Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in the year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solarpreneur, you might ask? A solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one. All right, so we're back with part two with Tom Davenport. If you haven't listened to part one, we'll link it in the show notes. Go give it a listen. Yeah, we talked all about some alternative products. Tom's start in solar and getting going with his own EPC, some of the challenges he's had to overcome with that.
Speaker: So ah yeah we're going to dive straight back into where we left off. I know we left some things hanging on the last podcast. But so Tom, you were just talking about some alternative options we have for selling solar. First question is, you know, I know we got people all over listening to the podcast. So with some of the products you're mentioning in part one, are those available like nationwide all over the US or what does that look like? um the The credit fails aren't. If you want access to, I think that I can do the nationwide cash back to the homeowner. you know So it feels a lot like the old tax credit.
Speaker: I think we can do that nationwide. So if you want that, you can DM me. Anyone can get access to that. It's not my company, but like it's it's it's just kind of like HDM or Thrive. it's just It's just the right connection there. And then my no credit, my main go-to is Pace. And so it's probably worth having a conversation around that. I usually get a lot of resistance.
Speaker: I think that's that's just primarily around misinformation. I'm sure you've done Facebook for So yeah, we used to do that all the time back in the day, you know, 10 years ago when I first started, but i definitely had some negative connotations. And then um some of those welcome calls were brutal, man, where they had to talk to everyone on title, literally trying to talk the customer out of signing up in some cases, like saying, are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I like that. When I started as EPC, Pace was the only financer that would work with me direct. Because like guys like Goodly, Ben Everbright, they're like, yeah, I mean, we want to see three years in business, at least five, 10 million in revenue. You know I'm saying? So for for six months, we ran nothing but home run pace.
Speaker: We were their number one installer in quarter one, quarter two of 23. Well, tell me, I mean, if you've done pace before, and I mean, some of that stuff's gotten easier for sure. Like they don't, the welcome call, i haven't lost any deals to welcome calls this year.
Speaker: I've probably done 30 pace deals. So besides that, I mean, if if you lose a deal, i mean, I'm guessing that it's probably the monthly payment. Like you probably think it doesn't make sense. If I'm pitching a PPA, what's your go-to PPA? Well, we're doing NFIN, of course, right now. this time of This time of this recording, that's the ones that are paying the most. so Did they just to move like half your pay to PTO? No. Well, for us, we get 20% at PTO.
Speaker: I know we're recording this 14th of October. So actually tomorrow, they announced a big drop in the EPCs. So we're probably gonna be switching to a few different PPAs. Maybe NFIN will listen to this and and change their minds. but I doubt it.
Speaker: But do you know what new payment structure is going to look like? Is it 50 50? Uh, as far as I know, it's the same. I don't know. I haven't heard anything on that. I just know they're dropping the EPCs, um, in California specifically, they're dropping them by 50 cents. So yeah, in other words, you're going have to price it probably about one or two cents higher to make the same commissions on them. You know I mean?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, but if you're at the table, you got $12,000 in commission with Enfin and they fail credit. And you can match that price with home run and pace, which you can.
Speaker: I've been doing it. like Even though it's a hassle, why would you lose the deal? Well, a lot of people don't have access to that, um including myself. It's not hard. like I'm sure EPC could get access to it. I mean, i I don't want your EPC to get access to it because you can run it through my EPC. Yeah, but like... That's what I understand is it's not like a tough solution. Like infant can be kind of hard to onboard with, but home runs not. So that brings up another topic. I know a lot of reps that are listening this time they have because you were mentioning earlier. It's like with Sunrun and I know you have some content on social media like, oh, why would you sell this if you could sell the same thing at this price? I know a lot of the reps listen to this. They might only have like access to one. The option, you know, we're talking to Sunrun reps, they basically have one option to sell, right? If we're critiquing them, it's like if you're with Sunrun, you can't really do anything about it. If you want to make a decent commission, you got to sell that option.
Speaker: They fail credit. You're pretty much out of options. And I know most Sunrun reps, it's not like they're linked in with other EPCs where they're going to send their felt credits or, you know, maybe have other options with the homeowner. It's like they don't sell them they don't sell them for you. i don't know. what What do you tell people or like, what's your kind of argument against these reps? In your opinion, do you think people are selling with like a bigger company?
Speaker: Do you think they should be linked in with maybe like a smaller UPC like, like yourself to where they could send maybe some felt credit deals? Or I don't know what would put yourself in the shoes like a Sunrun rep? What would you do?
Speaker: If you like knew about some of these other options, but your company only has the one? I don't know. what would you What would you say to some of these reps that are in that situation? I mean, I can be biased, you know, for sure. If you get a sales credit, don't let it go to ways. Like in the very least DM me, you don't have to learn a whole new product. I will send the docs out for you. We can sign a contract just on that willing and deal. What your commission would be.
Speaker: Like for sure. Like, and if it's like a four kilowatt, like on care, i don't care. You know, but like if you have a nice juicy deal, you're helping the whole owner out. It's a nice setup. It's got good margins.
Speaker: You'd be crazy. Like, I don't know about you. Maybe this is like, maybe I'm like in the wrong place, but For me, and i got I had a son unwrapped in my office here on those yesterday.
Speaker: like The dude's broke. like there's I had another son unwrapped the other day. He's broke. like I know a lot of son unwrapped that are broke. I've been working there for, I'm hitting their minimum. It's like one install every six weeks or something. He's like, I'm holding on for dear life.
