Solar CEOs April Newsletter
FIRST DAY OF THE MONTH
Table of Contents
Feature Article
California Braces for New Electric Plan: Make More, Pay More
Wednesday March 13, 2024 by FOX Business News
California Public Utilities Commission has until July 1 to impose new electric rate structure
LOS ANGELES – How to go green without going broke? That’s the latest challenge in the alternative energy capital of California, where Democrats propose taxing the rich to make energy more equitable and affordable. To do so, lawmakers mandated utilities statewide begin billing ratepayers based not on how much electricity they use, but on how much money they make.
“This would be the first state to charge people based on their income rather than what they actually just use,” said Shon Hiatt, director of the USC Business of Energy Transition initiative.
“The problem here has been affordability. While California has focused almost completely on clean energy, it has disregarded reliability and affordability, and costs have continued to escalate. So, one of the (ways) they thought to address affordability (was), ‘Let’s just consider a tax and begin taxing people based on their income to address electricity rates.'”
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has until July 1 to impose the new rate structure. The state’s three main utilities — Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric — proposed a tiered rate plan.
Households earning $28,000-$69,000 would be charged an extra $20 to $34 per month. Those earning $69,000-$180,000 would pay $51 to $73 per month, and those earning more than $180,000 would pay a $85 to $128 monthly surcharge.
That’s a lot considering California’s electricity rates are already among the highest in the nation. People living in California have been paying 32 cents per kilowatt-hour compared to the national average of 18 cents, according to Energy Sage, which has monitored energy prices nationwide. It claimed California residents have been paying $273 per month on average for electricity, or $3,276 per year.
Why did California entertain this bureaucratic nightmare? Many critics have blamed Gov. Gavin Newsom and his strict energy mandate that the state be carbon-free by 2035, along with the Democrat’s insistence that lawmakers fast-track the bill with no discussion.
Terrie Prosper, a CPUC spokeswoman, told a local TV station that implementation of the bill marked a critical step toward California’s climate goals because a lower usage rate would lower costs for consumers to charge an electric vehicle or run an electric heat pump.
That is not proving true in California, where electric rates have been higher than in virtually every other state.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/energy/california-braces-new-electric-plan-make-more-pay-more
Solar Industry Round Up
Links to the Latest News
After rate hikes this year, PG&E announces nearly
25% increase in profits to $2.2B for 2023
Friday, February 23, 2024 by Tim Johns ABC News 7
PG&E customers already paid
some of the highest energy bills in the country before 2024’s hikes.
https://abc7news.com/pge-earnings-rate-increase-2024-profits-power-outages/14458228/
Ignoring public outcry over soaring bills, regulators approve another PG&E rate hike
Published Thursday March 07,
2024 by Kevin Truong
After nearly
two hours of vociferous—at times enraged—opposition to planned PG&E rate
hikes during a meeting of the California Public Utilities Commission on
Thursday, commissioners took five minutes to issue their decision.
https://sfstandard.com/2024/03/07/pge-cpuc-rate-hike-utilities-costs/
Duke Energy Seeking Base Rate Hike
Friday February 2, 2024 by Greg Fox NBC News 2 Orlando, Florida
Duke Energy is putting the state of Florida on notice that it’s seeking a rate hike spanning the next three years. Duke Energy wants to raise the base rate for its 1.9 million Sunshine State residential and business customers. The proposed increase would cover 2025 through 2027, totaling $818 million.
https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-duke-energy-base-rate-increase/46629060
New York Con Edison Electric Rates in 2024: Plans, Rate Hikes
Monday Feb 12, 2024 by Sam Wigness Solar Learning Center
Con Edison made the first of three approved electricity rate increases in August 2023. This rate hike increased the average residential electricity bill by 9.1%. Further rate hikes are approved for 2024 and 2025 to pay for infrastructure upgrades.
As of February 2024, Con Edison’s standard residential electricity rate is just over 24 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). This rate is a combination of Con Edison’s current delivery charges (14.1 cents per kWh) and supply charges (10.3 cents per kWh).
Customers in Arizona Will Be Paying More for Electricity
Saturday February 24, 2024 PHOENIX, Associated Press
About 1.4 million customers in Arizona will be paying more for electricity now that regulators have approved a rate hike proposed by the state’s largest utility, Arizona Public Service Co.
