Ein Solar-Unternehmen bei 850.000 Umsatz skalieren

0:00Unternehmer/Gast I sell solar. I'm a I'm like a marketing company for solar providers in California. Uh so we sell to homeowners. Uh I'm currently we opened up last April. Uh and I did $850,000 last year. So um I want to be at $10 million. The biggest I know. I know. Um the biggest concern that I first have >> Yesterday. Yesterday, yeah. >> Yeah. Um I think that our my biggest concern right now is that I think we have a very much of an apples to apples comparison to other solar companies. Um I don't think our offer is actually that special in terms of like you know, relatively speaking.

0:37>> Yeah, for sure. Um and so I've been trying to find ways to create an apples to oranges comparison. Um our sales are it's like me and my business partner we're very good at sales. So we have like a you know, we did door-to-door for like a decade. So you know, we're like 80% close rates. Um but it's a battle, right? And we and we do lose people to price shopping, which is you know, we're 100% virtual. Um so I'm trying to figure out how to create an apples to orange uh comparison in the solar industry, which is very much a commodity market.

1:06Yeah. But you don't have control over the product, right? That's correct. Yeah. So [snorts] um I'll I'll be honest, it's very tough. Like you can't you actually can't really change your offer. Right? And so the only thing that you can do is change the terms, but it's a zero-sum game. Mhm. So every dollar you take out of your pocket you put it into you know, the like every dollar you give the customer you're taking out of your pocket because you you can't control the variables, right?

1:35>> Right. Yeah. Um so what were the margins that you made on the 800? Uh we made half of that. Okay. Yeah. So I'll say this. I don't think the constraint of the business is that it's commoditized. Okay. So although it may be frustrating, you're running 50% margins on a business that you have very little operational complexity around. And so if you want to hit 10 million, you absolutely could hit 10 million. There's tons of solar companies that go from zero to 10, zero to 20 in like 12 months, 24 months. It's not that uncommon. Yeah. Um but the business that you're really in is the recruiting, hiring, training of sales people business.

2:10And that's that's the game, right? The business is not super sellable. Um it I mean it it is sellable. Like you can sell it like one times uh and then you can basically meld your team into some other guys' distribution base and it all gets aggregated. >> Yeah. And that's kind of how that industry is going. Um but I don't like basically you don't have enough control over the business to really materially change the offer. Yeah.

2:38And so I don't normally say that, but essentially and like this is hopefully you're not taking it as a slight. It's just like you're a hired gun. You know what I mean? And so you've got two hired guns and you guys are both really you're mercenaries. You're both really good at at sales and you're making basically the same amount that a top-tier sales guy would at uh at a sales org. And so the only leverage that you're going to get is training, your ability to train, onboard, recruit uh other guys who can do the same thing as you and you get an override on on their commissions. Yeah.

3:02Alex And so if anything, I would say that so um we're getting to the answer. So No, yeah, for sure. basically where you can have a competitive advantage is not on the customer side but on the salesman side. And so I would reorient all my attention to being like how can I make the best offer to sales people? How can I get more sales people onboarded? How can I have superior training? How can I have better data and analytics and better lead gen for them so that their job of selling is made easiest with me. For everything else minus the core offer.

3:36Yeah, my my vision long-term is with solar, especially in California, it's it's a savings-oriented sale. So it's like your bill is this, you're going to pay less money, etc. Um As long as the credits are there. What's that? As long as the credits are there. Which is also a problem, but so >> Soon. Yeah, for real. Um my my >> I divested from a solar company. What was that you >> I divested from a solar Oh, did you really? Interesting. for the same exact issue. Yeah.

4:01Alex My ultimate vision what I what I'm kind of been obsessed with is instead of selling on savings, I would way rather find a way to add services on top of that, whether it's like, you know, some sort of HVAC uh aeroseal thing or you know, the tax services with depreciation losses and >> Dude, I'd rather you just like you So let's let's say So when we're going zooming all the way out strategy stuff. >> Yeah. What you have is an ability to sell. Correct. And you know how to generate leads. Yeah. And if tomorrow you said I'm not selling solar you'd have to fill out the you know, the next 180 days max of contracts and make sure that the gets installed, whatever, right? But then after that you could do whatever you wanted. Right? How many employees do you have? We have four. Yeah, so it's not I mean it's you, your partner, and two other people.

4:44Yeah. Yeah. Or no, three other people. >> Three. Okay. Yeah. So I think that it just might be you might be better served and I don't normally give this kind of advice, but like you might just be better served taking that skill set and putting it in a different opportunity vehicle. Interesting. And just like you were like how do I do the solar thing with HVAC? It's like just do HVAC. Mhm. Just go to door-to-door, sell HVAC. And HVAC has phenomenal multiples and has great revenue retention. Mhm. Once people do the HVAC, the person comes back every year, services again, upsells more stuff.

5:15Cool. And there's problems in that business getting HVAC, you know, uh people uh the the fixers, the technicians Yeah. is the constraint of that business. Usually getting getting customers is actually not the constraint. So it might be kind of fun for you to be like, "Oh, my phone's ringing. This is weird. People are calling me because their AC is broken." Not like, "Hey, can you sell me solar?" Like Yeah. Um >> [laughter] >> For sure. Right? Yeah. Um and so I think like if the goal long-term is to build something that has true enterprise value um given the fact that you have so little control over the existing process, you're basically just an acquisition machine, which I respect. I came from that in the gym world. Um then recombine it into a business model that actually has enterprise value. Got it.

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