Speaker: This guy's like made like 10 grand. He's been working for eight months. So for me, it's like, bro, I can get you 10 grand one credit fail. So you would just be crazy. I don't care. like Those guys, for sure, you would be insane not to to put deals over. You might think like a guy in a management position. He's he's got a different kind of... um There's a lot more variables there. Like, is he going to lose his position? Is he going to lose an opportunity?
Speaker: Has he been tenured for a certain amount of years? And like, that's kind of the dilemma I found is the longer, in order to be successful at Sunrun, you, in any really big organization, you have to drink the Kool-Aid.
Speaker: And the more delusional you are the more effective you're going to be and the more successful you're going to be So like, if you're, if you're good Sunrun, then you are delusional and And I don't have any problem with that. I think delusion is like an S tier salesman skill. Most people can't take the time to actually understand a product enough to be confident.
Speaker: that takes That takes years. So it really is a skill to go in and just trust someone and then have the absolute conviction in one week. you know like That's what great salesmen can do is like they're convicted in something before they really have the confidence to be convicted in. Unless you're like, you know, lying, cheating, stealing, robbing, which lots of people do. That's the problem is if they're at Sunrun and they're talking to me, they're probably not good reps. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: So I really would love to talk to the manager dude that has 10 reps because I can pay him quite a bit more. I can install his deals faster. and I probably would have made him like 30% more just on his credit fails.
Speaker: Plus, I think his customers would be a lot happier long term and that he would feel better about it long term if he really... understood everything I understand. yeah So, but he's, if he's in that spot, he's drinking the Kool-Aid, he's delusional and he's effective and he's being, and he's having success and people are much much more afraid of what they could lose and what they can gain. him So that's, I've talked a lot of high, high guys up at Sunrun and I get it. It's like, you're winning, bro. i I respect that. Like wide pivot if you're winning. So I guess my point is, is the answer is yes. Like you'd be crazy just to leave money on the table. And even if like it sounds kind of a harder conversation, if you're a dealer, like then you'd be super crazy because you're already like kind of down to reuse multiple installers and stuff like that. That just doesn't make any sense why you would be leaving these deals on the table. And then, yeah, if you're there's some politics involved and you're in leadership, I can understand why it's a hard decision.
Speaker: I still think that you're wrong. wrong Like, I don't think, i don't think anyone should be working until the only reason that you'd be working at Sunrun is if was too busy to work with you, in my opinion. You know, if I'm like, like, honestly, i can only do 50 installs a month.
Speaker: I'm just kind of full. So if you came on to Bright House right now, i just wouldn't be able to give you the quality of service that you deserve, which is like fast installs, good pay, good communication. so you're actually going to get better service over at Sunrun. That's the only time. And that's that's the problem, right? Is like, how do you know that you're going to an EPC that's solid, that actually has the capacity to take care of you, blah, blah, blah, blah. blah So there's just less risk with building with a big organization.
Speaker: it's kind of like with a homeowner, they already have a quote, they're already signed up. And you're like, look, if you spend 10 minutes with me and I showed you how I can save you an additional $10,000 on your solar project, would that be worth your time? They're like, yeah, you know, I've already signed up. I like the guy. And you're like, come on, bro. When's the last time you made $10,000 in an hour? Like, you'd be crazy. Like, just take the time to understand what I'm offering you.
Speaker: But that's kind of the the similar dilemma. Just the opportunity cost of actually taking the time to understand what I'm offering is such a distraction from just being locked in and selling one product.
Speaker: And it can just, it can actually, it's, it happened to me after my first week in solar, I sold three deals. um i so I set three deals that closed, right? And I start self-genning like 10 days later. And I self-gen two deals that week.
Speaker: And honestly, to this day, if I was knocking doors, i would average probably one self-gen. not referrals. If I was just knocking doors, I'll average one self-jet a week. So I was better, I was as good as I am on the door today, my first week. And part of that is because I came from PES and PES guys are just ballers. They understand sales psychology and they work hard.
Speaker: But the other part of that is the more information you have, the less conviction, it gets confusing. So like, Day 45 of me selling solar, I'm like texting my manager, like I did the math. Are you sure the rates are going to go up? And like, it's actually $60,000. You know, like I'm like, and he's like, yeah, I went through the same thing. Like you start to have this like dilemma. Am I really helping people? But just like, it takes some time to really understand that. And it's sometimes just easier.
Speaker: Are you, i don't know if you're a Mormon from u Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Mormon too. You've heard like the people say like you have like some issue with a gospel principle and they're like, yeah, bro, just table it.
Speaker: Yeah. You what I'm saying? Like just just take that question and put it on a bookshelf and keep moving forward with it. Yeah. Like that's the right answer if you want to make money in sales. yeah Like whatever you do, as long as it's not stopping you from studying every day to become a better salesman and prospecting every day and grinding and hustling, like as long as you're still getting that stuff done,
Speaker: Take your issues, table it, we'll come back to it. And it's not like something we're not afraid to talk about, but let's keep in the meantime, you know, let's keep the commandments and let's go to church. but Like same, same sort of concept. ah You don't want to get lost in stuff you don't understand and let it undermine your confidence. yeah So a really long, long way to answer your question about whether or not some of guys should work with me. Yeah. I love it. Well, yeah, it goes the same for probably like any larger organization. But I'm all about having options. Like you said, I agree 100% with that. Like if you have a failed credit and you know there's an option where it could be sold, like why would you leave it on the table? Why wouldn't you at least shoot the option to
Speaker: um someone you know could get that customer taken care of. I know it's really risky. you You trust your guy to get you paid. So if you're at the table and someone passes credit for Enfin, running it with me is really risky.
