Let's Talk The Solar Dealer Network

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Do you get a lot of solar companies knocking on your door or calling you to talk solar? Ever wonder who they really are? Do they do the installs themselves? Are they located in Arizona? Who are these guys? Join us as Tom Kopp unveils the inner workings of the Solar Dealer Network model that has taken over the industry nationwide. Tom will discuss how this model works and how Harmon has played a role in adapting the model. This isn't your average chat about renewable energy. So tune in, and let us guide you through the intricate dance of the Solar Dealer Network model and what things you need to look out for. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to another edition of the Harman Solar
podcast.
I'm Rob from MonoVPS, sales andMarketing at Harman Solar, and
with me is my cohost, benWalshlogger.
You also know him as MrEverything Ben.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
It's good to be back.
Is it good to be back?
It is really good to be back.
Belly's full, your belly's full.
What did you eat?

Speaker 1 (00:39):
today Chalupas, chalupas, not Taco Bell Chalupas
.
No, homemade, homemade Chalupas.
You know how many I had?
Zero, because you ate them all.
Well, that's what I do.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
So if you want me on your podcast, you gotta feed me.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
You gotta feed them.
So today we're gonna.
We're actually we've gonethrough the process, so now we
get to start with some otherthings.
So today we are gonna talkabout what's called the dealer
network.
What is a dealer network?
Well, that's what you're gonnafind out.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's why we're doing this.
Okay, right, so?

Speaker 1 (01:05):
And with this dealer network and we'll get into what
it is and how it works and howit differs a little bit from the
traditional stuff that we havein most of the industry.
Has we brought in a guy?
We always had a guy.
No, we had a gal before we.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, okay, we've had a gal or two.
Yeah, Couple.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
We just seem to have more guys for some reason.
I don't know, but today we gota guy who's been with Harman for
a while and he kind of overseesour dealer network among a
couple other things, but he'sthe guy that kind of helps us
manage it and make sure it goessmooth.
Should we bring him on?
Yeah, we should, all right, sowe're gonna.
We're gonna bring on Tom Copp,and there's our guy.
Hey, tom.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Hey Tom.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
And that's our show.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
I'm the guy, I'm the guy.
So, tom, how long have you beenat Harman?
Seven eight years, seven, eightyears.
So here we go with that Seven,eight years, six years, five,
we're just.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
So if you ever want a job at Harman, you have to have
already worked here seven oreight years.
Yeah, because you don't hireanybody.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
No, no no, anyone new Right, it's all old people so
tell us about your background.
What did you do before Harman?

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Before Harman was in California, lived there for a
while.
Owned some automotive repaircenters.
That's right, you did.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, I can say what they are.
What were they?
Midas, midas, that's right.
Okay, he was the Midas guy.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
He was there for a while, decided to come to
Arizona, get out of Californiafor another podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
All right.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
Got started with SolarCity and enjoyed the
company, and then they went toTesla.
I went somewhere else and thenfell into Harman.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
That's right.
So you started with SolarCity.
So that's when they were huge.
Yeah, they were the king of theindustry back then.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, that's when you either sold in lease or you
didn't sell anything.
There wasn't really anythingelse back then.
There was just leases.
Yeah, they shot away from doinganything purchase wise.
And then there was no suchthing as EPC dealer or anything
like that, it was just you're aninstaller.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Because they did it all right.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, that was back in the industry when, like
everyone was separated by likeyou are a leasing company or you
are a purchase only company.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Like no one ever did both.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
It was always one of the other, but there was barely
any purchase companies.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
There was nobody.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
And then back then it's like you, you were
integrated, right.
There was never.
There was never that thatnetwork of guys that wanted to
get into the business but didn'twant to have to worry about all
the back end stuff.
They were just really good atselling, right yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
I would say the industry was a lot cleaner back
then.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, much cleaner.
There wasn't 600 companiesselling solar, there was a
handful.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
And solar was like $8 a lot.
Yeah, because there was a tonof incentives from the utilities
.
Remember there was like hugedollar incentives.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, srp had incentives.
Everybody had incentivesbecause everybody wanted to go
solar.
And then everybody and theirmom decided to come to Arizona
and try to sell solar.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
And here we are, yeah , and then you're like you're
going to sell them.
Yeah, Tell us about what you donow.
What?

Speaker 3 (03:56):
your role is right now At Harmon, basically oversee
the sales network across themarkets that we have.
So I help manage anybody thatwants to get into solar but
doesn't want to have to dealwith the back end stuff.
So once the sale is over, theydon't want to deal with it
anymore.
So that's where I manage it.
I find the guys that want tocome in, they want to sell and
that's all they want to do, andthen they want to have a
fantastic back end and that'sthat's when Harmon comes in.

(04:18):
And so these guys will just cometo us and say, hey, I've got
sales and you know we work withthem that way or I work with
them that way.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
So right now you're managing those groups in Arizona
and Oklahoma.
Correct, okay, correct, andwherever else we decide to
expand to, exactly.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Someday.
I think that's a meaning in afew weeks, right yeah, someday,
someday.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Okay, so you started kind of going into what a dealer
is.
So we're going to kind of tryto break it up first and explain
a full service EPC versusbasically a dealer and what they
are.
So for a full service EPC, Imean we could talk about what we
are.
Yeah, that's what we are,that's what we do.
I'll let you talk about that.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, we are kind of a from start to finish type of
company.
So we, you know, we do themarketing, we do the sales.
Once the sales done, we do theproject management, we get it
installed in your roof and thenthe full, you know, service and
we're a start to finish type ofcompany.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
And we're a dying breed.
Yeah, that was just reallyweird right.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
I mean, what we do is Just glamour.
Harmon isn't no.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
But I mean, yeah, that's what you call it, that
model is a dying breed becausemost of these installers now
don't have sales teams, right,they just work with companies
and that's what we talk about adealer network.
So we looked at get, we lookedat doing this I don't know.
I want to say 2017, maybe 16.
We started batting around thisidea and there was maybe a

(05:41):
couple of companies that weredoing it.
Back then it wasn't a big deal,but now it is the biggest.
That's what most of thecompanies are nowadays.
So here's what I mean by that.
When someone comes to yourhouse and they're trying to sell
you solar, I would say eightout of 10 times they don't
actually do the installs.
They're just selling you theproduct and they work with a
company that does the install.

