Illuminating the Solar Energy Revolution: Insights from Mitch Fraker on Entrepreneurship, Efficiency, and Future Integration

Get ready to illuminate your understanding of solar energy as we sit down with Mitch Fraker of Empowered Solar Solutions. You're going to gain an abundance of knowledge as Mitch shares his transition from marketing to sales, and how he took the entrepreneurial leap into creating his own sales organization in the thriving solar sector. Get a grip on why people are opting for solar power, mainly for control over their bills and significant cost savings. Plus, Mitch is going to demystify the differences between a $30,000 and $40,000 solar setup and how financing or leasing can work in favor of consumers.

In the second half, we're powering up the discussion to delve into the efficiency of solar panels and the electrifying potential of battery storage technology. Ever wondered about the future of solar energy and the integration of innovative solutions like the Tesla roof? We've got you covered! Furthermore, in our real estate exploration segment, Mitch opens up about the challenges of forming partnerships with realtors, and offers his perspective on inflation, environmental concerns, and fixed bill issues. Be ready to explore how solar energy systems are determined based on the energy consumption of a household and how they provide a solution to sky-rocketing energy bills. Join us as we journey into the heart of the solar energy revolution that's transforming the way we power our lives.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

All right, good afternoon. I'll take you with. Stoic Asia podcast Got a pretty unique guest here on. We've had a real diversity of guests from all different walks of life. I don't know anything about solar and so, ultimately, mitch and I have been we've been kind of friends on Facebook. We've met each other in the sauna a couple of times, just after workouts and so forth, and he said, hey, man, I'd like to come on and talk about solar. I said, great, I know nothing about solar energy. So this is Mitch Fraker with Empowered Solar Solutions, and welcome to the pod man.

Speaker 2: 0:39

Thanks, man.

Speaker 1: 0:40

Appreciate you for having me on Awesome. Thank you for being here. So talk to us. Just take us from the beginning. What kind of led you to the path of starting this company? To do with solar energy and let's dive in man?

Speaker 2: 0:52

Yeah, absolutely man. So I spent about four, five years really focused on marketing when I was in my early 20s and I got kind of tired of sitting behind a desk all day and staring at a screen and I knew sales was a big forte of mine. I knew I was good with communications and so I saw solar energy just booming Not as much here in Florida, but I got a lot of really good friends that are out in California and they were absolutely just making it rain. California's the leading state as far as just solar coverage, and so I knew Florida was gonna be coming next. Obviously it's the Sunshine State.

Speaker 2: 1:33

So I literally up and I quit a very, very good job that I had and I went out and started knocking doors and it was brutal. The first couple of years I was just straight up doors, doors, doors. I knocked until my knuckles bled and there's a lot of negative connotations around door knockers. I tried to be one of the nicer ones, one of the more professional ones, and I learned very quickly how solar works, how to get a sale, how to get your foot in the door. And for my first year or so I joined another company. I was with a very, very large sales org and I kind of started seeing how simple the pieces were to put together, realizing that I could go off on my own and get a lot of extra margin and also build a team underneath me and create a comp plan for them. That was lucrative, and so I decided to go out and jump out on my own.

Speaker 2: 2:30

The solar world is very fragmented. You've got a lot of sales orgs and you've got a lot of installers. There's very few companies that do both not very few but a lot of companies keep it separate, where they have a sales org that sells and they've got contractors that install, and so we had pretty good relationships with a couple of different installers and I decided to go ahead and start my own sales org. So we are just sales, we don't do the builds, we don't jump up on the roof and do the work, we just sell, sell, sell. And then we've got installers that fulfill on all the contracts. So that's kind of how my business is set up Awesome.

Speaker 1: 3:07

Walk us through. I want to kind of really dig into the granularity of why solar, you know what, what are some of the benefits, I guess, aside from the planet? I guess we could dive into that, like, let's dive into that, like just flat out, what's the I don't want to say elevator pitch, but what's like the foundational piece of, like no more fossil fuel type thing. What's your take on that?

Speaker 2: 3:37

Yeah, I mean to be honest with you. I don't do solar at all because of the environment. I am not an environmentalist, I'm not a tree hugger, I don't have a Tesla, so I don't do it for the environment. And, to be perfectly honest with you, I've never had one customer tell me I'm going solar because I want to help the environment.