Speaker: You don't know me. like You're hoping I install it. You're hoping you get paid. You haven't developed that relationship. So I i always start with the low credit. Just because my goal is to get the foot in the door, get it installed fast, get you paid quickly.
Speaker: I want you to sell my high credit option. I have a high credit option where I can pay you 50% at NTP. I want you to sell that, but I'm just trying to get my foot in the door, show you I'm good at what I do, you I can get you paid and earn your business. And i'm I'm earning your business with something that's a sunk cost. It's a really easy conversation.
Speaker: Well, bro, at least give me your failed credits. Let me show you what I can do. And then over time, if I'm paying you more and I'm installing it faster and your customers are happier, then you're not going to have any, then you're going the confidence when you when you do have a fast credit at the table.
Speaker: I'm run it through Bright House because I built that confidence. And the NTP Bay helps with that too, right? Because whenever someone comes to work with me, they put one deal in. And now if it has a roof or an NPU, they're like, I'm just going to wait six weeks to make sure I get paid before I build up $200,000, $300,000 pipeline, right? You've through
Speaker: So that's why i love paying an NTP. I'm like, well, now I get you NTP on like next Friday. I just got rid of all your risk. Like your housing's paid for, your setters are paid for. Like now it's just cream. And then they can stay motivated and keep working without waiting. Because like, let's say you you put in deals right now that were like normal deals and they took four weeks to install of and then two weeks to pay. Now it's Thanksgiving.
Speaker: You take off Christmas and January and like, we'll start talking about working together in March. know saying? It's just like, it takes so long to develop that trust. And the way that I pay at NTP is not risky. People, if you think it's risky, it's just because you don't know what it is.
Speaker: it's The homeowner has to like say, I'm paying 50%, click a button. And it's not easy to do the underwriting. They have to talk to a lot. Like they know what they're doing and they're paying their EPC 50%. They understand their funding low, right? Like you can't, this isn't like other jobs or the, they're just getting like an M1 from the financer. The homeowner understands they're funding $25,000 and the the EPC is going to get it.
Speaker: So i've I've never had, I've never had a job get to NTP with this financer. Wow. So this is the financer that's paying you the 25 or the 50% at NTP then. And then you're able to pass that on to the sales reps. Is that what you're saying? Exactly. Wow.
Speaker: Okay. and You've never had one instant where the homeowner like canceled after the NTP that you had to like deal with that? They can't. Like like if if they just, you know, like someone, someone cancels a deal before install, you're like, oh shit, like I guess we're just not going to get paid. What are we going to do? But when someone cancels one of these jobs, like, okay, bro, go talk to the bank because you funded a loan. Yeah.
Speaker: Like I won't, I'll just keep the 50%. You know what I'm saying? And they'll start like, you'll you know keep your 50%. Like no one has to have a claw back here. They're three days past their cancellation period.
Speaker: They elected to fund us to purchase the materials. We use those funds to purchase the materials and it paid for our marketing. You're past your cancellation and you can't cancel any. So like, that's not an option.
Speaker: And like, if you're trying to cancel, it's not like I have to be like, oh, well I have to install to get your money. It's like, already have your money. It's like, what are you going do? Come take it from me? So it it puts the ball in their court. If they want to cancel for somebody at this point, they would have to sue me to get the 50% back.
Speaker: ah So basically, the financier is still going to like bill them because the loan is already funded. so it's like they're getting billed for it either way. that what you're saying? Yeah. This client does skip payments for six months.
Speaker: So you could kind of delay that pain, but it's a, yeah, i mean, they're going to start getting a bill and I'm going to, and then and like right now, and when homeowners canceled for all my reps, I give the homeowner a call and they send me the voicemail.
Speaker: know what I'm saying? Or just ghost us. We're like, I try to call and they they'll talk to me and be like, yeah, well, that's how I feel about it. now Whatever it is. I don't, I don't have any leverage in that conversation.
Speaker: But now I have all the leverage. It's like you, like imagine if you gave a check to someone, if you wrote a 50% check for your contractor to start to go buy windows to install windows, you're not going to think you can just email him and say, hey bro, I canceled. Yeah.
Speaker: your If your wife tries to cancel, you're like, honey, we already wrote him the check. Like at this point, we just got to hope it's going to work out. Like, what are we to do? Go to their office and say, give me that check back. Maybe that'll work unless he's like, dude, I already ordered the materials. already paid my marketing expense. I i haven't had one of those deals canceled. And once you, I hate to say it, you know, this is kind of like the, so what's the catch?
Speaker: Once you do one of these deals and you see that the underwriting process is not something you can just do in home right then, like take someone's iPad, oh, let me just sign that for you. That's not going to happen. You're not going to sign for a grandma and get this funded tomorrow.
Speaker: Like the, they have to be smart. They have to know how to use their email. They don't have have to know how to use their phone. Then they have to be able to answer the phone and talk to the bank in one or two days. So these are customers that are intelligent.
Speaker: They want the best possible rate. They want a fixed rate. They want the lowest possible payoff cost with no dealer fee. So I'm usually, these customers are paying like $25,000 total. I'm like, dude, it's just a $25,000 loan.
Speaker: No premium penalty, no prepaid payment penalty, no, um you know, no dealer fee. So just pay it off. Whenever you have 25 grand, just pay it off and be done with it and just take your savings that direction. Most of my customers, if they just take the money they were already giving to PGD, they're paying these off in five and a half years. So it's like a no brainer and it's it's easy to communicate. So these this is for my customers that have, because there are some requirements. They have to have a 680 credit score and they have to have good income.