(06:02):
So there is sales and marketingcompany, correct.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Correct.
Yeah, their goal is to make thesale and move on to the next
sale.
They don't want to deal withanything after the sales being
complete.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
So they're in and out there.
Hey, I'm gonna.
I want to sell you solar.
This is what I can do for you.
Boom, you sign on the dottedline.
They're out.
Correct, Mostly, mostly.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, mostly, you know.
I mean a lot of them will Stilldo their best to keep in
contact with the customer, stilldo their best to make sure the
customer's taken care of.
But a lot of them, like yousaid, excluding who we deal with
and Harman's partners most ofthem just move on.
We get, you've seen it, you geta lot of companies that come
outside of Arizona that come inand they do blitzes where they

(06:39):
bring a bunch of guys in for afew weeks, throw them out on the
streets and take off, andproblem then is is now you're
dealing with a company that'snot even local to Arizona.
So if there's an issue, right,good luck getting someone to
pick up the phone.
My gosh, that is so importantcash grab companies, you call it
.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, you know.
And here we go, we, and we gotinto this because we wanted to
expand our reach.
I mean, we have our internalsales team, but we were looking,
we knew this was growing and wesaid let's see if we can be a
part of this.
There's a lot of issues withthis industry, right, so a lot
of there, and again there'sthere's good and bad, and
everything right in everyindustry.

(07:14):
I'm not blanketing dealernetwork.
What I'm just talking about thedealer network.
There are people that you know.
All you have to do is go get anLLC, go to the commission, get
an LLC for 59 bucks and you're acompany.
Yeah and you can start sellingsolar and you just have to
partner with an installer thatwill take you on and Be that
partner for you.
We're very picky about who wepartner with, sure?

(07:36):
So which has always been theknock on us is, we're different.
We don't do things asWilly-nilly as some other people
we talked about.
We've talked about in our wholeprocess how we do things
different, right?
Well, a lot of people don'tlike that because it can tend to
take a little bit more timesometimes.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
When you do stuff with a, with a local company,
then you have the ability offeeling comfortable, regardless
who's knocking on the door,right?
Imagine buying your ToyotaCamry from a guy local and
realizing you got to go toCalifornia to get it serviced.
Yeah, there's no one else toservice it, just someone in
California, right?
But you don't know that untilit's too late, right?
So, as a homeowner, the biggestthing someone should ask is

(08:11):
what's your address?
Are you local?
Who you working with?
Who's your partner?
Because you know a lot of theseguys go out and talk about
being a broker.
You know, like an insurancebroker, they're a solar broker.
We all know that's not true.
You know, they're justbasically trying to have the
best opportunity for thatcustomer, to have the biggest
opportunity For their biggestsavings.
I guess, if that makes sense,yeah and I would say this right.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
So that's that's a really good example.
I love the whole.
You know, having get your carserviced in California, that's
true, we're a local throat tochoke.
I guess.
We're a local company.
We talked about that with oneof our partners having that
local company that we work with.
But we're here.
We have a physical location.
A lot of these companies, thesesales and market companies,
don't have physical locations,right, they're just guys that

(08:51):
are working out of their houseand they get a bunch of their
buddies together and they go outand sell solar and they partner
with somebody.
So that's important, understand.
So in our world, in our otherworld, we are the company that's
at this location that does itall itself.
And now we partner with some ofthese guys because we found
some of the more reputable onesand said, hey, let's be a
partner with you, let's help yougrow your business, but let's

(09:12):
do it the right way.
Yeah right, so you can go outand market and sell it, and we
actually control it, becausewhat we do different than a lot
of people, so a lot of people,they have these businesses and
they'll just go ahead andthey'll build you your systems,
however they want to build them,and they'll sell it to you.
Oh yeah, don't get me started,right, we don't allow that.
Yeah, no, no, no, no, we have a.
How do we do that?

Speaker 3 (09:32):
Well, dan, I mean not Dan, but Dan, daniel, daniel
excuse me, it was Dan we have agentleman, daniel, that does all
of it.
So everything is basically thesame.
So if it's a mistake, we haveone person to go to, but most of
time 98 percent of time thedesigns are correct, whereas if
you allow another company oranother sales team to do it,
they don't take setbacks inconsideration, obstructions.
They don't take anything intoconsideration except the money

(09:54):
going in their pockets.
Yeah, so all they want to do isbuild the biggest system, make
the sale, wait a few days whenthe cancellation period is over,
then go back and say by the way, this system's not gonna fit on
your roof right In the meantime.
Now the customer is upset,frustrated and now doesn't
believe the person because it'sa bill of good, right they're,
they're basically being sold,you know, something that doesn't

(10:15):
actually work or doesn't fittheir home, and they originally
purchased that.
So, right, with Daniel doingeverything, we know that
everything fits, and if they'reexcited there's a problem, we go
back to Daniel.
You know, if a dealer has anissue or sales partner has an
issue, yes, I'm gonna talk to.
But again, like you said, we'rea local company, we don't have
that issue in regards to of acustomer as a problem.
They can technically callHarmon because once it's sold

(10:36):
there are property anyway.
We become they're all part ofHarman's family.
We don't cut out the sales teamor the sales partner.
We just do our job and makingsure everything's taken care of
correctly.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Great points.
And to give it even further sothe contract that you sign is
with Harman to Harman contract.
So you're our customer.
Now with the other companiesyou're signing the contract of
whoever that installer is, andif that sales company Sells you,
they can just walk away andthey're done with us.
Yeah, maybe the sales companythat we're working with you
signed with us.

(11:06):
You're now our customer, we'regonna take care of you just like
we sold you.
Yep, that's how we do it.
Where other installers may notdo that, they may say well, that
guy is the one that sold it toyou, so it's his problem.
You go talk to him, even thoughyou're in a legal bound
contract with that installer.
They might take a little bit ofdifferent approach to it.
They don't care where.
We're gonna sit there and sayno, you're our customer.
Yeah, he did sell you.
I wasn't at the kitchen tablewith you, with him, so we're

(11:27):
gonna.
We're gonna lean on him if hesaid something that wasn't 100%
accurate and we're gonna holdthem accountable.
We do that all day long, but wetry to get them to kind of
speak the way we speak and sellthe way we sell.
Now.
Is that a hundred percentalways gonna happen?

Speaker 3 (11:39):
It doesn't yeah, a hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
But I would say we have a lot of good dealers, yeah
I mean, and we've get rid ofdealers that we find out aren't
good 100%.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
Oh, sorry, in the past I helped out Daniel with
doing those proposals for thoseother dealers and you know there
would be times where a dealersaid, hey, you know, I want this
for the system size or this forthe price, and I would always,
you know, fire back like no,that's probably not in the best
interest of the customer.
You know this is probably abetter idea and I'm saying that
because I know later on down theroad they're going to be
Harman's customer, yeah, theHarman's install, and I don't

(12:09):
want that phone call In thefuture, later on, because you
know why the phone call comes tome, like I don't want to have
to talk to this person later onbecause it was, you know,
designing correctly.
So you know, let me educate youa little bit on what you know
should be done what's best forthe customer and yourself.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
Yeah, and people need to understand, harman.
If you, if you're as a salesteam or a sales Organization,
you want to come work withsomeone, it's Harman.
If you're looking for a quickbuck, don't come here.
Yeah, right, if you're lookingto sell a customer something
that doesn't benefit them, isn'tgonna do what it's supposed to
do, don't come here.
Like you said earlier, we have acertain amount of slots of
dealers that we sales teams, ofpartners that we allow to work
at the same time, and the reason, simple, is we don't want to

(12:46):
get overloaded and overundatedwith with work that we can't do
our job correctly every singletime.
Right, obviously, there's othersolar installers, epcs, here in
Arizona, but they takeeverybody and their mom and when
they're 50, 60, 100 deals deepand they can't keep up and it
takes four to six months to getsomething installed, so many
things can go wrong and so manyissues can happen and the only
person that pays for it is thehomeowner.

