
Solar Sales Uncensored
Solar Sales Uncensored
Leading a Solar Empire: The Strategy Behind Building a 5000-Partner Strong Network
Uncover a Secret Way to Get Paid: What is Powur's Revenue Share?
Step into the world of environmental passion and pioneering business strategy with Andy Smith, affectionately known as the Brit with Grit, in this enlightening episode of our podcast. Dive into a narrative that transcends an ordinary journey, showcasing Andy's evolution from a regular guy to an environmental crusader leading Power Solar's groundbreaking success. Discover the transformative shift in Power Solar's business model, from simple lead generation to a sophisticated cost of goods framework, a story rich in business savvy and audacious ambition.
Experience the thrill as Andy recounts Power Solar's meteoric rise, from modest beginnings earning $250 for a 70-panel system to the staggering heights of a $20,000 payoff. This episode is not just about numbers; it's a testament to the power of determination and strategic thinking in crafting a life by design.
Uncover the secrets behind Power Solar's Enterprise Program, and learn how this initiative has sculpted the company's trajectory, incorporating wisdom from diverse industries into a collaborative success story. Gain rare insights into their partnership with a giant in the solar world and get an exclusive look at the top-tier solar training program that has been pivotal in Andy's journey.
This episode is a treasure trove for anyone involved in team-building, project management, and the intricacies of customizing compensation in the solar industry. Join us as we explore how Andy's focus on establishing organizational margins, leveraging resources, crafting proposals, and formulating contracts has revolutionized the solar sales landscape.
Perfect for aspiring team builders and solar industry enthusiasts, this episode promises to be a game-changer, offering practical strategies and inspirational stories from one of the solar industry's leading figures. Don't miss this chance to learn from the Brit with Grit's compelling tale of environmental advocacy and unparalleled business acumen.
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Hello, hello, welcome to an episode of Solar Sales Uncensored. I am your host, aaron Browning, and I'm so excited to introduce today's VIP guest, none other than Mr Andy Smith. Before I bring him up, because he is super, super modest and hates recognition, I'm going to go ahead and lift his ego up, even though he doesn't need it. He is commonly referred to in our circles as the Brit with grit, which you will soon see why his accent is flawless. It is amazing. I am jealous. He is an environmental advocate. He has a degree in climate science that we're going to touch on here today. And then, really, why I'm bringing him up here and why I'm so excited to have him share with our audience today. He was one of the pioneers, not only in power, but in really helping to launch the enterprise platform, which is for business builders. It is for leaders.
Speaker 1:A few of the nuggets that we're going to touch on with him and there's no other guest that could even talk at this level about it is whether you have an interest on building a growing a team with power. How to offer projects to closers on the power platform, customizing your compensation as leaders. How important is that? Set organizational margins. Leverage our easy financing for your homeowners, create proposals and legal contracts, leverage powers, discounted solar goods model, just to name a few. So without further ado, andy, how the heck are you? I'm so excited you're here. What country are you in right now?
Speaker 2:I'm really excited to be here. I'm actually in the United Kingdom right now in a county called Warwickshire, right.
Speaker 1:I love it. We're going to jump right in with one of the nuggets you always say but is life by design? The fact you are in the UK yet leading one of the largest teams at power, which is selling in the US, is mind blowing to me. It's what gets me excited. Can you touch on your philosophy of life by design and what it means to you?
Speaker 2:Absolutely I'd love to. It's one of the real joys of being part of the power platform. It's an incredible opportunity for that. I don't know how we would possibly be doing it any other way. So it started off when I started selling for power and we were getting some itchy feet. I've been in California for a lot of years and we wanted to maybe live in different countries and that got a bit complex of moving to a country for two years. So we decided to do a nine and three split. It was a nine month in the US, three months somewhere else. We pulled that off in 2019. We spent three months in the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador and from the Galapagos Islands I sold eight projects using the power platform with sketchy internet. It was fantastic. Here we are living in somewhere my bucket list of dreams and selling solar. I knew it was possible. My son is a race car driver. For my son.
Speaker 1:By the way, both my sons are in another room. I'm thank God they can't hear this. I'll block this episode from them. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I'm going to share it with him. Trust me, I'll be. I'll like to spike everybody now. So, yeah, he's been racing for a good few years in California, but the heart and soul of racing is in Silverstone and around in England. And so we just got a deal to go and drive with the Formula Ford team in the UK and so we moved. So we're based over here, living life by design. As you said, it's fantastic to be able to connect with you like this to be able to do, to work my power business from here without missing any beats whatsoever, and all the while being able to support my family in both, both financially and in their pursuit. Life by design simply means can you take control of how you want to live. It's different for everybody, but picture how you want to live and the hours that you want to work and where you want to work from and how you want to do things, and you can genuinely put all that together with power because of the platform based model that we have, and do everything remotely, like I do.