Speaker: yeah They have to have above 50% DTI. It's like if if they're making $10,000 a month, their debt payments on their house and their car can't be more than 5,000. Okay. okay So i don't know, how ah how often are you sitting across the table from customers like that? ah Probably pretty often.
Speaker: i don't know. I don't know. you're You're in San Diego. So most of your customers are probably making money and have to good credit. So they would love this in San Diego. They would eat it up. They would eat it up. It's like, it's only in Fresno, unfortunately, where I'm really familiar with people just like hitting the outskirts area. And it's like some guy with a $200,000 house and they're putting a $100,000 solar system. And you're like,
Speaker: Like, that's not it, dude. Yeah. That's, that's pretty much it. I mean, that's like the sauce I have. And then the, because the pace long is 30 years to both those payments end up being about the same. So when you say a low credit option, that's what you're talking about is the pace option. That's your low credit option.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, pretty much. mean, I was this close. I i had a relationship with a company called Access. They paid me like $2 million dollars in 24 of failed credit deals. And they they paid well. They paid as good as like Everbright at the time.
Speaker: And they said, oh, yeah, we're going to onboard you on Monday. And I was excited about it. But they they like didn't get the funding they expected. I don't know exactly what happened. But that. That does happen by and by. It's happened to me twice where I've had access to like a legit no credit lease that you can rip. It was pretty lucrative. And um they they they check income too as well. They just want to see they can make the payment.
Speaker: But yeah, and that happens every year. like that Companies like that get funded. And it's funny because when when I come out with my lease here in the next quarter or two, I am going to require credit. So guess I'm an hypocrite.
Speaker: That's too bad, man. That's too bad. i would have sent you all the... Maybe I'll have like a middle ground where you could use my lease and Pace and just ah like a little bit with Pace, just like $10,000 so i can buy you know mitigate my risks.
Speaker: Because I can do stuff like that. you know I like the idea of you know getting creative and solving problems. Prepaid is nice for that reason. But it's so the main issue I'm dealing with with prepaid is, again, I just have to have a customer that's on board and they're sold.
Speaker: I'm not going to be able to do the, you I'll just submit an application. do did you Like it is, you're talking to the loan officer. <unk>re If you're doing HDM, you're doing an HDM call to on my call pilot. And you're doing an install agreement. So you have three to sign and you lose deals in that friction in the in the in-between.
Speaker: And a lot of people like, yeah, we're submitting an application. We'll get back to you. That is the best way, I think, to get everything done. But but I also think that's why Sunrun has like crazy high cancellations this year. and been pushing really hard on that. and It's just not really working for me. My cancellation is probably like 10%. Wow.
Speaker: um because my customers are getting a lot and they have to be pretty educated. And also like they're not going to find anything better. So that's helpful, right? I hate it when you're selling PPA. PPA is so easy to tear up.
Speaker: I love tearing them up. You know, like when I get across the table and someone's like, I signed up for Sunrun, I'm like, okay, get out the contract. And they're like, well, they told me that the rate only goes up a penny. Look at it. Look at the escalator. You can see every year.
Speaker: He said it was a penny. Yeah, it's like a pain per kilowatt. they They didn't come it to say that. but Well, they said that like in five years, it'll be mine. No, in five years, you can buy it for 90 grand. Well, they said it even at the end of the 25 years, I can have it.
Speaker: No, you can't. Look at the contract. Like you can either rent it or buy it at the end. So it's just like the contract's always like my best friend. Like it yeah it never matches what these Sunrun guys say.
Speaker: um yeah so I don't even have to say anything. I don't have to make i't even put anyone down. I just say, well, get the contract. Let's figure it out. And people stop just talk themselves out of those deals all day long. i mean, it's really hard to read a PPA contract and still feel good about it. It's easy to like tell a story, you know a magic story about free solar and know just paying for power at cheaper rate.
Speaker: yeah But that math doesn't make sense because you're you're paying for power at cheaper rate when you might not even be needing it. And then half the people probably don't even know where their contract is. They're like, oh, I don't know. It's probably in an email somewhere. They don't even know. And then they try to access it. They can't even find it.
Speaker: yeah but Yeah, that's that's that's the solar dilemma, man. it's It's going to create a headache. What's nice for Sunrun they can keep their headaches um within an echo chamber. They can kind of cover up themselves, right? Yeah.
Speaker: when you When you see them like Everbright or Enfin or Goodleap or Lightreach, they're like, bro, this sucks. Our investors don't want to buy anything anymore. we're We're raising the rates. We're pulling out or Goodleap.
Speaker: Or um what's a good example? Probably like Mosaic and Service Finance and Sunlight. They're like, solar sucks. We're not doing it anymore. like they That becomes really obvious because they make these decisions as financers that this isn't a good fit.
Speaker: But someone's kind of able to, like when they have an ITC investor be like, dude, this is not working. We're getting out. They just kind of pull the veil over it and they can go pitch it to another ITC investor.
Speaker: Right. Or it like a class action lawsuit because of salesman practices, they can like support it with other parts of the business that are being successful. Right. So they're able to like keep, I'm sure they're dealing with all these same issues, but they're able to control the narrative a lot more because they don't have like parts working against each other. They're all like different components of a machine that needs to be working together, which I respect. I'm trying to compete with that. Here's my opinion, Tom, and I'm curious to hear what you think about this, if you agree or disagree. But I'm of the opinion that there's a lot of people where if I put a big loan in their face or have to pay anything up front, sign loan docs, lot these people, I don't think they're going to do it, especially because I'm dealing with a lot of Hispanic. That's kind of like our primary. I speak Spanish, so we're going to a lot of the Hispanic people around here.