(13:08):
I think that's the part thatHarman looks at and, to be
honest, to a frustrating point,as me being A former sales rep,
harman looks at it like this isthe homeowners issue, this is a
homeowners project, this is ahomeowners money.
We don't care what the salesrep thinks.
We need to do what's right bythe home.
Yeah, what?

Speaker 2 (13:27):
what percentage do you think you've turned away
dealers?
I'm sure you have a lot ofdealers that come in, go.
Hey, I want to sell for youguys.
What, honestly?
How, like how often, do youturn?

Speaker 3 (13:35):
them away on a daily basis.
I mean we, I turned away tothis week just because they
didn't seem like they fit.
I'm right, even over aconversation I mean, you know,
we, we have that number that wekeep and, yeah, we try new guys.
And me and Ralph just wentthrough it two weeks ago and we
cut a guy loose that Wasn'tdidn't do a horrible job, but he
just wasn't servicing thecustomers the correct way and it

(13:55):
just doesn't work.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
So if you are a dealer and you're listening to
this, you want to have Harman doyour installs and you gotta be
ethical.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, there was one dealer that was
coming in that wanted to dothings a certain way with the
Hispanic market, yep, and wewere like, well, you can't do
that, that's actually illegal.
Yeah it has to be done this way, the way you pitch it and stuff
, and we were like we won't beparticipating that at all if
you're gonna do it that way.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
And you cut him last week, yep, and it makes part is
these dealers, these sales teams, sales partners, dealers 1099
contracts.
You don't realize the powerthey have.
And they're held captive by somany other companies.
Yeah, because the fact thatthey're afraid to leave and go
to a company like Harman, that'sgonna do things correctly again
.
Like Ralph said, we might notbe the fastest, but it will get
done the first time and it willget done right the first time.

(14:36):
I mean, how many houses do wesee that have solar on the roof,
that it's just sitting thereand it's still not connected or
still not working?

Speaker 1 (14:42):
You know that that's a great point.
There's a lot of companies andthere's one in particular that I
could think of we'll talk aboutin a second that can put a
paperweight on your roof.
Yeah and it's just apaperweight, sure cuz I'm not
gonna get turned on.
You had mentioned there's a.
We had talked to a guy thatcame over to us where he was
working with a company that wasinstalling stuff in seven days.
Yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (14:59):
Don't know how that you know which legally is
impossible.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah, but he was doing it because then the reason
they did that he wanted toattract Dealers so he can get
them paid right away right, theycan't cancel it if it's on your
roof.
Right, right and that's exactlyit, right?
If it's on your roof, how yougonna cancel it?
So he would get it done upthere in seven, eight days and
then pay the guys and then itwould sit God knows how long.
But dealers love the guyBecause they got money in their

(15:21):
pocket in a week.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah, yeah.
Then then one dealer complainsthat he got charged back because
that homeowner called thelender.
The lender canceled Loanenforcement to take it off
because they did it the wrongway.
Right, it's there's.
Unfortunately, with as big asthis market is, there's a lot of
gray area when it comes tosolar and I love Harmon because
it's black or white.
Like Ben was saying when hehelped Daniel, either works for

(15:43):
the customer or it doesn't workfor the customer.
We never, ever mentioned.
Does it work for the sales rep?
Does it work for the owners?
Does it work for you know it's?
Does it work for the homeowneror doesn't it work for the home?

Speaker 1 (15:53):
right, that's the extent and I would say, if you
ever have a dealer knock on yourdoor, a company knock on your
door and says that they partnerwith us, that should make you
feel a little better becausewe've vetted them.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
Tom's talking to him.
He's trying to understand theirbusiness.
We're kind of watching them asthey first start and if they're
not doing it right, he's cuttingthem.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
We're getting rid of them pretty quick.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, so we're gonna make sure that we partner with
the best company, so that that's.
That's kind of important, okay,so I just want to make sure
people really understand what adealer is right.
Yeah so if Ben goes out and Get, goes to the corporation
commission and he pays his 59bucks or whatever it is and he
gets an LLC called Ben's solar Ilike the name of that you

(16:32):
should run right away when hecomes in your door.
But Ben.
Then Ben can come to Tom and say, hey, I want to sell solar and
give my jobs to you.
Tom will vet him out and say,okay, we'll take your business
on, we'll start you at a certainlevel, blah, blah, blah.
And then Ben will go out andstart selling as Ben's solar, as
a with an install partner ofHarman solar, yeah.

(16:54):
And so then you understand he'syour sales and marketing
company.
He's knocking doors, he's doingwhatever it takes to get
business, he's signing you onour paperwork and doing you know
our design and our thing.
We won't let Ben go sell solarand design his own thing and do
what he wants.
We kind of.
We kind of put a little bit ofcontrol around Ben.
Yeah, and some people don'tlike I'm assuming you talk to

(17:15):
everybody.
They kind of some people don'tlike it, some people love it.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
Yeah, most people first don't like it.
We have a few that'll.
It'll actually go a differentdirection because they don't
like it.
But they want access toeverything.
And the problem is, if we givethem access to everything, then
they have more opportunities toscrew over a Homeowner, right?
Yep, we don't want them havingaccess to Financial information.
We don't have access to socialsecurity numbers.
We don't have access toanything.
We just want them to be able togo in.

