From 2 Million In Debt To Generating Over 30M+ In Sales 2021 Alone With Tron Solar | ft. Lester G...

What's going on? What's going on everyone? Welcome back to another episode of The Nikhil Sai Show, which is hosted by me, The Nikhil Sai. And guess what's going on today? We're back with another amazing 2,X interview. This is going to be pretty amazing. This is a very disruptive industry. You will love the journey on how they have scaled from almost nowhere to now running multiple 8-figure businesses, which is freaking amazing. And guess who's the actual guest joining today's podcast? This is one of the craziest stories you'll ever imagine for sure, because they started the company in 2018 you know, with just 5 people in the basement. Now there are over 50 people with over 5-star rating completely when it comes to the customer service. So you can see the dedication level on top of anything when it comes to the delivery of the services. These guys have been changing the complete solar industry. They have already implemented over 800 projects, literally, literally prevented 6.4 million tons of carbon dioxide emission, which is freaking amazing. They're making the planet so green, and they've generated over 52,000 kilowatts power produced just using solar, which is freaking amazing. They have 5-star rating throughout the industry, which is freaking amazing. And the best part is, guess what? They're also going to get into eternal homes built by the entire company itself. And also to mention, they're one of the top US solar installers, you know, which is recognized by Solar Power World. And guess who is actually joining the podcast today? Let's not spend any time— let's not waste any time and actually welcome Lester Gray, founder at Tron Solar. Hey, Lester, it's your boy! Way to go! Really, really excited to have you, Lester. Thank you so much for joining on time today.

Absolutely, I'm glad to be here.

Oh, that was a booming Wolf of Wall Street, right?

There you go. What are—

that's—

hey, that's what our whole company is like. I just walk out into the office area, I'm like, let's go!

Wow, wow, that's a vibe, right? You literally lit up the office just in a second once you move in. That's freaking amazing, Lester. That's a great move. So Lester, your journey is crazy. Now, would you like to give us a quick intro? Like, can you please start us with your backstory? Like, how did all of this crazy journey started?

Yeah, so there's a lot of details to the backstory and it was pretty intense. So I started off doing door-to-door sales. Actually, let me go back a little bit farther. 2005, I started as a missionary for the LDS Church. I spent 2 years teaching people about Jesus Christ, knocking doors, and that's not easy to knock doors and sell people on Jesus. So, it was not easy, but it was a good foundation for me to learn how to communicate with people and more importantly, learn how to get rejected and let it roll off my shoulders, right? So, naturally, I came back and I got into the door-to-door industry selling alarm systems door-to-door. I did it for a long time. I've been in the door-to-door industry for 16, 16 years now.

Wow.

Knocking doors and asking people for their money. So that's what I did. And then eventually, you probably know Chris Lee. He does SolGen Power. I think he's a, he's a 2CCC award winner. I think he's done like $75 million or something like that. He's done well. He was the one that got me into solar. And so I moved with him down to San Diego back in like 2013. And I just— same thing, selling, selling door-to-door, selling solar systems. And then I eventually got into the point where I wanted to run my own business. So I did. I started my own business. It was a solar company, and I did that in 2005. It was 100% all in-house where I'm employing electricians, I'm employing installers, I'm employing the operations team, everybody, and the door knockers and salesmen, right? And we— I started that with a $15,000 credit card, no money. And we turned that into a multimillion-dollar company. I was making the most money I had ever made in my life. I was having most weeks I was in the range of like $25,000 to $100,000 I was making per week in that company. And I learned some hard lessons. Even though I was making a lot of money, it was one of the most fruitful times in my life financially. Everything else was falling apart. And I almost lost my wife and kids, and the company eventually went bankrupt. And so here I am, starting with nothing, getting up to the top of the mountain for my— in my life. Financially and everything else is falling apart. And I ended up going $2 million in debt. That's scary. With kids, it was very scary. In fact, this is crazy. Imagine this. One morning I woke up to my wife screaming, where did all our money go? In our bank account, she showed me our bank account and I still have a snapshot of it. Our bank account was $1.3 million negative. And so I'm trying to figure out, like, what do I do from here? I need a solution. I need to be able to put food on the table. And I came up with the name. I lost $50,000 in a cryptocurrency called Tron. And I said, I'm going to make money off this damn name somehow. And I started a company called Tron Solar. And I talked to my friend, he was running a company. It was— they have a huge nationwide company there. They're probably worth, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. I asked him, where's their money market? He told me it was Chicago, Illinois. I bought a one-way ticket out to Chicago the day after that. And I just said, I'm going to figure this out, whatever it takes. And I lived in a hotel for 3 months networking. I was by myself networking, making connections, trying to build a business, Tron Solar. And I convinced 2 guys to come out and live with me. I had one old guy that was living in a cot in my extended stay, and I had one dude living on the, on the floor. and we lived there together for 3 months. We just sold deals, knocking doors, selling deals all day long. And the one thing that I wanted to change is the business plan and make sure that I did things differently and learn from the mistakes I had previously made. But that's kind of how I started originally, door-to-door sales. I've switched to solar because it paid more money. It was more of a career option. Got into running my own business, went $2 million in debt, and then ended up now we, you know, we, uh, we'll do this year in 2021 around $24 million. And, uh, just so you know, we did win that 2CC, uh, award. So the, the over $25 million in one ad, um, we're just waiting for that to get here.

