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 fail.
Speaker: I teach you how 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: All right, what's happening, everybody?
Speaker: I'm excited to be here.
Speaker: We have someone that is doing incredible things over in Arizona.
Speaker: And we actually had his business partner, Tyler McAllister, on a couple, I think it's been a couple years back.
Speaker: So I'm excited to hear from the other side of the business.
Speaker: We got Jared Gillespie, who is CESO of Fusion Power.
Speaker: Did I say that right?
Speaker: That's right, yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: So, yeah, man, I'm excited to just jam on, you know, how things are going in Arizona.
Speaker: And for our listeners, if you have not listened to Tyler's podcasts, this guy dropped some heat.
Speaker: You definitely want to go listen to what he's saying.
Speaker: But I think you're going to be even better than Tyler.
Speaker: I know about that.
Speaker: Tyler, he is very, very good at what he does.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, he's a stud, but I know you got some different angles.
Speaker: Hopefully I can add some value.
Speaker: Yeah, we'll see.
Speaker: Should be fun.
Speaker: So, yeah, first thing I'd like to ask our guests that come on, Jared, is just like how you got into solar, maybe some of your background being door-to-door and all that.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Do you want to?
Speaker: Yeah, so I got home from my mission, and I was at BYU, and I got a flyer that said, come to an info meeting for free pizza.
Speaker: I'm like, heck, yeah, I'll do that, right?
Speaker: That's what I had to do.
Speaker: And it was one of those things.
Speaker: I go out for the summer, and so I signed up to go do timeshares.
Speaker: And we got out there.
Speaker: This was in Denver, and this was the summer of 2003.
Speaker: So this is, you know, we're talking 21 years ago now.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And it wasn't working.
Speaker: We weren't making money.
Speaker: And I ran into some guys that were doing DISH and they were making like $120 a commission.
Speaker: And that was crazy because we were making like $20 going door to door.
Speaker: And this time I thought that was amazing money just by itself.
Speaker: So we did DISH and it was awesome.
Speaker: And we had a great experience.
Speaker: The next summer I recruited all my buddies, went out and did DISH again.
Speaker: And then I found out there's this thing where you could go sell alarms door to door.
Speaker: And that alarms was paying even more than DISH.
Speaker: And so I did that with Apex Alarms that turned into APX and then turned into Vivint.
Speaker: So I was with Vivint for nine summers.
Speaker: Oh, geez.
Speaker: And then in 2013, by that time, we had a couple kids.
Speaker: And taking the kids and moving them across the country every year, it was getting a little bit heavy.
Speaker: So I wanted to get into something more permanent.
Speaker: And Vivint had just launched Vivint Solar.
Speaker: And they were not in Arizona at the time, but SolarCity was, and they wanted to get into the door-to-door space.
Speaker: And they'd kind of heard about my experience doing door-to-door for a long time with Vivint.
Speaker: So they said, hey, do you want to help us start up this door-to-door solar thing?
Speaker: And I'm like, sure, let's do it.
Speaker: And so I did that for about four years.
Speaker: And then in 2017, I met Tyler and a couple other guys, and we started Fusion Power.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And Fusion, yeah, we've been, so this is our, I guess we're going into our seventh year now.
Speaker: We were a sales only company for the first few years and then we've been installing for the last three years.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You guys have been through a lot and it's cool.
Speaker: I know Tyler, he came from the alarm background and everything too.
Speaker: And I think that's where a lot of the greets came from.
Speaker: A lot of the OGs.
Speaker: And especially those like vivid days and everything.
Speaker: It's like so many heavy hitters that came from that.
Speaker: I feel like was everyone just was their training like super good or why is that you think?
Speaker: I think culture, right?
Speaker: And it's fun to, you know, we're at door to door con right now.
Speaker: And it's fun walking around the floor and bumping into these old people that, you know, I knew from 15, 20 years ago.
Speaker: And we're still in the same door to door space.
Speaker: Most of us, like you said, have kind of migrated to solar or maybe other things.
Speaker: But that Vivint culture that Todd Peterson put together is just something that I just think it's incredible.
Speaker: I mean, he has spawned off tens of thousands of entrepreneurs from that summer sales thing that we all got into, right?
Speaker: That our parents are like, well, what are you going to go do?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's just turned into this just massive industry across all these different products.
Speaker: And so, but yeah, they were, they were so good at building this culture of competition and accountability and excellence and leadership and self-development.
Speaker: There's just so much good and positive out of it.
Speaker: I think that a lot of us that kind of came from that have been able to at least try to replicate that with our own companies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love seeing people progress.
Speaker: I love seeing people buy into company culture and what it does for them.
Speaker: It's very, very rewarding for sure.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: And I had a few months back now, but Jeff Mendez on and you probably know Jeff too, Poppy Mendez.
Speaker: And it's just like all the leaders that came from that.
Speaker: You could put all those people in a room and that's going to be a pretty powerful room to be in.
Speaker: There's a lot of them.
Speaker: And a lot of those guys have gone on to just do some pretty amazing things.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: So, yeah, shout out to Vivint.
Speaker: We owe lots to Todd Peterson, all you guys that were kind of the forefathers and pioneers of our industry.
Speaker: Well, it's funny to think that, you know, like I said, that's 21 years ago.
Speaker: I'm like, damn, the guys that are doing this right now were like not even born yet when I started this thing.
Speaker: Yeah, seriously.
Speaker: Especially solar.
Speaker: Well, yeah, you were in other things, but it's funny.
Speaker: Like I say, I've been in solar since 2016 and people are like, holy cow, that's like forever, man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like it's only been like seven years.
Speaker: It's still a young industry.
Speaker: There's a long way for us to go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker: But yeah, so how was your initial experience being in solar?
Speaker: I probably asked Tyler a lot of these same questions, so I need to go back and listen to that one myself.
Speaker: But yeah, from your perspective, what were maybe like some of the challenges?
Speaker: Well, for me, the biggest challenge was, you know, I'd been doing nine years of alarm sales, which is a pretty like aggressive sale, right?
