solarblog.net

What is it with these guys?  Why are there so many of them?  And why can’t they leave you alone?  Can’t they see your “no solicitors” sign and that you’re in the middle of dinner?  Or in my case, can’t they see my company truck and a stack of solar panels in the driveway?

While it’s tempting to direct your anger and frustration at these(mostly young male)individuals, what’s interesting is that they are actually victims of the same game.  When I first started to get into the solar industry, I was a bit older than the average salesman.  39 years old to be exact.  I thought I was too old to be an installer, and I considered myself a smart, well educated, professional-looking guy with a lot of experience in sales.  So when I secured an interview through Indeed with Auric Energy out of South Jordan, Utah, with a pay range of $60k-$200k annually, I thought it would be a perfect fit.  I was actually relocating to the US from Nicaragua for the job, and I decided to apply to work in their Denver office.  I figured it would be a newer market for solar, less picked-over than California.  Every single one of those assumptions turned out to be blatantly false.

Before I started the job I spent a few months working at a ski resort in Telluride to get that out of my system and to spend some time taking an online class from Solar Energy International.  My first red flag was when a hotel guest not much older than me said that his son was a solar salesman, and he was living at home because he couldn’t make ends meet. My second red flag was when my landlord in Denver straight up asked me while reviewing my applicaton how I was going to pay the rent.  (My rent was only $1200/mo).  My third red flag was the total lack of respect and terrible looks I was getting from anyone I told about my new career.  I started to realize that I was about to swimming not in the blue ocean of an emerging industry, but rather in a swampy muck-filled Jakarta canal.

So while it’s tempting to get frustrated with the door-knockers and telemarketers, it’s more appropriate to get frustrated with the companies that employ them – and as I will continue to write about in this blog, they deserve it for many reasons.  These young, bright-eyed, mission driven go-getters were bought and sold into a supporting role in Glengarry Glenn Ross by the company’s HR/recruiter, who was sold their job by the crooked ownership, who are in many cases not only defrauding their customers but also swindling their investors.

I just kept thinking to myself, “Who would want to buy a $20K product from a door-knocker?  What does this say about our brand?  How is this a sustainable customer accquisiion strategy?” and more importantly “Why all this effort for to sell a 4 kW PV system?  I’m not making a big enough impact fast enough.”  But I was powerless to do anything about it.  I knew little about the industry, or about the trades and contracting, and I had no capital or connections. Less than a year later, the company went out of business and I moved on.”
My story is hardly unique.  Our biggest competitor in the Colorado residential market was a company called Blue Raven.  They had a business model nearly identical to ours except that they sold only the cheapest solar panels and offered a 2-year warranty.  Yet somehow they sold their company to Sun Power for $165 million dollars!  Three years later, SunPower filed for bankruptcy.  The owners of Blue Raven?  I’m sure they did fine.

You deserve better!  You, the renewable energy professional.  You, the homeowner.  You the business owner, landlord, general contractor, and real estate agent. You. deserve better.

How it works.

This is the red pill.  I’m going to come right out and tell you what’s going on and what to do about it.

1. Don’t give up.  Don’t give up on your dream of making a career out of making a difference.  Don’t give up on running your home or business on clean energy.  Don’t give up using solar to dramatically boost your portfolio’s NOI.
2. Don’t compromise your integrity or dignity.  If you don’t get a good feeling about it, don’t do it.  If you are a homeowner- You absolutely don’t have to buy from the most aggressive salesman.  You can find someone you trust.  They are out there, and I will show you how to find them.  
3. If you are a professional or entrepreneur, be patient and perservere.  Learn all you can.  Create a long term vision for your career and don’t be suckered into “get rich quick” thinking.  The foundations of sustainability are quality, integrity, and relationships.  If you are not here for sustainability, you don’t belong in this business.