Speaker: It's a lot of these people, i just don't think they're going to like sign up for a loan, especially now with the big battery price tacked on the higher interest rate. And so I'm like, okay, even though I know there might be something that's slightly better, maybe prepaid PPA, I'm like, okay, well, if the option is for them to not go solar, just because they're scared of like doing the loan option or dealing with all that,
Speaker: or to go a solar, but it's a PPA and it's not as good of an option, has an escalator, but they're still going to save quite a bit of money compared to what they pay the utility. Because SDG anywhere, where we're at, the average rate is like 52 cents right now.
Speaker: So i'm like, even if I sell them, you know, even if it's like a 35 cent PPA, I'm like, okay, well, it might not be the best thing, but it's still going to be better than them just continue with the utility. And I would rather have them do the option that's kind of like the lesser evil, not not as maybe not the best option, but I still would rather I'm getting to that than do nothing at all.
Speaker: So for me, that's kind of I justify it because I sell mostly PPAs, right? And so that's kind of how I justify it and think in my head. so what what would you say? that Do you agree with that? Or what's your what What's your argument to that? Bro, I would i would tell you that you're right.
Speaker: Yeah, I really would. I guess at the end of the day, what I'm advocating for is at some point you're being paid to be an expert and and people are trusting you to consult with them about what's best for them.
Speaker: So in the very least, in the very least, you should know about these options because we're we're talking about a $30,000 difference. You know, they're paying 330 bucks a month with Enfin at a 3.5 versus 330 with my product.
Speaker: They'll pay 30 grand more with Enfin. So like we're talking about $30,000 more of savings. Yes, they're probably going to be a free battery with Enfin. um But I mean, 10 years, batteries are going to be half the cost of what they are today. You know, so we're talking about like,
Speaker: Not that much, like probably $150, $200 a kilowatt hour. A lot of batteries are that price right now. So i I said that kind of at the beginning, like it depends on what your goals are, right? Like if you want to scale a company and and manage a team and recruit guys in and teach them to close and talk to people on the door and close them as quickly as possible, I really do think the PPA is a better vehicle Yeah. yeah um I hate to say it, you know, and maybe my guys are going watch this and be like, let's go to Sunrun, you know? yeah But for me, it's just like, I can't do it. Like I just, I honestly, I do lose deals like candidly and I'll lose deals because of this reason. I'll say, look, Mr. your Homeowner, to show you two options.
Speaker: You can own it. It looks like this or you can rent it and they'll kind of go through it and I'll try to make them both sound good, but I'm a little biased and I'll say something like, Yeah, i mean, that one sounds good. But just to be clear, the rate goes up 3% a year. Like I'm not like that. That sounds good. And I'm i'm totally think they're both great options for you. They're better than where you're at.
Speaker: But just to be clear, i just want you to understand. i just want you to understand this because half of the customers I have that other people sell that aren't me don't understand what they got and they end up hating it. And I really don't want I have to service your system for 10 years. So I'm not interested and you calling me in a year saying i didn't understand the escalator or I didn't understand the backup. I could probably say whatever I want to say. I could definitely get him to do it.
Speaker: Yeah. But instead, I'm like, I'm just going to try to be like how I really want to teach towards your understanding, which is funny because the actual consequences of that is confusion. Right.
Speaker: You come in as a sales guy and you don't have conviction and even delusion and clarity about one product and you present too many products, you're going to create confusion. Yeah. Right.
Speaker: So where my business has kind of gone today is there's there's a portion of the market that's that is becoming more educated, that doesn't want to have an escalator and they want the cash back tax credit stuff or they want um a lower price or whatever it is. And that's kind of my niche is like i I cater to those customers, guys like you that are knocking doors, probably one in five will be this type of person.
Speaker: I'll just take that customer. I'll advertise to them directly. And my customer wants my solution and I feel good about my solution. And I i feel like it's good for me.
Speaker: I don't think it's the best door-to-door scalable program. And that's part reason that the bulk of my business doesn't come from my inside sales team. It comes from working with dealers. So I don't love that. Like I wish I had like a really successful door-to-door team. But part part of the problem with that is you need a VP of sales.
Speaker: And I always like have this weird thing where I like, I try to be the VP of sales and the CEO of my APC. It's like, you know, we're small. Like we had $8 million in revenue last year, which is nothing in solar.
Speaker: But like actually doing $8 million dollars of construction is hard. Selling $8 million dollars of solar is easy. Installing and and permitting and PTOing $8 million is hard.
Speaker: So I'm like, I'm stuck in the weeds of doing something that's really hard. And I've tried two or three times to hire an ops manager to replace myself. I actually think it's a pretty hard job. And like, there's not, there's not actually not a lot of people in the market that are doing ops to the level I'd like them to be done.
Speaker: Like where customers actually are inspected, actually PTO'd, actually working, actually serviced. And so, I mean, yeah, it's it's a complicated problem, man. I mean, this is this is the solar dilemma, right? i My solution is for me to do in-house financing. I honestly, I like Solrite's solution as well.
Speaker: Have you looked at Solrite? Yeah, actually, one of my ah yeah one of my good friends out here, he's one of the, i think, VPs, or he's over like all the dealers for Solrite.
Speaker: Jerem? Yeah, you know Jerem? Yeah, so... I like what Solrent's doing. I think that's kind of the future. Imagine if you went into a car dealership and you found out that your car dealer dude was on Redline.