Speaker: Not that you need to be aggressive and rude, but it's a transactional sale.
Speaker: I knock on your door and then I'm gone within 45 minutes with a signed contract.
Speaker: And so I had that same kind of mentality that I'd go in, sell people on this idea of solar, get a contract and bounce.
Speaker: I had a 75% cancellation rate.
Speaker: And so, and that probably lasted for, you know, one or two months.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, I got to do something different here.
Speaker: Like my way of selling, and I was pretty good.
Speaker: Like I was usually top 10 at Vivint, right?
Speaker: So I thought of myself as this really good sales person, very, very competent, which I think I was, but it's a different kind of a sale.
Speaker: And so for me, that was the hardest part is adjusting to this is a slower business.
Speaker: kind of a sale.
Speaker: And this is not a push you to make a decision right now, kind of a sale.
Speaker: This is we're meeting, we're setting up an appointment so that both spouses can be there.
Speaker: And we're going to go over this very, very thoroughly.
Speaker: We're going to go over all of the, you know, ifs, ands, and buts.
Speaker: We're going to go over future scenarios.
Speaker: We're going to really get into consulting and educating rather than selling purely on emotion.
Speaker: And what if something happens like, like we were doing with alarms?
Speaker: It's just, anyway, it was, it was a very different thing.
Speaker: But once I, once I caught on,
Speaker: it was fantastic.
Speaker: Like I absolutely loved and fell in, fell in love with the product that I'm able to give you something that's going to save you money.
Speaker: That's going to give you a tax credit.
Speaker: That's going to lock in your rates.
Speaker: That's going to get you away from reliance on, on the grid, so to speak.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you're not having to come out of pocket for it.
Speaker: Like it's just such a practical and easy sale.
Speaker: And because it works so well, it's a very much a referral game based business.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I, I've loved it.
Speaker: I think it's such a cool product to sell.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: Yeah, and well, because that's interesting.
Speaker: You said you had a lot of cancels because I have some guys come in and do, basically, they treat solar like an alarm cell.
Speaker: And, you know, maybe some people don't talk about their cancels too, but see some of these alarm guys, they'll just go in like same day, all these solar cells, and you're going to have more cancels.
Speaker: But what do you think?
Speaker: Do you think there's a lot of things that apply from your alarm days?
Speaker: Like, are you guys big on...
Speaker: Same-day and people?
Speaker: Yeah, no, I think you can do a same-day sale.
Speaker: I just think that it's really important when you're doing such a big contract where this is a home addition, right?
Speaker: This is something that's going on the roof.
Speaker: This is a permanent fixture.
Speaker: It's not a couple like window contacts that can be, you know, clipped off really, really quickly.
Speaker: This is a big deal.
Speaker: And they're expensive contracts.
Speaker: And so I think it's just really important that you have both decision makers there.
Speaker: Not to say that you can't do a one-legged sale, but certainly the cancellation rates are going to be a lot higher.
Speaker: My thought is if you're going to be working as hard as you are doing door-to-door because it's a hard job, give yourself the highest likelihood to sell in the first place and then make sure that that's also giving you the highest likelihood that it's going to pull through so you actually get paid for what you're doing.
Speaker: It's about the glass on the roof.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: The signing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so now you guys are doing your own installs.
Speaker: I want to talk about that.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I also want to jump into how we can take some of the things you do in the install, apply it in cells, and learn from that.
Speaker: But yeah, for you guys, what made you decide to start the installs?
Speaker: Because...
Speaker: Um, we're here at door to door con.
Speaker: I've talked and I've been talking to actually a few buddies who some had started installs.
Speaker: Some are like thinking about it, but a lot of them are like, okay, why would I even start installs?
Speaker: Cause like the margins are so low on it.
Speaker: I can go out and sell these things, make way more.
Speaker: It's way less work than having to go hire install teams and all that.
Speaker: So what's your like, I don't know if things have changed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I would say there was a couple of things, right?
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: One, we thought that there was more margin in it.
Speaker: We, you know, when you're only in sales, you just assume that, well, if we're making this much, then the installer must be making that much as well.
Speaker: And so it's like, wow, you know, how much is, you know, we were with a different installer before that.
Speaker: It's like, how, how, think about how much money they're making.
Speaker: And so that was part of the motivation getting into it.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Had I known that beforehand, I don't know if I would have.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because it's, uh, the money's not there for installers.
Speaker: And I think that's, you know, you're talking about what to take back to salespeople.
Speaker: Like, I think it's really important to understand that it is the rep in solar that makes the most money period.
Speaker: If you can go out and knock doors and create your own leads and close those deals, you will make far more, um,
Speaker: Far more margin and far more just overall money than any other position within the solar industry.
Speaker: But anyway, so yeah, money was – we thought that there was an extra margin for us to make.
Speaker: The other thing though is that we wanted to be able to have an opportunity for possibly having an exit sometime in the future.
Speaker: As a sales-only company, that's not really a thing.
Speaker: You're not an asset, right?
Speaker: You are to that company, but you're not to a PE firm or a venture capitalist or something.
Speaker: that.
Speaker: So we knew that we needed to have an enterprise value with assets and with an organization and a history of growth and increased revenues and things like that.
Speaker: So those were kind of the two main reasons that we got into it.
Speaker: But I'll tell you, the amount of work and the complication of setting up an EPC was far beyond what I could have ever expected.
Speaker: And we were really lucky to pick up some people that had done it before.
Speaker: The gentleman that helped us start our install side of the business had been doing it for 10 or 15 years and worked for some big companies.
Speaker: And so thank goodness for him, he was able to assemble a really good team.
Speaker: So right from the beginning, luckily, we already had the sales, right?
Speaker: Because we were a sales-only company.
Speaker: So we were able to feed the engine really quickly.
Speaker: And all he had to do is make sure that, you know, from the install side, we had...
