Transcript of IS THERE STILL A FUTURE IN DOOR-TO-DOOR SALES || MAX GANLEY || EPISODE 059

I grew up in a really unique situation. My dad's a big entrepreneur, sold his first business at 38 for 100 million, has gone on to do a lot of things. Where I grew up, I've been surrounded by a lot of successful people. My dad said, Hey, you have to go to school. He actually didn't go to college. He was homeless at 14, didn't go to college. But he told me, Hey, you have to go to college, and you have to stay in college until you make 100,000. Then I'll let you quit, because I didn't get the chance to go to college. You've got to do it. I went to college, and then I went and did door to door. This was back in 14, 15, when solar was still very unknown or new. It was newer, so to say, right? I just started killing it. My first year, I made 142,000.

You started in selling in the Scottsdale area. Was that your first rodeo? Then did you end up branching out to other markets as time went by?

Yeah. My first couple of years, I started just closing deals. Then naturally, I had a lot of friends come and want to do it. Naturally, more people came. Doing this a decade, I went from being a sales rep to a sales manager to then a regional. Then in 2019, a few of us, we started our current company, Sunder Energy. Now in today's current state, we span across about 45 markets with over 1,500 sales reps active and stuff. It's been cool to see the adaption. Sadly, people have looked at the solar industry as a cash grab. They're in here just to go and make these big commissions versus what's best for the customer or their business. Those guys are short-lived. I've seen that these guys that chase, I'm going to make more per deal. I never see them last longer than a year or two. They're chasing all the time. I've set my career up where it's like, Hey, I've been able to build a foundation and then build off that, and that provides more consistency. What we've provided is a platform to where you're still part of that whole ecosystem, but you're getting your selfishly best experience to where you're serving your client.

And it also diversifies our business. We don't have any fixed overhead. We don't own trucks, warehouses, branches. We don't have all these big fixed expenses that can go take a company down when times get tough.

The code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Today, we have an amazing guest. If you are interested and curious in learning about renewable energy, the solar, if you want to be able to jump in door to door, if you wanted to find a bit more about this specific industry, we have a man that's been in this industry for about 10 years in different markets, and he's built one of the biggest solar companies as well, straight out of Mesa. Without further ado, I'm going to have Max Ghanli in the studio. Thank you. Welcome, boss. How are you doing?

Doing awesome. Thank you for having me.

Awesome stuff. I appreciate that. I'm glad we got the morning schedule. I know it's very, very crazy. One of the things I learned, and I've been taught as well, is the fact that you can tell someone's success or someone's achievements and accomplishments by how quick they respond. If I text you, it doesn't even take more than two seconds to get a response back from you. I appreciate that. But I learned from Patrick Bedebit. He said, That from all the success of people that he has learned about, he's like, because everything is so calculated and everything is like, they appreciate time so much that they have to get over the task. Listen, I get over the thing on the next task, next task, not this thing of hanging on. I really I appreciate that a lot. It made it so smooth and amazing. I had to just mention that in the start.

You're welcome. I try to do that a lot. It's a superpower.

I love it. Are you born and raised in Mesa?

Born and raised here, yeah. I lived my whole life in Arizona.

Guess what, though? You and I served our missions around the exact same time. I served 12, 14.

Same here. I got home November, 2014.

Yeah, I was, I think, May or so. It's the same thing as well, 25 months, because when we were on our missions, we experienced Well, I think you just came slightly after the age change thing.

When I started, it was a month after that, they switched it all to that new age thing. On my mission, there was people coming out that were two years younger.

Where did you serve?

I didn't see that. Edmonton, Canada. Oh, wow. Yeah, really cold. Door knocking up there is different. When it was minus 20 to 30 Celsius, you still had to go out. There was a trick they taught us where we'd put our glove on and we'd have a golf ball to knock because we couldn't take our hands out of our gloves because it was so cold. That was the secret. Yeah.

Awesome. I want to just dive into it real quick. You have experience in 10 years in solar. Solar has been... It was the first It was a long time in my entire life that I had made a six-figure income as well, even though it was in an area where six-figure is not a significant Bay Area, one of the most expensive places to live in the United States. But you have 10 years experience your experience in this industry? Can you run us through just a bit of your journey in solar?

Yeah. I grew up in a really unique situation. My dad's a big entrepreneur, sold his first business at 38 for 100 million, has gone on to do a lot of things. Where I grew up, I've been surrounded by a lot of successful people. Obviously, we just talked about I went on a mission. When I got home from my mission, I was bred to go be an entrepreneur. My dad said, Hey, you have to go to school. He actually didn't go to college. He was homeless at 14, didn't go to college. But he told me, Hey, you have to go to college. You have to stay in college until you make 100,000. Then I'll let you quit. Because I didn't get the chance to go to college. You've got to do it. So I went to college, and then I went and did door to door. And this was back in 14, 15, when solar was still very unknown or new. It was newer, so to say, right? And just started killing it. My first year, I made 142,000. And that was back when commissions were 1,500 to So it was a very different time back then.

It was like one product, one system thing. So my dad's like, Hey, you're allowed to quit. And what I found joy in door to Door is it wasn't my dad calling one of his business partners, saying, Hey, can you give my Can you sign a job? Can you hook him up? But I found so much in Door to Door. I was like, I got to go prove what I'm worth. And so I love that because it was like, Okay, if I want to go make this or I want to go accomplish this, I could do it. It's not my dad or his business partners or my neighbor's giving me a handout. So I just started going out and doing it. Back then, we didn't have the training and the concepts that we had today. I was actually dropped off in Greyhawk up in North Scottsdale by a guy in a Lexus car, and he says, Hey, good luck. Figure it out, thing. So just started my journey that way. It was really unique.

Awesome. And that's fascinating. You started in selling in the Scottsdale area. Was that your first rodeo? And then did you end up branching out to other markets as time went by?