Commission Chair Jim O’Connor told reporters Friday that he and three Republican colleagues approved the new rate plan without knowing the exact impact it would have on customers since it was projected to be “in the ballpark” of about 8%.
National Electricity Prices By Year
March 12, 2024, by the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics
The average cost of electricity per kilowatt hour was 17.3 cents in February, after being 17.3 cents previously, according to data published Mar. 12, 2024, by the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
In averaging the BLS’s monthly pricing data for electricity by calendar year, the price per kilowatt hour was 16.8 cents in 2023 versus 15.9 cents in 2022, marking a 5.7% increase.
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/electricity-prices-adjusted-for-inflation
Why Are Energy Prices So High? Some Experts Blame Deregulation.
New York Times January 4 by Ivan Penn
California and the 34 other states that have deregulated all or parts of their electricity system tend to have higher rates than the rest of the country.
California and other states that have deregulated their electricity system generally have higher rates than places that have maintained a century-old system of monopoly utilities.
One big reason deregulated areas have higher rates is that utilities there are spending more on power lines to carry electricity over hundreds of miles. That spending, which is ultimately paid for by individuals and businesses, often gets minimal review by state and federal regulators. By comparison, officials in areas that have not deregulated their energy maintain much greater control over utility spending and rates.
Solar Special – How to Create Urgency
The feature article is a perfect example to use to create urgency to act by your prospects living in California. It is a great way to break pre-occupation when first contacting Californians say:
“Did you hear that the California Public Utility Commission is changing the way you are charged for electricity?”
Hand them a laminated copy of the Fox Business article with the most alarming sentence or two highlighted. Then say:
“Just like previous rate hikes approved by the Utility Commission, you need to act fast to get grandfather in before it takes effect.”
Don’t sell in California? Well the Solar News Round Up this month focused on rate increases across the country. It is something everybody knows is happening but seldom know the specifics about and the underlying reason for the increases. These specifics and underlying reasons are in the wide open by searching online.
For example: just now I randomly picked Connecticut by typing in my browser Connecticut Electricity rate increases. This immediately brought up this:
Both requests would take effect May 1, 2024. Eversource’s request would mean a $38 increase, or 19%, for its residential customers. For United Illuminating, residential customers will see an increase of around 12.3% or $30. The companies filed these requests due to a 2020 overhaul to the rate adjustment process. Feb 19, 2024
Clicking on the link brought up the reason the utilities say they need the increase:
“The primary drivers of the increase are the contracts for the Millstone and Seabrook nuclear power plants, and the increase in costs for low-income assistance programs,” said Sarah Wall Fliotsos, United Illuminating spokesperson. Fliotsos said these costs make up 87% of the increase.
Eversource representatives said a factor to their proposed increase is the number of unpaid customer balances going back years during the COVID pandemic.
Since both Eversource and United Illuminating rate increase requests are mainly based on unpaid balances and low income programs, I would say to prospects:
“Did you hear about the rate increases going into effect May 1, 2024?
“Yeah, they are going up 19% for Eversource customers or 12.3% for United Illuminating customers.
“Can you guess why? No it is worse than that. It is to cover for unpaid bills and low income programs. That’s right, not only are you paying for your own electricity, you are paying for someone else’s too!
“Do you see what is happening?
“The more they raise their rates, the more people can’t pay their bills and the more people you will have to pay for.
“Do you think it will ever stop?
“You need to own your own power—I am here to see if you can.”
The above wording is off the cuff, and you may have a much better way of saying it, but you get the idea.
I have look at scores of utilities coaching with clients and the information is always there to be found. You should routinely do searches of the utilities your prospects used to find out the latest information. Then be sure to pass it along to your team so they know what they are doing is a real benefit to the homeowners they speak to and relay the information to homeowners.
The major misconception homeowners have is that the utilities are their friends and providing a service when the fact is they are not their friend, and they only are providing a service to their investors in the form of making them money.