Speaker: you know And he like gave you a pretty good deal because you seem smart. But then like your grandma goes in and he sells her like a you know He's like, okay, dude, the Toyota's Redline's 15 grand, and he sells it to the grandma for 30. Like, he'd be pissed. The Redline model is, it's dumb. It's not fair. I've used the Redline model.
Speaker: I tried not to for a while, but I just, like, I can't speak, we're not speaking the same language when I talk to dealers. Like, ah. I morally don't like it. I don't think it's good for the customer. I don't think it sets us up for success.
Speaker: Any real company, you're goingnna pay like a sales commission or a portion of the revenue or a portion of the profitability. You're not just going to let people like rip stuff for $6 watt. It's $2.50 a watt. oh, I'm charging you $6 because I gave you premium service. Okay, but you're not actually letting any of that go to the EPC. So you're really just like upcharging me and they're like a sub. So I i really like what Solareg's done where they're like, look, it's just always going to be 17 cents for the customer.
Speaker: we're gonna pay We're going to pay $1,200 a kilowatt. If that's not enough for you, like suck it. You know, I i like Solareg's mentality about that. You know, so I've been arguing with Jerem. He's probably not going to watch this. Maybe he does. Does he watch your videos? sometime I'm going send him this one and tell me that. right Yeah. So I think it's funny because I always argue with him about this, dude. And you know, he, he runs a PPA. So he's like a little bit more zealous than you on the, like, basically like basically guys that are doing PPAs have to call me a scammer.
Speaker: You're like, you're going to go out of business and you're not going to taking care of your customers, but I am. yeah i get I get it. i think I think a better way, like if we would have done solar the way I'm about to describe, we wouldn't have had lot these problems.
Speaker: If you just would have sold solar, like, you know, let the installer make a good amount of money. not like 20%, you know, on their total revenue, like a normal company, just keep the materials and the install costs low.
Speaker: And if people were just buying systems, just systems, and then they understand kind of like a car that they're going to have to pay an electrician 300 bucks, like twice a year, just to come out and make sure everything's working good.
Speaker: If that's how solar was sold from the beginning, instead of ah like, we just we wanted to say, Oh, it's a 25 year warranty. You don't have to worry about anything. We just really wanted to say that as sales guys. If we could have just said, look, bro, I'm just giving you the panels and the battery.
Speaker: You know, it's 20 grand. What's your warranty? It's that it's going to work. We'll give you like a one year warranty that we did our job. And anytime you need us after that, just give us a call. You know, our electricians are 120 bucks an hour.
Speaker: Most everything can be fixed in two hours, you know, and then you just sell it for like way cheaper. That would have like been, i think that would have been the future. Maybe that would be the future. That would have been a great past.
Speaker: Because and everyone would pay, people would have actually understood their solar systems. Like cars. you know like it's like when cars first came out, I bet you people didn't know how to fix them. But now like everyone's like, oh, an ancient oil change and you to rotate the tires. But I got homeowners calling me and they're like, dude, my system's not working. I'm like, okay, bro, FaceTime me.
Speaker: Walk out to your system, look at it. Okay, the Wi-Fi dongle, where is it? It's on the ground. Okay, plug your Wi-Fi dongle in. do Oh, dude, I thought it hasn't hadn't been working for six months. 90% of solar problems are like your dongle fell out and your breaker needs to be flipped or you need to turn it on again. But homeowners are like, man, it hasn't been working for a year.
Speaker: It's like you could have just had like a local electrician, and but instead you're like, my company went out of business seven years ago doesn't work. So like more education and that would also allow, because right now I'm like, damn, what does it cost to do services for 25 years? Like at least at least one truck roll a year, that's $300 times 25. So like I got to put like 12 grand in the deal just so that like i don't go out of business.
Speaker: Like that's dumb. So why don't why I just like charge for the install and materials, mini marketing and stuff? But now like guys get a charge and part of it, part of the problem is the tax market, right? If you did what I said and you're like, oh, well, solar like $1.20 a dollar twenty watt. Then you pay someone like a dollar to install it. So it's like $2.20 watt.
Speaker: and then you're gonna pay like $300 a month a year for servicing. Then you wouldn't be able to write it for $6 a wallet and claim a tax credit that's $3 a lot that actually covers the labor and materials. And that's what funds the flywheel for these leases. That's how SolRent works. That's how they're doing batteries for 20 bucks. it's like claiming the fair market value, the tax credit alone covers the cost of materials, and then you have some debt that you took on, but the monthly payments or the revenue from the VPP exceeds that debt.
Speaker: that's the problem is you can't really do my model. Like the reason that we do so or the way we do it is so the tax credits can work the way that they work. So we can have the upcharge that we have so that 50% can cover the base costs.
Speaker: So it's it's it's a complex issue because at the end of the day, I want the tax credit people's money with my lease product. So i can't I can't reform stuff too much, but it's kind of dumb. Like maybe this would have been better if you just let capitalism do its thing and and let solar establish itself. It might've actually been better outcomes for customers and better pricing. And like, it would have been a good product that people liked.
Speaker: But because we made tax credits, we like cause people to inflate the price and we actually made solar a nightmare. when we were trying to incentivize people to do it. yeah So that's a really interesting conversation, and I'm going to have that in my book.
Speaker: i was eating I can monologue all day. I'm i'm probably past your time. No, good. Well, yeah, that leads us right into that because didn't want to talk about your book a little bit. But no, I agree. There's a lot of, you know, especially all these Mexican families down here. It's like, I would say more than half the time, the reason why they haven't gone slower is just because they heard a bad experience that someone had or they heard someone got, I don't know, isn't saving money, got price gouged, whatever the reason.
