Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you to 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?
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: Okay, what's going on, solopreneurs?
Speaker: We are here live in the studio today with the one, the only Atul, Raj.
Speaker: Atul, thanks for joining us on the podcast here today.
Speaker: Thanks for having me.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker: And yeah, we just went and had a little fish lunch, hanging out and decided to come jam with a podcast.
Speaker: So Atul is president over at V3 Solar.
Speaker: V3 Electric.
Speaker: V3 Electric, okay, good.
Speaker: And you've been there for how long now, Atul?
Speaker: I've been there for about seven years.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So we're going to hear all about some unique perspective because I was just telling you, Atul, we're used to having more sales focus and things like that.
Speaker: I know you have a lot of sales experience too, but over there you primarily are over like kind of working with lenders.
Speaker: I'm the president of the company, so I'm involved with...
Speaker: Everything operations, finance, technology.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Kind of oversee the sales ops.
Speaker: So what sales reps sell, how they sell it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Technology they use and, you know, all the finance products they sell.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: So I'm excited to hear about it because it's something I don't talk about as much.
Speaker: And we just got done talking about some of the changes coming here in California that hopefully we can talk a little bit on the podcast as well.
Speaker: Yeah, this is interesting times in California.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We have been in this industry for a long time and, you know, things have changed always in California.
Speaker: California has been the leader of change, whether it's solar industry or any other technology industry.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we have seen, you know, changes in this industry over the last 10 years.
Speaker: You know, first, there was a lot of rebates being offered in state by different municipalities, cities, even utilities.
Speaker: Then the NEM came on.
Speaker: The NEM 1.0 was born.
Speaker: Then the NEM 2.0 was born.
Speaker: And now we are up to name 3.0.
Speaker: So there's always been change.
Speaker: And, you know, it's up to the industry to adjust and kind of respond to the changes that regulatory agencies bring to us.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But when you talk about unique perspective, I think the lunch was pretty unique.
Speaker: We enjoyed fish in a local San Diego place here.
Speaker: I think Taylor was probably the youngest person there by at least 20 years.
Speaker: No doubt.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it's good, sir.
Speaker: I think that waitress came by about 50 times while we were eating, checked on us.
Speaker: So I was like, yeah, we're still good.
Speaker: It was all good.
Speaker: It was all good.
Speaker: Food was excellent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hit us up if you want to know a good fish place.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So look, there's very interesting times in the industry.
Speaker: I think there's a lot of changes coming up.
Speaker: Some good, some not so good for the residential customers.
Speaker: But we always got to take the good with the bad, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, part of adjusting, and I know that's what you as president of the company, that's probably what you deal with on a daily basis, right, is adjusting the things.
Speaker: Yeah, people call it solar coaster.
Speaker: I don't call it solar coaster.
Speaker: I just call it, okay, you need to be flexible and you need to be amenable to changes, right?
Speaker: This is a new industry.
Speaker: There's a lot of things that are not defined in this industry, whether it's electrical, whether it's construction, sales products, finance products, things are evolving all the time.
Speaker: What we're doing today, we were not doing two years ago.
Speaker: That's how things move in this industry.
Speaker: Can you think of any time you've been doing this?
Speaker: When did you get started in solar?
Speaker: How long have you been in solar?
Speaker: I've been in solar since 2014.
Speaker: So about 8-9 years now.
Speaker: With that time, was it still NEM 2.0 in California?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The NEM 2.0 did not roll until 2018.
Speaker: So it was still 1.0.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So yeah, you've probably already kind of been through this in a way.
Speaker: From your experience, what adjustments do you feel like you had to make going from 1.0 to 2.0?
Speaker: How do you think that's similar to what's going on right now?
Speaker: So the rhetoric was same.
Speaker: Back in 2018, if I remember, oh, the industry is going to die.
Speaker: The savings are going to go up for the customers.
Speaker: They have to pay more for getting solar.
Speaker: And the industry adjusted.
Speaker: The companies, the business adjusted, all the stakeholders adjusted and the growth did not slow down.
Speaker: From 2018 to 2019, if you look at the growth, it was actually faster.
Speaker: The growth accelerated after then 2.0.
Speaker: So people adopted and I think same will happen with 3.0.