Gamification – Running Competitions
(Excerpt from Master Mind 106)So competitions, we use them to gamify and make exciting and new the solar sales experience. Anybody that has knocked doors or they’ve done dials on the phone, you know when you do enough of those knocks, enough of those dials, we got to somehow spice things up. We got to do something that makes it seem like a new experience as often as possible. So we never feel like were just digging away at the same thing over and over again endlessly.
I want to focus on the fact that competitions are a way to gamify the solar sales experience. There’s a few others, but gamifying we definitely want to integrate into the business. So how often should you run competitions?
Most companies don’t run enough competitions? Usually when I’m talking with clients, at least if I haven’t run them through this enough times, right? They are not running enough competitions.
A lot of times they forgot to. They forgot to run one at all. So we are looking at a competition, being a way to focus, effort and intensity towards a behavior or a results.
Why wouldn’t we want to do that super often? Why wouldn’t you want to do that on a very regular basis? Good rule of thumb is to have it so at least one to three competitions are running at a single time. We are going to be going through tips and suggestions on how to make sure that’s integrated in your company.
Now, if you’re just starting out as a company, if you just got team members onto your team, is it too soon to do competitions the answer is No. If you have a team, it’s a good idea to start doing competitions, even if you’re just starting out.
One thing that I want to let you know about is the prize itself in a competition doesn’t matter too much. What I mean by that is if you just had your first team and you’re still building cash off your business, you might be thinking, “Oh, I’m going to have to give up some margin, or I might have to pay out of pocket to run some sort of competitions. I might want to hold off on that.”
Don’t worry too much about the size of the prize because I think we all know that salespeople love competition. They love an opportunity to achieve something. So mere recognition or the achievement itself does a lot to make this a fun type of game to play.
At the same time, something as small as like a $25 Amex gift card—something as small as that, they could use it a single instance. Where I can pay for my next lunch or take my partner out to dinner (if you want to bump it up to like 50 bucks). It doesn’t have to be thousands of dollars’ worth of prizes to get started.
It gets people in the frame of mind from the beginning that, hey, this is a different place to work. This place is not just about a baseline. It’s not just about hitting those volume tiers. No, we do things to keep things spicy and alive.
So let’s keep going—Budgeting. You can honestly use any sort of budgeting system that you feel works well. If you feel deep down, I’m going to get a return on my investment from this, then it’s probably worth doing right now.
As a solar company, you want to be netting $0.20 to $0.30 per watt after everything, after sales costs, after contractor costs, after operating expenses, everything, you should be netting around $0.20 to $0.30.
Now, a good way to make sure that you’re staying at $0.20 or $0.30 is to use a $0.05 to $0.10 per watt budget allocation for incentives. Any time that you’re running any sort of competition, just think with $0.05 to $0.10 per watt.
But just so we at least understand the concept here: in order to figure out this budget, you will need to know your average system size that your team is selling because its $0.05 to $0.10 per watt. For coming up with a prize, we have to figure out what is the target we have, figure out what the budget is. So average system size.
Then you need to understand what your realization rate is. For those of you who haven’t heard that term before, realization rate is the percentage of sold deals that make it to install.
We create this game based off your realization rate because if you did it just off sales, you would definitely be going above your budget because not every deal is going to make it through to install.
If you have the last 3 to 6 months’ worth of data for realization rate, that’s what you should use. If you’re brand new, maybe go conservative. Just go with 70% or 60%. If you have the last 12 months, that’s a great way to just be conservative, be realistic, and be up-to-date with what your realization ratio is.
Next, you’ll want to decide on a prize. You want to take the value of that prize and you’re going divided by your system size. Multiply it against the budget per watt. So again, Ill help you with this later on, but just for the concept, that’s what you’re going to do there. Multiply that number by 100 and divide it by a realization rate. This number is the minimum number of sales you need to meet your budget.
So in terms of the types of competitions that were going to have. So there are competitions that could last hours. There are competitions that can last days. You can have a weekly competition, a monthly competition or competition running the whole quarter. Those are different lengths that you can play with. Again, this helps you with the creativity and the variety. It allows you to have different ways to motivate your team.
Again, if sales momentum is low or if its high, you’re going to want to use competitions. And these are kind of the different lengths that you can play around with. We go back to; you want to have one, two, three competitions playing at a single time.
