of bed at 5am every day. And my training is between five and 7am daily, right? I’m training six days a week, because an Iron Man, in order to even be prepared, you have to build a foundation of between 12 and 18 hours a week of training. And so like, like, I’ve been in this for about a year, I’ve really been training since my last triathlon that I did, which was four times shorter than this Iron Man is a Olympic triathlon. But um, you know, discipline creates action, right? discipline creates that, instead of making a decision, the decision is already made, because you already committed to the discipline of it. So like when I wake up in the morning, and it’s like, Okay, I got a 50 mile bike ride today. I don’t have to think about it, because I’ve already decided that I’m doing this Iron Man. So the discipline is there. Yes. So it’s the same for someone that wants to install 100, you know, solar deals or whatever. If they decide that they’re going to do that no matter what, it’s not a question of if they’re knocking doors that day, because they know that they have to knock doors that day in order to be on track to hitting their goal for the year

Sam Taggart 24:11
just dawned on me. What if and I’m curious from the audience. So comment if you agree or disagree or message me on this? What if you had a rep so you manage a lot of reps? And you said, Hey, I’m gonna give you 200,000 or 500,000, or $100,000 $20,000, whatever the number is based on their goal. And then he sits down with you says, For 12 months now I’m going to do 100 installs, like Yeah. Give me 200 grand. He’s like, what? Okay, give me 200 grand. I’ll give it back to you when you do your when you do your 100 installs. Do you think that would change them is discipline like, signed up for the requirement? It’s already? Yeah, I already paid for it. Yeah, it’s on the calendar. It’s happening at that date. You can’t be like, Hey, guys, I’m not ready. Can you move it? Yeah, November 21. The day but conflates the cause and value doing it and colocation. Yeah, you know, and it’s like, Wait, what? You know, like, what if we did that in sales? Like,

Matt Crowther 25:07
Well think about a normal business business that you have to invest in, like a typical business that you buy, you are buying it before it’s yours. It’s a good, right. It’s like, like a normal business. Like, I have a friend that is kind of talking to me about investments and stuff. And, you know, it’s 100 grand to buy into that. Yeah, it’s $100,000 that you need to pay to become a part owner in that business. So, you, you’re kind of committed at that point. Yeah. Like, you’re not just going to give up on that, because you gave them $100,000. This, this is a thought that I’ve had a lot in sales. We are our own boss, like we write our own paycheck. And if we would do it that way, where we said, Okay, I’m going to buy the business for $100,000. I know it’s gonna pay me back later. And we actually did that with sales and invested in ourselves and invested in our own discipline and commitments. It’ll be a totally different story at the end of the year for where people end up.

Sam Taggart 26:06
Yeah. No, that’s, that’s so so. So let’s shift gears, then. I agree. So do you disagree or agree? Comment? Because I think in direct sales, we don’t see it that way. Like, we were like, I didn’t work out. I didn’t have a good week. But you can’t have like, Hey, I didn’t feel like training this month, we stood at the Ironman shelter that looked like an idiot now, like, seriously, like, that’s not something you just can wake up and do. Yeah, you’re not Oh, my, my body will take it. So I’m shifting gears a little bit. When you say investing, sometimes you’re not paying for the, you know, the amount of accounts like you’re not like, Hey, I’ll release your $100,000 back to you when you hit your goal. That doesn’t happen. I’m curious if somebody wanted to try that experiment with me. I’ll put your money in escrow. And not seriously though, like, sit like, say, Sam, I’m curious if some of you take me up on that challenge. Yeah, I’m a golden door winner. I’m like, yeah, prove it. Give me the 100,000. I won’t mess with it. I’ll keep it. Yeah, buy into it. But you’ve paid a lot of money for coaching. So yeah, you know, we both just talked about Tony Robbins, and these other programs and all this stuff. Like, have you seen that be an interesting? You know, you’ve invested 10s of 1000s of dollars over in coaches and discipline that way? Do you feel like that put your ass on the line, in the sense of, you know, you had to put some money into it and you feel like, Man, I’m going to all these personal development things, and I’m going to get worse. Yeah, I don’t know. No, no,