Yeah. So my first couple of years, I was just I started just closing deals. Then naturally, I had a lot of friends come and want to do it. Naturally, more people came. And so doing this a decade, I went from being a sales rep to a sales manager to then a regional. And then in 2019, a few of us, we started our current company, Sunder Energy. And now in today's current state, we span across about 45 markets with over 1,500 sales reps, active and stuff. So it's been cool to see the adaption, but I'm really grateful. I rely... Smart people learn from their mistakes, brilliant learn from others. I think for me, I've been really grateful that I have had phenomenal mentors in my life. I give them a lot of credit. It's helped me avoid a lot of mistakes that I've seen people in door-to-door make, financially, technology, and so many other aspects. I've been able to just go to people that obviously are far smarter and successful in me and just be like, Hey, what should I do in this scenario? It's helped me stay on a path that's been very successful.

I love that. I love that so much. What was different back then? I know, obviously, When I did Solar, there was a whole setter, closer, self-gener, in trying to find your way between there and build a team. In 2015 or 2014, around that time, what would you say was slightly different compared to how things are right now, structure-wise?

You didn't really have all that. It was just go eat what you kill. It was all self-gen, we call it. You not close your own doors, just go out and make it happen. I will say the market penetration was way less. Not as many people were in the solar game then, so to say. You didn't have the tech we had today. We didn't have the 10 different products. Batteries weren't even a thing. So it was very just simplified back then. But at the same time, you didn't have that. But the industry evolved quickly the first couple of years. All of a sudden, you saw a company start to create similar to what Vivint and some of the big door-to-door companies have, the culture, the competitions, all the systems you need to adapt and stuff because solar started to just take off.

One thing I did notice, when we were there, the first two years were relatively very good. The third year, that's when they implemented the NEM 3. 0. It hit us real hard because I remember getting some guys that were there. The commissions went from absolute luxury because one of my closest, one of my biggest deals the year before was a good... Over 20,000 was an Asian woman by Cripetino, literally same street as the Apple headquarters. She had 54 panels, even nothing more than that, filled up the entire roof. So stuff like that, which was a self-gen, was something so rewarding. And then name 3. 0 was a way where it pretty much was not the best experience. Did Arizona implement the same thing?

We haven't had net metering since 2017. Okay. So we've been... Arizona is a tried and true brute of a market. And sadly, it's very unfortunate. I'd say a majority of people don't educate themselves enough of how to sell correctly in Arizona. We We've come across a lot of deals. Now, in Arizona, I'd say 90 %, you need to be doing batteries. The last two years, it's sad to see the amount of sales companies and installers that are allowing jobs to be installed without a battery. Because the buy Buyback now is around six, seven cents. So if you do 100 % of your home with solar, well, you're actually not getting 100 % of the value because all that excess is only being bought at six cents. It's not a one for one. And every year, the buyback goes down and down. So you need a battery. Yeah, it's changed. And I think a strength to my company and myself is we've always been willing to choose doing business the right way versus the wrong way. And even if that makes less money or we lose out on certain groups that don't want to come work with us just because they're all about how many deals I can sell, not how we can do it right.

And I think that's what has led to my personal success. I'm nearing close to about 900 personal installs in my career. So I went many years doing over 100 plus installs. And so I learned it's like, man, it's not what you make per deal, it's what you make per year. And if you can maximize nice referrals and doing good business, you're going to get a way better return on your investment than just slamming in that one deal because I'm going to make a little bit more on that. And that's principles my father and many of my mentors taught me, is you got to look at it from a business perspective of not just what's in it right now, but what's in it now and long term.

Yeah, and I couldn't agree more. When I was also doing it, I remember there was a time, Arizona always was number one in the market, and it had the most revenue. It just had the teams that were successful. Also, of course, leadership seemed to have been a bit more structured as well there, but the market was just they were killing it. It wasn't just us. I noticed even three different companies, and that's like '21, '22, around '23. Would you say Arizona, despite it being so saturated and competitive, it still seems to be producing? Would you say it's the same right now and then two years later from then?

It's definitely less. A lot of people have gone out of Arizona, which you want because they're usually the people that may have been doing business the wrong way. Like I said, the way you need to sell in Arizona is very niche now. You have to, majority of jobs, do a battery. There isn't net metering, it's net billing. The buyback is going down every year. So there's a lot of factors to where if you do business the right way, Arizona can be good. I'd say, sadly, Arizona, and in California, too. California is our biggest market. If you do business the right way with batteries, all that stuff, you can thrive. But sadly, people have looked at the solar industry as a cash grab. So they're in here just to go and make these big commissions versus what's best for the customer or their business. And those guys are short-lived. I've seen that these guys that chase, I'm going to make more per deal. I never see them last longer than a year or two. They're chasing all the time. Exactly. I've set my career up where it's like, Hey, I've been able to build a foundation and then build off that, and that provides more consistency.

And I've noticed as well, even from what you're saying, people like you, the Ashton Busbells. I interviewed Sam Tigard as well, I think a year and a half ago or a year ago. But integrity is so important in this specific marketing field. I feel like solar, specifically, has inherited the pest control douchebags over time.

Here's the truth, though, is everyone in the industry talks about doing right by the customer, but it isn't interesting how majority of installers don't check jobs? So you and I, we can go sell a job today and put panels on whatever roof and do whatever offset. Majority of installers, and it's a call out to a lot of installers out there and sales orgs, they don't validate that deal. We do. When we sell a job here, specifically in Arizona, if the usage isn't put in correct, we deny it. If you aren't doing a battery, we'll reject it until there's a reason. So everyone talks the talk in this industry. Oh, yeah, we're customer first. Well, then why do you guys let any system be installed? Why do you let any sales rep sell for you? Because all these guys, really, the motive behind what people really say is based off their actions. And we've noticed, at our size, we're one of the very few sales organizations that I know in the industry that actually will check jobs on the back-end to make sure that the information all lines up. But yet people don't do that, but they always want to talk about how they care so much about our customers.

But it's also a big reason why the industry is getting such a bad rap, because these guys are like, Oh, yeah, we're very big about our customer. Well, then why do you let this company sell for you? And we know they're putting panels on the north roof when everyone knows doing a system on the north roof, especially in Arizona, actually is worse than better for the customer. So I always think through that stuff.