So wow, wow, that's exciting, that's exciting, brother. So many learning curves and, you know, ups and downs, and that's beautiful that you literally went to a situation where you don't even know what to do, to a situation where you figured it out. Yeah, flying to a different place where, you know, no one trying to— this is more like some undercover billionaire kind of thing which you did, which is freaking amazing, right?

Yeah.

Wow, wow, Lester, that was so inspirational, bro. Like, again, I think this is a huge learning for all of the business owners who is crying on $10,000 debt they have on their head. Guess who is on the show today? He had $2 million on his head right there, and he still made it to the top. That means you can do it too. It's the dedication which actually takes you and the consistency and this courage to take action, right? That's, that's amazing, Lester. Love it. Love it, brother. So much excitement. So much excitement. So let's get into the next questions, brother. I'm pretty excited. Not a lot of people are very aware of solar because this is still like the new thing and you are the industry expert who are disrupting the complete technology when it comes to the solar, right? So we would love to know more insights about like what is the main difference between like normal electricity versus the solar energy you are creating? The brand name Tron, where you actually lost your money, now made to multiple million dollars?

Yeah, so I'll make it very, very simple. The reason why I like the solar industry is everyone uses electricity. You got to turn your lights on, right? So as long as everyone's using a product, that's an industry I want to be a part of because there's a lot of money in it. Now, these power companies are making a ton of money, but how they're producing their energy is mostly through coal-fired power plants. I want to be like the Netflix that comes in and disrupts the industry, right?

Yeah.

That's why I got into solar, is because now we have a technology that, because the manufacturing costs have dropped significantly and the cost for us to put the product on homes has dropped significantly, We can now get a solar system for someone that will power their whole entire home for less money than what it would cost them just to stay with their current utility company.

That's a no-brainer.

Hey, you're already buying power. Do you want to pay less? So that's literally— that's what the pitch is. And literally, the, the one of the main challenges that we have to overcome is it sounds too good to be true.

It is, right? No one believes that.

That's— yeah, that's, that's the industry I want to be a part of.

Wow, that's, that's beautiful and really perfectly articulated. You have an amazing marketing statement just like that, right? Do you want to pay less than what you're actually paying and live free with your electricity? That's beautiful.

Well, if you can imagine, so I mean, and then not everyone wants to do solar because of it's renewable and it's green. A lot of people do, and I love that aspect. If someone wants to go for solar for that reason, I love it. We're helping the environment, we're starting to change the world by not emitting CO2, right? So we're doing really good things. The other side of it is who doesn't want to save money? And that's why— that's what— that's one of the main reasons I really like this industry.

True, 100%. And that's really lucrative, and that gave you the nature of scaling so quickly. And I started in 2018, and now guess where you are? You've already, you know, won the 2CCC, which is freaking amazing.

Well, so we did $10 million in our first year. You know, I was hungry, I wanted a solution. I was $2 million in debt. I gotta figure out something to put food on the table. I did go a year and a half without paying myself anything. So that's one of the issues I learned from the previous company. So many business owners want to pay themselves so much money too fast, and that is a lot of cost that the company— it's like a huge weight the company has to carry. And I learned my lesson from that. I sold my house. I sold everything that I had to be able to fund this business and go a year and a half without taking a cent out of the company. And I made it all the way. I got rid of all my assets. Started this company, funded it. I'm giving out loans to salesmen, I'm paying payroll, I'm doing all these things to fund the company. And then I got all the way down to the point where we had $300 in our bank account. And my wife looks at me and she says, if we're going to pay for food on the table next week, we need a paycheck. So that's when I started. It was a year and a half into it that I started paying myself. But this is the reason why we were able to do $10 million in the first year.

You were all in.

In the previous company, we were 100% door-to-door sales. Mm-hmm. So I would have to employ individuals to go knock doors. I would pay them an hourly rate. They would set up appointments for closers, right?

Yeah.

When I got to Chicago, I said, that's a problem. There's a lot of snow here, like there was in Utah where I ran that other company.

Mm-hmm.

How am I going to convince people to go knock on doors when there's a lot of snow on the ground and there's a polar vortex and it's -50 degrees outside?

Oh my God, that's scary.

It's going to be very difficult to convince people to go do that, right? I said, what are lead generation companies doing? They're pulling in leads offline. They're not knocking doors. So how can I do that? That's when I learned about ClickFunnels. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I could put an ad out there like fishing.

Mm-hmm.

And I can start pulling in these big, big bass into the boat constantly, right? And digitally door knock 24/7. And I started doing that, and I started bringing in 50 leads a week— or sorry, 50 leads a day.