Matt Crowther 27:36
That’s a good point. You know, that’s basically what it is like when you invest in yourself through self development. And, you know, speaking of Tony Robbins, I went to date with destiny, which is his big seven day conference, six day conference, and it is intense. It’s 10 to 12 hours a day, six days, a full six days. And it’s just, it’s like a marathon. I felt like I just hosted a date with destiny, dude, Monday,

Sam Taggart 28:06
I did a boot camp started literally like 10 went till eight. And then I started at eight and went till and there was like a back over event. So like, I’m literally overlapping two different boot camps, a solar boot camp, a business boot camp, that finished at nine at night, like, and then the next day it is 7pm like it was and then do that six days in a row. Yeah. Like I was like, and I’m the host, like I’m running at all, like, Tony is a different animal.

Matt Crowther 28:28
And it really is. So, that experience for me taught me a lot. And it taught me a lot about commitment. And it’s not a cheap conference, you know, it’s, it’s like $8,000. So it’s, it’s not a cheap conference to get to, you’re investing in yourself, you’re investing in your, your development that’s going to happen during that week. And he has a whole platform of how it works. But like, that was a life changing week for me. It really was it taught me a lot about myself. It taught me a lot about who I am. It taught me a lot about my vision and my goals for my future. And, like, investing that, you know, $8,000 I’ve already seen a dividend. I’ve already seen part of that come back to me because I’ve felt, you know, I felt the changes in my life. And now granted, we’re all works in progress, right? Life is a little bit crazy. Like the the journey of life for some people, you know, is a lot harder than others. But but it’s crazy. It really is. And I’ve learned that you know, I’m 32 years old, I’m still pretty young, but like, I’ve learned that you know, life is not black and white. There’s a lot of color in between. And I think that you know when you invest in yourself and you know, I have a coach, I have a Tony Robbins life coach. I’m not like you’re promoting that or whatever. I just, it’s been a good fit for me. I’ve had other coaches that have also helped me in my life. And you know, when you have someone that you paying them money for them to give you the advice that you need to hear to better yourself. That’s, that’s a real investment into yourself. Yeah. Because your coach isn’t going to steer you wrong. You think about being in sports and the best coach you’ve ever had, you could trust that person. Yeah. Right. And so that that’s how it’s been for me with my coaches. And that’s one of the reasons why I’ve gotten to where I’ve gotten in the solar world. And, you know, it’s, it’s been a journey for me, of opening up and being vulnerable, and being willing to grow and willing to learn, and that’s a huge tip for success is like, be open and be vulnerable. And, you know, take feedback when people give it to you and don’t, don’t get offended easily, like, you know, to be a top sales rep, you have to be willing to grow and be humble. Right? And you will either be humble, or you’ll be forced to be humble.

Sam Taggart 30:57
Right? Um,

Matt Crowther 30:58
Yeah, it’s true. You know, there’s, there’s some truth to that in the scriptures. And, you know, we, we all have to make those decisions of who we are as people. And, and, you know, I honestly believe that, you know, everything happens for a reason, you know, even us sitting down together today, like, I believe that that happens for a reason. So, and I think that it’s, it’s pretty awesome when you can have a realization of who you are and who you’re becoming as a person. And that’s why the investment into myself with different programs, and, you know, conferences and trainings has been worth it for me