(17:38):
If, if they go to and get alicense I want to be Ben solar
then in your sales with an actlike a salesman, which all he
needs you to do it's go in thehouse, do your job, sell it,
daniel and back and I'll takecare of credit, take care of
designs, take care of documents,take care of everything, and
then, once that's done and sold,then we have someone else to
take care getting you paid.
I mean, it's it's.
What easier life can you havewhen you have so much more going

(17:58):
on under water?
Yeah, and you can just focus onlooking pretty and selling.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
I would agree.
We make it very, very easy forsales companies.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah, you just go out and sell it.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
We do everything.
We'll do everything.
You sell it.
Yeah, and the only disconnect Iever see there is the guy that
doesn't want to sell At areasonable rate 100%, I mean we
make it to.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
Where are you gonna do?
Show up at 6 pm and yourdinners on the table?
I just need you eat and leave,right?
Yeah, I mean in and correct, Imean there's, there's.
There's, unfortunately, salesteams out there that again
homeowners not Anywhere in thethought process of doing what's
right.
So, yeah, I mean we've letpeople go because they sell too
high.
Yeah, we've let people gobecause you know customers are

(18:39):
complaining or they're notgetting what they want.
Harman always takes care of thecustomers, always make sure
it's right.
But the goal with Harman andthe reason of having only a
certain amount of spots is thefact that we can focus on who's
doing it Right and help them bebetter at what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah, I do remember a Guy that we had on for a little
bit.
I'm not sure if he's stillaround, but he came from
California and he was, you know,say I want to sell it at this
price.
You know like, oh, that's,that's really really high, you
know well, that's what I used tosell in California.
I'm like what worked inCalifornia is not gonna work in
Arizona.
So yeah, you know I'm sureshowed great savings in
California, but here it's anegative saving.

(19:13):
So no, we're not gonna let youdo that.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yeah, you have 40 cents a kilowatt hour in
California.
Yeah, you can sell a lot morethan you can in Arizona.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, yeah, so and that's the point I was gonna
usually went around to.
What I was gonna talk about isif a guy you mentioned earlier
blitzes, so explain what a blitzis blitz is where you'll get a
company.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
Let's say they're based in New Jersey, it's cold
this time of year.
They'll go rent an Airbnb,let's say in Phoenix, that
sleeps 10.
They'll send out 20 guys,they'll rotate them and they
basically just Blitz aneighborhood, like in football.
Right, they send everybody theycan at the quarterback.
It's the same thing with theblitz they're gonna send as many

(19:48):
people in the neighborhood,they don't care what needs to be
done.
They're gonna sell and then in30 days they're gone.
So if there's an issue, you gotto take your car to New Jersey
to get it fixed.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
Right, it's, it's just doesn't you're gonna try to
first beat on the installerthat they're working with out
here, but there's a good chancethat install is gonna say, hey,
go to New Jersey.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
Well, yeah, not only that, but what if that and what
if that installer?
You don't who the installer is.
There's, there's a largerinstall partner here in Arizona.
Right, that it's all in salesrep.
And for the sales team andtheir sales rep, all they got to
do is not pick up the phone.
Yeah, there's no address.
There's no, nothing.
You know there's.
There's nothing.
There's no recourse with Harmon.
You can pick up the phone andtalk to the owners.
Yeah, right, you can talk toyou, you can talk to me, you can

(20:27):
talk.
There's always someone to talkto at Harmon, which, again,
harmon might not be doing it ahundred percent, but the 95% of
stuff that we're doing the rightway is the important stuff
that's being done the right way.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, so you really need to understand who the
installer is.
Yeah, I mean look them up yeahunderstand about them and maybe
even call them and ask them hey,does this guy work with you?
What's the relationship like?
I mean you can do that.
We've got people do that withus.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
Yeah, and the thing about the Blitz, is it all?
You have to say where you guysfrom?
Oh, new Jersey.
Where's your offices?
We don't have one.
We're in New Jersey.
Well, that should be anindicator that you know what
right flag you know.
Just because someone sticks aHot dog caught on the corner
doesn't mean the hot dogs aregood for you, right.
It doesn't mean you're gonna goeat and have a good hot dog.
Where is this corner?

Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yeah, there's a lot of them.
I'm hungry, drive down, drivedown Dobbins.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
There's a lot of them down there.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Arizona is is such a hot market for solar that that's
why you have these blitzes.
They happen all the time,especially in the summer.
If you guys are at home and younotice that in summer, office
on your doors getting knocked ona lot by Solar companies,
that's what's going on.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
Your neighborhoods getting hit, yeah, yeah if a
homeowner, the first questionout of their mouth.
The two questions should beasked do you have an office
local and Is or do you installor do you have an install
partner?
And I guess the third questionwould be is your install partner
in Arizona?
Yeah yeah, and that's a reallygood point.
That'll weed out some of themare.

(21:48):
No, that'll weed out what 90%of them.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
That's a really good.
I didn't even think about that.
Some of the installers areactually out of state installers
, yeah, that get permissionthrough whatever they do to
actually install here, butthey're not in it, they're not a
local install.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
And then have subcontractors doing you know
the electrical work or theroofing work or this and that
we're kind of pieces together.
I actually know not a solarcompany, but a guy who owns like
an electric company and hedoesn't do anything solar.
He just every now and then hegets you know these calls like
hey, can, this is your license,can we use your license and you
help install these solar panels?

(22:19):
Like what?

Speaker 3 (22:22):
Yeah, there's.
All you have to do is find anelectrician that you can use
their license and and he doesn'thave to do a thing you can file
everything under his name andyou're good to go.
You know it's, it's, it's,that's the world, it's, it's
very scary.
So those would be my questionsto a homeowner would just be
your, you know?
Yeah, like I said it would beare you Selling for yourself or
for somebody else?
Somebody else who's yourinstall partners, your install

(22:44):
partner local to Arizona?
And if they are, can I get theaddress please?
Yeah, and the name of theaddress yeah, that'll knock out
90% of the competitors inArizona and see that guy walk
away from your door.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, exactly, they're my exactly, or he'll lie
up and down.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, yeah, but you're, you know, obviously
gonna Research that yourself.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
So again, we, harman, got into this for a lot of
reasons, but one of the reasonswas we were seeing what was
going on and we're trying tomake the industry not as bad as
it has been, with some of thesepeople that come into the
industry for cash grabs, likeyou said earlier.
So we wanted to be a part ofthis.
We wanted to sit, not be partof the cash grab, but we wanted
to be part of trying to keep itas clean as possible.