Wow.

And then I started setting it up, setting them up for appointments myself. And then imagine how much easier it is that I could just sit there, I post an ad, I have a landing page, I have a survey, I have a way to capture all these people, and then I can set up appointments with these people.

Yep.

And I can easily sell people on one to come close preset leads. So that's how we did $10 million in our first year. We've expanded from there. And the best part about it is that I'm the most— I don't know how to say this— untech savvy person there is. I learned the other day how to direct message on Instagram. So if I can do it and learn ClickFunnels, No excuses. No excuses for anyone.

Wow, wow, that's, that's a beautiful journey, bro. Like, like, there's so much thunders in between. Like, it's really exciting from inside, right? Like, it's a crazy journey. That's, that's really beautiful. And this is my next question, buddy. Like, you've been doing very different things than most solar companies do, which is, as you mentioned, knocking door-to-doors and stuff like that. Like, how the heck you use funnels in solar business? Like, how did you actually do it? Like, what kind of I, you already laid out like the kind of system what you actually use, but would you like to tell like what kind of exact funnels have been using? Is that just like lead generation funnels?

Yes, so lead generation funnels, but, uh, should I give you my secrets?

Way to go, we are pretty excited.

All right, so we use, we use YouTube, we also use, uh, mainly Facebook. We bring in a lot of leads through Facebook. But I think this can, uh, this can help a lot of viewers if they want something that they can use this tool and it'll help them to generate a lot more leads pretty quick. So here's, here's like the secret to what we do. We have branding out there, we have ads that we do specifically for Tron Solar, but one other platform we use is not Tron Solar. I started a nonprofit a community Facebook page where we give information to the public into a community about the solar industry, about renewable technology, about the incentive programs available, right? And this is just an informative community. What I do with that is it's literally a nonprofit. I set it up with the state. And on that platform is where we post our ads.

Do you agree? So media—

and so what we're really doing is we're hiding the salesman. A lot of times when you, when you get an ad from a company, it's hard to want to really put your information in. Sometimes it's hard to do that. So what we do is we have an informative community that we put out there We make it a high-rated community. It hides the salesman and they feel like, you know, it's a little bit safer to put your information in when it's just a community page, an information page. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it is. It makes a lot more sense. I think this is something a lot of business owners should try to implement in their business right now, how they can actually hide the salesman but still make more sales than you can ever imagine, right? That's an amazing strategy. I think this really, really helped— can help a lot of people who are actually watching this. Thanks for amazing, amazing golden nugget drop, Lester. Love it. Thank you so much for that. I'd love to know more about how you have actually scaled from negative $2 million to actually doing over 8 figures in sales so quickly.

Yeah, so it was 100% ClickFunnels and doing— almost 100% of our business comes through online lead generation. So literally all we do every single day is We, we have a marketing team that I put in place, you know, so I'm not doing everything in the business. I really direct the path of the business. I'm driving the business, I'm motivating, I'm creating the vision, all that type of stuff, right? Luckily, we've got to that point where I don't have to do everything and we have leaders in place. But we have people, a team that actually is in charge of making sure our ads are getting tweaked constantly. So, you know, you typically can't just put an ad out there and for the rest of your life, that one ad will bring in millions and millions of dollars. There's always a constant little tweak. And so I'm actually writing a book on this currently right now. I hope to have it available for Funnel Hacking Live, where I'm gonna be giving them away for free. But what the book is called, The Art of the Tweak. And really what we've done is we've mastered that tweak. Is it a photo that we need to change, right? Is it the ad copy that we need to change? Is it a different audience that we need to target? You know, when I was trying to figure out who our, our audience was, I literally sat there based on what Russell Brunson had taught in his books, DotCom Secrets, and I'm like, I need to draw out exactly who it is. So I drew a picture of who it was. I printed off a photo actually of a man in a a woman, and I said all their qualities, and I learned how to target a specific audience that I wanted as a customer. And so we're constantly figuring out those little tweaks. But there's, there's something else. We pay people to teach us. So how did we get to where we were? I, I was not good enough 3 years ago to do what we're doing now. So what I had to do is constantly pay people to help to learn to level up and get new skill sets. So if it's you that's teaching this, I'm going to come to you and I'm going to say, hey, what does it cost? I will pay you whatever it takes to be able to figure out that. Because if I pay you $5,000 or $10,000 or $20,000 and I get a return on that of $10 million, is that a no-brainer? 100%.

It is 100%, yes.

I find people that are smarter than me that I can pay to consult and teach me how to level up. And I do that for everyone in our organization. We constantly invest in our people to level up. And that's how, because that's what we've done, that's how we've gotten to where we're currently at.

Wow, wow, that's beautiful, Lester. I think those simple tweaks can actually help business go from almost nowhere actually having that first success and actually doubling it down easy peasy, right? And I think this is something a lot of business owners should actually grasp because most of the business owners are like kind of scarcity-minded. They like want to hold with things, right?