No, I agree more. I mean, I had so many I've had experiences with some installers, like Core Energy. I don't know if you've ever heard of them. My gosh. The nice thing is that they installed super quickly, but it's at what cost. You know what I'm saying? They're unprofessional with them. They just slap roofs up. Sometimes they damage the tiles up there. It's one of those things where it's like a faust, and that's why they went down and under. I also knew the owner as well. But not to mention that. It's the fact that when you mention the whole back office thing, I think it's important because it's actually caring about the customer because many people speak it but don't actually do it. It's what about the money at the end of the day.

The bank check is, what do they do when the job is sold? Majority of installers currently, when a job is sold, they will just continue to progress every job. Very few companies, sales-oriented installers, actually will validate deals and be like, Hey, does this homeowner actually use this much power? Where are the panels placed and will it produce right? Because here in Arizona, specifically, you have on and off peak times. So during the afternoon, it's more expensive. Well, if you put solar panels on the east, where's the sun at 4: 00 PM? It's on the west. But yet a lot of guys will install a system with panels on the east. Installers claiming, Oh, yeah, we're big about the customer. Why are you letting your installers put panels on an east roof when you do need some on a south or west to offset the peak times? It's just a lot. But yet people don't think like that. It's sad that sales guys are like, Well, I just don't care because I just want my job installed, so I get paid bank, bro. It's a really bad mindset, in my opinion.

I couldn't agree And then are you guys your own installer or you... Okay.

No. Our model is very unique. We've gone down the route of using a single installation company. The last almost two years, we now contract out to more local regional installers, similar to every construction, right? There is no one big construction company. What we found, we're very what's best for the customer and rep experience. And we've just found our company, we are the big box sales engine, right? Sunder, my company, we handle all the culture, the growth of sales. And then in each different market, we use a more local regional installers because every market is so different, right? Arizona permits and AHJs are completely different than Maryland or Texas. And so it's been unique having to figure out how to tile that together. But also it's been a huge blessing. We have found that our customers and reps have had a way better hands-on experience because when you use a more local construction company, they're a lot more hands-on to giving a better experience because know their market. Similar to if you and I build a home in Arizona, we fly to Florida, we're not using the same home builder. So that's our approach to it.

We've tried the big box, one construction company, one thing. There's pros and cons to it. We just found overall, if you're really putting the customer at first, in my opinion, it's a lot more of a hands-on experience because there's so many nuances when it comes to doing a solar install.

Then is that the trajectory and plan at least to just try and become your own installer or right now?

We will never become an installer. It is the last thing. It's just not the play right now. And this is where sales guys don't have respect for installers. It doesn't matter the size. The installers are the ones that take on all the risk and liability. But yet these sales guys are like, Well, who's going to pay me the most and do this for me? It's like, You need to have a win-win. Regardless if your installer is the biggest or a local, they need to stay in business. They're the ones that are going to try to service that system. They're the ones who's going to pick up the phone when there's an issue. Most of these sales guys aren't going to be in door to door in many years to come. And so it's unique to see that, but we have no intentions of doing any of the construction because it's just not the play.

Okay. Then with the whole installer thing, have you had any, obviously, experience of setbacks with bad installers? What are the specific criteria that you look for to try and gain the right installers for that specific market that you guys are currently in right now?

Yeah, I'd say for us, it's an ever-changing industry right now. The bill, all these things coming out. I think for us, the most important thing is just financial health and stability. Something unique about our model is we have partnerships with a lot of the banks in the industry that help guide us on which installers to use and not to use. We're able to cross-reference, Okay, this is when this installer gets funded. Is that slow or fast? This is the material they have. So we've been able to do a really good job at our size, vetting out a lot of the facts of financials, how much crew capacity they have, do they have enough capacity to actually handle our volume? What's their strategy? Are they diversified? And so for us, that's what we look for is just health of the installer. It's not about who's the cheapest, it's more about the quality. Because right now, the name of the game is not fastest install, it's just who's going to pay. Because the banks are changing. The money is drying up in this industry right now in a very weird way because of the big beautiful bill.

So it's about who's got stability and security that's not over-leveraging themselves. The sad thing you see in this industry is majority of companies go chase volume, and then now they become beholden to that. And so they're willing to drop their shorts and do all these things because they have to get volume to keep business. We're more focused on, Okay, who can actually maintain a healthy relationship and not over-leverage themselves?

And there's just so much. It's like a billion-dollar industry, like solar as a whole, and with all government incentives and everything else. Why do you think it's been the leading factor to why so many companies have went down and under over time?

Three things. I think, one, I mentioned this earlier, the install companies are willing to give anyone and their mother the cheapest cost. You today, I can introduce you to 10 solar installers here in Arizona that will give you the same cost to go do an install as they are giving it to one of their other partners. So one, these installers They're dropping their shorts because they want volume, too. They're not regulating the volume. So they're allowing... You look at the trends of some of these companies that have gone bankrupt. They don't understand the difference between their hard cost and soft cost. So they go give everyone a cheap call red line. But then they don't realize that they're actually losing money because everyone has this cheap cost, too. They're the ones that are installing any type of job. They're not regulating the size of the system. They're not regulating if the panels are on the right roof, all the factors. So then that leads to three, which is now they start spending a lot of money fixing things and chasing things. It's a common trend. If you look at the last 10 years, that is what's happened to some of these big companies and small that got a business.

And then the finance companies are really starting to crack down on just because you have the system installed doesn't mean we're going to fund you. You You have to have all these criteria. So that's really how clear it is. It's just they're giving everyone way too low of a cost that shouldn't deserve it, should be met off volume, but they get so desperate. Two, they're not regulating their deals, so they're letting all these bad deals happen, which then three leads to them having to fix more things. And then what does that sales group do that sold bad business? They just go to the next guy. Yeah. So then it's like they're left holding the bag and it's like, well, you did this to yourself. You let everyone and their mother come on, give them a cheap cost. You didn't protect your margins. You were desperate for volume. You didn't regulate their business. So therefore, you pay the price.

Yeah, that's fascinating. And then obviously, you guys have got 1,500 people right now. Isn't there a fear sometimes of growing a little too fast in terms of the sales reps aspect as well? Because sometimes growing too fast can be detrimental to a company's growth and the trajectory of where they're heading. Is that a concern for you guys at the moment?