(23:22):
We said let's build our owndealer network, let's get these
sales companies to work with us,and we'll kind of put them on
constraint a little bit andwe'll try to do it the right way
.
Yeah, and we've been doing thatnow for I don't know seven,
eight years.
I want to say, and we've hadsome really, really good
partners that we've been able toreally guide the right way and
we've done a lot of goodbusiness.
I will say this if a partner ofours knocks on your door and Is

(23:44):
pitching you solar and then younotice that worthy installer
and you're like, well, I'm justgonna call Harman.
They're gonna pitch me, but I'mgonna call Harman and try to
get a better price or do, no, wewon't look.
We can't do that because weactually Value our partners
tremendously and we're not gonna.
That's a conflict of interestfor us.
And if they've come and talkedto you and they're you're buying
solar from them.
We're not gonna, we're notgonna, let you go around them.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah, that wouldn't be good business and we would.
That's not ethical.
We wouldn't do that to you.
You know, if you have a homebusiness and you're selling
products at your home, you knowif you're I don't know, selling
Tupperware or a Avon, and we go,oh that's cool, but I'm gonna
go somewhere else and get youknow better pricing from them,
you would.
You wouldn't like that if wedid that.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Right, exactly the relationship that we keep and
harm is one of few companies.
And if you do sell Mrs Smithand two weeks that are, mrs
Smith calls to Harman saying,hey, I got a family member that
wants to.
My solar harm is one of the fewinstallers actually refer you
back to your salesman, rightback to the, the team or the
partner that originally sold it.
Right, we're not gonna keepthat in house and sell it and
make more money.
We're gonna give it back to theguy who caused the phone call.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
We didn't create that lead, we didn't create that
customer, that sales company did.
They deserve to have that back.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, that's not ours , that's ethical Yep ethical
Ethical ethical right so let'stalk about some of the other
things.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
So the differences so we know that the we talked
about the differences.
As far as there are sales andmarketing company, they're their
own thing where their partnersand stuff.
But once a job is sold, whatdifferences are?
There are their differences, Imean, for that customer.
Is he gonna?

Speaker 2 (25:10):
so if I sell a system for Harman, versus.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Versus another dealer selling a system.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
What happens afterwards?
there's a customer know adifference you know, I don't
think a customer know adifference.
If the sales partner pitchedPositions it right and does the
right thing by going sayingHarman is our sales, my sales
partner, my preferred partner,it should be the end of
conversations.
Hey, now that everything isdone, you should be expecting a
phone call from Harman.
They're gonna set up your sideaudit, they're gonna do the
permitting, they're gonna dodesign, they're gonna do
everything.

(25:35):
But make sure you call me ifyou have any questions.
But you're basically Harman'snow.
You're part of the Harmanfamily, right?
So they're really.
I guess the only thing thatwould really be different would
be, instead of the homeownercalling Harman to talk to their
sales rep, they would just becalling our partner to talk to
the sales rep, and some salescompanies like they have their
own project managers.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
There's a few of them , yeah, where they want to
manage the project instead ofletting Harman do it.
So what Harman does in thatcase is we have a project
manager that works with theirproject manager and fees them
all the information that they'llthen feed to you as a customer.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah.
So I guess the only differencecould be who you hear from with
every step of the way, right?
Right, so you're gonna hearback from your sales rep and
their project manager or youhear from our side and our
project manager?
Yeah, one thing I wanted to goback on.
That's really important.
You're talking about thedifference between the EPC and
the sales partner.
If Ben solar goes out and getsLLC wants to do it, ben can only

(26:27):
sell cash deals because he hasno way to get financing.
You know, to get thesefinancing and work with these
finance companies takes yearsand years and years of
experience and, to be honest,you got to have financial
stability to do that, right?
I mean, remember we had thatone lender credit human.
It took us eight months to getthem.
Yeah, and we're a prettyfinancially secure and

(26:48):
profitable company and for themto take eight months to get that
to us, ben solar would neverget that.
He would never get any lending.
So these guys that want to jumpin and go, hey, let me go sell
solar I don't think they reallyunderstand the actual
Frustrations of trying to dothat, because even as good as
Harman is, we get deniedsometimes.
Yeah, you know, but that wasjust something I was thinking of
, because that's the biggestthing I think.

(27:08):
If you want to get a lease,you're not gonna do it If it's
been solar.
If you want to get financing,anyone of our lenders is not
gonna be been solar.
So you have to partner with theright person.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
So if Ben solar partners with Harman, now you're
gonna use our finance exceptBen gets every, then gets
everything under our roof.
Right and that's our risk.
Right we're allowing Ben solarnow use our financing
connections and partners and ourour relationships to sell solar
100% and again we go back toagain to go back to who we pick.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
So if Ben decides to go out and lie and not tell the
truth, right, it's on Harman'spaper, so it comes back to
Harman.
So for us we have to be veryparticular who we work for.
Like you said, they've got tobe vetted and we got to know
they're doing the right thing,because again it's opens up a
financial can of worms if we'rehaving issues with someone we
allow on.
And has that happened?

Speaker 1 (27:47):
before?
Absolutely yes.
And have we got rid of thosedealers?
Yes, have we taken care of thecustomer?
Exactly every time, every time,and sometimes it's painful.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
Can we change the name of Ben solar?
I just don't like the initials.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
Well, I mean.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
Think about that, but I kind of like it yeah wow, I
kind of like that a lot.
Yeah, that really describes alot about you.
What?

Speaker 3 (28:10):
Oh, you meant, you meant best solar that's what.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
I thought.
So we understand the processesare a little bit different, but
they're the same in the end.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Oh, what I was gonna mention when we were talking
about after the sale.
I know from my projectmanagement experience, like we,
when we would get a new project,we didn't know who it came from
, who sold it.
We would just be, it would just, you know, come across our desk
and say, hey, you know, ben,this is your new, this is your
new, your new customer.
Yeah, I could sure I could goback in our system and find out

(28:39):
who sold it, what company soldit, things like that.
But that's not how it waspresented.
It was.
It was Ben, this is yourcustomer.
So you're automaticallythinking this is a Harman
customer.
Now Treat them like a Harmancustomer.
Set up, you know, set up theaudit and all the do all the
things that you normally do withevery other customer.
So in that aspect, it is thesame whether that's a good point
when you were a Harman customeror some other Another customer

(29:00):
you, in the end you're a Harmancustomer.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, because in Ben's eyes that's who it was
right it's.
It doesn't matter who it'scoming from.
Once Ben got his hands on it,knew it's a Harman customer.
Then we treated everybody thesame.
There was no right differencebetween customer a customer b.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
The biggest difference is we're not at the
kitchen table when you'regetting sold, so we have no idea
.
I mean, here's just to explainthe process.
So that sales company gives usthe information about you, your
usage, your address, your name,all that information, our team
takes it in and builds a systemthat's going to work for your
situation, like we've talkedabout a million times.

(29:34):
Right, we give that proposal tothat dealer.
Now they may take that proposaland put it into their own
proposal and use the numbersfrom our proposal, or they may
just give you the proposal wegave them that has their name on
it.
We don't know, we're notsitting there, so we're hoping
that they're giving you theaccurate information and then
you're buying it based on that.

(29:56):
My point being so, let's sayit's installed and it's all
working, and a year from nowyou're looking at this going.
Well, this is not what the guytold me.
We've heard that a couple oftimes.
This is not what the guy toldme.
I don't see that Ourresponsibility to you is.
We have an installationcontract with you, the customer.
We have to ensure that what weput on your roof is doing what
it's designed to do.