Speaker: There's a lot of negativity out there.
Speaker: I still think there's enough positive in the industry to carry us forward and keep giving value to the customers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And for those that maybe are new to solar or in different markets, I guess just to give a little background, what's going on is California is changing their basically like buyback structure, how they buy back the energy.
Speaker: And then it's just forcing us essentially in California to kind of sell more batteries, to do bigger offsets, things like that, and make adjustments, which, yeah, I guess it's, you know, less savings.
Speaker: But really, like in California, I just got back from a little, I did a little
Speaker: blitz in texas and we were out there and um how was that that was tough like people weren't really saving money out there and like it's you know deregulated so everyone had different rate plans right but i'm like man okay well if they can sell out there that's right really like even 3.0 is still going to be like way more savings i think that's that's it so you you've hit you've hit a very important point because if you look around the country solar is becoming stronger by the day right even in markets where there's not significant savings for the customer yeah
Speaker: So if they're buying solar there with very limited savings, why wouldn't they buy in California with more savings?
Speaker: With or without an M3.0.
Speaker: That's a big important point that you have to understand.
Speaker: Like Texas, people are buying solar because everybody knows you have to get it sooner or later.
Speaker: In California, I always tell this to people, every home is gonna have solar.
Speaker: Either you get it today or you get it five years from now, but every home will have solar.
Speaker: That's just the nature of the beast.
Speaker: And the way the market is shifting,
Speaker: The government is expecting, especially the federal government, the world is shifting, right?
Speaker: Everybody's going to have solar.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And either you get on that bus now or you're going to get on the bus five years later, 40% more expensive.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Well, and I think it's super, yeah, really powerful in cells to use, like, like, for people that are dragging their feet or wherever, you can just tell them this.
Speaker: So even if you're new to solar, just be like, hey, look, things are changing.
Speaker: The people I know that were in solar five years ago, they're saving way more.
Speaker: They got systems for way less expensive.
Speaker: So best time to plant a tree was five years ago, but second best time is right now, right?
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: So if you want to wait, you can wait, but eventually you'll come around because you will see everybody else except you not having solar.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So yes, it is going to happen.
Speaker: And that's just not California.
Speaker: I think anywhere in the country where there's good sun days, like...
Speaker: like number of sun, you know, days that where we get a significant amount of sunlight, everybody is going to have solar.
Speaker: There's huge, huge initiative from federal government, from private equity, from financing platforms to invest into what is called ESG, which is basically environmental social governance.
Speaker: And everybody wants to have stake in that ESG compliance.
Speaker: To the extent that the big company is saying that don't invest my money into a project if the ESG compliance is not there.
Speaker: So if there's no ESG component, don't invest my money there.
Speaker: So I think this, of course, renewable is right in the center of that ESG compliance.
Speaker: So there's a huge opportunity for us to continue the growth of this business.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: So what do you think?
Speaker: Because I think the majority of the listeners here have to work on it.
Speaker: You know, more sales involved.
Speaker: Maybe they're running their own dealers, stuff like that.
Speaker: So what do you think is important to know, like from your perspective, is there stuff you think that sales guys maybe don't understand as much of or maybe don't know where your background, you know, like the behind the scenes stuff going on?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Look, look at look at.
Speaker: So first and foremost, think of yourself as an educator.
Speaker: If you're a solar salesperson, you are an educator before you're a salesperson.
Speaker: Because you are working in a new industry.
Speaker: A lot of people don't know about this industry.
Speaker: A lot of people don't know about different products, different ways that customers can get solar.
Speaker: And the benefits of the solar.
Speaker: So you are educator.
Speaker: You are literally creating the awareness in the society.
Speaker: So think of it like that, that if you're door knocking and if you're pursuing a lead, the first job is to educate the person.
Speaker: And I don't, at the end of the day, we want the customer to be signing up with me, but end of the day, as long as they get solar, I get happy.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Because once they get solar, they're going to talk to five more people about it.
Speaker: And that will make my job easier as a salesperson, right?
Speaker: Because when I go to the next door and they already know about solar, then my job becomes easier.
Speaker: So there's a huge impact of educating people of solar's benefit.
Speaker: So reps, don't think of yourself as like you're just trying to make money on a project.