Sam Taggart 31:36
cool. No, I still spend a lot of money on coaches. So I it’s been, and I charge a lot of money for coaching. I’m on both sides of it now. And it’s it’s beautiful to watch, that is just a law that I think can’t be broken, that when you when you invest in yourself, and you truly Look at that, as I’m betting on my 100 100 accounts this year, and I’m willing to put money on it. There’s a way to look at that. And I think too many people don’t associate they’re like, oh, coach, and that’s fluff. Like, what are they gonna do? Like, put a wand over you? And like, do wizardry like no, it’s, but it’s like what you said, it’s just, it’s creating a space for vulnerability, full expression, true authentic. Like, here’s, here’s what the problem is in our industry and tell me if you can relate, you’ve worked at multiple companies, Cutco different solar company, yeah. And I found the biggest problem in this industry, and I’ll just say how it is, it’s because you make money on that Rep. Your fear of them leaving you actually creates an inability for you to give true feedback. Because you have to live in the scarcity mindset around. Like, if I’m too mean, they’re not gonna like me, I can’t speak my truth. And then the second set the reciprocating into that is I didn’t have to spend any money for you to be my mentor or manager. I make you money on my override. They’re not paying us to mentor them. Exactly. Yeah. And I think that is one of the biggest disservices and you are part of one of the coolest teams in probably the entire solar industry, one of the biggest companies in the entire solar industry, the biggest now by far. But you know, you didn’t have to, you did there was a cost to that education, because you didn’t take the full pay the full override to be part of Dave’s team. And, you know, Hadfield and all these guys. I mean, you work with some of the best solar guys. And I think that sometimes people take it for granted. And I don’t know, I just I just put your two cents on that.

Matt Crowther 33:49
Yeah, I think that I think that, um, especially the fact that a lot of reps will come in expecting it to be easy. Yeah. That, you know, they see the money, they see, oh, my gosh, like, you can make $40,000 in a month. Like, that’s stupid. That’s crazy. Like, they see these big numbers of what’s possible in door to door for the top reps, right. And so they expect it to be easy. And whenever I interview someone, I actually tell them, this will be the hardest job you’ve ever had. Hands down, I don’t care what else you’ve done. This will be the hardest job you’ve ever had in door to door, because it is going to test you more than anything else can test you. Because it’s you against the doors. Love it, you know, and, and so I tell people, this is not going to be easy. Like if you want something easy, then let’s not even start this because it’s gonna be hard. If you’re willing for to go for it and you’re willing to learn and grow and be tested and go through a challenge. This might be a great fit for you. But like, this is a refiners fire. The Doors you can’t cheat the grind, right? It’s like that’s something I’ve heard over the years. But you cannot cheat the grind. And like it’s just one of those things that people, they expect it to be easier than it’s going to be they expect the manager to do most of the work. And like in my office, we don’t do that as much. It’s more like, like, I’ll have reps that call me, Hey, can you come and close this for me? And I’ll say, Yeah, I can. But why don’t you close this one. And then I’ll go to the next one, if you need me. And I’ll just say, Go bring all the questions to me. If it doesn’t work, like you can bring me in for a second touch. And I’ll help you to lock it up. But I would rather you get paid the full Commission on it, close it yourself, and then bring me in later if you need me. Right. And so like, that’s my that’s my own personal opinion. Because when I started, I didn’t have anyone closing anything for me. And I didn’t want them to because I didn’t want to give up any of my Commission’s on it. I wanted to experience what that was. And it was messy. I will say that my first 1020 deals were probably pretty horrible. And you know, pretty messy. But I failed my way forward. And I failed through it. Because I wanted to learn and I wanted to grow through that experience. And now I’m that much better for it. Because I figured it out myself. Yeah. That’s that’s my two cents.

Sam Taggart 36:12
So what what do you feel like the differences because you’ve worked at little teeny companies, and now you work at obviously, the biggest, you’ve been part of crappy cultures, you’ve been part of really good ones. How do you feel? It’s helped you being part of like a strong, awesome high performing team? Like, do you feel like that’s paid its own dividends?

Matt Crowther 36:31
Absolutely. It’s been everything. You know, I don’t have to get into the whole story of all the different companies I’ve been at, but I’ve been I’ve done solar in five different states. You know, I’ve been in a lot of different teams, a lot of different markets. And, you know, I didn’t ask for that to happen. It’s just kind of how it happened. And I ended up here and, and if found a home here, and I really, I know that this is where I’m supposed to be. But I’ve been in bad cultures that it was toxic, and the negativity it affected me even though I’m, I’m an eternal optimist, right? But being in a healthy culture, where people are succeeding, and you’ve got tons of people that are doing well, making great money, have great attitudes about it, and we just will not let any negativity in our culture, they just fire They weed themselves out, okay? It’s moral. And it’s crazy, because like, like people that are negative, or people that kind of don’t have that, that ability to kind of see things the way that we do, they kind of just like, just leave. It’s like, because we have such a strong team. And we have such a strong culture, they’re just kind of like maybe like, they feel uncomfortable because of how good the culture is. And it’s like, they just won’t bring it in. Yeah. And so building a strong culture and a team is key to success. When it comes to having a good door to door, you know, team or unit or whatever you’re gonna call it because if you have a strong culture, people will be happier. And when people are happy they go out and sell.