(30:16):
That's the phone calls you getright.
So we have to make sure thatwe're holding up on our end.
Now, if somebody told yousomething different outside of
what the system's supposed to do, like I don't know, they
promised you $10,000.
They promised you this.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
I have no idea what they told you, you promised you
no bill.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
Right, they promised you no bill.
They told you you're going toget checks cut from your tax,
whatever it is.
That's not a Herman thing.
We don't represent that.
We actually in our contract,you'll see, there's language
that basically says you sat withthis company, we're just
installing this for you, so wecan't take on that liability
because we didn't do it.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, I always tell people we are like the cooks in
the kitchen.
Right, You're sitting at thetable in the restaurant.
You're talking to your waiteror waitress, that waiter or
waitress tells us the cooks inthe kitchen what to make.
We don't know what you guystalked about, but we're just
getting our information fromyour server and we're making
your order.
So we developed your system, weinstalled your system up to our

(31:13):
standards.
But whatever you guys talkedabout, we don't know.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
Yeah, if you told the waiter you wanted medium rare
and it came back, well done.
We didn't know that as the cook, unless we heard something from
your waiter.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yeah, your waiter might have told us well done, so
we made it well done, exactly,Exactly so that's one of the
biggest differences between thesales company or buying direct
from Herman.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
If it's a Herman employee on your room or in your
kitchen table that'srepresenting us.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah, we know what they're saying at that point.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
We hope.
We know what they're saying.
We know what.
The guy's been here long enough.
We know what they're saying,but we're responsible for what
comes out of their mouth.
If it's another company that'sat your kitchen table and we're
just the installer, I have noresponsibility or liability for
what that company tells you andthis is the key right that we
try to work with companies thatwe can trust at your kitchen
table, versus all the guys outthere that I wouldn't trust at

(32:03):
all with anybody that I know,because I know they're out there
trying to put every penny theycan in their pocket.
So I would say can I give you100% insurance that anybody that
works with Herman is 100% legit?
No, I can't, but I'm gonna tellyou they're probably gonna be
better than most and as soon asthey do something wrong, we're
gonna be all over them, if notdump them, Right, yeah we wanna
make sure we're going back tothe car analogy.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
We wanna make sure if your car's gonna work on, it's
an authorized Toyota mechanic.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Right, that's a good point.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
It doesn't mean that they're gonna still do
everything the way Toyota wantsit done, but we're gonna have,
in the back of our mind, thepeace of mind knowing that, okay
, well, they're doing things theway that Toyota wants it done.
Same thing with Herman.
We only bring on the salespartners and the dealers that
are doing things the way Hermanwants it done, so that we can
focus on the customers and thetasks at hand without having to
worry about what's going on atthe kitchen table.

(32:50):
Right, it just gives us a lotmore peace of mind.
But again, we make mistakes andsometimes we allow people to
sell with Herman that don't dotheir job, but they don't last
very long.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
I love that analogy.
That's like if you buy a Fordand you haven't worked on with a
Ford dealer all the time, Imean you know that you're going
there, they're Ford certifiedand trained and they're working
on it.
But if you take it to Joe'sindependent shop that maybe
knows how to work on Ford's,there's no guarantee and you
can't blame Ford if this guymesses up your car 100%.
I made the car.
It works great.
If he touches it and screws itup, that's not my fault.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
Yeah, it's like you know what I need to replace my
fan belt and Joe's independentgoes.
Well, we can make this one fit,right, and it's not supposed to
even fit for that car.
Something breaks and six monthsdown the road your engine blows
because it overheats right, yougo back to Joe's independent.
It's like where'd Joe'sindependent go?
Well, not us.
We've been here since 1974,harmon's not going anywhere.

(33:42):
We have no plans of goinganywhere, whereas 99% of people
that are knocking on your doorcannot say the same thing.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
That's kind of what these dealer network is.
It's, the dealer network is theaftermarket repair industry.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
For all of them.
That's kind of what it is Verytrue.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
You either go to a dealer, or you go to an
aftermarket repair.
Either way you're gonna, youknow, hopefully get the thing
done right, but you're gonnahave more confidence, probably
taking it to a dealer I know Itake my car no, nothing but a
dealer.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
That's just the way I deal.
We've been doing the same thingrecently.
We didn't do that beforebecause of the problem of, hey,
take our F-150 and we'rethinking we're getting a Ford
part or a Ford OEM replacementpart.
Come to find out, no, they'reputting you know auto boys on
brakes on my car and they squeakthe whole time.
Well, I would have went to Ford,that wouldn't have been an

(34:26):
issue.
So we do the same thing.
We take our cars back to adealership Because at least we
have someone larger to holdaccountable with.
If John L Way Lexus is theretoday and I get my car worked
and John Lexus L Way has gonetomorrow, I can still go to
Lexus, doesn't?

Speaker 1 (34:38):
mean anything, you can go to any.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
Lexus dealer Yep exactly.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
And probably the biggest difference is in the car
industry.
The dealers are more expensive,typically, typically.
That's why people don't like togo to them.
That's not necessarily the casein the solar industry, so it
actually could be the other wayaround.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
A dealer could be more expensive than we would be.
I would say for the most part,they probably are.

Speaker 3 (34:58):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
Not always.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
No, but you have those, these EPC partners,
dealer partners that you workwith, that will.
They don't care.
It's like you know give me asale, don't care how you sell it
, what you sell it for, I'll payyou, I'll keep my money.
Let's move on.
And when there's a problem, youknow, joe's independent doesn't
exist anymore.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
I would say the Harman dealers are really good
about that.
They're not gouging.
No, the way I've seen withthese other dealers that work
with other installers, they aregouging people.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
Yes, badly.
Yes, we're talking with 25%, 20, 25% more is what I've seen
compared to the Harman salespartners.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
I go on Reddit sometimes and I look at people's
.
You know how they start threadson there and you see where they
dealt with a sales company andthey're getting charged X and
I'm like, wow, that's a lot ofmoney for that system.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
It comes down to that leash that we have on them.
You know, when Daniel sends anemail out with the proposal,
it's Daniel who's typing in thenumbers for the price and you're
on that email and you're onthat email.
It's like we, everyone knowsthat you're not hiding anything.
Everyone knows what you want tocharge, you know for the
customer and how much you wantto make, and you know things
like that.
And it's really up to that teamof people to decide yes, this

(36:00):
is okay.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
And our number one rule is we will not pitch a
negative Right.
So if a dealer comes to us witha price and it turns out it's
going to put you upside down, wewon't allow them to pitch it.
We just don't.
That's just a rule.
We've always had that.
A lot of people don't like so,but we just do that as a point
of integrity.
You say we want to try to saveyou something day one.
We know there's a total savingsover 20 years.
That's how the industry is.