Speaker: You're trying to literally make a new industry.
Speaker: And so you have a big, big impact in the change that will happen in this country.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, and speaking of educating, like what I see all the time, especially the new reps, is they start learning more about solar.
Speaker: They, you know, increase their knowledge.
Speaker: And then they think that they need to, like, spew all these facts, information, and then they almost start talking themselves out of the cell because now they're talking about, like, oh, it's this inverter, this, this, this.
Speaker: Too much, yeah.
Speaker: Too much information is not good either, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, the pitch needs to be still simple enough so the customer can understand what you're trying to do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I've seen people simplifying the pitch down to, okay, we're going to save you money.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or we're going to give you backup or we're going to give you clean energy.
Speaker: You know, whatever pitch works in your market, that's the critical thing, right?
Speaker: What it's in California, typically people are selling on savings.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That, hey, you're paying 35 cents.
Speaker: I will help you save 40% of that or 50% of that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: by going solar.
Speaker: Either you're no cost to you because you're signing a product that doesn't charge you anything up front or out of pocket, you take a loan or cash, whatever, but it's still going to save you 50% or more.
Speaker: And if you look at 25 years, then you have $100,000 of savings over the life of the project.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's just, you know, to keep the pitch simple, but be ready for rebuttals.
Speaker: Be ready for answers.
Speaker: That's where the education comes in place, right?
Speaker: What happens if this?
Speaker: What happens if that?
Speaker: What are the different products I can think about?
Speaker: Because everybody's doing, you know, research, right?
Speaker: Now there's enough penetration in California that average homeowner knows about solar.
Speaker: So they're all doing their research online, talking to neighbors.
Speaker: And so they all have some half information information.
Speaker: So your job is to basically fill in the gaps for them if they have questions and steer them in the right direction.
Speaker: What is the right product?
Speaker: What's the right mix for them?
Speaker: What's the right technology for them?
Speaker: That is your job as an educator, to steer them in the right direction.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: Well, something I was kind of curious about is like you as the president of your company, you pretty much decide like equipment you're going to use, like lenders that you use.
Speaker: Is that all your decision or how do you guys decide all those things?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, we I'm obviously integral part of making that decision.
Speaker: The decision is very simple.
Speaker: We always want to find what's best.
Speaker: what's best for the consumer, what's best for our sales reps to represent.
Speaker: We want to give the best tools to our sales reps, whether it's technology, whether it's the product or the finance.
Speaker: Then their job becomes easier.
Speaker: Then it's up to them how they pitch.
Speaker: Everything else becomes agnostic at that point if I provide them the best of class technology, product, process.
Speaker: Then it's your skill as a salesperson that will come to the fore.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So my job is to basically line up the best product for you as a sales rep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which finance product are the best in the industry?
Speaker: They have the best branding.
Speaker: They have the best backup.
Speaker: Which products are the best, right?
Speaker: Tier one panels.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The best inverters out there.
Speaker: The best batteries out there.
Speaker: What is the best for the consumer for the long run?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a long relationship you're signing, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You want referrals from them.
Speaker: You want them to talk about this to their neighbors, to their family.
Speaker: You want them to show their app.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hey, they look at my cool app of solar usage.
Speaker: So people get excited about it.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: Talking a little bit about this during lunch and everything, but with, you know, rates going up on loans and because I know it's constantly changing.
Speaker: Like maybe one is the best for now, but then maybe two months from now, maybe another one that looks better.
Speaker: Like, what is that?
Speaker: Do you change?
Speaker: If there's a new best, you just change?
Speaker: Yeah, you have to be like, so that's what I was saying earlier.
Speaker: In this industry, you got to be nimble, right?
Speaker: You got to be nimble.
Speaker: You got to be flexible.
Speaker: And also, you got to be knowledgeable as a sales rep as to what is going on in the market.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What fits best for that particular customer, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you think about California, the PPAs have been around for about 10 years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So PPA w as a big part of the expansion in California for solar, especially big companies like Sunrun, Sunpower, Tesla or SolarCity.
Speaker: They use PPA a lot to generate the growth in California.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And last three, four years, the interest rate being so low, like down to like almost zero percent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: loans became more prevalent, right?