We've been big for a long time. Like I said, Sunder started in 2019. I think we've passed over 55,000 solar installs in our career. We've done it a big... I think it comes down to just you don't manage people, you manage systems. And I think we've created really good systems. We have a tech platform, we have great leadership. And so we've been able to manage that because of the systems we have and because of our platform Where when people are coming to our company because of the security and stability we provide to them, where a lot of people in the industry are scared right now, going and tying yourself to an installation company right now is very scary because there's a lot of unknowns. These companies are promising this. They're going out of business. That guy's left missing out hundreds of thousands of dollars, right? And so I think guys are realizing being somewhere where you have diversification is very safe to them. I look at it the same way. I'm sure you invest in the stock market, right? Do you own a stock or do you have a variety of stocks? Just a few, yeah.

I have a few.

Yes. And so it's the same thing what we learned a couple of years ago. Why go put all of our money, our eggs in one basket, where now our model is very diversified, where we're using a variety of different construction companies, which allows us to be very nimble and also protected, because if one position of our company was to maybe struggle, it's not taken down the whole program. And that's how sales guys want it. Selfishly, if you and I are selling in Arizona, you don't really care how is it going in Illinois. You just want the best experience here and vice versa, right? And so what we've provided is a platform to where you're still part of that whole ecosystem, but you're getting your selfishly best experience to where you're serving your clients. And it also diversifies our business. We don't have any fixed overhead. We don't own trucks, warehouses, branches. We don't have all these big fixed expenses that can go take a company down when times get tough.

Oh, gosh, I love that. The fact that you're very stuck on principle of what the vision and your mission is, sometimes I feel like people end up trying to take on responsibility. It's try to become an install, it's try to become this thing, try to become that thing. Then before you know it, it just always sinks in because it's not broken, why you got to fix it? You'd rather just go one direction and continue to enhance the trajectory and the path that you're going as I think it's important the fact that you stuck to your principles and you're going in that direction. However, what are some of the things that you are doing right now to try and prevent the company from going down like most of these companies that have in this industry?

I think, number one, If you look at the common trend, again, this isn't to knock on people in the industry. This isn't all be all. Majority of the companies that have gone out of business have taken on the liability of construction. For us, we're going to avoid that because like I just mentioned I was earlier, when you become the installer, you don't have to have the trucks, the warehouses. You got to have the credit lines to buy equipment. You got to service the system, and you take on a massive fixed expense. My company is a massive sales organization that is very asset light. We have, I think, 20 employees. We have tech, we have optionality. That is our difference, is we are going to stay in this middle ground where we're one of the largest sales organizations, but yet we don't have to carry any of the liability or debt. That is what these guys have chased. They become their own installer, and you run that risk, not saying everyone's doing it wrong, just saying that you start to take on fixed expenses, and then if things get tough, you still have the mortgage to pay.

So you either close it down. To this point, no one's really been able to prove the national construction model at scale on a long term basis. There's always been this thing that happens. You look at a Sunrun, they've shut markets down over the last couple of years. You look at some of the bigger installers, they've gone bankrupt, the Titans, ADT. No No one's been able to keep that program going on a long-term basis without something else having to sacrifice.

That's so fascinating. Now, coming down to the sales rep as well, do you guys have programs for summer and year-round, or how does that work?

We're like 90 % year-around. I think that's what makes Sunday unique, because we aren't some summer program. We're not a blitz program. We don't go hammer a market leave. We've built a really good year-around consistent business. A lot of our leaders live in markets. I think people get into our industry because they want a lifestyle. They don't want to have to for the summer. Some guys do. We do have teams that do that and stuff, but we've been very heavily based off, Hey, you live and work where you are. You have a lifestyle. Go home to your kids at night, thing. That's truly why I got into solar. I didn't want to go leave and go do alarm sales over the summer and leave. I was like, Man, if I can do solar, I can make the money I need to make where I live and still have that lifestyle.

Yeah, and I think that's what also worked as well for me because I did two years a year round. Obviously, that's where I got the most success because as much as we hammered that down in the summertime, the year on was a You get more schedule-like. You treat it like an actual job. You go out for the hours there, a career, and it's just way more efficient. It's also a good time, which is less stressful so you can see it around those customers, the referrals. You work a little smarter, you find strategies, and you become a bit more useful. But at the same time, summer, because you're in a structure where it's like an office space, can also just be a quick injection of boost for you as well, which leads to… If you do a year-round thing, how do you prevent burning out?

I I think it's a marathon, not a sprint. Would I love for everyone to go work 8, 10 hours a day? Sure. I think the reality is it's all about scheduling and having a plan to where you do create this like a career, having your schedule where you know your time is to go generate business, your time is to close business, your time is to train. So I think it's more of a marathon versus sprint of having that consistency of a schedule. When you're in a competition, go hard. When you're not, live that lifestyle, go on those vacations thing. Is the thing. But I think also being somewhere. People want to be somewhere where they're around others doing more than what they are currently doing. So I think Sunderra's job and many great companies out there create a culture to where people are part of something that helps them feel like they're working towards something bigger all the time so they continue to drive forward and all that stuff.

That's amazing. Then what would separate... I mean, you've done on average 100 or more installs a year in the 10-year span. What separates those sales reps that make 100 compared to those that are in the 20 or low? Because all the information is there and the same pitch and everything. What separates those elite from just your average? Because 20 is still a good amount, considering how much it gets paid, but it's nowhere near the level and standard of those that are doing exception in the world.

Yeah, I'd say this isn't just in our industry, it's in life. The two biggest traits I've noticed, besides all the cliché, work hard, all that, but the two main things that I'll say that's different is successful people in this industry, they know their KPIs, key performance indicators. If you talk to any of my great leaders I work with, they can tell you exactly... Their goal is three deals this week. They can tell you exactly reverse engineering. They can tell you if they need three deals, they can tell you how many people they need to sit with. They can tell you how many appointments they have to set. They can tell you how many homeowners or decision makers, and then they can tell you how many doors. So anyone that's successful in anything knows their KPIs. And in our job, that's what I learned from my mentors early on. I take the emotion out of it. Everyone's so focused, Oh, you got to work X amount of hours. I don't care about the hours. The hours are a byproduct. If your goal is to go knock 200 doors, how many hours does it take to knock 200 doors?