Speaker: And it's just like these people what could be a no brainer yet. We had someone two days ago where their bill was going to be cut by about 60% from like 400 to like less than 200. The guy still didn't want to do it. Absolute no brainer. But just because he's he's heard some of these horror stories and yeah it's tough to overcome with some of these people.
Speaker: So I agree. It's been an issue. But um yeah, speaking of your book, though, when is your ah book coming out? And sounds like you kind of told us a little bit already. But what's the plans with the book? And when's it dropping? all that Well, bro, how long does it take to write a book? I paid a dude that like, like publishes books to give me like, hey, I think this is going to be the best way to tell this story.
Speaker: But I have that. I just caught it on Friday. And my plan is to just monologue on a video like this. according to his outline and then my video will ah give it to my AI and he'll just transcribe what I said. then i'll okay I'll just give that transcription to an editor.
Speaker: so I'll let you know, bro, I don't think it's going to be that hard, but I have been kind of like surprised how long it's taken me just to like get things going. It's like, I'm afraid to like tell the wrong story in the right place or like structure things. Right.
Speaker: But I'm going on, um, the podcast digital social hour. you have you seen any those? they're pretty funny bro um he has a lot of like on youtube like one muslim versus 10 christians one warman versus 10 christians oh okay yeah i've seen of those videos i've never really watched them but i have seen this like the time they were pretty some muslims videos they're like four hours i don't know if anyone watches them but i like you see clips people see clips Actually, this Saturday, I'm going to do one. It's like happily married people against Pearl.
Speaker: Have you seen Pearl? ah She's like a redheaded girl that's anti-feminist and she just talks about how women suck. Okay. It's kind of funny. Maybe I've seen some clips. Yeah.
Speaker: I kind of agree with her lot of things. Like I'm anti-feminist at the end of the day. Well, I'm arguing with her, against her, um that what's my argument? Oh, they like marriage doesn't suck, you know, because she's like, marriage is a bad deal. Men shouldn't get married. They're going to end up paying child support and blah, blah, blah, being homeless on the street. It's like her argument. I'm like, well, no, it's like, that's true. but like, like, just because it could happen doesn't mean he shouldn't get married. but But I'm doing a podcast with him about solar.
Speaker: I kind of want to have my book written by then. And that's that's October 28th. So can you write a book in 14 days? Wow. That would be crazy. It would be crazy. we'll we'll We'll find out. I feel like, like said, I can model all on pretty easily for two hours. Yeah. And that that's probably 10 pages.
Speaker: And so if I want 140 page book, I just go with two hours a day. It seems kind of too easy. Well, we we can send you a copy of this whole ah podcast video and maybe this could be like two chapters of your book or something. just some podcast i got i got the stories pretty, pretty right. I'll go a little bit more in depth because that's what it'll be like. I can only have so many conversations, yeah but I think this conversation is interesting, right? not So I would I would love to talk to guys like you.
Speaker: i would like to love, this I think there's probably a thousand guys that would be like, yeah, I did. I remember that. I remember that. Yeah. i was wondering about that. Like, well you know, it's just like, I'm curious. I love hearing these stories.
Speaker: And so I'm hoping the book will do that for me and just like allow me to have a thousand conversations, you know i'm saying? And each conversation will be a little bit more in depth than I have time to go into today. i don't know, man. I haven't written a book before, but I liked the idea of that. So that's cool.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool, man. And then last thing you mentioned before we started recording is you're planning on doing like a solar mastermind, something like that. Is that right? You want to tell our audience a little bit about that?
Speaker: I feel like I'll get a lot of heat from like, maybe not, you seem like a open-minded guy, but I can like, I can feel the eye rolling from like Jerem. Yeah. I'm a small EPC. you know i'm not I don't have a $100 million EPC, but I have a ah lot of experience and in running EPCs and understanding these problems. and it's not like A mastermind isn't my mind. It's like a mastermind of the people coming together and having this conversation. So it's like if you're a rep, a dealer, or an EPC that's done more than a million dollars, you know then we'd invite you to come into this mastermind run
Speaker: I want to like three trips a year. We'll like, you know, get a super sweet mansion in Malibu, look it over the ocean. We'll hang out for a weekend. We'll eat nice meals. And we'll, uh, we'll talk about this and we'll talk about like what the next thing is and what the finance parks are and what's mastermind.
Speaker: And hopefully we all make more money. And, you know, if you, if you learn how to get one failed credit deal through, like it's going to be worth it, you know? yeah, I'm really excited for that. I'm working with Ryan Pineda on that.
Speaker: He kind of does that. Do you know him? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've watched some his content and think you're at door to door con. Was that last year or two years ago or something? Yeah. Yeah, he works with Sam Tagger and he did he he did like he he did house flipping. That was his thing. But then it like really he made more money selling a course about house flipping.
Speaker: And now his his coolest thing is he has ah it's a mastermind of 1 million to $1 billion dollars net worth individuals that just golf together. And that's their mastermind.
Speaker: And like that's what he's most excited about. You know, it's just kind of fun. i love the idea of of telling a story, putting it out on the internet, And like creating a community of people that you didn't even know exists, it might align with you more than the people that are in your immediate network. Sometimes you get like in little get in a box, you know, like your high school friends and the the dudes you started at and passed control or whatever. It's like 15 or 20 people.
Speaker: And so I'm excited. I like the internet. I like pushing ideas out. I'm sure that you kind of experienced little bit about of this with your podcast. No, i love that kind of stuff, man. So keep me posted. Yeah, I would love to.