Speaker: People were easier to get much cheaper solar with loans versus PPA.
Speaker: So, and also the barrier to entry was much lower.
Speaker: Like people were getting loans for 650 credit, pretty decent, like 1% interest rate or 2% interest rate.
Speaker: So it made sense to get with the loan.
Speaker: But now that climate has changed again, right?
Speaker: So the interest rates are climbing up, which means that the finance products that are loan products are not as attractive to the customers.
Speaker: You know, if you're charging them 5%, 6% interest and 15%, 20% dealer fee, then it starts adding up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: If you look at traditional loan product, you know, in the past with 1% or 2% interest rate, it comes down to about 8 to 10 cents per kilowatt hour, right, on a 25-year basis.
Speaker: Now that might be shifting to 14, 15 cents per kilowatt hour.
Speaker: So it just, you know, so in that you have to adjust based on what the customer's needs are.
Speaker: The other component of the finance product is the tax credit, right?
Speaker: Not every customer can claim the tax credit.
Speaker: So as a sales rep, you got to know that early enough in the process as to what product fits this customer's needs.
Speaker: They may not have the tax appetite.
Speaker: So you don't want to sell a product with 30% of the value is kind of wasted for them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And yeah, and that's super important too.
Speaker: Like on the sell side, you want to figure that out early.
Speaker: Very quickly.
Speaker: The last one, a mistake I had to learn a lot of times is like I would offer them one thing and then at the end they would tell me something where they go, by the way, we don't pay anything in taxes after I already told them all about a loan and all the benefits and all that.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: And then I have to try to reverse and go, you know, pitch a PPA or whatever word.
Speaker: And then it just gets all complicated.
Speaker: It's very complicated, very muddy.
Speaker: Too much information out there now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Now you need to know that like within 10 minutes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Once you're in the house, you need to know that within 10 minutes where, which way I'm going.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Otherwise, it's going to be a long day.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: Lost a lot of sales that way.
Speaker: And then what's super unique with you guys, Atul, is you have your own PPA fund.
Speaker: And I don't know, is there any other company?
Speaker: I've never heard of any solar company launching their own PPA fund, I guess, besides the giant ones.
Speaker: Right, so you can count them on fingertips how many companies are there.
Speaker: So there's three...
Speaker: Key stakeholders in this value chain, right?
Speaker: Solar value chain, finance, sales, and install.
Speaker: And of course, there's customer, there's equipment manufacturers, there's utilities, there's the local jurisdictions, cities, counties.
Speaker: But the key in the industry, at least, are the finance, the sales, and the install.
Speaker: Those are the three key pillars, I call them, for the industry.
Speaker: You can count on your fingertips how many companies can do all three.
Speaker: There's a lot of companies that do one or two.
Speaker: Outside of Sunrun, SunPower, Tesla, there's nobody else.
Speaker: There may be one or two more small that I'm forgetting.
Speaker: But literally on one hand, you can count how many companies.
Speaker: So we three is part of that value chain.
Speaker: We do our own PPA and we can offer that to the customers if that's the product that fits them.
Speaker: So that's definitely unique.
Speaker: So we have everything in-house, sales, install, and financing.
Speaker: Yeah, it's really cool to be able to offer that all under one hood.
Speaker: And I think why it's important is because it gives the best customer experience.
Speaker: When I'm saying customer, I'm saying both sales and also the end customer.
Speaker: It's the best experience because it's all under one house, under one roof.
Speaker: consistent experience from sales to interconnection.
Speaker: Talking to the same people all the time.
Speaker: You're listening to the same language all the time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's very important to have that experience.
Speaker: As this industry grows, the customer experience will drive the differentiation in my mind.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's still about 2,000 sales companies out there.
Speaker: And it's important to understand that they're all saying the same thing.
Speaker: So how do you differentiate?
Speaker: You differentiate by customer experience and sales rep experience, honestly.
Speaker: Who gives me the easiest path to get my career moving?
Speaker: Who gives me the easiest path to get the customer converted, completed, installed, interconnected?
Speaker: Who has the best process?
Speaker: Who's got the best technology?
Speaker: That to me is the biggest differentiation for the industry.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Yeah, it's huge.