Speaker: everything taken care of there but it is so involved and there is so much organization and so much process that you have to link together yeah like it is a puzzle and so a lot of times i think you know because we'll talk to a lot of a lot of guys that are like hey yeah you know maybe we'll come on as a sales dealer but we really want to become an installer yeah and the idea is like you think about this this table just full of puzzle pieces like those all have to hook together for this thing to work yeah
Speaker: And it takes a long time to figure out how does this piece hook to this piece, does this, right?
Speaker: And it's a chain of different things because you're having to figure out, okay, you know, everybody understands the sequence of a solar sail, right?
Speaker: You've got your sail and then your site survey and then your design.
Speaker: And then if you have a QC process and engineering, you have your permitting and your utility applications all the way up until install.
Speaker: And then your post-install stuff with quality review and everything.
Speaker: And paperwork submission so you can get PTO.
Speaker: That whole process, we all know the milestones, but nobody realized, you think about like, I'm handing the baton off after I'm done with my job.
Speaker: You do yours, then you hand it to another person.
Speaker: It might be 50 different touches between the whole process.
Speaker: And that requires a lot of organization and making sure that once it's handed off and given back that people are aware that it's back in their queue again and they need to act on that.
Speaker: So every single time there's a change of, you know, from one step to the next.
Speaker: there's an opportunity for that job to get delayed by another day.
Speaker: And so you get into these really long timelines and cash flows hurt and these companies that try to start up not really understanding a lot of these things or having it worked out, that's where they get in trouble really quick.
Speaker: So long answer, but there's a lot of work that goes into it.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Yeah, that's why I'm like, nah, I'm good.
Speaker: I don't want to start an install company personally.
Speaker: But I'm sure you've learned a lot of like good lessons that helped you, you know, and like, yeah, you think about that.
Speaker: But yeah, for people, like, yeah, if they want to start their own, would you in knowing like today's conditions and everything?
Speaker: Do you think it's changed versus like when you started it?
Speaker: Do you what you say?
Speaker: It's harder, easier?
Speaker: It's harder now.
Speaker: And there's a couple of reasons.
Speaker: I think, you know, the climate that we just got through within with 2023 is, you know, just the at the very base level, you have to have a product to sell.
Speaker: And so with the banks having had to tighten up their their requirements with dealers or with EPCs, it's actually pretty hard to get lending partners right now.
Speaker: Like when we started.
Speaker: You know, luckily we had a lot of history and so banks were willing to say, yeah, come on in.
Speaker: We'll, you know, we'll give you an account.
Speaker: But, you know, if you try to go to a good leap or a dividend or, you know, a lot of these groups right now and you don't have install history, they're like, sorry, we just can't take the risk because they've been burnt so much, right?
Speaker: There's so many poor installers that went out of business in this last year.
Speaker: These banks are bleeding.
Speaker: They can't take the risk.
Speaker: And so I think trying to start an EPC in 2024, right?
Speaker: That's that as an uphill climb for dang sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So what do the people even do?
Speaker: They just have to sell purely like cash deals or something until they can build up.
Speaker: That's about all you could do.
Speaker: And then you could go and say, hey, look, you know, we've done several hundreds of installs and here's our quality, here's our reviews and things like that.
Speaker: And then maybe you get a bank to take a risk on you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're going to want to look at your financials too.
Speaker: And that's the other thing is as the industry has kind of developed and as we've seen more installers fall apart and have to close their doors, the financial reviews on the front end are getting more and more required.
Speaker: And so you're going to have – and a lot of these companies don't even have financials.
Speaker: It's like, well, we have money in the bank account and we have QuickBooks and we kind of know how much our equipment costs and we kind of know how much we're paying people.
Speaker: But they don't know how to job cost.
Speaker: And it's like you've got to get pretty sophisticated.
Speaker: This is a construction business.
Speaker: And that's something that I didn't know when we started this is like –
Speaker: You really got to understand your cost per watt across the board.
Speaker: And there's a million different line items that you got to go through.
Speaker: You need to understand those costs, why those costs are where they're at and what you need to do to drive those costs down.
Speaker: And without that insight, you're kind of just flying blind.
Speaker: And all of a sudden one day you're like, oh my gosh, we just ran out of money.
Speaker: We can't pay our reps.
Speaker: That's happened to you, right?
Speaker: Yeah, it happened to me, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's really, really sad.
Speaker: And it's nobody's intentionally doing it.
Speaker: Nobody's a bad guy in the situation, but it's just like, there's so much money that goes out and you're waiting for that money to come back in again.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's that cycle.
Speaker: And so if I've, if I'm paying installers and I'm buying all of those tens of thousands of dollars of equipment, I'm paying my sales advances and I'm paying my staff and all that stuff.
Speaker: I'm more talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars a week going out.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, I don't get reimbursed for that for five or six weeks until the job gets installed, as long as I can get it in with that time frame.
Speaker: You multiply that by six or seven weeks, it's a massive cash requirement.
Speaker: So if your systems aren't locked down really, really, really tight, then all of a sudden that extended timeline, if it's not installed quickly, you're out of money all of a sudden.
Speaker: It's just like, okay, reps bounce, no new engine, and we're done.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's scary.
Speaker: Happens fast.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, yeah, and I was telling you before we hit record, especially when there's changes with, like, net metering, things like that.
Speaker: Like, California, we're seeing companies drop, like, flies left and right.
Speaker: And it's probably because they didn't have a lot of these, you know, maybe systems set up.
Speaker: They didn't think about all of these things.
Speaker: And then, yeah, all the reps suffer and we're all mad and frustrated.
Speaker: But, yeah, I get there's, like, you know, two sides of the story and we don't know everything.
Speaker: It's a tough situation, right?
Speaker: And it's...
Speaker: Anytime there's a deadline where you know that NEM is changing, that metering is changing, or you know that there's going to be a buyback rate change, anytime you have that, there's going to be a huge influx of volume, which is really exciting on the sales side.
Speaker: And it's somewhat exciting for the EPCs as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anytime you have more all at once, what does that mean?
