As a CEO, one of your top priorities should always be to make yourself obsolete in your business.

You don’t want to spend the rest of your life chasing down solar leads and taking sales calls, do you?

If you have any hope of scaling your solar business to 8 figures, then it starts with automating yourself out of the lower level tasks so you can focus on growth.

But without a defined succession plan, this is going to be an uphill battle. So I want to share with you the strategy I used to make myself obsolete in my solar businesses.

Hands down, if I hadn’t done this then I never would’ve scaled Sungrade Solar to 8 figures in 1 year, or Better Earth to 9 figures in 2 years.

1- Plan For The Future

You should always be looking for someone to replace you at every level.

Project management, training, social media marketing for your solar business… even at the executive level, you’ll eventually want someone to replace you.

This is the only way you’ll ever have the time to fulfill your executive tasks and grow your company.

Implementing a well thought out succession plan means you can quickly pinpoint the right people and hand your tasks over to them so you can start focusing on scaling.

Besides that, succession planning is also useful to keep things running smoothly when someone quits unexpectedly.

It’s important to plan for success, but it’s also important to have a contingency plan in place for when the unexpected happens. And trust me – it WILL happen, no matter how much you prepare.

The last thing you want is to have a rep or employee quit on you with no notice when you’re already under-staffed or overburdened.

Then you’ve gotta drop everything you’re doing to take over their tasks – whether it’s generating exclusive solar leads or knocking doors. That’ll cause you to rush the recruitment process to replace them, which increases your risk of hiring someone less than qualified.

So you’ve got two options: you can either do nothing in advance, then panic and take the blow to your business when it happens.

Or you can take the time to come up with a plan NOW that’ll keep everything moving smoothly along. No putting out fires or panicking.

A good way to start is to consider all the key roles on your team and answer these two questions:

• What’s the day-to-day impact of X position on our company or department?
• If the person currently in X position left, how would that affect our operations?

Bear in mind that a business is a holistic entity. One made of many interlocking parts.

You might not expect a low-level sales rep quitting to affect your marketing budget. But if your team is pulling more leads from your solar lead providers to take up the slack, they’re going to have more on their plate than usual.

That’ll reduce their ability to maintain peak performance, which reduces their close rate, which forces you to buy more solar leads.

2- Find Your Succession Candidates

Once you fully answer the questions in Step 1, you should have an idea of the ripple effect each position has on the rest of the company.

Step 2 is all about finding the people who could potentially step into those roles and take over for you.

Ask yourself these questions:

• If we were to hire for X position internally, which employees would be the strongest candidates for stepping into this role?
• Would those candidates need training? And, if so, what type?

Don’t dismiss promising reps in favor of whoever’s next in line in the organizational hierarchy.

Look at their soft skills and see if they have what it takes to thrive in higher positions.

A junior sales rep with better interpersonal skills might be better at generating exclusive solar leads than a senior rep.

Also, don’t assume the career goals of the people you decide on align with your plan.

They may actually have zero interest in the role you have in mind for them. Talk it out with them 1 on 1 to be sure you’re on the same page so you don’t have to find someone completely new when you’re ready to hand over the role.

Make it clear it’s not a guarantee, that you’re just laying the groundwork for something you may build on later.

3- Ramp Up Professional Development

You want to be sure your employees have the skills necessary to take over the role once you’re ready to pass it on to them.

So you’ll want to make a point of helping them improve their skill set.

If you’re handing over the social media marketing for your solar business to someone else, they need to know things like social media etiquette and how to drive engagement.

On top of that, it’s in your best interest to invest in both the personal and professional development of your employees.

The more opportunities you give them to move up Maslow’s Hierarchy, the more they’ll invest themselves into the work they do for you.

The most basic way you can provide your reps with opportunities and resources to boost relevant skills is to always run daily drills.

These are an enormous factor, not just in your succession plan but in optimizing their performance and driving sales. I make sure my reps do their drills at least twice a day, five days a week.

If you want to get more bang for your buck for every lead you buy from solar lead providers, this is the most important way to do it.

Another way you can help them increase their skills is by using personal development conferences like Tony Robbins as a reward.

If you have the right kind of people on your team, bettering themselves is something they’re genuinely into, and it’ll also improve their performance at work.

Job rotation is a good way to help your candidates gain additional knowledge and experience.

Every few weeks, give your reps a different task to take care of. This broadens the horizons of their skill set and keeps them on their toes.

A favorite of mine is connecting reps with other reps you think are ready to mentor them.

Time and again I’ve used this as a way to improve intrateam cooperation and workplace culture on top of preparing my succession plan.

Plus you’ll see the mentored rep start to convert more solar leads, which is always a plus.

4- Look For Chances To Do Trial Runs

Don’t wait until you’re ready to hand the role over to someone else.

You want to be sure the people you chose for your plan are able to hit the ground running with the tasks you have in mind for them.

Take a week off from a role you’re covering and have its successor take over.

This is an invaluable opportunity to gain experience and gives the rep a chance to shine.

Plus it helps you pinpoint any areas where they might need more training.

You can also do this if their manager takes time off for a sick day or vacation.

It saves you the hassle of taking on more tasks and gets the rep ready to act in a more senior capacity.

5- Integrate Into Your Hiring Strategy

Once you know who you want to take over which roles, look at any talent gaps they would leave behind.

This helps you identify where to focus your future recruiting efforts.

If you’re tapping someone in charge of your solar lead generation strategy, you want to be sure you have someone to fill their shoes.

This way you’re shoring up the weakest links in your company all the way from top to bottom.

Your departments will operate more efficiently, your sales reps will work in sync better, and your sales will increase as a result.

Plus you’re giving your business the chance to grow with as little interruption as possible

6- Think About Your Own Successor

This is less important if you’re doing under 100 deals a month, but you’ll want to keep it in mind as your business grows.

Eventually you’ll want someone to take over for you as CEO, either so you can retire, take advantage of a new opportunity, or so you can focus on larger-scale tasks related to the company.

Keep an eye on people you could see running the company one day.

Who do you think is best suited to fill your shoes?

And what can you do starting now to help them prepare for the transition?

That’s the breakdown of the succession strategy I used to automate Sungrade Solar and Better Earth so I could scale them as fast as possible.

If you build out a solid plan, you’ll have no problem shifting tasks to other people when you’re ready to focus on your executive responsibilities.

Plus you’ll find it helps keep your business running smoothly, increase the quality of your exclusive solar leads, and ultimately drive more sales.
Zain Jan