Speaker: Yeah, I know we're talking like I've been with dealers and all that and, you know, have issues with one installer, go to another one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And especially in California, there's so many native experiences with installations and so many hands in the pot, subcontractors and all that.
Speaker: Yeah, the good goes with the bad, right?
Speaker: Somebody can install your job in one week, but did they do it right?
Speaker: Did they do it legitimately?
Speaker: Did they get the permits?
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So at the end of the day, yeah, you as a sales rep, you think you got a good experience, but your, your customer did not get a good experience.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Because they can get in trouble for getting project on their house without a permit.
Speaker: You can go away.
Speaker: You can walk away from that.
Speaker: The installer will walk away, but at the end of the day, the homeowner is the one who's holding that, that system.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So especially if you're installing an HOA and stuff, you, you have to be careful to follow the rules.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Otherwise it creates a bad experience for everybody.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Tough to get referrals.
Speaker: Yeah, tough to get referrals, right?
Speaker: And, you know, we are all for speed of execution, speed of install.
Speaker: We are all for that.
Speaker: And I think there's a way to do it and still be compliant with everything else.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Well, I'm curious, how did you guys decide to start?
Speaker: Like, you're just all meeting off and you're like, oh, why don't we try starting our own PPA?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the V3 Electric came out of V3 Security.
Speaker: V3 Security was one of the largest independent security companies in Sacramento back in 2010, 2011.
Speaker: And around 2014, there was an opportunity to sell solar to the customers that we already had for security.
Speaker: They say, hey, we want solar.
Speaker: Do you guys sell solar?
Speaker: Well, this is a great opportunity.
Speaker: We already have a customer base.
Speaker: All you got to do is go and ask them if they want solar.
Speaker: So we started 2014 with that.
Speaker: We took some key people from security business, like one or two salespeople, a couple of operations people, and set up V3 Electric.
Speaker: And then the rest is history.
Speaker: We have grown like 500% in the last six years.
Speaker: Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With the PPA fund, because, yeah, obviously you could have just, you know, done like what everyone else does, do the Sunrun PPAs and Sunnova, all that.
Speaker: But was that the reason, like, you just wanted to all be one experience or why did you guys decide to start like the PPAs?
Speaker: Yeah, and we have done that too.
Speaker: We have sold Sunrun PPAs.
Speaker: We have sold Sunnova PPAs.
Speaker: And they're both good companies, you know, good solid financial backing and good processes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And honestly, we have learned a lot from them, right?
Speaker: We did not know much about how to do this on our own.
Speaker: So we have learned, we've seen how these companies set up, how they set up their business.
Speaker: So we have learned a lot from them.
Speaker: And it's their responsibility too, right?
Speaker: As leaders in this industry, their responsibility is to continue paving the path for small companies like us to follow in their footsteps and grow this industry.
Speaker: I wish one company can make this whole country go solar, but that's not happening, right?
Speaker: That's just that with a hundred million household, that's just not possible.
Speaker: So you need more people to keep the growth on the path.
Speaker: So I'm thankful to Sundar and Sanova for helping us grow and get to this place.
Speaker: Yeah, look, the reason we wanted to do that was because, like I said, customer experience.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And more importantly, for our own growth, we feel that the growth could be multiplied many factor if the sales rep sells our product.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like the sales rep on the door selling a third party finance is, I feel, is a disadvantage compared to sales rep selling on the door my product.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hey, this is my company.
Speaker: I work for this company.
Speaker: This is my product.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think there's a huge differentiation there.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Instead of selling a third party, yeah, I will sell you.
Speaker: But then at the end of the day, you have to deal with this other company.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I agree with that.
Speaker: So was this more like, did you guys all come up with the idea to create PPA fund together?
Speaker: Or was it like your idea?
Speaker: No, we all wanted to do it.
Speaker: So there's a big learning curve, first of all, right, to create your own PPA.
Speaker: It's a big learning curve.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you have, you know, we started almost five years ago, starting small, putting small few projects on PPA.
Speaker: And then it kind of grew from there a little bit.
Speaker: Now we're getting to a point where we can put like most, a lot of our projects in this fund.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So was that like hard?
Speaker: Because I don't I mean, it's very hard because you have to learn a lot of a lot of processes on the operation side.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's a lot of compliance because you're literally kind of lending practice.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So there's a lot of federal government compliance laws.