(36:22):
But we're trying to see if wecan save you money day one.
It's gotten.
You know it gets toughsometimes, but for the most part
we can do that yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
Cause I don't want those phone calls.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
And I think it's important that people realize
that Dan and Julie have set itup to where we have it to, where
we're not going to allow onedealer, one sales partner, to do
anything that's going to affectHarmon's reputation in Arizona.
Right, they've built it so longand been around for so long
that that's why we're so stricton who we allow in.
Right, it is unfortunate.

(36:52):
It is an exclusive club.
It really really is.
If you get in, feel lucky andif you get kicked out, then you
did something wrong.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
I can think of just a couple of things.
You know, when we're in ourmeetings and we're talking about
customers and problems, wherethe customer wants something
installed in a certain place orthey want it done a certain way,
and it's sold by a dealer andthey didn't know, because you
know, we go and inspect it anddo our thing and we're like we
can't do this, yeah, it's notgoing to happen, and the dealer
kind of you know the customer islike wow, this is what I want.
Well, if you go with a differentcompany, I'm sure you'll get it

(37:22):
.
They'll probably try to do itfor you.
It doesn't not going to be safeor it may not work, but we're
just not going to do it, andthat applies to our dealers, I
mean.
So if you're a dealer with us,if it's not something that can
be done, we're not doing it.
I don't care if the other guywill do it for you.
No matter what we won't, we'regoing to do it the right way.
So that's where we're different, like he just said, and it is
kind of an exclusive club, andthat's why there are some people
that don't want to join thatclub.

Speaker 3 (37:42):
No, we get.
I get a lot of people that youexplain the situation and what
we do and they're like, oh, youknow, I'll go somewhere else.
And it's like.
I appreciate their honestybecause I eventually we're going
to tell them to go somewhereelse because they're not going
to do what they're supposed tobe doing Right.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
We are not going to sit there and take their
liability and risk for theirstupidity because they want to
make a lot of money and dothings the wrong way.
Yeah that's just not who we are.

Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yeah, our dealers are not a.
Do it and ask for forgivenesslater.
We're just, we're just notgoing to do that.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
I'm a dealer, you sign your contract, I get my
commission, it's, I get my moneyand I'm off to the next guy.
Well, guess what?
You're our customer for thenext 20, 30 years.
We don't get to just say ohsorry and go walk away.
So we have to make sure thatyou come in as a customer the
right way from the beginning,because we own you in a sense.
Yeah, 100%, and we're a dealeris like next yeah, there's so

(38:27):
many install partners out therethat just don't care that you
can.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
literally every week you can be working with
something different and havedifferent rules and different
regulations and differentexpectations.
We've stayed pretty consistentas long as I've been with Harman
.
I remember first starting tosell with Harman and getting
frustrated because some of thethings that Harman wanted to do
and I'm like just do it, nope,we don't do it.
We don't do it.
And it came back to where if Iwould have pushed it then I

(38:50):
would have done the wrong thingfor the customer right.
And that was my first gettinginto solar the first time and
working with Solar City.
It was like it's a wild, wildwest do what you want whenever
you want.
You start getting wrangled inand start getting pulled back
into the right way to do thingsand it hurts at first but in the
long run I mean I've gothundreds of customers.
I don't have any dissatisfiedcustomers.
I don't get called, I don't getbothered, I get referrals.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
We've had a lot of new guys come in and they'll say
well, that's not how I wastaught.
Yeah, that's scary, but ithappens all the time.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
And how many did you sell?
That happened to you and youcame in because you were being
taught the wrong way.
I came in from another companyand I left that company just
because I was like this doesn'tfeel right.
What they want me to say, whatthey want me to do, that doesn't
make any sense.
But I don't see how all theseother younger guys are going out
and selling and doing it.
It's like I gotta leave.
So then I came here.

(39:39):
I was like, yeah, I was taughtway wrong, way different.
This makes more sense now, theway to do it.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
I talked to a possible sales partner a couple
of days ago, the one gentlemanthat you saw, we talked
yesterday about SRP.
He was like what?

Speaker 2 (39:53):
What's this?
Energy management?

Speaker 3 (39:54):
system.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
What's this.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
I said well, let me explain it.
Explain to him you know what.
I really appreciate yourhonesty, because this was never
I was told you do this sizeoffset, don't worry about it,
buyback's fantastic.
And then you start telling themto do research and these guys
actually start taking someoneelse's word or doing their
homework and they start goingholy crud.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
Buyback is fantastic, yeah.
Exactly 2.81 cents is fantasticyeah great.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
So 140% offset in SRP , you'll get all your money back
.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah, and if you don't know, go look and listen
to our SRP podcast and you'lllearn everything you want to
learn about Every time I hearthose stories, I'm always
thinking how many systems didyou sell?

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yeah, how many customers are out there right
now?

Speaker 1 (40:32):
Oh, we have one guy and I know you know him.
He now lives up in the Midwest,but he was taught by somebody
that's on the radio constantlyabout how great they are for
solar.
I'm not gonna say who, but hewas selling 100% wrong, 100%
wrong.
He's like, well, that's how shetold me to sell.
And I'm like, well, wow, shereally messed you up because

(40:52):
what she was telling you is 100%inaccurate, but she made a lot
of sales and a lot of money.
I'm like I'm sure she did.

Speaker 3 (40:58):
That's that lady from Ben's solar right.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
Yeah, but he quickly realized oh my gosh, I've been
messing people up.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
Yeah, I don't know how some of these guys can sleep
at night with the way they dostuff.
I really, really don't.
It's just crazy On their goldplated mattresses.
Yeah, pretty much right.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Gold plated mattresses.
Okay, so I think we've goneover this pretty well.
Sure, I mean, the biggest thingyou talked about is ask the
questions.
What questions should they askagain?