10, 12. See, a lot of guys are like, you can... But your emotions play games on you. If you're like, Man, I've been out for an hour. I need to go home. I think the fatigue for me, it's like, no. If my goal every day is just to talk to 10 decision makers, well, if halfway through, I'm beating myself up and I'm like, Oh, I'm only at five. I'm winning. I'm halfway to my goal. When I hit 10, I'll go home. So I take out the emotional thing of the hours. But I'd say, number one, they know their numbers. Number two, if they know their numbers, they know their steps to everything they do. They know their steps, the door approach, the close. And this is any career. Every successful person I know… Did you play sports growing up? Yeah. Is there a single professional athlete that you know that doesn't know their metrics?

Impossible. Impossible. I'm Especially the more you become like saying you're pro and professional, it's just everything is just…

Lebron knows exactly what his free throw percentage is. Again, reps and even people in life, one, they don't track their numbers, so they don't track their stats. When performance is measured, performance improves. So they don't track their performance. So therefore, they don't know how to improve. And then, therefore, they don't have steps to each of the things they're doing. If it's door to door, they don't have their steps to the door approach. They don't have their steps to maybe their closing process. So therefore, it's like, those two go together. You track your numbers to then identify if you're skipping a step. Those would be my two things. That's what I've noticed. The difference is for me, did I go knock 30 hours a week? No. I just figured out my numbers and said, okay, if I want to do 100 installs, I need to sell this many. I need to dig. And I just reverse engineer and just stuck to that every week. And it just made it really easy. And it didn't burn me out because I was like, oh, this is easy. And then consistently led to excellence to where out of every 10 homeowners, an average person should set one appointment.

Well, if you consistently do something, it leads to every 10 homeowners, two appointments. So the reason I was able to go do high numbers, and a lot of leaders I've worked with do more numbers, is not that they increased their time on the doors. They just increased their productivity by consistently sticking to that, which made them more effective.

Powerful. I think it was Malcolm Gladwell that spoke about the doctrine of the 10,000 hours as well. Consistency, as you mentioned, obviously leads to excellent. The blueprints are there for people that have been successful. You LeBron James, Messi, Ronaldo, all these professional athletes that are just so good at what they do, Serena Williams, Tom braided. Everyone knows success comes from consistency. Why can't people just maintain that level of consistency, especially in the door-to-door industry?

Harvard did the study of the reference group. It's all about who you're thrown with. I think that is why you look at... In door-to-door, guys chase the dollar, so they're always been like, Well, if I can go get paid more per deal, I'm going to make more. Well, it's not about what you make per deal, it's what you make per year. You look at Vivint, they're the crown jewel of door to door back when they were at their heyday of alarms, right? More people made money at Vivint in door to door back in the heyday than they did going and be in their own alarm company. It's the same principle in solar. I've done this 10 years now. I have seen so many guys go be their own little solar company, and I've never seen any of them actually out earn, majority of the people that are plugged into a sales program over a consistency of one, two, three years. Because, again, I think the secret is you need to have a reference group. You need to have those 5, 10, or in our case, hundreds of people. And this is a shout out to some of the other big sales organizations, too.

The companies that can create a reference group of that, that is what helps people go be more successful. But sadly, and I'm different, I grew up with big money. My dad's wealthy. I grew up with a lot of people. So I saw early on principles of success. Sadly, many people getting into solar, when I ask people, most of their parents They don't even make sick figures. They don't know what it's like to go be a millionaire. For me, that's all I knew growing up was I look at my dad, I'm homeless at 14, didn't go to college. The guy's a multimillionaire. I look at my neighbor and I'm like, okay, these guys are great human beings, and they have a ton of money. What principles do they apply. So that's all I took is just applying that. But what I learned from my dad, especially, is my dad didn't make all the money himself. He's telling me all the time, he goes, Max, I would have made a 20th of what I made if it wasn't for my business partners. My dad made a lot of his money in the Internet He is not a tech guy.

He is a sales guy, but it's all about that. So that would be my answer. It's all about your reference group. I'm always willing to give a little bit here to gain more here. Half a watermelon is more than a full grape.

Powerful.

And so for me, I've always been luckily trained early on from the people I have in my life to focus on being with the right people with the right platform because the byproduct is half a watermelon is more than a full grape. And financially, it's done wonders for me and many of the guys that I've worked with.

And that's why Jim Ron said, You are the average of the five people we hang with, because naturally, you end up picking up traits, you end up picking up habits. And that's why if you're with a group of degenerate people, even if you're a very college-educated person, you just end up inheriting those traits. And it's also been proven, as you mentioned, that Harvard study, if you end up hanging out with people, I think they made a study as well when I was... Because I'm originally born and raised in South Africa. And I think I once learned and heard about this scenario where they were encouraging kids to sit on the table with their parents. They got to find out that those that would watch TV and eat dinner while watching TV, compared to those that were just sitting with their parents, same class, same age, same everything, those that sat with their parents on the table, started hearing conversations, were becoming a bit more intellectual. They started being better critical thinkers as well. I think with what you mentioned, because you've seen that, that's all you know. It's easy because now if you're on the full level of mentorship, your dad's only made that amount of money.

It's almost like, Okay, well, that's the norm. You know That's what I'm saying. I think it's so hard for those that haven't had those mentors. But what advice would you have for those people that haven't had that level of mentorship?

Drop the ego, because again, everything I see in this industry, the reason why they go do their own thing is they're just egotistic. I can go do it myself. But find me a billionaire that did it on their own. Not a single one of them. There's no successful person that will say, I am this because of myself. They've all had people. They've had business partners. They've had things. So my advice is drop the ego and go find the people that are doing things in categories that you want to be better at. Go find those people that are being what you want to be in those categories, right? Similar, you and I know Jake and Joe, the twins are I'm not even talking about. I needed to whip my butt and get back in shape. So I called them and said, Hey, they're hustling. I'm going to go work out with them. Shout out to those guys. That was last summer. I was like, I can't get back in shape. It's again, the drop the ego, right? I'm older than them, all this stuff. No, dude, I don't care. They're freaking cool. They're going to help me, right?