Speaker: There's a lot of laws about confidentiality and the data security.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because you got to set up all that.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: There's a lot of process you have to build for like customer underwriting, customer provisioning.
Speaker: So everything you do right now, think about this.
Speaker: If you do work for Sun and Sonoma, you have to do all these.
Speaker: You have to take 100 pictures.
Speaker: You can sign 50 documents.
Speaker: We have to create all that ourselves.
Speaker: What does that look like for our own PPA?
Speaker: How many pictures we need?
Speaker: Why do we need this picture?
Speaker: Why do we need that picture?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So can we get this?
Speaker: Can we get it down to like a two page agreement?
Speaker: Can we get it?
Speaker: You know, just things, things that we think needs to happen, right?
Speaker: There's no, I really don't think needs to be a 17 page contract like other finance companies.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It needs to be simplified, right?
Speaker: Somebody needs to disrupt it.
Speaker: And that's what we're doing.
Speaker: We're already disrupting the way these big finance companies have set up the market.
Speaker: We're saying, yeah, it could be done in two page contract.
Speaker: I don't think we need a 17 page contract.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think Sun Nova's last I did one was like 60 pages or something.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And the challenge is a lot of these underwriting rules are being written by finance companies who have been in business for 100 years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they still think like they used to think in 1920s.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, you get 50 pictures of a system that is completely online.
Speaker: They can see what's happening on the system through the Wi-Fi network.
Speaker: Why do I need to take a picture?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You can see it yourself whether it's functioning or not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's crazy, some of the stuff they ask for sometimes.
Speaker: But yeah, like, so do you guys plan to eventually roll it out so other companies can use this too?
Speaker: Or are you just going to give it all in-house?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: We do have plans to roll it out to other sales companies.
Speaker: Of course, we want the best quality sales, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: because this is a premium product in our mind.
Speaker: So we do want to open it up.
Speaker: And yeah, if anybody's interested in selling V3 PPA, they should contact us.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: Well, I know we had some technical difficulties.
Speaker: So speaking of contacting you, I know you got to run pretty soon here.
Speaker: But yeah, people want to get more involved in with it or potentially be able to offer that.
Speaker: How do they contact you?
Speaker: So the best way to contact myself will be email a Raj at v3electric.com.
Speaker: Okay, we have an Instagram page for v3electric.
Speaker: I would highly, highly encourage you guys to follow Instagram for v3electric.com.
Speaker: You'll see all kinds of cool stuff.
Speaker: Last week we were in Mexico with our whole sales leadership team.
Speaker: We took about 40 sales reps and their wives or significant others for a one-week vacation to Puerto Vierta in Mexico.
Speaker: And this is the kind of stuff we get to do for what we have achieved as a team.
Speaker: No, we are always open to talk to people who are interested in doing quality work, whether they're sales or install.
Speaker: I feel like it's our responsibility to grow this business forward and keep the differentiation going for the industry and for the business, specifically for the customer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: And it's interesting.
Speaker: We're talking during lunch is just I think I think you said you guys were doing some installations for other sales dealers and they can use it out.
Speaker: We're going to do 50 this month and they end up doing 200 or something like that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Again.
Speaker: So you talked about some of the struggles, right, with with working with just independent installers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a very difficult game for both parties, right?
Speaker: As a sales team, sometimes you also don't know how much you can sell, right?
Speaker: Depending on how many people you can recruit.
Speaker: Like, so summer volume could be five times your regular volume through the year.
Speaker: And if you're not prepared that, if you haven't prepared the rest of the system, sales down to permits, to site surveys, to inspections, to install, you're going to fail.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the time to prepare that actually is now.
Speaker: December, January should be a prep for what you're going to do in the summer.
Speaker: If you're going to wait, so if you don't have a good install partner right now who's ready to scale up the business to meet your need for summer, you're going to fail.
Speaker: You will have the issues that you talked about, four, five, six months delays on installs because nobody can drum up capacity overnight, unfortunately.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I give you an analogy that I have four bedrooms in my house.
Speaker: I can only sleep eight people.
Speaker: If 20 people show up, somebody's going to sleep in the kitchen.