I don't want to pay $3,000 or $5,000 to these— this person because that's a lot of money.

Exactly.

Do it.

What's gonna happen, right? Yeah, that's, that's, that's beautiful. I think this is something a lot of business owners should actually need to learn and implement in their business, which is beautiful. I think that was really clear, Lester. Thank you so much for actually explaining how you actually ramped it up. Amazing, right? And buddy, I think this is one of the most demanding questions right now, especially when it comes to solar. You are the expert right now, so we would love to hear. There are a lot of myths happening around, like, oh, you know, this is— that's happening, solar is bad, this and that, right? Like, still we say we have naysayers who always keep things up, right? So we'd love to know more about, like, what are the truths and myths about solar?

Like, quick, let me, let me just tell you the, the biggest one. It costs too much. That's— I mean, I've heard it multiple times, like, it, it doesn't make sense to do solar because the ROI doesn't make sense, right? The return on your investment. So if I put all this money out there and I have to replace my system in 5 to 10 years, It doesn't make any sense, right? Another myth is batteries. I have to have batteries, and batteries cost way too much, and for me to replace that, and what if they leak? And that is a myth. You don't need batteries. And the reason why is because the government wants us to go renewable, and they're requiring a lot of these utility companies to work with solar companies and produce a certain amount of energy by from renewables. So they have a program out there that kind of works like a battery where your meter, when you produce energy on-site, whether it's a business or it's a residential property, your meter will go backwards and the, the utility company agrees to buy all the extra power you generate during the day. And when there's no sun outside during the nighttime because the moon's not going to create any energy. Yeah, you'll pull back from that energy you created during the day, and you're receiving your energy back at nighttime. So that's what we call net energy metering, and, uh, that makes it so you don't need batteries to go solar. So the whole myth about it costing too much money— you get an ROI day one when you go solar.

Wow, wow, wow. That's a beautiful technology. I'm really amazed and I'm excited for this technology. Like, that's just mind-blowing. I think this is going to entirely change the world very soon. We are excited to see you on the top, on the top, Tron Solar. We are excited for you. Pretty, pretty excited. And, and Lester, this brings us to the next question. Already you give us like a glimpse of how the technology is actually transforming the entire solar industry from actually that old-school battery kind of solar systems to now where it's more like an automated exchange system, which is freaking amazing. I would love to know more about the future of the solar industry. Like, is there any opportunity? Is it too much saturated? I know this kind of thing which actually started kind of in 2015, stuff like that. That's when it got ramped up. But we would love to hear from the expert on how the solar industry is going to look like in the future.

Yeah, future of solar industry, in my opinion, is that batteries are going to take off at some point. I believe that we will be 100% self-sufficient. Energy independent on homes, meaning that we will not need to use the utility company. Like, literally right now, where you're at, your office or house, wherever you're at, there's a— there's like an extension cord that runs from the side of your house where your electrical panel is, your meter, and runs all the way to their power plant, right? Yeah, I believe so. It's like an umbilical cord, right? I believe you're going to be able to cut that eventually and we'll be able to store enough energy on site that you will no longer need the utility company. So I believe that's the future. But can I tell you our future?

Is that okay? Whoa, that's what we are actually waiting for.

So what we're going to do is we're first, we're killing the residential market. Like that's where a lot of our focus is. But now we're starting to transition as organization to commercial properties. And there's a lot of money in the commercial. Like, if you're in solar, you can hire 3,000, 4,000 people and build a billion-dollar company residentially nationwide. Um, if you are in the commercial space, you can have way less people, less human capital, less stress, and you can go— you can create a billion-dollar company with far less headache. And so that's why— that's the direction we're going right now is the commercial space. And I've also started a roofing company. Generate all our leads online, right? Makes it super simple. And it makes sense if you have a solar company, have a roofing company. And we haven't received it yet. It's coming in the mail. But we have a— we won the Two Comma Club Award for the restoration company also.

Oh my God. There you go. You need a bigger one, man.

Yeah. Come on. We're going to have to post them everywhere. So, so yeah, so we started a roofing company and what we're going to turn this into is you had mentioned it earlier is we're going to build homes ourselves. I already hired an architect. He's on board already and he's a general contractor too, helping with the restoration company. Next year we're going to build our first house. They're going to be energy efficient and energy independent homes with EV chargers for vehicles. Batteries, solar, smart home technology, everything, anything you can imagine.

And it's like a complete independent. Even if the government is just like that, off, turned off, or the utility companies turned off, no problem, you got your own system.

The sun's coming up.