Speaker 2: 3:55

The reason people go solar is to have control over their bills and to own their power, and so you live down here in Florida as well. We have FPL, and if you've seen your FPL bill I don't really pay attention to mine, but if you actually stack it up over the last couple of years and the last since 2021, it's gone up about 35% for the cost of energy, and so when you go solar, you're simply putting a system on your house and you now generate the power on site. You don't have to buy that power from Florida Power and Light or from whatever utility you have, and so what that allows you to do is, if you finance the system, you obviously have a locked in monthly loan payment that's fixed, doesn't go up, and it can be paid off. There's also people that pay cash and they take a chunk of change out of their pocket. They're going to get anywhere from a seven to an eight year ROI. You expel that $30,000 or $40,000 on a system and then you put that $300 a month you were spending on FPL back in your pocket.

Speaker 2: 4:56

And then there's leasing as well, which is a very common way that people are going solar, so they don't own the system, they lease it, similar to a car lease, and they pay a flat monthly rate for that. So really, at its whole, all it is and for the reason why I do it is control Is control over your bills, so that you don't. Obviously you know how much inflation is affecting the real estate industry, the mortgage industry, the same thing's happening with utilities. Inflation is just raging right now, and so anything you can do to get control of your bills and control of your monthly payments is going to be a huge money saver for you.

Speaker 1: 5:32

I love them, man. So you mentioned 30 or 40,000 for a setup. Now, what would be the difference between a 30 and a $40,000 setup? Because we're going to dive into the financing and the lease, so we can kind of get granular with some numbers. What would a $30,000 setup be? How much power would that create, in order to say power of 2,000 square foot home? Just in general terms?

Speaker 2: 5:56

Great question, yeah, so right now I would say, for a $30,000 setup, you're looking at anywhere between a 10 and 12 kilowatt system size, which is going to produce you anywhere between 10 and 15,000 kilowatt hours of energy per year. So really, what we do to figure out how many panels someone needs is we just take a look at their utility bill. On everybody's FPL bill it has a little graph that shows them your last 12 months of usage and that's what we use to determine how many panels you're going to need to offset. We call it offsetting your bill. So our goal is to get you 100% coverage and every home is different.

Speaker 2: 6:34

Like you said, if you've got an average 2,000 square foot home, you're probably looking at 15 to 17,000 kilowatt hours of energy that you're using every year. But every home is different. People's habits are different. We've seen homes that are really small, homes that have super high bills. We've seen big homes that have low bills. So it really just depends on how much energy you're using. It could go anywhere. It could go all the way down to a 10 or a $15,000 system. All depends on the power that you're using in the home.

Speaker 1: 7:04

Interesting, Okay, so we're looking at 12 months. I got a little cross-eyed there with the kilowatt hours but basically you're able to tell somebody this is how many panels you'll need, based on what your past consumption of energy was. So when we're doing the financing, let's say that my electric bill is on average. On average because over Florida, your winter and your summer, let's say, an amalgam of that was $270 a month. What is financing a $30,000, $40,000 set up? What does that look like?

Speaker 2: 7:43

Yeah. So we've got a couple of different banks that we work with and so realistically, it comes down to what the long-term goals of the homeowner are. Most people, when they finance, want to achieve a lower monthly payment than what they're currently paying, and so we usually go over a 20 or a 25-year term for the loan which is going to save you. Probably with the interest rates nowadays you're looking at anywhere from $20 to $50 a month, and I would tell a lot of people too, interest rates are pretty high. It's like, hey, if your bill's $270 today, in a couple of years it's going to be $300. Couple years after that it's going to be $330, $340. So even if you're paying a couple bucks more a month for the financing, it's locked in and it's fixed.

Speaker 2: 8:26

So every home is truly different, and that's kind of the elevator pitch that I tell homeowners is listen, we don't know if your home's going to be a good fit or not. It's our job just to go ahead and take a look and see if it's going to make financial sense for you or not. If it is great, it'll be very clear in the numbers. If it's not, no worries, you can keep paying your utility and call us when that bill gets too high.

Speaker 1: 8:46

Awesome, and then I guess leasing is similar, right, yeah, yeah. So what are all of these ads that I see out there? Is this a clickbait of the government rebates and all that? Let's unpack that a little bit so the people that see these coming across their screen can discern between reality and clickbait.

Speaker 2: 9:09

Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up, and the reality of it is that those ads make my job a lot harder. Yes, there is a federal tax credit. It's a 30% tax credit. Okay, so if you buy your system let's just say for easy numbers and it cost you $50,000, you've got a $15,000 tax credit that you're able to file with the federal government.