Sam Taggart 38:08
Love. That’s true. nugget. Okay, so we’re gonna wind down. Yeah. Thank you so much for honestly, for being on here. And hopefully, if you guys are listening, give us a big thumbs up share this. You know, we love reviews on the podcast, by the way, guys, like say, hey, Matt was one of my favorites, or least favorite or just speak your truth, speak your truth. Give me zero stars. I mean, we try to really just provide zero value in these podcasts. Like we’re doing the worst possible job we can. And so yeah, we love negative reviews. No, but we do appreciate like when you guys share this. And my goal is to every week being the top 100 entrepreneur podcast has been kind of fun as we built this. Have you been? It’s pretty consistent? Yeah, that’s awesome. So but the reviews help the shares help. And anyway, you guys help us out tribe? Now, so one last piece of advice. I mean, if you were to give the industry as a whole, one piece of advice, what would it be just kind of a short, like, boom, this is it.

Matt Crowther 39:15
You know, what I’ll say is don’t be afraid to go after your dreams. You know, I’ll just share this quick story while we’re wrapping up. Um, so when I started at Cutco, I had a couple managers that were really impactful and influential in my life. And one of them recommended me to this book called The Dream manager. And it’s a cool book. It’s written by a guy Matthew Kelly. I met him actually in person which was actually really cool too. But I love that a Matthew Kelly Yeah, it’s not the same one different math guy

Sam Taggart 39:49
he I worked for Matthew Kelly selling food storage. I don’t talk about my food storage days. Much. I actually did door to door food storage Believe it or not, so I was like, wait a minute, keep going.

Matt Crowther 40:01
Yeah. So So this book, it’s called the dream manager. And it’s a book about how to unlock your dreams. And it’s very cool book, it’s actually interactive. So so the end of it is like, you write down your 100 dream list, okay, you actually go through and write down like the 100 dreams that you want to accomplish in your in your life. And I did this back in like 2012 so years and years ago. And honestly, that has been a turning point in my life when I committed to go big. And when I committed to do crazy things like this, this Iron Man is a 10 year dream. It was on my dream list in 2012 you know, and and I even wanted it before that but like it was written down at that time and I committed to achieving as many dreams as I can in my life so that they don’t die with me. And so you know, write down your dreams like go big, like, you know, don’t be afraid to write those things down and and really like set big goals for yourself because the cool thing about door to door is we write our own paychecks. So you can decide what you want and make it happen and make it a reality into your life. And I just I just bought my dream car a year ago because of this job and because of door to door and it’s like that was on my dream board. Back from 2015

Sam Taggart 41:29
Honda Civics your dream car. I love civics man. This kid is a nice Tesla like a nice. I’ve got the good test. I’ve got the very fast Tesla 707 horsepower. Yeah, that model three is sexy.

Matt Crowther 41:48
Just I just had to go big, but you know, so that’s just that’s huge. It’s like go for big dreams. I’ve always been a dreamer. Like I was known as the dream guy in the Cutco world. It was kind of funny, but like I was that obsessed with it. I had a dream to visit 100 countries in my life. And that’s why I’m at 36 because I’m checking them off each year. Like having a dream that is healthy. That is like motivating and empowering. There’s nothing like it in your life when you can go after big dreams that fill you that like give you that fullness of life. So that’s that’s my advice.

Sam Taggart 42:24
Okay, much love. Thanks for sharing my brother. Thanks, man. Okay, love you guys.