So again, people are so short-minded in this industry. They think about, Well, if I go sell this one deal, I can make two grand more on this one deal if I'm by myself. Well, great. I haven't found any of you that consistently have a successful career. You're always chasing because then you try to build and then you lose guys. It's just a revolving door.

When you said ego, I couldn't agree more. And I think that's so hard because it's given door to door such a bad rep. And that's where I learned most of… I've always been an I've always been a person. I did two internships in New York. I got a full-time offer there, ended up declining it to try and follow the pursuit of being an entrepreneur. But my point is, I feel like just the few rotten, few are just giving a bad rep for everyone else. The whole, I am this, I am that, fake numbers. All this stuff is given the do-to-do rep, such a toxic trait, but it's the one place where people have gained the most skill from. You know what I'm saying? Would you agree?

Yeah, I wish It's funny as I talk to people. I've been in it 10 years. So I started when commissions were 1,500, 2,000. Now they're seven, 10, right? Six. The sad reality is most people got into solar the last five years, so all they know is big commissions. Exactly. So sadly, and I hope a lot of those guys will They're going to wean out as this bill comes through and they'll change a lot of things. Ohms Analytics, which is a big analytical data thing for residential, says they project a 60 % volume production if this bill goes through as is and stuff like that, and solar. But you look at it and you're like, yeah, a majority of the industry right now is made up of guys that got into it during COVID to go make bank bro and aren't really thinking about and don't know how to run a business. And that's the thing is we've cultivated this culture in our industry. Anyone can be a business owner because like I mentioned to you earlier, you could call any installation company and they'll let you be your own sales company. So everyone has this ego like, I'm a CEO.

And it's like, you've never learned business or ran a business or around people in business. But because this installer said that you can be your own sales company, therefore you have this entitlement of it. I've never been lured by that because I'm like, if that was going to make me the most per year in my guys, I do it, but I never have had that thought. Money is a byproduct to me because of how I grew up. I'm always going to make money. I'm going to focus on other things that matter more with it than the byproduct becomes more money.

It's crazy that you mentioned that because, unfortunately, I think another driving factor for this is social media because there are so many of these gurus that are out there, and half of them are, in fact, not even half, but a large majority are just so phony. You know what I'm saying? That's why I'm saying it's been such an enlightening thing being with the twins because they've been making me work on every single day. It's been the first time I worked off five days in a row. We're going on six as well. But I feel like we're losing the plot of just genuineness of people because social media is painting a thing of the figure Hey, I make this amount, and you just take what people's words are saying. I think it's just the sales bro culture. I just wish it would just die out. It's just giving the rep such a bad name, whereas Door-to-Dore has got some of the best people I've come across I have fun with it. Would you add on that as well?

My dad did Door to Door. Didn't Mark Cuban do Door to Door? Yeah. Door to Door, I think it's cool. Everyone wants to be a business owner. Door to Door is the best way to be entrepreneurship on training wheels. You can basically be your own entrepreneur. We're 1099 and fail and not lose your business. If you think about this week, I could go out and... Because what do business owners have to do? They have to generate their own business. They have to learn people skills. Door to door is literally entrepreneurship 101. The beautiful The great thing about door to door is that it's training wheels in the fact that if you got a whole week and you fell at entrepreneurship, not generating business, you don't lose your business. If you own a store and you fell at those things, you lose your business because So I look at it that perspective. I'm like, Man, what an opportunity we have to really go learn all the skillsets that business owners have and need to go own your businesses down the road. Because you look at a lot of the greats in door to door the last 30 years, most of the successful ones have gone on to very successful things.

So I view it that way, too, as, Man, I love what we're doing right now. It's the best thing to learn skill sets to then be ready for your future entrepreneurship because you have a buffer right now. It felt right. If I got today a knock and I don't get an appointment, That's okay. I can go make it up tomorrow. When you own a real business, if you miss payroll for your employees, your business is done. You know what I mean? So I love that concept. But I think with this beautiful bill, it's helped people realize, to your point, I always tell people when I'm recruiting, ask me questions about what investments I have. Ask me about what I've done with my career. Because most of these guys, you see what they've done with their career is buy shoes. They don't own a house. They don't own a car. How much recurring revenue do you have? I make $15,000 a month of passive income right now. And that's all because of the money I've made in solar to invest in deals outside of solar that now pay my bills. I talk about that openly because most guys in solar can't say that.

If you ask most of these gurus and top dudes, it's like, Cool, what cash flowing assets do you have? Well, they don't know. It just baffles me, right? But guys, go follow those guys. Ask those questions like, Hey, what recurring revenue do you have? What investments do you own? What long term deals do you have? That's the mythology I have. But again, I was raised different. A lot of these guys are like, Yeah, but that dude drives a cool car, and that benefits you how? That's how I feel. I get passionate about it because I'm like, Dude, it's all about investing and setting yourself up.

I love that so much. The question I had about leadership then, would you say rather that leadership, do you think you're born with it or something you can actually gain and develop over time? Or a bit of both?

I think both. There's three types of people in this world. There's people that make it happen, watch it happen, and wonder what the hell happened, right? I'll be the first to admit, when I was growing up, I was a little bit of a made it happen and watch it happen, right? Because I drove a blacked-out I played in high school. I was given a lot of things, right? It wasn't until I grew up, went on my church mission that I got home and then realized I had more of a made it happen attitude. So I think it is a combination of both. I've lived both to where I didn't really make it happen because I didn't need to. But then I realized when I had I had to. I actually made it happen. But again, that goes back to me is I think everyone can develop those skillsets, but it's all about who you go surround yourself with. A lot of these guys in this door-to-door space take on the mentality, I'm going to go do it myself. Exactly. And therefore, they I've never developed the traits. I'm over here like, Dude, if I'm going to make a little less on these deals, but I'm going to...

I talked about investments earlier. If you ask a handful of the leaders I personally work with, one of my top leaders, he makes $7,500 a month in passive income outside of solar. Interesting. 90% of that is from investments that me and him are doing together. See, my mind goes into, okay, I'll take less money if I can work with you because it sounds like you're going to help me in another aspect of life. Therefore, the byproduct is I'm going to actually make that up 10X.

100%.