Speaker: More cash requirement.
Speaker: And so if all of a sudden you outgrow your cash like overnight because of this deadline, you know, again, you're putting yourself in just a very precarious, precocious situation.
Speaker: And that's what we saw in California.
Speaker: It's rough.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: And yeah, I've heard some people talk to that, you know, got buddies of mine that have owned dealers and everything, just like talking to these EPCs, figuring out like, hey, what's the amount of volume you guys can do?
Speaker: What do you set up to do?
Speaker: Because that's another thing we see too is I've been with a lot of dealers now in California and we find this installer that's like, okay, we're two week installs, low red line, this, that.
Speaker: And then we're like, sweet.
Speaker: And we give them 100 deals.
Speaker: And then all of a sudden, these two-week installs turn into like four-month installs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Plus.
Speaker: So do you guys take on like dealers and stuff right now?
Speaker: Yeah, we do have a dealer program.
Speaker: And because we have been so obsessive about our processes, we know exactly how much additional volume we can take at one time.
Speaker: And I'll talk to a dealer.
Speaker: Let's say a dealer comes in.
Speaker: He's like, hey, I can give you 50 deals a month.
Speaker: I can say, hey, we can handle that.
Speaker: But I need to understand that's going to slow our process down by whatever, two weeks or something like that.
Speaker: Like we know that.
Speaker: Say, so I only want 30 a month.
Speaker: You need to keep your other 20 with somebody else right now unless you're willing to have longer timelines.
Speaker: But that's the kind of like honest talk that we're really – we want to be upfront about because otherwise it's like, yeah, bring them in.
Speaker: Well, no problem.
Speaker: Well, they're just going to be frustrated and they're going to be like, dude, that guy lied to me.
Speaker: He didn't know his stuff.
Speaker: And so you have to have the data, I guess, to know that and you have to understand your processes to be able to make those kind of promises.
Speaker: But, you know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, and that goes both ways.
Speaker: Like probably a lot of EPC installers, they don't know.
Speaker: Maybe they're a new installer.
Speaker: They don't even know what they can handle.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: But then, yeah, a lot of these dealer guys, they don't know what to ask those questions, I'm sure, either.
Speaker: If I'm a sales company, especially going into 2024, like knowing how hard it was on all the installers in 2023,
Speaker: If I'm looking for a new installer right now, I want to know that they've been in business for several years.
Speaker: I want to look at their stats.
Speaker: I want to see what their timelines have been.
Speaker: I want to know that they have a lot of different lenders because that shows that they've been healthy financially in order to keep their contracts with the lending companies.
Speaker: I want to take a look at...
Speaker: Staff, I want to look at number of crews.
Speaker: There's a lot of things that I want to find out before I'm going to sign on with them.
Speaker: If my goal is just to get the best red line because I think that's going to make myself the most money, I'm going to be sorely disappointed.
Speaker: Because who's going to give me the lowest red line?
Speaker: If the guy that doesn't know what his costs are and his only sales point is, well, yeah, come in and I'll give you a low red line.
Speaker: He's buying your volume, which I understand.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: He also doesn't understand that it requires money to run his business.
Speaker: And if he's not retaining a certain amount, then he's not going to have enough money to fund the business.
Speaker: Yeah, true.
Speaker: And so they just in the effort to grow and recruit, sometimes the installers will give up way too much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And again, it makes it makes it it ruins it for everybody.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: No, I agree.
Speaker: And what about, because another thing is just, I don't know if you guys have dealt a lot with this, but just of the dealer, you know, maybe setting improper expectations for the people they're selling or like saying stuff that's not true that reflects back, because I've heard a lot of that from installers, like, oh, we used to accept anybody, but now we don't expect, we don't accept anyone as a dealer because they screwed us.
Speaker: It's tough, yeah.
Speaker: You know, unfortunately, the solar world, um,
Speaker: Got a little bit dark.
Speaker: You know, there's just so much money.
Speaker: And we simplified the solar sail to be the same simplicity of an alarm sail, and it shouldn't be.
Speaker: This is a sophisticated product with a bigger decision that should require a higher education for the reps, and it should be a consultation.
Speaker: And if it's not going to make sense for the customer, a rep needs to have the integrity to say, I'm sorry, but if your goal is savings, I can't do that for you, and so I'm going to walk away.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, obviously you don't need to sell on savings, but my point is, is, you know, if your recipe is I'm going to come in, I'm going to cut your bill in half, or I'm going to get rid of your bill altogether.
Speaker: You don't have to pay anything in the government's going to write you a $50,000 check.
Speaker: And that's what I heard my trainer say.
Speaker: And that guy was trained by his trainer to say that.
Speaker: And that's the message that's being, you know,
Speaker: Well, there's a lot of disappointed customers when they find out, well, wait a minute, I'm retired.
Speaker: I don't have tax liability.
Speaker: He told me I was getting a refund.
Speaker: How am I even going to get him?
Speaker: Like, that's, I don't have, I don't even have tax liability.
Speaker: There's no credit available to me.
Speaker: And he told me that I'm getting a check.
Speaker: Like, you're just going to get a lot of very unhappy people.
Speaker: And so we've gotten a little bit of a black eye over the last couple of years because of this kind of wild, wild west.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, the situation that's going on.
Speaker: So I think that we're seeing a tightening there.
Speaker: I think the industry is going to correct itself a lot because EPCs have had to deal with the angry customers and the angry attorney general complaints and the bad BBB reviews.
Speaker: And they're trying their best to have a good name.
Speaker: But it's their dealers and those reps that have been untrained that are now destroying their company from a reputation standpoint.
Speaker: So I think that.
Speaker: The same way that Fincos have had to be more, you know, tight on who they're going to allow to be their installers, installers are now going to need to be more tight on who's going to actually come sell for them.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Yeah, no, no.
Speaker: Yeah, I think there's solutions.
Speaker: Well, yeah, California, you know, you probably know we have the whole consumer protection guide that we have to go through, which, yeah, like that wouldn't happen in the first place if we didn't have all these issues and over promising things.