Speaker 3 (41:26):
Are you the installer ?
Are you a sales team?
Is your installer local inArizona and, if they are, what's
the address?
Bingo.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, that's where you start the conversation with
somebody that they keep ontalking about solar with you at
your door.
Have those questions ready andask those questions and you know
what?
Let them give you a quote.
And then come to us and let usgive you a real quote.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
Yeah, I don't think we've been beat on pricing by a
legitimate quote ever.
I would agree.
Remember Oklahoma we were 20 to25% lower without even making
an effort.
Arizona.
It's the same thing.
I don't think I mean as much,as Ben probably still gets and I
get, and we don't do sales alot.
It's just amazing, right?
Yeah, I just don't get it.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah, I always talk to my customers, get four or
five quotes, which they'realways like what you want me to
get more quotes?
Yeah, go ahead, get four orfive quotes.
And we always come in like wow,you guys are like very
competitive.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
Yeah, and I've always talked, see, yeah, and I always
tell customers get quotes, evenif harm's not who you go with.
Call me and ask me and I'll behonest with you.
And if you choose to go withsomeone else, that'll be your
choice.
But at least you'll have everysingle bullet for that gun to
make sure you can shoot down anysort of questions or gray areas
that you might have.
I just want you it's your money, it doesn't matter who you go
with, just make sure you go withthe right person.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
If it sounds too good to be true, it's probably not.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
Remember three out of four dentists, that fourth
dentist was a kook man.
He was always a crazy guy,Didn't know what he was doing,
but he was probably the one thatwas right yeah we're typically
that fourth dentist Yep, exactlyright.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
That's so true.
So don't be afraid to getmultiple quotes.
Unless you're dealing with adealer that has us as an
installer, we're not gonna giveyou a quote.
Yeah, so just understand thatwe won't do it.
That's the integrity thing withour dealer partners.
When we have partners, wecreate partners.
They really are partners.
We try to be the best partnerpossible.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
Yeah, didn't you have a partner who was with us for a
while, went and came back?

Speaker 1 (43:16):
Oh yeah that's happened on multiple partners
where they worked with us for along time and they were happy,
and then, for whatever reason,somebody the install network is
very competitive, so you haveall these installers trying to
steal people because they wantmore business, and so they got
really aggressive with this guyand he left.
And then he quickly realizedthat, oh my goodness, everything
they told me was a lie.
They really didn't give me thisprice.
They're really not doing whatthey said they were gonna do.

(43:36):
It's so hard for me to get paid.
It's ridiculous.
You guys always paid me.
You guys were always honest andupfront with me blah blah, blah
, blah.
But they were.
They were preaching.
We can go faster, faster.
Faster is not always better.
We talked about all the time.
Faster speed does not equalquality or does not equal better
.
It just equals a paperweight onyour roof.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
Yeah, their speed limit is for a reason, so you
can do things properly andsafely, right there are rules we
have to play by.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
They're not our rules , but we have to play by them,
and so we do.
Does everyone do that?
Absolutely not, and you'll findout.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
The one thing that attracted me or I enjoy about
the sales partner program withHarmon is is that we're not a
greedy company.
By any means.
Remember end of 2023, headinginto 2024, we had that panel
manufacturer we deal with.
They gave us a better price.
We turn around and gave everyone of our dealer partners a
better price.
What other companies canactually lower their price ever?

(44:28):
Right, I mean we've actuallylowered our price two or three
times.
I mean our pricing now is basedoff of an individual, not based
off of volume, not based off ofhow big your company is.
I like Harmon because we'vetreated every single person
equally, regardless.
If you have one guy or 50 guys,everybody starts at the same
price and you go from therewhich is the way it should be
right.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Yeah, it's a great dealer program.
If you're a dealer and you'rehearing this and you want to
learn about it, I would say youknow, give us a call, give us an
email.
What's that solar?
What's that email?

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Just put Tom's number on the solar.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
I think it's a.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Solar partners.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, solar partners, I think.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
And Harmon.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
Yeah, I'll look and give it to you, but yeah, Okay,
we'll flash that on the screenfor you.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
So you have that.
But yeah, give us, reach out tous.
You can also call us800-281-3189 and you can ask Gio
or whoever answers the phone.
Hey, I want to talk to Tomabout becoming a dealer.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
Yeah, extension 150.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Extension 150.
Social security number 557.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
But, yeah, reach out to us because our program is
really good and it's, if you'relooking for a real partner to be
with that's going to help yougrow your business the right way
.
You would want to definitelytalk to us.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
And, if all is mistaken, we might even have,
might even get better here inthe next few weeks.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
We have some things coming down that are going to be
pretty interesting.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
Yeah, might get even better.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
We're giving away a free chocolate ice cream cone
with every purchase.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
So Ben's solar is signing up?
Yeah, we're giving Chalupa.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
We've seen your background information we're not
interested.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
Well, you know why it's called BS solar.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
I'm still working here.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
All right, I think that's.
I think we've hit it.
Yeah, all right, so that wasour dealer network.
That was our dealer network.
Yeah, hopefully you have anunderstanding of what a dealer
network is and when somebodyknocks on your door, you have an
understanding of, maybe, thequestions to ask and how to deal
with them and then kind of kindof see through the fog at the
who you're really dealing with,because make sure they have an
address here, make sure they'rea local installer.
Those things are so important.
We've been here since 75.

(46:21):
There's a reason for that.
Understand that you're aninstaller that you're working
with, or the company you'reworking with is from Arizona,
not from New Jersey, not fromCalifornia.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
Those things are kind of important.
Yeah, you know I just thoughtabout it that everybody that
works on a home through harm andelectricians are certified
electricians.
I can't say that about otherinstallers, can't say that about
any other EPCs, because I knowa few that don't.
It's just who they can say, hey, do this, do that, and they
hope it's done right.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
You're in that world and you talk to a lot of those
different people.
So you've seen a lot of thisstuff.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
Yeah, but I talk to a lot of other gentlemen in my
position that are veryfrustrated, but they don't leave
because it's a paycheck, yeah,yeah, and a lot of times they're
really good paycheck, yeah,exactly.
So just make sure, as ahomeowner, you do your due
diligence to make sure that yourmoney is being spent wisely and
your investment is being givenback to you in a timely manner,
not in your 19.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
We laugh, but that is so true, I laugh because it's
true, you're 19,.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
If the utility company goes up 180% and you're
19, we'll throw them out.
You'll be making money.
It's unfortunate.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
And the utility companies are always gonna go up
.
We just went through it.
Aps has got to prove for eightand a half percent increase.
Yes, love it, and that won't bethe last one, I guarantee you.
That's everybody.
All the utilities are on thecountry, all right, solar's more
important than ever, but yougot to make sure you hook up
with the right partner andthat's the dealer network.
So, tom, thanks for joining us.
Oh, thanks for having meAppreciate your wisdom and your

(47:42):
experience.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
Even though it's last , the chulup was made up for it.
Thanks, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
And what are we talking about next Service?

Speaker 2 (47:49):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
We're gonna bring in a guy.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
So we got our.
You know, you bought your solarsystem, it's installed,
everything's going great, but ohno, something broke.
What do I do?
Who do I call?
What happens so?

Speaker 3 (48:01):
You could call that a bed solar.
Well the thing is is how manyof the service calls are from
installers that are no longeraround.
Oh yeah, we're gonna talk aboutthat.
A lot of our businesses fromthat too.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
Yeah, so we're bringing on our service manager
who is gonna talk about thatdepartment?
And how they're there for you,and we're one of the few
companies that has a servicedepartment, a pretty big one too
.
Stay tuned, so stay tuned.
We'll see you next time andwe'll talk to you soon.
Music.