Yeah, yeah, I don't see the sun going away anytime soon, not in this coming billion years for sure, so not to worry. Wow, well, that's, that's really exciting, Lester. We are very happy to see the progress, and we are excited to see the achievements you're going to be doing with your roofing company as well. This is so exciting. Like, this is me— this is like pumping me up from inside, which is freaking amazing. I really love it. I love the vibe, and I love the way this is going. Yeah, right, let's do it, right? So again, Lester, you've been managing things pretty amazingly, especially when it comes to the Tron, right? Because you broke things in your previous company, but now you actually learn the systems and processes you actually need to build your business, right? So we'd love to know more about, as a business owner doing multiple, because you have so many things on the plate, things break down, teams don't show up, leadership fails, something like that, right? So what are the kind of tools and processes you need in your business, right, to kind of manage what's going on, like projects, clients, and for everything, to make yourself productive at a higher level?

Yeah, I mean, we have softwares and stuff in place to organize things and make sure that we're managing customers' accounts in a proper way. We use JobNimbus, but, uh, There's a lot of different CRMs out there. Um, to me, the biggest thing is team, and I focus on the leaders and make sure that I'm mentoring them. Luckily, you know, I need mentors myself and to learn from other people how to level up. But, uh, but I can take what I've learned and I can help these leaders, because what one thing that, uh, I'm really good at— there's a lot of things I'm not good at at all, okay? I'm not organized, really bad with organization. So, there's— and I could go on and on about some of the other things that I'm really, really bad at. But I also know what I'm really good at. And I can take what I've learned and I can help. I'm a really good teacher, so I can help other people implement that in their lives. I can deconstruct something and then I can put it back together even better than what it was before. And that's what I do with our leaders and with our operation processes. To make sure that when we sell a project, we get the glass— we call it in solar, solar panels— we call it, we get glass to roof as fast as possible with the highest quality. Okay, so that's my goal. If I sell a project today, how do I get that project on the, the solar panels on the roof tomorrow? In our industry, that's almost impossible. That's my goal. And I constantly, constantly say this. And if you ask any of my team, you'll know they'll say this to you. Whatever level we're currently at, some people might say if they were on our level, they're a 10 out of 10 when it comes to operations process, when it comes to sales. I never say that. I always say that we are a 1 out of 10. It doesn't matter what level we hit. We might be a billion-dollar company with the best process, highest service, we're a 1 out of 10. And that always leaves a lot of opportunity for growth.

Wow, wow. You have a lot of room to improve yourself. That's amazing. And this is my personal question, Lester. I'm really inspired by the way you actually bring in leaders in a very short period of time. Like, how do you actually attract these A-players, like key leaders into your company? Like, how did you actually do that in a very short period of time?

Oh, so imagine that, right? Like, I don't have any money.

That's, that's where I'm confused. Like, this dude was in $2 million in debt and this guy tracked her like these leaders who built a multi-eight-figure company. Like, it's like a new, like, new brain cells pumping up for me. So I would love to know more about that.

This is it. I had to convince people to come on board without getting paid, and that's like not— that's not easy.

It is not.

So I convinced people to work for free based on vision, based on direction. So as a business owner, in my opinion, I think the ability to sell is very important, but you're not selling necessarily a product. You're selling one yourself, and you're selling a vision. And when you have to sell someone to come work for free without getting a salary, a base, or anything for a while, and that's when I was working, I went from the hotel to working out of my basement. It's, it's not easy, but it was because I was able to properly sell people on the direction and vision and the vision of where we were going. People wanted to be a part of that energy and that excitement. And they felt like, man, if I could start like Google or Apple at the very beginning when they were in the garage, then there's a lot of opportunity. The key, though, for us was I knew that they had to see success. They had to see improvement. They had to see something actually getting built in the process, or else they would never stay around. And a lot of our key players have actually stayed around, even though for a long time they never made any money.

Wow, wow, wow, that's beautiful. I think this is something every business owner should learn while they're actually building a bigger team of true leaders, because as a business you need to find key players who are gonna run the business for you. That's, that's amazing, Lester. Thank you so much. That's so exciting. And Lester, let's get to the next question. So again, I see you're a very family guy, you have fun time, you enjoy a lot. At the same time, you're ramping your business to the roof at the speed no one ever can imagine. So we would love to know more about your daily routine.

Yeah.

What kind of daily routine do you follow?

Yeah, so it's the same every single morning. I do the same thing. Can I tell you real quick in my last company some things that I did?

Yes, we would love to know the things, right?

So in the previous company, I had a phenomenal morning routine. I had a phenomenal study plan of learning and reading books. But as I continued to succeed and make more money, I got super relaxed on the morals, the standards, the morning routine. Everything got— I just kind of gave all that stuff up somehow. It was super weird. And all of a sudden I knew that I found myself in a really bad position. And, um, I did not want to make the same mistakes that I previously made in the last company. So I have 6 things that I follow.

Okay.