Speaker: So that's why, I mean, just look at California.
Speaker: I think everyone in every other state should try to like sell ethically and not have these issues because we have a whole 25 page document.
Speaker: we have to do with people.
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: If we don't regulate ourselves, the state will, and they're going to bring in regulations that we don't like.
Speaker: So it's much better just to have everybody commit to integrity and living by good values and principles and put our customers first and think of them as, as people and understand that like, look, I,
Speaker: I want, I want you to give you the same deal that I want my own parents to get.
Speaker: Like, I want to treat you the same way that I want my, my own parents to be treated.
Speaker: Like if everybody would have that kind of mentality, we wouldn't have any of the issues that we have.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hopefully.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So yeah, everyone listening to this, I mean, it starts with, with all of us, right?
Speaker: We got to be the ones to course correct and make sure none of this monkey business is going on anymore.
Speaker: But yeah, for you guys at Fusion, have you had any, I don't know, like nightmare situations with dealers like, you know, I don't know, rubbing your name in the dirt?
Speaker: Well, you know, we have had things, yeah, where a customer calls back and they're just like, hey, you know, I just got my bill.
Speaker: And between my solar bill and this bill, like I'm paying way more than I was in the past.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we're like, okay, cool.
Speaker: We'll look at that.
Speaker: And usually the customer is just mistaken because they're not realizing that they actually doubled their usage once they got solar, which is common, right?
Speaker: But there's been times where like, oh my gosh, you should not have gotten solar.
Speaker: Like your usage is not nearly enough to justify A, the size of that system and B, the rate plan that you're on.
Speaker: Arizona's weird.
Speaker: There's a lot of weird...
Speaker: demand charges and stuff that solar can't actually get rid of yeah and it's like your demand charges alone are taking you over where you were before it's like you should have never gotten solar in the first place and so for those customers said you know what we're just going to pay your bill for you wow like okay you know we we just i are one of our company core values is family first and we take that down to our customers and it's like it's good if we when i say we you know whether it's a dealer rep or whether it's an internal rep
Speaker: hurts a customer like that, we're going to, you know, sometimes we've had to take care of that.
Speaker: And it's painful, right?
Speaker: It's very expensive.
Speaker: That's something you can't afford to do at scale.
Speaker: That said, yes, most of the time the customer is simply mistaken and they didn't quite understand this or that.
Speaker: But there are a couple of blatant ones out there where we've just, you know,
Speaker: to avoid having those kind of complaints on the news or try to avoid bad reviews and stuff like that.
Speaker: We've had to step in and try to keep our name clean.
Speaker: Yeah, well, that's good, man.
Speaker: I mean, hopefully it can't be happening too often.
Speaker: I hope this will be tough.
Speaker: But yeah, so I'm sure you've learned from that.
Speaker: Have you changed anything how you communicate with the dealers?
Speaker: I mean, yeah, if people are doing that, you probably got to make some sort of action against them.
Speaker: I think it's just, you know, re...
Speaker: Reminding everybody, right?
Speaker: The same stuff that we're talking about right now.
Speaker: Just like reminding everybody that this is an incredible opportunity and it's only going to last as long as we allow it to.
Speaker: And we have to do it the right way.
Speaker: And if one bad player messes it up, he's lighting a stick of dynamite in the mine and it's going to destroy all of us.
Speaker: So don't be selfish.
Speaker: Go out and do things the right way.
Speaker: There's more than enough income.
Speaker: There's more than enough money to make doing this job, doing it the right way.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: No, I love that.
Speaker: So, yeah, I think that's super important.
Speaker: Again, hopefully everyone listening remembers those things.
Speaker: And, yeah, you don't have to deal with consumer protection guides like we have in California if you do it the right way.
Speaker: But, yeah, I want to transition a little bit, Jared, and ask you, like, I know now you're the CSO.
Speaker: It sounds like Tyler.
Speaker: He does more of kind of like the day-to-day training for teams and all that, right?
Speaker: Yeah, he does a lot of our training, yeah.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: So for you, what's been, I don't know, what do you feel like is your focus helping the sales guys?
Speaker: Or what are some things maybe you wish sales guys knew more that you're seeing from like, I don't know, like the installer perspective?
Speaker: I know we're talking about a few of them already, but anything that you can think of that maybe we don't see as sales people as much?
Speaker: Yeah, I think a lot of what we've talked about is really important that I want our reps to see is that solar is a complicated process.
Speaker: And a lot of times a rep will say, why do you guys have this policy in place?
Speaker: Or why am I having to wait on this or that or the other?
Speaker: Why can't we just do this?
Speaker: And they don't like the answers a lot of the times.
Speaker: But I think that it's just really important that...
Speaker: Reps understand when an installer, when an EPC tells you that they can't do something, like trust that there's a really well thought out reason why.
Speaker: And that there's been discussions and probably hours of discussions at the top levels of the company really debating these things.
Speaker: You know, I want to be able to do a certain kind of job.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I want the business.
Speaker: I don't want a dealer to say, sorry, you're not doing it.
Speaker: So I'm going to take my business elsewhere.
Speaker: Like, I don't want to lose that business, but I have to preserve the financial health of fusion.
Speaker: And so we just have to say no sometimes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I just, I guess I just say is understand that, um,
Speaker: Just because an installer says no, it's not that they're being stingy or greedy.
Speaker: It's because they're trying to preserve the company and they're trying to do things the right way.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker: Yeah, another thing I think about, me being someone that's been at a lot of dealers, something I've seen over the years.
Speaker: is every install company has a little bit different processes.
Speaker: Like some will communicate with the customers quite a bit.
Speaker: Some won't communicate at all with the customer.
Speaker: There's just different ways of doing things.
Speaker: And some of my lessons I've had to learn because like the first company I started with, they were really good.
Speaker: They had really good project managers communicating all the time.