Speaker: Somebody's going to sleep in the living room floor.
Speaker: And that's what happens.
Speaker: People don't plan and the small companies will just take on the business for the sake of taking on the business.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They don't have the credit.
Speaker: They don't have the money to buy inventory, to hire people, to buy the trucks, the tools.
Speaker: It's a big investment, right?
Speaker: If you think about one company, one solar install team, there's four to five people on the crew, right?
Speaker: There's two trucks generally, and then you have a bunch of equipment.
Speaker: And if you're buying inventory, I mean, on one given day, that particular team could be carrying about $15,000, $20,000 worth of inventory.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So if you don't have the credit backup or the financial strength to finance all that, you can't scale.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You got to recruit people.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: So it's difficult.
Speaker: And that's why I always tell people, especially on the sales side, that find partners who have strength, who have good financial capability, and you can verify that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And who can invest with you, that they can work with you to invest in your process and in their process to grow with you.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: you can't find good partners if you're just looking to shop every summer.
Speaker: It just doesn't happen.
Speaker: You might struggle one year, but then if you stay with that partner, as long as they do a good job, right, as long as they are willing to make good changes, eventually you will win because you will be able to grow together.
Speaker: But again, the leadership, the process, the three ingredients on the upside is leadership, which is people, process, and technology.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you have companies that are small, they probably don't have the technology to support the growth.
Speaker: All the communication back and forth from customer to rep, from rep to the office, office to the installer, installer back to the office, back to the customer.
Speaker: There's so much communication right through the project.
Speaker: And if you don't have good technology, that could be all very, very problematic.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Yeah, we were talking about just working hand in hand with them instead of all these people that try to like outsource it completely don't really work because I think that's where a lot of problems I've run into is where we weren't, yeah, didn't have great communication with the installer, weren't like, you know, working in, like trying to collaborate with them and just letting them like run with it.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I'll give you an example.
Speaker: We worked with a sales only company in summer and the only way we could communicate with them was through Sanova portal.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So eventually I had to tell them, okay, just call us directly, right?
Speaker: Because it doesn't work.
Speaker: And the customers are the worst, right?
Speaker: Because they don't even know who the installers are.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: Like somebody else shows up at their house, like, who are you?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then like they, yeah, I've had situations where their contact customers are calling me because they can't get a whole installation company.
Speaker: And like, I don't know.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So yeah, it's that, this is why I said that the best differentiation for the customer, the best experience for the sales rep and the customer is when you have the whole thing integrated.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Well, um, a tool, last thing I want to ask you before we wrap up here.
Speaker: Um, I told you that I've had a lot of Indian families I've helped out, uh, you know, in San Diego.
Speaker: You're the first Indian guy that I've had on the podcast.
Speaker: Love my Indian families.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You got any advice for helping out Indian families that want the best product?
Speaker: So, you know, again, the Indian families, they're, so first and foremost, rule of thumb, they're very educated.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They're highly educated.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: All engineers.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Two, they do a lot of research.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They will redo the research before they sign off.
Speaker: So be ready for 100 questions.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There are a lot of questions about technology, the process, why this, why that.
Speaker: So don't feel bad because that's just the culture that they're very inquisitive.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But if you earn the trust, this is what I've seen.
Speaker: Once you get the trust, you will get a lot of business out of them.
Speaker: They'll stop asking questions.
Speaker: They'll stop basically quizzing you anymore.
Speaker: And they'll refer you to all the network.
Speaker: So it's really important to build a trust up front that you're not trying to pull a fast one.
Speaker: You're not trying to, which we can't because they will do the research.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So try not to tell them something that you don't believe or you don't have the good data behind it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because they will go and verify your answers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So only say things that you already know and you have facts supporting it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then once they know, okay, no, this guy is legit.
Speaker: This guy is not trying to scam me or something.
Speaker: Once you get the trust, it becomes easier.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's not going to be emotional by with them.
Speaker: I can tell you right now.
Speaker: It's going to be more like a factual economic necessity or a good investment buy for them.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker: I've talked before, but yeah, the good thing is, like you said, they refer.
Speaker: They refer a lot, yes.
Speaker: Yeah, maybe that's the thing.