Speaker 2: 9:33

But no, nobody's given away a free lunch. The government's not going to pay for your solar system. There's no programs that offer free solar. This is a major home upgrade, so it's not going to be free. But yes, the government does have a 30% credit. So if you've got tax liability, you have a chance to go ahead and claim that credit. And the government does give you 10 years to chunk that credit out. Not everybody can claim that big of a tax credit in one year, so the government gives you a nice 10 years to to chunk it out and claim it over time. Okay, yeah, the reality is all those ads that people are seeing are they're made to bring in cheap leads, and then the more leads you can get, the more people you have to talk to. So it don't make my job any easier. I've always got to fight through that objection every time I get in a home.

Speaker 1: 10:17

Yeah, well, the more people you have to talk to, yet the more disgruntled people that you create as well within that. So, anyways, that's another story for another day, right? So, circling back around, I'm curious about have you seen? So how long have you been as collectively in the solar industry?

Speaker 2: 10:36

So I'm coming up on five years. Okay, about two and a half on my own, and the first two were with another company. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:43

Have you seen the technology exponentially grow over that five years, about the storage and what these panels are creating as far as these kilowatt hours? Talk to us a little bit about the growth of the technology and how it's getting better and better, if it is.

Speaker 2: 11:03

Yeah, no, it's a great point. Of course, there's a lot of people that say, oh, I'm going to wait and do this in the future, it'll get better. The reality of it is the panels right now that are being produced are about 90% efficient after 25 years. So you're looking at like a half a percent of degradation per year, which is absolutely amazing, and so I don't truthfully, I don't think we're going to see much growth on the solar panel side. I mean, the only way to make them produce more right now is to make them bigger.

Speaker 2: 11:34

However, you mentioned on the storage side, absolutely, I do not sell a lot of batteries, but the reason for that is because I truly believe that here in the next five, 10, 15 years, the battery storage technology is going to make leaps and bounds. So I do definitely guide people. I say, hey, if you want to do a backup, I usually guide people towards a generator because I do feel like the battery technology will be better in the future. But as far as the solar panels, they're about as good as they can get. It's really efficient technology.

Speaker 1: 12:07

So what about the Tesla ones where they're like really super thin? What's your take on what he's doing?

Speaker 2: 12:15

Yeah, I mean. So. I think that Elon Musk is always a you know, he's a big pioneer into the future, and I think that the whole Tesla roof thing is great. It will be in the future. It will be roof and solar together. I mean, that's the way that the future is going.

Speaker 2: 12:31

However, right now, with the Tesla roof specifically, it's just not as efficient. So you could put an entire Tesla roof on your house and it's not going to produce what a normal solar system would produce. It's also astronomically higher in cost, and so I've had countless amount of deals where people have said you know, I bought a Tesla roof over a year ago. It's still not on my house, I spent 80 grand on it and it's not going to offset 100% of my bill. And so the reality is that technology is just not here yet, but I do believe that 10, 15, maybe 20 years down the line, the roofing and the solar systems will absolutely end up inevitably getting tied together, whether it's a solar roof, a solar shingle. It will happen in the future. We're just not quite there yet. Okay.

Speaker 1: 13:21

So when I see that, when I'm cruising around it because I'm considering buying a Tesla, I've been considering it for a couple of years, so it's not like it's going to be tomorrow, I see that solar site, so okay. So that's what kind of the backlog is that we're looking at? I paid the money a year ago and I still not on my roof.

Speaker 2: 13:36

Yeah, and I'll be honest. If you look up Tesla Energy and they have absolutely terrible reviews. Tesla is trying to do it all and they can't do it all well. They do their cars very, very, very well, but their solar side of their business is atrocious, and I don't say that to put any. I love solar. I always want to bring every company up, but Tesla. They need to just focus on cars. Let's just put it that way.

Speaker 1: 14:04

There's an inside thing. I like it. Not many people could actually rip on Elon's productivity, so I love it, man. So where do you see so you already kind of went there that you see this being integrated into the roofs? Do you see that this technology being integrated into cars, into kind of like so much more? Do you see solar really ultimately taking off? Is this the solution? I know you're not caring as much about nothing. You don't care about the environment. You're not doing it for that. You're doing it to help people fix their costs, which creates a great environment in the household because you have less struggle with bills, so we can go there. With just that, you're making the world a better place because there's going to be less arguments over money. So I like that. Where do you think this is all going? Do you see solar kind of in a conjunction with wind and geothermal? Where are your thoughts on these kind of non-fossil fuel energy sources?

Speaker 2: 15:05

You know it's an interesting question because I'm traditionally very like. I said, I do solar because I like to help people have control. I'm traditionally very conservative. But what you see is you see this government pushing everything away from fossil fuels, and so I think you're absolutely right. I think solar, wind, geothermal, I think all that stuff is going to get more prevalent.