Speaker: But then I remember the first time we started using other install companies, I found out the hard way that my customers now were getting zero communication.
Speaker: And I'm like, okay, wow, now I need to set up my own system and give my customers updates, all that.
Speaker: And if you're having to focus on account management, what does that do to your sales, your ability to recruit and train and all that, right?
Speaker: Yeah, so I didn't want to be doing it, but it's just like that's how some companies are.
Speaker: So for you guys, do you have account managers in-house or like what are some things in your opinion, what should reps be responsible for and what should install companies be doing?
Speaker: I love that question and kind of going back to that Vivint culture.
Speaker: I think one of the reasons that we all loved it so much is that
Speaker: they provided so much for us.
Speaker: All we had to do is focus on recruiting, training, and selling, period.
Speaker: Just very, very easy.
Speaker: And so at Fusion, we've tried to kind of replicate that and say, how can we take as much as possible off of the rep's plate?
Speaker: Once that job is signed and submitted, let us take the baton from there and run it across the finish line for them.
Speaker: So we'll do all the communication with the customers.
Speaker: We're going to text them.
Speaker: We're going to email them.
Speaker: We're going to live call them.
Speaker: We're going to clear steps if steps need to be cleared.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Unless we can't get a hold of the customer, we're just not going to bother the rep with it.
Speaker: You might get a call and be like, hey, we've tried calling this guy five times and we can't get his driver's license and this job is stuck.
Speaker: Can you go over there and see if you can get that for us?
Speaker: But I think that it's important that reps are focused on the things that are going to drive more business.
Speaker: which again is always recruiting and training and selling.
Speaker: If I can keep the company focused, the reps focused on that, that's where we're going to be able to get the growth that we're looking for.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's so important.
Speaker: And I think that's a good point too, is maybe people listening to this have their own dealers or shopping for install companies, whatever.
Speaker: But it's like, sometimes we just see this install company that has lower red line, but then maybe they're not going to do any of that.
Speaker: You have to do all your own account management.
Speaker: And that's what you give up, right?
Speaker: That's the trade.
Speaker: It's like, well, yeah, I'll take a lower red line.
Speaker: But the reason there's a lower red line is because there's a cost to do the stuff that you don't want to do.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I got to pay account managers and I got to pay these people to do that.
Speaker: And so if the red line is not as low, understand you're probably getting a better value.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But that's part of your process when you're interviewing an install partner.
Speaker: It's like, what do you provide?
Speaker: What are those extra ad values that make it so that I can focus on income and building my company rather than having to account management and admin work?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I think I like I took it for it.
Speaker: I took advantage of having, you know, such good project managers and everything.
Speaker: One of the first companies I was with.
Speaker: But I think it is helpful to like, you know, you can't outsource everything.
Speaker: So I think for the reps listening, like, yeah, even if your company is really good at doing those things.
Speaker: For me, I've just found that I get more referrals to when I'm at least involved a little bit.
Speaker: It's like, I think we got to
Speaker: If we do want referrals, we've got to build relationships with them.
Speaker: We've got to follow up after the sale because, yeah, maybe you'll get referrals, but it might be being sent to the company.
Speaker: But, yeah, what's your take on that?
Speaker: Would you guys have, like, a referral process in place?
Speaker: We do, yeah.
Speaker: Would you train your reps on the help?
Speaker: I'll preface this by saying I think that referrals is the biggest secret that nobody is tapping into.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they're there.
Speaker: Everybody's so anxious about just getting the next sale, getting the next sale, getting the next sale, that they're not taking the time to get really, really low hanging fruit by just talking to a happy customer and be like, do you know anybody else that wants to save 50 bucks a month on their bill?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Talk to Dan.
Speaker: Like, but we're so busy doing our thing that we're just not taking advantage of that stuff.
Speaker: And so, yeah, we have a referral program.
Speaker: And so we have automated texts and emails that go out to our customers and say, you know, we're glad to hear that you're, you know, enjoying your system that you're saving.
Speaker: Who else do you know?
Speaker: Let us introduce you to our referral program.
Speaker: We have a video and it shows different prizes they can get for submitting names.
Speaker: And if somebody sends in a referral, we find out who submitted it, send it back to the rep.
Speaker: And, you know, we've got our own thing set up.
Speaker: But I think it's really important as a rep.
Speaker: If your company doesn't provide that, create it yourself.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Or have, you know, if you are a sales dealer owner, create some sort of a referral program because there's so much easy, easy, clean business that you can get that if you just put a little bit of effort into that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so it pays off a lot.
Speaker: And yeah, I had a guy just yesterday and he re-interviewed, but he sold Kawhi Leonard's grandma, Soler.
Speaker: Oh, nice.
Speaker: She gave him like 50 referrals and now he sells just purely.
Speaker: Just be like, let me get Kawhi.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let me get Kawhi.
Speaker: I know, yeah.
Speaker: That would be a great name to drop.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: They'll probably already be released by the time people are listening to this.
Speaker: So listeners should know what I'm talking about.
Speaker: But yeah, it's so powerful to just be able to add that into your arsenal, get the referrals.
Speaker: And like you're talking about, Jared, just if the company is not doing it, make sure you have some type of process to follow up with them and, you know, incentivize the referrals.
Speaker: And even if you're not getting referrals, just having the personal touch, it's going to make your job more likely to get to install.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: If the customer feels like you've completely dumped them, there's no more loyalty or allegiance to you.
Speaker: And so if somebody else comes behind or if the installer is not communicating well, they might just quit.
Speaker: And so I think it's important that a rep's like –
Speaker: You know, you got to have a certain part of your day.
Speaker: It's like, I'm going to spend an hour a day just making contact with my pipeline.
Speaker: And then I'm going to take 20 minutes a day, you know, contacting all my installs, trying to get referrals or whatever that may be.
Speaker: But you never want to, you never want to jeopardize all the hard work that you put into getting sale.
Speaker: Like just put an extra five minutes a week on that guy and get him to install.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's pointless to sell it if he's not getting, getting installed.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: No money on the deal.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: And so Jared, before we start wrapping up here, a couple more questions that I'm thinking.