One is I want daily improvement every single day. There is no finish line. Okay. This is non-negotiable. And I wanted to create balance in my life. So this is, this is what I built myself on with a morning routine. I focus every single day improving 1% every day spiritually, In this order too, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, relationally, physically, and financially. And if I focus now, I'm not going to spend as much time on every single one of those areas, but if I will spend time in each one of those areas every single day, set goals and improve in every area, every one of those 6 areas, then I know it will keep me on the path that I want to go to, which is becoming the best version of myself. Okay, so this is what I do. I wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning. My wife and I, every single morning, like, I mean, Monday— Sunday through Saturday, every single morning, we wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning. We do a workout together. I connect with God. I get my sweat in with working out, and I do it with my wife. I invest in my relationships around me. So the team members, I'll choose someone every single day. It might be my wife, it might be my kids, it might be the team members around me. I'll choose one person, I'll invest in that person in that relationship. And then I create, I focus on creation. And that's the financial part. Money is always last on my lists. So that's, that's my morning routine. At 4 o'clock in the morning, I pray. I do typically 2 workouts every day. I'll go to LA Fitness and I'll go to OTF, Orange Theory Fitness. For, uh, Orange Theory Fitness is like, uh, cardio. And then, and then I'll get ready for the day, kiss my kids, and I'll go to work. That's my morning routine. Now when I get to work, I have books that I study. One that I'm doing right now is Emotional Intelligence. If you guys haven't read this, this is a phenomenal book.

Amazing.

Yeah, but yeah, that's, uh, that's, that's my morning routine. That's my foundation.

Wow, wow, Lester, that's, that's really beautiful. I think, I think this exact formula should be implemented by most of the people to keep them fundamentally strong. I think most of the people that entrepreneurs especially, they go into this comfort zone kind of thing when they actually start to hit their loan, right? I think that's what happened when you actually started making more money than you ever made in your previous business. Right? So you forgot your fundamentals almost. And I believe everyone goes through that, honestly. They need to be keeping their hands on their head. For sure they will be going through that. I think the exact system which you just mentioned, kind of the routine, I think that's going to keep them on track. I'm definitely going to practice it from tomorrow. No excuses. I really love it.

Let's go.

Way to go, Lester. So yeah, let's do it. So Lester, love the vibe. Again, you've been building so many businesses, knocking door to doors, you know, mentored by people who are making $75 million, stuff like that, which is freaking amazing. If you would have an opportunity to go back to a 20-year-old you and actually give them one suggestion, what will be the number one suggestion you would give him or someone who's just getting started typically?

Yeah, so I would love to be able to go back and mentor myself. I'm probably like a lot of people. I came from a broken home. Dad, you know, I didn't have the best relationship with my father. And, you know, some of those relationships had been strained in that last company, unfortunately. And actually, this is big advice I would give myself. One, never do business with family. Okay? Me personally, maybe someone else will be super successful with it. But unfortunately, like, you know, some things that I didn't tell you, my brother and I still don't know to this day why. Sued me for $10 million in the last company. My blood brother. I have one brother, one brother, and he sued me for $10 million. That was fun. And then I am a very transparent person. My sister, I was having her join the company also, and she came in. I opened up the books. I showed her how we did every— everything. She went back to Idaho and started her own company. And I found out about that business by a post on Facebook. She didn't tell me about it, and she started her own solar company, and my mother became a 10% owner in it. And then my father, uh, we were employing my father, and he was a site surveyor in Boise, Idaho, and he unfortunately fell off 3 ladders. And, uh, my partners came to me one day and they're like, hey Lester, we need to let your father go, he's a risk. And, uh, so we had to let my father go, and he We didn't— he didn't like that and we didn't have a good relationship. So, there's one thing I would tell myself, don't do business with family. The other thing is, is I would tell myself to focus on emotional intelligence. And I think, in my opinion, that is one of the most powerful characteristics a leader can have. Okay? It means don't get too high with the highs, don't get too low with the lows. Learn to have steady progression and be even keel.

Okay?

And so, I believe emotional intelligence, and I'll be quick with this. Has 5. It's made up of 5 things. Self-awareness, you know your strengths from your weaknesses. You need to know yourself. Self-regulation, you're not captive or you're not a prisoner to everything your body wants. You have the ability to say no to yourself. Empathy, work on the ability to see something from someone else's perspective. Yes, I see this side of the bottle, but can I see the other side? Some people only see what's in front of them and they don't have the ability to see it from someone else's point of view. Motivation. You have the ability to motivate others and yourself. Self— social skills. You have the ability to speak with other people, right? Social skills is one thing that a business owner really needs to have so that he has a team that will be loyal to him. And to the vision, right? And so I think emotional intelligence, one of the most powerful characteristics. And I would— those are the two things that I would tell myself back.

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. I, I will break my head after this interview. This is crazy, right? Like, I'm so glad that we actually met on this podcast, bro. I can honestly tell you this is one of the best episodes I'm ever gonna do for life. I promise you on that part. So much learnings. This is just blowing up my mind. I'm so selfish, it's making me feel like this is more for me. I'm just learning so many things. I'm going to rewatch this, note every single thing down, and damn, stick it to my office for sure.

And yeah, nice of you. That's nice of you.

That's beautiful, Lester. I learned something.

Getting kicked in the groin, man.