An easy way to think about this is I want one for the quarter, I want one for the month, and I am going to play around between hours, days and week competitions every single week. That just makes it easy to think with.
Watch MasterMind # 106 for Details on Budgeting and Implementing Competitions
https://www.skool.com/solarceos/classroom/a98ab14b?md=a97dc3a53d944b5f919c48ec7722be8c
Master Mind Meetings March Recaps
Master Mind 135 – 4 Ways to Improve Your Business
Emphasizing Ethics in Business: Importance of maintaining ethical standards for long-term success.
Online Presence & Brand Building: Leveraging digital platforms for brand visibility and trust.
Customer Guarantees: Implementing guarantees to enhance customer confidence and loyalty.
Continual Education & Development: Prioritizing ongoing learning and adaptation for business evolution.
Beating Larger Competitors: Strategies for outperforming bigger companies by being agile and customer-focused.
Preparation & Audience Understanding: Importance of thorough preparation and tailoring approaches to meet audience needs.
Seasonal Business Strategies: Capitalizing on off-peak seasons to gain market share.
https://www.skool.com/solarceos/classroom/a98ab14b?md=d0f16232e0254cfaa42250895382bcf3
Master Mind 136 – Scaling Lean Generation Vehicles
Focus on mastering sales techniques before scaling the business.
Emphasize the importance of referrals in business growth.
Highlight the critical role of timely follow-up with leads.
Discuss strategies for optimizing virtual sales teams.
Underline the significance of process over capital for scaling.
Recommend balancing direct sales with virtual sales approaches.
Stress continuous improvement and adaptation to market changes for long-term success.
https://www.skool.com/solarceos/classroom/a98ab14b?md=23397a7897ab4c1b94aaf5cdacacf05f
Master Mind 137 – Skills Every Business Owner Should Master
Encouragement of active participation and video engagement during the call.
Importance of applying knowledge from mastermind sessions in practical scenarios.
Highlight on ethics in all business dealings, as emphasized by Zane in previous calls.
Discussion on various skills every business owner should master, including sales, ethics, and continuous improvement.
Focus on sales as a form of communication and the significance of genuine interest in clients’ problems.
Tips on improving sales skills, such as daily study and practice, role-playing, and recording sales interactions for self-assessment.
The concept of persistence in sales and the importance of overcoming objections to close deals.
Role-play exercises to practice sales techniques and objection handling.
Emphasis on public speaking as a crucial skill for executives and business owners.
Advice on mastering emotions for better decision-making and creating a positive work environment.
Call for action on applying learnings and seeking continuous feedback for improvement.
https://www.skool.com/solarceos/classroom/a98ab14b?md=00c9f3a4bc3a4524951892318a1b9a56
Master Mind 138 – Build, Break, Repeat
Encouragement for engagement and participation during the call.
Discussion on building, breaking, and correcting processes across various aspects of the business.
Importance of process over capital for scaling and efficiency.
Emphasis on ethics and continuous improvement in business practices.
Strategies for overcoming objections and persistence in sales.
Role-play exercises and the importance of mastering sales techniques.
Encouragement for applying learnings from the call to real-world business scenarios.
https://www.skool.com/solarceos/classroom/a98ab14b?md=1bdb20da8a2449b7b1219ad41289bd13
Master Mind 139 – Crisis Mode: Spotting & Correcting Emergencies
Focus on crisis management: Learn to identify, diagnose, and solve urgent problems in your business.
Understand the importance of accurate stats: Ensure your business decisions are data-driven for precise problem-solving.
Recognize the role of personnel: Identify and nurture A-players, while addressing or removing C-players to maintain efficiency.
Apply practical knowledge: Emphasize the execution of strategies learned, rather than theoretical understanding.
Implement speedily: Prioritize swift action to implement strategies and solutions in your business practices.
https://www.skool.com/solarceos/classroom/a98ab14b?md=6d712c68bb64409dacf5439e4836ab25
National Sales Meetings March Recaps
National Sales Meeting 87 – Tactical Communication Techniques
Engaging Communication for Sales Success: Importance of dynamic communication and questioning techniques.
Overcoming Objections with Preparation: The role of thorough preparation and objection handling in sales.