Speaker: I know you're in Arizona.
Speaker: You mentioned how there's a lot, there's a few different like jurisdictions.
Speaker: I don't know a ton about that market, but I know, you know, maybe what is it?
Speaker: SRP or something.
Speaker: It's like different than the other one.
Speaker: I've heard some stuff like that.
Speaker: So I know it can get complicated for maybe a new rep coming in there.
Speaker: Maybe they think, okay, solar is just the same way everywhere.
Speaker: And in California, I don't know, I feel like at least in San Diego where I'm at, it's pretty straightforward.
Speaker: Most people are just selling.
Speaker: Net meter is kind of the same for the whole state.
Speaker: But for you guys, and I know that's in other states, it's similar, I think, to maybe Arizona where there's different, I don't know, rules, regulations, things you got to know.
Speaker: So do you have any advice on like training your reps or like what a rep should know, how to like not overwhelm them, maybe for managers listening, how do you take a new rep and do you just stick them in one place, learn how to sell here before they go to a different place or yeah, what's your advice on like knowing?
Speaker: So good question.
Speaker: I think from a high view, I would say like understand that every jurisdiction could be different, right?
Speaker: Like we're in Texas and there's a million different rate plans out there.
Speaker: There's a million different retailers and they all have different rate plans and different buybacks and stuff like that.
Speaker: So, and then in Arizona, you've got time of use.
Speaker: And if you're not familiar with that, basically depending on the time of day, they charge you more per kilowatt hour than, you know, during on peak time compared to off peak time.
Speaker: And so when you're sizing your system, you have to know how to appropriately build that to maximize your production during the on-peak hours so that you're replacing their expensive energy with cheaper solar energy.
Speaker: That's how we save them money.
Speaker: And so, okay, that means that I have to put the panels on the west if I want to do that, for example.
Speaker: And so I think whichever market you're in, if you own a sales dealer, you really do need to be investing in the training.
Speaker: And if you're in a simple market where it's very straightforward and it's basically either one-to-one or if it's a 75% buyback like Nevada or something like that, those are easy to train on.
Speaker: And you can basically give some rules of thumb there.
Speaker: But if you're in a complicated market like Arizona, I think part of that training needs to be putting somebody with a mentor.
Speaker: And having a new rep sit in on several presentations, watch how they explain it and do offsite one-on-ones and explain that.
Speaker: I think that there should part of the boot camp and part of your weekly workshop should be talking about a lot of the intricacies of the utilities, of the buybacks, of the rate plan so that reps feel competent to sell it the correct way.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And yeah, just I think having maybe like, I don't know if you guys do training videos or whatever, but just like a uniform training that people can go through.
Speaker: Because yeah, sometimes I've been with companies where it's like, like you're kind of talking about before one rep teaches one thing and then someone else teaches like something that's not necessarily true and kind of like all over the place.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's, yeah, as a leader, you've got to be able to put that training out and say, this is how we're training.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that everybody in the industry, in the organization knows what's, you know, what's expected.
Speaker: And so, you know, depending on what you're using for your training platform, if you've got a video training platform like we have, or if you have, you know, slide decks, or if you have workshops, you know, whatever it looks like, just make sure that you're very specific on those, those little details.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then last question or two here, Jared.
Speaker: You've been working with Tyler for a while now.
Speaker: I'm sure you guys get along great and all that.
Speaker: But do you have any advice for working with a business partner?
Speaker: How do you guys, I don't know, divide up the...
Speaker: Responsibilities.
Speaker: What's some tips I'm working with?
Speaker: I think, you know, having a business partner is it's one of those things that's like any other relationship that you have is understanding each other's strengths and weaknesses.
Speaker: And I think living by agreements is a really important thing.
Speaker: you know, with Fusion or before in other situations where I've had co-managers, if you don't have clear expectations and clear agreements between the partners involved, all that does is lead you to a point where there's going to be disappointment.
Speaker: An unmet expectation leads to disappointment, leads to resentment, leads to wedges, leads to splittings, right?
Speaker: Leads to divorce.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I think that it's really important that people understand what are the roles, what are the requirements, and setting out quarterly objectives and say, this quarter, this is what I'm going to do.
Speaker: And we're going to report back every single week.
Speaker: And at the end of the quarter, there's going to be an accounting for what we've done.
Speaker: And so, you know...
Speaker: That clear communication is vital.
Speaker: And I think that's the same with a manager and a new rep.
Speaker: It's like, here's what I expect to get done.
Speaker: And if it doesn't get done by that point, we have an agreement that this job isn't working out.
Speaker: I'm never going to fire you, but our agreement is going to determine whether or not, you know, whether or not this makes sense for you to continue on.
Speaker: So I think that you set these things ahead of time and it will largely reduce the likelihood of having conflict.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: And I'm sure you and Tyler have never like disagreed.
Speaker: Never.
Speaker: Always got hungry, right?
Speaker: No, but you know, sometimes that's good though.
Speaker: You know, having two different views and having opposing positions, um, sometimes passionately, you know, you come up with an even better result through compromise that going one way or the other would have.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, do you have anything that you can think of off the top of your head that maybe you guys disagreed on that you guys had to kind of like work out or any like situations where maybe you're like, okay, this is
Speaker: Yeah, I think certain things with like, you know, maybe sales comp and stuff like that.
Speaker: It's like, hey, I think that we need to do this.
Speaker: And it's like, no, no, no, this is going to if we do that, then this is going to happen.
Speaker: Or if we do that, this is going to happen.
Speaker: So I think that we've, you know, we've had a lot of healthy debate on how to incentivize, how to comp adders and things that we want to require of reps.
Speaker: There's I mean, there's a million different things that we disagree every day, to be honest with you.
Speaker: I mean, there's there's probably more that we disagree on than we do agree on.
Speaker: But.
Speaker: We keep talking until we find something that works both for us.