See, my mind, and this I'm like, What are these guys? And that's life, but I always view it that way. Okay, because a lot of these gurus and door-to-door guys are like, Oh, yeah, you got to go buy real estate and invest. Okay, how? We just do it. And it's like, they don't know how. I'm over here, I can tell you exactly. I can help many people in my life, and anyone, if they call me, I can give them five to six deals right now that can help them make passive income and actually teach them how, because I was taught how. I have people living that lifestyle, and that actually introduced me to the people, right? And my blessing is to pass that along people I know.

I couldn't agree more. Thank you so much for sharing and touching on that. The reason why, when I think about that, Max, I just think about how I had to even change my interview style over time because, yes, the first I took your guests were big names, but a lot of the stuff was so vague. Yeah, go work hard. It's all in your mind. I'm a 10-figure entrepreneur, and if you go and put all the eggs, you can do it there. But there is no blueprint. There is no steps. There is no stuff that I remember. No tangibility. Yeah. My dad's one of my biggest fans. I'm not going to throw one of my guests down here because I'm really grateful for each and every single person that's been there because they've helped elevate the show by bringing their audience as well. But one of my dad, it was a guy who said they made this amount of money. It was super high. But my dad's like, Okay, but how did he make it? So I went to go watch the interview again, and I was like, There was nothing that was like, I make that, you can go do it as well.

I'm I'm listening on this, on that thing. But it's like, that's not the purpose. But the thing is, sometimes people get a following from that and people start loving it. But it's like, what did you gain from being at that seminar? Because you just heard how amazing this person is. But there is no blueprint. There's no step of, fine, go build up your credit score. After you build up a credit score, end up finding the right finance so they can do that thing. Okay, where do you get the listing? Go to the certain website as well. Get a realtor that can help you get the... But there is no blueprint. What's always I I think this thing amazing. I think the fact that you said that I think it's a very attractive trade because it shows already transparency, number one, and it shows trust. Because now, if you can break those two things down, it's easy for somebody to trust you. But everyone is so obsessed with the social media. We just pick up on the big figures, like all that amount. But it's like, I've gained nothing. I paid a thousand bucks to be in the seminar, but I gained nothing.

I appreciate you being the openness. I think that's probably very good for recruiting as well, because recruiting is great, but also retention is far more important. It's easy to recruit.

The secret is sustaining and retaining. And I'll say, as you can tell, I'm a very logical person. Sadly, a lot of guys in this space get recruited off the emotion hype. I do really well recruiting people based off tangible things. I can give them actual blueprint of how to get more appointments, how to deal more deals, and then beyond that, actually make more money. One of my favorite text last week from one of my leaders just texted me, Hey, man, just sent $75,000 into that investment fund. Thanks so much. That's cool that I had a leader that made that money that just wired $75,000 into a real estate fund I'm in that I introduced them to. That stuff is cool to me because I'm like, Yeah, that is winning beyond what solar is and door to door. But that's what door to door is for, is to be obsessed with this now to then diversify to that. I've only lost money in two deals I've ever done. They're both deals that I never told my dad or his business partners about. So I've learned, okay, I'm just going to tell all the people I know about, and then I just don't lose.

Because, again, smart people learn from their mistakes, brilliant to learn from others. I'm just like, well, I obviously have very brilliant people.

I got to type that. I'll continue. That's one of the best phrases I've heard. Smart people learn from their stake, brilliant people learn from others. Sorry.

Yeah. And again, I have learned I'm not lured into doing things that guys in the space do, trying to be their own installer, so to say, or their own sales org, because I've learned, obviously, that's not the long term success or things like that investing, right? But I'm very open. I have a really unique childhood. My parents got divorced when I was nine. My mom became a drug addict who I passed away from it. Cocaine, heroin. So I'm very open about this stuff and my investments, because I want people to also recognize we all go through hard shit. And the more that you can realize that is a blessing versus a curse, me realizing that, dude, I have a mom growing up. She became addicted to drugs. That actually was the biggest blessing in my life because it made me realize that is not the path to go down. I had a very good discernment, right? And so I've been able to really understand. And I think a lot of people get scared to talk about things they go through in life. I'm like, no, own it. I'm sure when I talk to people, most people have probably been in an abusive family like I was.

Most people maybe didn't have a mom growing up. Most people have been around drugs. I've been around all that stuff. I'm grateful for that now because it's made me who I am today, and it's made me realize Door to door is easy. If you emotionally can't handle this, you obviously haven't gone through hard things yet. For me, I'm over here, when I was knocking doors a lot, I would be like, You know what? Am I going to let that person that just yelled at me dictate my life? When I over here had my mom leave me, die from drugs, I get real about it, but I'm like, They say nothing. I didn't keep knocking doors. If I can deal with this. I always tell people, too, Rely on the things you went through, too. We've all had our experiences, right? I'm sure you've had your childhood and people here think about those things often and how that's good, in a sense. We need to go through hard things to get to the good stuff.

Are you LDS? Yes. Okay. Because I was going to say the best part about Our faith is understanding that these trials are good for us to actually gain the testimony and draw closer to our higher being, our heavenly Father as well. I think one of my mentors also mentioned that life does not It happened to you, but it happens for you as well. When you mention all this stuff and you think about thinking, grow rich, every single person that has reached that level of success, that level of success came with a lot of scars, pain, anguish, all the different stuff, because throughout that marathon, they built character of who they are as well. That quote, I'll say that you told me that quote, but that's a very, very beautiful quote. I was like, What did he say early on? Then you mentioned it again. I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm going to take out my phone and type that out as well.

It's like my mom. I learned from my mom Of all her mistakes, brilliant people learn from hers. I learned from hers that what she was doing was not right. So therefore I thought, okay, I'm not going to go do drugs. I'm not going to let that be my out from all the... You know what I mean? So again, I look back on in my life and I'm like, man, that is true. It's like, that's why you need that reference group and you need good people, because you can't put a price tag on that, right? When I have recruited people, I'm like, I don't think they can put a price tag on the amount of money I can help them make outside of solar, which actually makes up maybe giving up a couple of hundred bucks on a deal. If I can go make them a couple of hundred bucks of cash flow, that's worth way more things. So I love that principle because that's how I view life. And I always look at people, okay, what can I learn from you that's good and bad? And the bad, I'm going I'm going to discern it.