Speaker 2: 15:27

I've studied the Green New Deal a good bit and our federal government is pushing 90% carbon emission reductions by 2030. And that's an almost I mean, it's an impossible goal. There's no way that can happen. But what you're seeing is you're seeing major utility companies that are literally tearing down their coal burning plants and that are building solar fields. And so when you notice large-scale utility companies doing this, right, they're doing it for a reason. One, they're doing it because it works, but two, the federal government is pushing them very, very, very hard to get away from fossil fuels. And so I think, whether we like it or not, solar technology I'm not as big of a proponent for the whole windmill thing.

Speaker 2: 16:13

I think they're pretty useless. But I think solar technology is going to grow very, very vastly and, like I mentioned earlier, california is kind of laying the groundwork for that. California's got about 40 to 45% of residential homes that have solar. Really. So, yeah, and if you take a trip out there, you drive through a neighborhood and it's everywhere. There's a lot more Teslas out there, there's a lot more charging stations, and so that's kind of the layout that our federal government is pushing kind of across the country, and some states are going to be faster to adopt than others, but, yes, I think that's inevitably the way our world is absolutely going.

Speaker 1: 16:50

Hmm, and so the technology is catching up to that. You think that the roof integration with the tiles and so forth is. You would project that to be 10 to 20 years.

Speaker 2: 17:00

Yeah, I think we're still 10, 20 years out. There's a very popular roofing roofing shingle company. It's called GAF or Gaff roofing. They make some of the top of the line solar I'm sorry, some of the top of the line shingles that almost every roofing company that I know uses, and they've got these solar shingles that they're putting out and the same thing there. They're just a little bit expensive and they're not quite as efficient, but like we're seeing the technology start to form and so I think that, yeah, I think we're probably 10 or 15 years off. You know, and down here in Florida too, we obviously know that we got hurricanes so you got to make sure you have a roof that's gonna last through that. So I think they've got some leaps and bounds to go before it's actually durable enough to be an actual roofing system for sure.

Speaker 1: 17:46

And so how does it work? I kind of want to circle back around. So if you don't have a battery when the power is going to, it's dark out at night, where is that power coming from?

Speaker 2: 17:58

Fantastic question, absolutely so. Utility companies offer something called net metering, and so what net metering is is the. The utility actually comes and puts a net meter on your house Before you can turn your system on, and so example Florida power and light they have a full retail rate on the buyback For the net metering. So what happens is during the day we get so much sun that the system is actually going to produce a lot more than what the homeowner can use in the home, and that extra power actually flows through that net meter and the utility companies actually credit you for it. And so if you think about it on a day night kind of schedule, during the day You're sending a lot back to the grid and then at night, when the sun goes down, you're pulling from those credits that you, that you saved up during the day, instead of having to buy that power from the utility. So net metering is very, very, very key to solar and most utility companies offer it. Some don't.

Speaker 2: 18:53

Down here in Florida All the major utilities do, and they have a very good buyback. But that's another thing about you know, california too Is they've had so much solar capacity that they've had to cut back the buyback rates because they won't now pay as much for that power because the grid is getting so much solar pushed into it, and so you know we're in a very good era right now for, for the net metering, fpl has a 20 year grandfather at the retail rate. So if you get in now, even if they change their laws in the future, your grandfathered into that retail rate, you know, for 20 years. So that's what allows people to go solar and not have to buy a battery.

Speaker 1: 19:35

Got it. I've heard that before. About now I love I know the term now the net meter. Awesome man, where do you? You know, as we, as we kind of segue here Settling down into the end of the of the pod, where do you, where do you want your company to go? I'll kind of get personal here, like what are your big visions for what you want to do?

Speaker 2: 20:00

Yeah, I love that man. So I mean, right now we're chasing down 100 deals a month. That's our major kind of goal line that we're chasing down right now. We're getting close some months out of the year and we fall back some months out of the year. Traditionally, solar is very hot in the summer, but over the last almost two years we've done about 12 million in sales, which is a good number, but it's nowhere close to where I know we can be. So that's my goal is to grow to 100 deals a month, and I'd like to do that with a fairly small team of kind of high efficiency reps.

Speaker 2: 20:36

There's a lot of people in the solar industry that come in and you can make good money, so they'll do one or two deals a month. They'll make their money and they'll chill. I'm looking to find, you know, eight to 10 guys that are doing 10 deals a month plus. That's my real goal, and so I'm focused right now on really building a couple key leaders that I have in my business and taking them from a couple of deals a month up to 10, 10 plus, and so that's kind of where my sites are set right now, and I'm also not ignoring the roofing side of things.