Creating Urgency and Value: Strategies for building urgency and demonstrating the value of solar solutions.
The Art of Closing: Techniques for effectively closing sales and ensuring customer commitment.
Leveraging Referrals and Testimonials: Utilizing satisfied customers to generate referrals and build credibility.
Adapting to Customer Needs and Concerns: Tailoring sales approaches to address specific customer hesitations and concerns.
https://skool.com/solarceos/classroom/057b9056?md=2a6ad886cff64bce905f0882c5378932
National Sales Meeting 88 – Maximizing Results from Aged Leads
Embrace a positive mindset for cold calling and door knocking, recognizing rejection as a step towards acceptance.
Understand that initial obscurity requires consistent effort and outreach to build rapport and recognition.
Realize that mastering cold calling and persistence in sales can apply broadly to business and personal success.
Focus on the quality and quantity of outreach, aiming for high numbers of calls and door knocks daily.
Adopt an attitude of continuous improvement, training, and preparation to excel in sales and negotiations.
Utilize creative and personalized follow-up strategies to stand out and engage potential customers.
Regular training and role-playing to handle objections confidently and effectively.
Leverage provided scripts and objection handling techniques to enhance sales skills and outcomes.
https://www.skool.com/solarceos/classroom/057b9056?md=60009c168f534be7a61532d65663302d
National Sales Meeting 89 – Solar Sales Presentation Deep Dive
Emphasize the importance of articulating the benefits of solar power clearly in presentations for easier closing.
Highlight the significance of understanding and addressing customer objections throughout the presentation.
Stress the importance of setting the right expectations at the beginning of the presentation.
Underline the need for differentiating the company by emphasizing research, customer service, and quality.
Focus on building value with the company and understanding the customer’s real reason for considering solar.
Discuss strategies for making solar an appealing option by addressing the cost, savings, and environmental benefits.
Offer insights on navigating various customer scenarios, including those planning to move and how solar can increase home value.
Conclude with a Q&A session to address any lingering questions or objections.
https://www.skool.com/solarceos/classroom/057b9056?md=0a8e0b8307084a5f9816ae40370893e5
National Sales Meeting 90 – Key Decisions to Make During the Close
Prepare ahead for each day to start strong and efficiently.
Leverage the weekends, especially Saturdays, for appointments due to higher homeowner availability.
Be aware of your body language during pitches; confident posture can enhance performance.
Adopt the right attitude, a positive mindset influences customer engagement positively.
Practice matching and mirroring to align with the customer’s energy level, improving rapport.
Slowdown in your pitch to ensure clarity and comprehension.
Listen actively to address customer concerns accurately and build trust.
Record and review your sales pitches for self-improvement and to identify areas for adjustment.
Be genuine and present in each interaction, treating every potential customer as a unique opportunity.
Understand the importance of selling to all decision-makers in a household to ensure deal closure.
https://www.skool.com/solarceos/classroom/057b9056?md=603fc3e83ffa4a499ead96730eaedb54
National Sales Meeting 91 – Providing Value, Closing, and Keeping the Deal
Emphasize the significance of providing value in sales to ensure deal closure, installation, and referral generation.
Address the importance of maintaining a high realization ratio from sales to installations.
Highlight the necessity of setting the right expectations from the start and maintaining open communication between setters and closers.
Stress the importance of preparing for appointments by gathering as much information as possible.
Focus on building confidence and authority during interactions, ensuring the customer views you as the solar expert.
Introduce the concept of an intention statement to set clear objectives for the interaction.
Discuss the importance of building excitement and anticipation for the solar proposal.
Cover key topics like cost, roof concerns, moving implications, service agreements, and potential savings (CRM square) thoroughly.
Encourage visualizing solar panel placement to increase customer engagement and buy-in.
Implement strategies to avoid post-sale cancellation, emphasizing direct communication and addressing potential concerns proactively.
https://www.skool.com/solarceos/classroom/057b9056?md=e2250c48cf2b4380a5bad27f79f9ac6e
Client’s Successes
Black Wolf Solar – Shawn
Wisemotion Marketing – Reggie
0:00 One thing out of all the sales training so far—I try to be part of most of them. I forget his name, but I think he is Zain’s partner Alexander. He has a mustache if that’s the right guy.