Okay, it's like flowing off me. That's beautiful, brother. I think this is so, so interesting, so exciting to know your story. There is so much stuff done. I believe I've only discovered just like 0.000% one of you, and I'm excited like how you are like a real person. Like, what are you? I'm excited to meet you pretty soon if there is an opportunity to meet.

Are you going to Funnel Hacking Live?

Uh, unfortunately not this time, man. I'm really, really, really stressed of this thing, you know, because of the COVID rules and all of these travel bans, right? I really took my ticket maybe I'm gonna hop on virtually, but I really miss the opportunity to be on the live and meet all of you guys because I know a lot of people just like you who are freaking amazing people, beautiful people who have this growth mindset. I love to vibe with you guys. It's, it's crazy.

Iron sharpens iron.

Yeah, absolutely. That's true. That's, that's beautiful, brother. So let's get to the next question. You have been doing so many things, brother. Would you mind giving us a quick, uh, notes on like your life's biggest achievement so far and any next bigger goals with Tron?

Yeah, that's a good question. You know what? I, I think, and many, many other people would say differently on— they would say financially, you know, financial awards that they've won and stuff like that. I think for me personally, I was bankrupt in the last company spiritually, mentally, emotionally. Relationally, almost losing my wife and kids, right? Physically, I, dude, I was 280, 278 pounds. So physically I lost that. I like, I just, I, I lost my discipline. Um, and then financially I went broke, uh, bankrupt. And so I would say that the, the, the greatest achievement that I've ever done is repairing relationships within my life with God and actually getting back on, uh, open communication with him. And I almost got what they call excommunicated from my church, and luckily I was able to come back into fellowship. That won't make any sense to you, but that was a huge achievement for me. Other people who are a part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that'll make sense to them. I know Russell Brunson actually is. So, and, uh, and then improving my relationship with my wife, I would say, is absolutely one of the greatest achievements that I've had. And that is because that's in my 6 things that I work on relationally, right? And it's a non-negotiable to go on a date with your spouse every single week. Non-negotiable. You got to go on that date. So, um, yeah, we've won, we've won awards. Like, we're a top, uh, installer in the nation. We, we got the 2CC Award with commercial. I'm, uh, I'm betting that, uh, we'll get that 3 Comma Club Award. Um, so that's what we're gonna go for on the commercial side. But, uh, but when it comes to achievements in my life, what sticks out most is getting back into fellowship in my church, having that better relationship with God. And, uh, and then, you know, being able to date my wife every single day has been phenomenal, life-changing.

Awesome, awesome, awesome, brother. So what is the one bigger goal you're actually aiming for? Is that the 3 Comma Club for commercial? Is that the only goal?

No, that's a goal, right? Building homes, man. Building homes. Like, that is a big business. Awesome. I want to build homes. It's like I sold alarm systems door to door, and I'm like And if we build homes, we'll own the whole product. We get to choose what's in that home, right? So now I'm selling alarms, I'm selling windows, I'm selling roofs, I'm selling siding, I'm selling smart home, I'm selling EV chargers. We'll probably have electric vehicles in it, batteries and the solar. Like, I want to control. I'm a control freak. Okay, maybe that's a weakness. Maybe that's a strength. Maybe it could be taken both ways. I don't know. But this is one thing because of that control freak nature I have. We're going to build homes, own the whole entire product.

So that's a multi-trillion dollar industry you're getting into. That's going to be amazing. Let's do it.

We're going to cut the umbilical cords from these freaking power companies.

Make people fully self-sufficient. Let's do it. That's freaking amazing, brother. You already mentioned so many mistakes happen in your in your life, but if I would give you an opportunity to connect back, what was the one biggest mistakes you have ever done in your life?

Get— stop working on my relationship with God.

So fundamental.

So fundamental. Like, when I stopped focusing on my relationship with God, and listen, like when I say every morning I connect, sweat, invest, create, in that order. Connecting doesn't necessarily mean that you have to believe in God. You know, you can meditate, you can do other things, you can believe in Mother Earth or whatever, but you need that time every single morning to connect. And in my— I believe that there is a higher power. I believe there is a God. And when I stop connecting with him, who I believe is a Father in heaven, we're all his children, then everything starts to fall apart. And the joy, I think life is more about having joy, progression, and fulfillment and learning. And, uh, I start to lose my fulfillment and joy when I stop focusing on that one thing. And, uh, so I would say 100% that when I focus on that relationship, everything starts to fall in line and work out. Wow.

I think everyone needs that space in themselves, Right, they really need to create that space even if they don't exist right now in their business. Wow, that's really something.

And listen, it is a part of our business. I mean, you see right up here in, you know, I got a statue of Jesus Christ in my office. But no matter what you believe in, I mean, you got to have a set of standards and morals that you live by. And when I didn't, I got into drugs and alcohol and I was doing a lot of crazy things in the last company. And went bankrupt, you know, in all those areas of my life. And, and I, I think that that was one of my biggest mistakes, was I stopped focusing on that area of my life.