Speaker: I guess I'll have to see if I qualify for the mastermind once you launch it. oh Let's talk about it. I definitely am going have like some founding members, you know, that I can kind of more partner up with and you can help me build it. but i think you already have a network there.
Speaker: Yeah. and I've really enjoyed talking to you and you you've been in the industry longer than me. So I think there's a lot, we can have another conversation around that. I'm really, I'm more excited about that than anything right now. That'll probably be coming out in like the next 15 days and you'll probably see ads and you can roll your eyes about it. But they I'll call it. I'll message you as well. he attack cool cool man no It's been an awesome conversation. and um yeah i mean i can relate relate to a lot of what you said.
Speaker: Being in this tenure, I came from pest control myself, actually. fe yeah i did one year at Aptiv. It was Altair at the time. This was back in 2012. Then I did one year at Buddy's Company that started in North Carolina.
Speaker: And then, ah you know, classic, just compared paychecks, bank accounts to one of my friends that got into solar and he made way more than me and then got into solar. but But if you had stayed in the you've made more money.
Speaker: No. Yeah, there's I don't know, man. You're in 2012. Would you have a hundred people crew? Would you own four branches by now? Would you have like millions of dollars in residual income? Yeah.
Speaker: I guess it's tough to say, but I don't know. if The most I made in pest control was like eight grand in the summer. no.
Speaker: Why'd you do it for two summers? Because I thought I was drinking the cool. I thought my buddy had the next big thing. He's like, oh, I'm going to pay you way more. It's going to be all, you know, you're going to have a big say on direction of the company. And it turned it out being even worse because we're basically trying to help him run his company.
Speaker: you made You made that in your first month in solar? Yeah, pretty much. so maybe More than you did in two summers. That's a nice story when you're recruiting from PESC. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I'm not i'm not looking go to go back to Pest anytime soon. It's a talk track that I use frequently. I say that guys in Pest and security um tend to make more monies more money than guys in Solar. And the reason is because they have a solid foundation.
Speaker: I'm talking about big companies like Aptiv, Moxie, Vivid. And year over year, they can build on this foundation and grow. Yeah. And that's really where the, you know, eight figures comes in, right? When you just have something that builds and grows and the reason guys in solar don't get to that point, they'll have months where they made more money than those guys will ever make them. Right.
Speaker: Or even years. But because you have like some period of time where you don't get paid and you lose your reps and there's always this uncertainty and the tax credit changes and M3 changes and the batteries, you It just it doesn't give you a solid foundation to reliably scale your organization. And that's also why I at Sunrun have made more money than guys that are dealers, even though the dealer guys are making more money on every deal.
Speaker: It's all about momentum and building a solid foundation. And so I'm aware of that and I'm i'm looking for a way to build that. Yeah, that's good. Well, and then last thing, Tom, people, i know we talked about some of your things coming up, but if people do want to get in touch with you, we're going link your social media, of course, and everything, but ah best place to get in touch is that just Instagram. You want to drop that?
Speaker: Yeah, dropped my Instagram. It has a link in my Instagram. You can see like my company website, my YouTube. okay I have like a podcast that has like three videos on it and a YouTube with 200 subscribers on it.
Speaker: If you do want to see more of me, that's where you'd find Yeah. Okay. Well, Tom, thank you so much for coming on, man. It's been a good conversation. And hopefully, this just opened people's eyes to some different options.
Speaker: And, um you know, you can always hit us up. I know we we got a little bit into some technicalities. So maybe people that are brand new to solar, this might not be the first episode you should start on. But up hopefully it opened some people's eyes and to to just that there are other options out there. and um Even if you're like a bigger organization like a Sunrun might not be a bad idea at least networking with with Tom or um you know if you're in SoCal, I can hook people up with some options like that and just some some things in your back pocket because at the very least like I said if you have a failed credit, why not at least pass that on to someone that can help them and maybe you work out like some type of partnership so
Speaker: So, um, yeah, man, if it's been good, but, uh, any, any final thoughts for maybe like a newer struggling rep, Tom, um, before we wrap up here. If you're a new rep, I really hope you didn't make it this far. yeah Um, but I think the takeaway in all this confusing conversation is, um, be delusional, right?
Speaker: Table your questions and, and focus on your deliverables, right? yeah Work on your sales skills, not your confusing yourself about all this stuff. Just get better at your tonality, your pitch, your bandwagon, your urgency, and, um, just keep it simple.
Speaker: Kiss. Keep it simple. Stupid. Love it. Okay. Okay. So good, brother. Well, thank you for coming on. We'll have to do a part three in the future. Maybe, ah you know, sometime after your book launch, we're talking more about the mastermind possibly in the future. But thanks for coming on, Tom, and keep crushing it, man. i Appreciate you.
Speaker: yeah it's great to meet you. Next time I'm in town, I'll i'll hit you up when you get there. Okay, let's do it. So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego. And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results. But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage. Then we discovered an app called SolarScout.
Speaker: But it's not a door knocking app. It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market. It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using a given neighborhood.
Speaker: It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too. I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up. But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need to give my listeners a great deal. And they did.
Speaker: So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them, and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up. That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
Speaker: Okay, back to the show. What's up, solarpreneurs? Hope you enjoyed the episode. Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created it specifically for you in mind. One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start? What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
Speaker: You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes. So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and i would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solrepreneur.
Speaker: We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet. So go download it right now. It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com. Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com. Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
Speaker: We will have that in the show notes. Go download it right now. And especially if you have not listened to him go listen to them and you can re-listen to them. That's going to show you how. So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.