0:12 He did a role play where we had to answer objections and overcome them. And for me that is the best training so far because instead of just listening how to do it, we actually did it.
0:21 And when you have to practice or have other people practicing with you is a better way to learn than just listen to the concepts. So I would love to have more self-training like that, especially for cold calling.
Black Wolf Solar Solutions – Shawn
Solerr – Erick Sarrion
Blue Energy Solar – Roberto
Sunrun by Santiago – Santiago
Finn street Solar – Cory
Solar Scouts
Just Power – Kyle
Black Wolf Solar – Shawn
Finn Street – Cory
ASAP Solar Pros – Timo
Productivity Hack
The whole point of increasing productivity is to do more, faster. The old saying “Time is Money” is certainly true. Anything that can save time qualifies as a productivity hack.
So let’s talk about the number one time consumer that a solar company encounters repeatedly, and this is finding, recruiting and retaining high quality talent. If there was only a way that could find high quality people who really work at the crafts of solar salesmanship and installing.
What are the things one looks for in finding quality people?
- That they are a hard worker
- They have the ability to do a job to completion without constant supervision
- They are dependable and responsible
- They show up on time
- They are able to take instruction and accomplish tasks without having their hands held
- They look out for the others on their team
- They can learn new skills quickly
- They thrive is a well-disciplined and structured environment
- They are able to adopt to ever changing conditions
- They are positive and have a “can do” attitude
- They are extremely loyal
- They are well organized
A large time saver would be to find and hire people where you could reasonably be certain that they had the above characteristics. That they had at least 3 years of experience demonstrating these characteristics on a daily basis. That they were specifically trained for the last 6 months on the solar industry.
Even better would be the ability to review their resumes and select the ones you would want to interview for an apprenticeship with your company. The apprenticeship would be subsidized in hope that you would offer them a full-time job. So in effect you get to test drive them and see if they are a match or not before hiring them.
Such a program exists, and it is called the Solar Ready Vets Network. It is a Department of Energy program.
The Solar Ready Vets Network™ connects service members and veterans with solar industry training and career pathways, and supports solar employers with partnerships and resources to attract, hire, develop, and retain military talent. Led by the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), this work is carried out nationwide in partnership with leading industry, training, and veterans services organizations.
On February 20 of this year, a webinar laying out the opportunities offered by the Solar Ready Vets program with their partners was given. Here is the link to the one hour recording of that webinar.
You can down load the slides from the webinar at: https://www.seia.org/sites/default/files/2024-02/February%202024%20Webinar%20SRV.pdf
The few hours you spend learning about and becoming involved with the Solar Ready Vets Network and their partners will save you hundreds of hours of recruiting and training each year. More importantly you will increase your bottom line!
Check out This Sales Tip
Every kid knows that “No” means “Maybe”, and “Maybe” means “Yes”
Cory Finn from Finn Street Solar shared this sales tip with the Community in Skool.
I spent about 40 minutes texting 25 aged leads after lunch today, got a hold of 11 of them, and booked 1 appointment. This is the one appointment that was booked:
After he said, “I don’t want it”, he called me and told me the same. Which I took to mean that he did want to talk. Haha
So I asked him if he had already installed solar on his house, which you said “No”. He said, “I had looked at a few options and talked to a few people and I decided that it wasn’t a good fit for me right now.”
And I asked him if it was a timing issue or a money issue or something else, and he said, “It just didn’t really seem like a good budget fit.”
And then I asked him, “Would you be willing to let me take a peek at it, cuz I just started a new company that has a staff with many years of experience, and we’re doing pricing a little differently. Would you let me take a stab at it? If it’s not a good fit, no worries, but if it is, it couldn’t hurt to take a look.”
He said yes. He’ll reach back out to me and give me the details. I asked him what his address was so I could do a little pre-digging for him, and then got his email address, and then scheduled a time to talk with him tomorrow.
There was a few other qualifying questions in there, but that was the main gist. I share this to prove that just because someone says “No”, doesn’t mean it’s an actual “No”. Especially when they call me, an extrovert, to tell him “No”. What was he thinking! 
Thanks, Cory for sharing!