Wow, wow, wow, beautiful, Lester. Love it, man. Thank you so much for explaining that. And, uh, would you mind letting us know more about, like, do you have any key inspiration for all the success you've achieved? And any— would you like to name any key people involved in your journey?

Uh, yeah, actually I do, 100%. Um, So I always say team, team, team, team, team, right? So we have someone in our organization who is a, he's a refugee. He was originally from Bosnia. And, you know, I don't, I'm sure he'll, he'll be okay with me saying this. He tells this story a lot and he has a powerful story. And when he came over here, he was from a war-torn country, country. And the only way he got out of Bosnia was they had fake passports made and he had to take buses out of the country and they got stopped multiple times. And he saw people that were knelt down and murdered in front of him when he was a child. He saw this and he eventually was able to get over to San Jose and then he moved over to Idaho. and we became friends in high school. And he's my partner in crime. He's our COO and he's over operations. He's a phenomenal leader, probably one of the best you'll ever meet. He was running a leadership podcast and, uh, he's, he's, we've required more time from him. And so he hasn't been able to do that, but he's a phenomenal leader with an amazing story. So if you ever want to have a— that would be more powerful of a podcast if you ever want to have him on.

Whoa, I'm pretty excited. I'm definitely going to have him, bro. No chance to let him down. I'm going to have him for sure.

You got to have him. One other person. Sorry. He's on all of these. Ricky Lolito. Listen, I'm not very smart when it comes to tech. He is an absolute genius and he's the genius behind all of our marketing now. And he's been able to create SEO in all these funnels that he's constantly running in multiple states. And Ricky Lolito is one of the most powerful marketers that I know.

Wow, wow, wow. That's beautiful. That's amazing, brother. And you know, my spine, like my spine was shivering when you just told that story. I'm like, It's just at a different level, right? That— yeah, that's, that's amazing, brother. And Lester, you got— you went above and beyond of my expectation. This is actually 1,000 times better than what I actually expected out of this podcast. So many learning curves. I really loved it. That's, that's, that's a different vibe I cannot express on this podcast. I think I can tell you this is by far the best I've ever done, that's for sure. Yeah. Where can our audience find you mentoring? Do you have any kind of mentoring opportunities? Do you teach anyone? Like, how do you get this stuff at a higher scale?

Follow me on Facebook, Lester Gray, also on Instagram @lesty40, L-E-S-T-Y at 4-0. So follow me on those platforms. We are starting a marketing organization called Marketing Sharks. And what we're going to do is we're just going to take what we've learned and we're going to impart that on other people. A lot of our nuggets and teachings about funnels and what we do, even having specific ad copy of what we say in our ads. We have one ad that we've made over $25 million. You're going to know exactly what that ad copy is, the photos that we use, the platform that we use. I spoke about having a nonprofit. You're going to learn about that nonprofit so you can even go to our page and see what we do. So we're going to, we're going to, we're going to lay that out in our book. The Art of the Tweak. I'm writing this free. Ricky's writing it. And, uh, so that's gonna be available to anyone that wants it. And you'll find this stuff, uh, on our social medias.

Wow, that's beautiful. I'm gonna add your social media links in the description of this podcast so that anyone can actually contact you. I think that's going to be like a game changer for a lot of entrepreneurs to cut short all of the learning curve and, you know, just pick your brain and make it so big so quickly. That's, that's That's beautiful, Lester. Love it, love it. Thank you so much. And Lester, any last words before we conclude the entire podcast session today?

This is all I would say to anyone out there that wants to start a business or is already running their business: focus on one thing, become the best version of yourself, and get shit done. Done. Don't be lazy, don't procrastinate. If you need it done, get it on a to-do list and figure out a way to make it happen, whatever it takes.

Wow, that's the mentality, shark-like mentality. Whatever it takes, just keep moving forward, baby. That's beautiful, Lester. Thank you so much for amazing, amazing opportunity, Lester. It was really great having you and learning more about the solar and the Tron Solar, the journey entirely, how you have had multiple ups and downs in your business. That's freaking amazing. And hopefully, guys who actually listen to this amazing guy on this podcast, connect him on Facebook and Instagram. Stay tuned for the Marketing Shark event they're gonna do, which is going to be freaking amazing. And I'm excited to buy your book, surely once I get an opportunity. I would love to get my hands on that for sure. And hopefully you learned a lot. Make sure to rewatch it, take a lot of lessons, write down notes, stick it on the wall. Make sure to follow every single thing Lester just mentioned here. Hopefully you enjoyed the podcast session today, all of the listeners. Stay tuned for the next interview. This is me, the Nikhil Sai, and Lester Gray on the podcast, hopping off. Bye-bye with a signature moment. Let's go, baby! That's awesome, Lester. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, I really appreciate it.

I'm really excited, I'm really excited. Thank you so much. Enjoy the complete podcast. I can tell you, salute for you, bro. Thanks for the story. Amazing.

Appreciate you.

Peace out for today.