I'm going to realize, do I do it or not? What's the outcome? I look at my mom when she died. As I mentioned earlier, my mom got half the money my dad got. Millions of dollars. When she died, she had $32 in her bank account. That's so sad. She lost everything. We had a 10 acre horse ranch in Scottsdale. She had everything. She could have just been set. So, logically, I looked at it and said, Man, this beautiful woman is dying right now. And not only is she dying, but she literally lost everything. That's going to be my choice of not following her So I stayed away from all that stuff, and so did my sisters. We're all married now. We all have children. So it's been cool to learn from others' experiences as well. I don't think people tap into that much. A lot of people try to push away bad things that happen to them. I embrace them because then you learn from them.

That's so powerful. Thanks for sharing that, man. I really appreciate that. I just wanted to ask two more questions as we conclude right now. I think I just love just the entrepreneurial rawness. It's just so real. Everything that you just said. And this transparency is so important because, like I said, we're so focused on the last number as well. What would you say is the best part, not the hardest part, but the best part of being an entrepreneur?

I'd say, I don't know who says these quotes, but it's like how money doesn't buy happiness. Money buys happiness because money buys freedom. A lot of gurus say that stuff.

Probably an Ed Milet, probably. That sounds like an Ed Milet.

Yeah, but it's true. I think the best thing about the entrepreneur is, one, you can go... There's no cap on what you can accomplish. There's no floor and there's no ceiling. But if you're a make it happy person, all it's about is, what is my ceiling? How can I get there? But I love being an entrepreneur because it's like, dude, it allows me to buy time to spend time. It allows me to make money, which allows me to have freedom, which brings happiness because I just had my third kid two weeks ago. Congratulations, brother. Thank you. So by having this freedom, I can go spend time with my kids, even though my wife will say I'm not, but I'm working on that. There's a balance. She's like, Hey, what's more important? We'll get to that. But I'd say that's a big blessing. And then, again, I love the fact that The whole go to college, that whole model is dead. Your return on investment for doing the normal thing in the society is wrong. The amount of debt you're going to go to school to go get a career. Now, saying if you're going to be a lawyer, trades, there's probably a good return there.

But I just look at that. I'm like, Man, being an entrepreneur is the best. When you go to become a doctor, you got to trade two things in life. You got to trade time and a ton of money to then make a return. To do what we do, again, this is entrepreneurship on training wheels. All door-to-door is asking you to do is just trade your time. And then your return on investment is a lot quicker. You can go make doctor money in 12 months, where doctors, it usually takes them 10 years. So I've always loved entrepreneurship and specifically door-to-door because I can go in, just trade time. I don't have to trade money, to then go make my return on investment in one year versus having to then wait 8-10 years.

That's so powerful.

If that makes sense.

No, that's perfect. Then because the podcast is called The Code to Winning Our Out, I ask people this towards the end because it's obviously insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Everyone's got a different definition of what winning is. With all the golden nuggets you gave, I don't know what the heck you're going to answer for this one, but in your opinion, for Max Ganyly, what does the term winning mean for you?

Again, I'm very systematic. Winning to me is being dialed in on your KPIs, so knowing what your key performance indicators are. Number two, it's then having a process to anything you're doing, even if it's not door to door. What are the key steps that you need to be focusing on? But then using the numbers. Here's an example. I teach reps this. If you knocked 400 doors but only talk to 20 homeowners, there's a key identifier that you clearly are either knocking at the wrong time. If you knocked on 400 doors, you should talk, you're the door to door. You should talk to more than 20 homeowners. Well, see, what that should tell you is that, okay, I'm knocking at the wrong time. And most of the time I go talk to that rep and they're like, oh, yeah, I went knocked from 10: 00 to 2: 00 PM. And I think you did door to door. Is that a productive time to knock in a normal suburb? No. Maybe a retirement area, right? So see, I'd say the code of success for me is just I obsess over the KPIs, so then the byproduct of that, I can preemptively understand if I'm skipping steps in my process.

And that's in any aspect of life, right? If my numbers are off on my doors, I can go look at the door approach and see I'm clearly skipping a step. Majority of people you ask in life, they can't tell you what their steps are. So most people in door to door, I ask them all the time, Tell me your five steps of your door approach. They can't do it. When you can simplify, you can testify. Learn that on a And so I learned this principle. I'm like, Man, if I can do my door approach in five steps, like six words, I could do it in 100 words. Most guys, though, don't do that. They don't track their numbers to then identify, and then they don't know their steps, and then they don't cross reference it, right? And it's just, to me, I'm like, Why not? It makes it so easy. So that'd be my answer to you is, again, it goes back to those two principles is, obsess over knowing your KPIs so then you can preemptively avoid mishaps. Because you and I both know you've interviewed a lot of successful people Most will tell you the reason why they don't reach their goal is they slightly get off the path.

It's like an airplane. Do you know this answer? If you take a plane from LA to New York and it's off half a degree south, where does it end up?

From LA to New York, it'll probably end up in a different city or country as well.

It's like down the Bahamas. See, the concept is like, Man, just a half a degree will make you so far from your destination. The reason why I obsess over those two principles is in life, you just need bumpers. You're going to get off the path. Well, if you have clear step-by-step guidelines, well, if you're tracking your numbers and you have guidelines, you can just make that critique, that slight tweak, to stay on the path to get to your end destination. That's so powerful.

That makes sense. No, I love it so much. Max, if you could let Our guests know where they could get a hold of you if they want to try and jump into solar or even people that are within Arizona or any other region as well, where they could go if they want to buy solar as well. Can let our viewers know.

Yeah, I could be better than social media. Max Ganly is my Instagram. I'm private. You can follow me. I'm not a big solar guru. I don't post a ton. I'm trying to get better at it. Time's changing. You're more than welcome to message me on there. I'm always down to give my phone number. If any of you guys, too, want to talk investments, I love strategizing. If you want to reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook, I'll give you my cell phone number. We can text call. If you've got ideas about investments, I'd love to talk about vice versa. I think all that stuff. It doesn't have to be just solar.

Awesome stuff. The coach-winning Insights You Need to Date to Seize. Max Gendly. Thank you so much, brother. I appreciate. Thank you.