Speaker 2: 21:08

We have a really big partnership with a roofing company and I've got a couple of my guys that are also doing some roof sales as well. Consequently, you know, being in solar, we get a lot of people that contact us that want solar and they don't even know that they need a new roof first. So we've had to kind of get into the roofing sales side of things as well. So I'd like to grow that kind of simultaneously. That's the goal that I'm chasing down right now. I'd like to say we'll be there by the end of the year. We're coming out of the kind of the hot season, so I think that goal is probably gonna be met in 2024.

Speaker 1: 21:38

Man, that's awesome. Well, I love seeing people succeed. I love seeing people grow. I've noticed you on social and you really. You know you got a good mindset, man, and you're obviously a little bit younger than me and I always like to see people with a good head on their shoulders, no matter what the age. You got a really good head on your shoulders, especially given your age, and that's no knock on you at all, obviously with your age I appreciate that. Yeah, man. So if there's anything I can ever do for you, let me know. You know I appreciate you taking the time to come in here and educate me and educate our audience.

Speaker 1: 22:17

You know they say knowledge is power and is understanding this stuff a lot more, understanding that there's financing out there, there's leasing out there, there's the rebates that are out there. We covered a lot of that. And the longevity I like to know you know we're looking at 90% effective after 20 years. Those are great numbers. So we know that these you know, I guess. One last question, and you mentioned hurricanes what is the, what is the efficacy of these things staying on the roof, given certain wind speeds? I'd like to be curious about that.

Speaker 2: 22:54

Yeah, absolutely so. We've got anywhere from a hundred and seventy five mile an hour up to about 220 mile an hour. Wind rated panels, you know, and so we go down here to Florida. There is building code that you have to abide by when you're, you know, when you're doing home improvements, and so the wind, the wind ratings in Florida are significantly higher than then the rest of the country. So these things are not coming off your roof. We, you know, we bolt them to the trusses of the home, and so it would literally need to take the entire roof with it. Every single panel has between two and four points of contact, you know, into into a roof truss, so I can confidently say that they are not going anywhere. It's always a question that comes up, of course, being in Florida, but yeah, they are Extremely durable panels. You can run them over with a truck and they still work. It's, it's actually very incredible.

Speaker 1: 23:44

Cool.

Speaker 2: 23:45

Yeah, maybe on that maybe it.

Speaker 2: 23:47

I was just saying I wanted to mention one thing too. You know I I do. I do appreciate you having me on and I'd love to you know kind of, at some point in the future, unpack Kind of the real estate world was solar. You know, I'll be honest with. We've had a tough time cracking the realtor code. We have a really really good partnerships with alarm companies. We have really good partnerships with the roofing companies. We have yet to been able to find formidable partnerships with realtors and traditionally, I think, just being transparent, a lot of realtors are against it Because it makes the.

Speaker 2: 24:18

It can make the sale of a home a little bit tougher, depending on how it was financed and how much left is owed in the system. But you know one way or another. You know you sell a house and then your homeowners are going to buy solar in the future. So I'd love to you know, at some point in the future, kind of unpack what that looks like of kind of merging the solar and the realtor, the real estate world, because I do think that again it is coming in the in the future. I think what people will probably be doing when they buy their homes is is wrapping the solar, in with their mortgage and wiping out that electric bill. You know altogether right from the start. So I do that being a thing in the future, let's continue the discussion.

Speaker 2: 24:54

I love it.

Speaker 1: 24:55

Yeah. So let's have some coffee on that and then you know, kind of getting an idea. So I'm clear on what exactly it is that the realtors would even be saying to somebody, right, of course. So that's a. That's a conversation another day. I appreciate you bringing it up in here and let's continue the conversation. That's what I'm all about here. Just, let's have good conversations.

Speaker 1: 25:14

We all need to come together and and say you know, realtors are against. I've never been against, I just have been uneducated, and that's so much of what you know. Not to get extreme with it, but wars are fought over just people not understanding things from other people's perspectives, and and even that someone can help someone else. So just more dialogue, more conversations, more discussions and more listening To where people are coming from. And I think you come from a genuine place. You're not just, you know. I really like the part about, hey, the environments, a byproduct of this. You're here to help people solve their, their, their fixed bill problem, right, yeah, so that, and adding, and again back to your point about inflation and so forth, that's a, that's an attractive thing to people and that, if a byproduct of that, you make the world a better place, great. So, man, I again. Mitch. I appreciate you taking the time to come on the pod and I learned a lot here and I know you delivered some value to the audience that's out there and we'll keep the discussion going.