Speaker: But yeah, in San Diego, every Indian family I've helped out, they know like five other families.
Speaker: And they all have money.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they can invest in solar.
Speaker: It's just a matter of, okay, let's do it now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Well, Atul, we appreciate you coming on and coming down here from Irvine to hang out with us in San Diego here.
Speaker: So yeah, anyone that wants to look into V3 and potentially offer in their PPA, we're going to include Atul's email here in the show notes.
Speaker: And then before we say goodbye here, any final advice or words of wisdom you give to maybe people starting out in solar?
Speaker: Don't be afraid.
Speaker: Don't be afraid.
Speaker: First and foremost, anybody who wants to come into solar sales, don't be afraid.
Speaker: There's still a lot of opportunity.
Speaker: If you think about California has about 12% penetration for rooftop solar right now.
Speaker: And most analysts think the steady state is about 35% penetration.
Speaker: So think about the market right now, what we have achieved in about 15 years.
Speaker: It needs to be triple that to get to steady state.
Speaker: So don't be afraid.
Speaker: There's still a lot of opportunity in California, outside California.
Speaker: I mean, other states are still like a 3% or 4% penetration.
Speaker: Texas is a good opportunity too, right?
Speaker: Because it's a growing market.
Speaker: A lot of people live there, big houses, a lot of Sundays.
Speaker: And even if people don't save a lot of money, you can still make good money there because system size is like almost double, right, in California.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: So there's opportunity everywhere.
Speaker: The initial, I think the first 90 days are tough for a new rep because they feel like, oh, I can't sell anything.
Speaker: But that's also when you have to think that I'm learning too, right?
Speaker: You're educating yourself about the process and the product.
Speaker: There's the sales cycle maybe longer here in solar compared to like pest control or security or some other business people are coming from.
Speaker: But the rewards are much more.
Speaker: The rewards are much more.
Speaker: And once you get the hang of it,
Speaker: you'll find it easier.
Speaker: I mean, I've seen reps who have sold like in one mile radius for one year.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They, they, it's like one zip code.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: Once they get, get hang of those neighbors, they had 80 installs in that one mile radius.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I had a guy on the podcast who I think he had, uh, over 200 cells in one neighborhood.
Speaker: It was like a big neighborhood.
Speaker: So just think about how much opportunity is there, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you can stay in two zip codes for a whole year, yeah,
Speaker: and make half a million dollars, there's huge opportunity.
Speaker: Powerful.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's part of the deal.
Speaker: The second part is, you know, just thinking about how this industry is shifting.
Speaker: Be ready to adapt and adopt storage.
Speaker: Other cool products will come in the market.
Speaker: Be ready to learn more about it so you can sell that to your customer.
Speaker: Yeah, love that.
Speaker: Well, Atul, we appreciate you coming on the show.
Speaker: So for the listeners, definitely hit Atul.
Speaker: Are you on social media or anything, Atul?
Speaker: Yeah, with Instagram, V3 Electric Instagram.
Speaker: Okay, V3, okay.
Speaker: Well, yeah, hit V3 up.
Speaker: We'll put that in the show notes as well.
Speaker: And yeah, remember to learn more about the products, do what Atul said, push through the pain, especially if you're new, you got to push through and, you know, learn as much as you can.
Speaker: But not overcomplicate it for the customer either, like we're talking about.
Speaker: So thanks again for coming on Atul and looking forward to see what you guys do with that PPA.
Speaker: Thanks for having me.
Speaker: Blow up California with it.
Speaker: Thanks for having me.
Speaker: Appreciate it.
Speaker: Yeah, thanks again for coming on.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your cells increase?
Speaker: Well, so was I. And the truth is, I was never able to improve it until I figured out what was going wrong.
Speaker: So that's why I'm excited to announce for a limited time, we are doing a free cells diagnostic.
Speaker: We'll break down your cells process, figure out the holes in your business, and see how we can help you improve.
Speaker: So at now we have six bucks for this month.
Speaker: So book a call now.
Speaker: Don't miss out.
Speaker: What you're going to do is send an email to taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: That's taylor at solarpreneurs with an s dot com.
Speaker: I'll send you out a calendar link and we will figure out the time that works best.
Speaker: So shoot that email and let's increase your sales.