Speaker: And luckily, it's resulted in what we think is a healthy company where we're growing year over year and reps are doing well.
Speaker: So we'll keep trying to do that.
Speaker: But I don't think that there's a magic wand solution to that necessarily.
Speaker: At least I haven't found it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, cool, man.
Speaker: So if people want to, before I forget, if people want to reach out to you, maybe, I don't know, maybe connect, maybe they're looking for a place to link up in Arizona, sell with you guys, hear more about what you're doing.
Speaker: What's the best way to get in touch with you?
Speaker: We've got an internal program.
Speaker: If you want to come on as a direct rep, we'd love to have you.
Speaker: If you want to come on, if you've got a team or you want to come on as a dealer, we've got a dealer program as well.
Speaker: You can contact me.
Speaker: I'm on Instagram.
Speaker: I'm at Jay Gilly.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Maybe we can put a little thing on there.
Speaker: Or you can just go to the website and there's an application where you can fill out a form there and we'll contact you and take you out to lunch or take you to Topgolf or whatever.
Speaker: And we'll talk about the opportunity and see if we can be a good fit for what you're trying to accomplish.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, we all know California is the best market, but if you want to go to the second best market, then hit Jared up.
Speaker: I'm just kidding.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Arizona is awesome.
Speaker: It is still a fantastic market.
Speaker: Yeah, no, there's some killers there.
Speaker: I've never sold in Arizona, but I've actually checked it out.
Speaker: I know it's a good place to sell for sure.
Speaker: And yeah, I mean, last question here, Jared, what's next for Fusion Power?
Speaker: I know you guys are, I think you're one of the big sponsors of SolarCon coming up here, right?
Speaker: Yeah, we are.
Speaker: This will be the third year that we've done SolarCon, and we're looking forward to that.
Speaker: This year, we're really focused on solidifying.
Speaker: We've kind of come through this major storm, and I don't think that it's maybe quite over yet.
Speaker: And so we just want to make sure that everything is still tight and battened down as we kind of go into this next year to see what's going to happen.
Speaker: But we really want to just make sure that
Speaker: operationally, we continue to be sound, that we continually try to drive down costs as much as possible and be smart about what we're doing, want to continue to build up the different markets that we're in, and then adding extra services as well.
Speaker: One of the big things that we're focused on this year is adding
Speaker: uh home improvement services before the solar install takes place to give customer value right away which obviously increases increases retention right it allows reps to make even more money and then it's going to be able to give a little bit more margin and and profit to the company to be healthier as well so those are kind of the things that we're that we're really focused on this year that's cool what do you guys um if you're okay sharon what do you what's one of the things you're doing to like sell on the front end to
Speaker: So we do insulation and aeroseal are the two big ones.
Speaker: And then we also do smart chips and coil cleaning.
Speaker: And so those are the three things that we can kind of get done within a week of sale to, like I said, be able to have that customer see some instant value.
Speaker: Yeah, so smart.
Speaker: We just got our roofing license, so we're going to start doing roofing in-house as well.
Speaker: But we are going down the road here.
Speaker: We want to continually add more and more home improvement and energy efficiency products.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Huge fan of that.
Speaker: Cause yeah, it just helps so much with their attention.
Speaker: It really does.
Speaker: You can just get them, you know, something right away like that.
Speaker: And I thought that was the last question, but I did think of one more thing I wanted to ask you before we wrap up.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you guys, I know expanded to Texas,
Speaker: And that's obviously not super close to Arizona.
Speaker: So what was it like expanding to a new market?
Speaker: Because that's another challenge I've seen in companies I've been with.
Speaker: They try to expand in these different markets, sometimes really far away.
Speaker: And they just send one guy out there and kind of say good luck to try to support them.
Speaker: And I've seen it crash and burn a lot of times.
Speaker: The only thing that's harder than setting up an installer where you live is installing, setting up an install where you don't live.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's hard.
Speaker: And again, we've been very fortunate to get some good leaders out there to set up operations, but managing it remotely is not easy at all.
Speaker: It requires a lot of travel back and forth.
Speaker: And unfortunately, on the sales side, there's a lot more fall off.
Speaker: You know, we've gone through a lot of different reps there and it's been difficult.
Speaker: So we really want to put a big focus on this.
Speaker: And we've hired some really good people recently that are going to be able to go out there and spend a little bit more permanent time to work with.
Speaker: The reps out there and the managers out there and recruit dealers and try to really get that market solid.
Speaker: But yeah, remote management is it's difficult.
Speaker: It's difficult.
Speaker: Operations are very, very sound because we run them all out of home.
Speaker: And so we're very, very confident in that.
Speaker: But making sure that there's, you know, that you got body temperature where you're at is important.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, yeah, and it probably helps that you just expanded to one market first because my first company, they decided to open like six new offices all in different states at the same time.
Speaker: And I think they all crashed and burned pretty quick just because it was so hard to give them the support they needed.
Speaker: And it requires, there's a learning curve everywhere you go.
Speaker: And so unless you've just got a massive bandwidth to do that and a lot of money to do that, like slow and steady, I think.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker: Okay, well, we appreciate you coming on the show today, Jared.
Speaker: And guys, go reach out to them.
Speaker: Maybe you're in Arizona, go hang with these guys.
Speaker: And if anything, just shoot them a DM, let them know you appreciated them coming on the show today.
Speaker: So hopefully we can have you on in the future when you guys are in like 20 different states, Jared.
Speaker: I'd love it.
Speaker: But yeah, we appreciate you coming on the show.
Speaker: And yeah, we look forward to hearing more about what you guys got going on at Fusion Power.
Speaker: Sounds good.
Speaker: Thanks, Taylor.
Speaker: Okay, thanks, man.
Speaker: See you.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
Speaker: What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day.
Speaker: For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
Speaker: That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry.
Speaker: And it's called Solcitee.
Speaker: This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give Solar Pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 a day.
Speaker: Currently SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
Speaker: So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
Speaker: We'll see you on the inside.