Speaker 1:You know it's incredible man. In a previous career, with my real estate background, I was tied to an office. Finally I got smart and said, hey, we can do this a little bit more virtually, but I was still tied to a location meaning Virginia, maryland, dc is where we serviced. I couldn't really leave from that area, so we were always confined. And now to your point with this platform we can go anywhere. Maybe that's staying here, who knows, but the fact you have the freedom and the choices that you can make, and not someone else's thumbprint, aren't you saying be here, show up here. It's mind blowing, man. I just it's freedom.
Speaker 2:We even, if you want to, there's all kinds of ways to enter into the solar industry right, you can start your own solar company before I join power, have my own special events company. So I'm not it's not something it would be a mystery to me to create the company, but can you imagine how binding that would be if you created your own solar company and had you literally would be married to wherever you were and be unable to do these things? And because everything is handled through the platform and through power corporate, I get to live wherever I want. One of our top leaders, I think, has been on your show to Wally and the Philippines doing the same thing. Living out there, living his life of dreams and selling solar in the United States from the Philippines is brilliant. I can't imagine life without it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the other piece will touch on later but I'll tease it because you just set me up for it. I'll go back to my real estate days of having a large team. It was a physical team and so, even though I had leverage, I had a team. I had to be there to lead them. Now I don't know, and I hate to say absolute, I don't think I'll ever have a physical team again. I'm leveraging powers virtual team. So I have team all over the country. I have a few in other countries, in fact to in Australia now, but to your point, we're able to be anywhere and you can still facilitate. Conversations will touch on how enterprise allows that, but it's a game changing platform. Man, before we jump into enterprise and I'm really excited to pick your brain on that Can you touch briefly on your experience with Al Gore, what that looked like? And then, how was it in the early days of opening and launching power as a company?
Speaker 2:Right on, all right, so I'll probably do the first, then perfect. I mentioned that I had a special events company. I built it from scratch. I created the American dream, took a borrowed 30 grand to start. It made it a multi million dollar large 10 company. Burn out completely. I just was just such as a state of bone at the end of it but obviously enjoyed the success. But right at that time is when I first encountered Jonathan's mission to create a company and it resonated with me so much because in special events I have no heart in what I was doing. The money was great and there was fun, but there was no In the project. At the time my son was seven and I realized I wanted to leave a legacy for him that was better than I was doing, and a legacy for his offspring and, instead of running up on their environmental credit cards, actually Do something that I could do positively, even if it was just to create some ripples into the future. So that's why I got involved in power.
Speaker 2:My degree was in climate science. I never used it really, but I understood the issues right and I'm not going to date myself, but it was a while ago that I got my degree. I looked at my degree paper today and it had questions how are we going to solve this equation? How are we going to solve the crime? It wasn't. Does it exist? It was. How are we going to solve it? Back then I thought it was settled science, so In my mind that it was when I started with power, but it's increasingly obvious to people now, I think.
Speaker 2:But one of the things I loved about power and we do get together. We do get together in person at conventions and different meetings. So meeting the people in power is so inspiring. They are the most inspiring, driven, talented, excellent, purposed human beings that I've ever encountered in my life for real. And the inspiration I got from that was to not only flourish here and be the best I could be in developing the business part of this with our, but also personally.
Speaker 2:So one of the things I chose to do I was introduced to the climate reality project by Al Gore, with Al Gore as the who heads that, and I went to train for that in Atlanta, georgia, and I learned so much from that program and then I took a subsequent training to become a mentor of that program. So that's it's a whole world of not just climate science and climate solutions, but environmental justice and social justice, because we need to fix the ladder in order to fix the former right, because they're all integrated problems and solutions. Very important part of it to me was to be part of that group and continue to be part of that group, and power Really was the catalyst that made me go and do that extra training and other things like my NAPCEP North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners certification. I didn't need to do it, but I'm inspired to do it, so it's an inspiring atmosphere, love that man?
Speaker 1:Yeah, very, very well said. Can you touch on briefly? I don't see the origin story of power, but I've heard, I don't know, snippets of it power when you were there and you guys helped launch this UNR CEO. It was not the power that that many people listening today know of. It was more of a lead gen company or something along those lines. Can you touch on that quickly?
Speaker 2:Correct and it was done like the business model was more akin to direct sales network marketing type model in the beginning, with the right purpose in mind, because that model can create movements like we've seen. You know now you would be unthinkable to have cosmetics tested on animals or that have toxins in them. That all came from that type of network industry. So the intent was in the right place to have this network company where one tells two tells four, and it was a very simple process because all we were doing In developing teams was teaching them how to set appointments with, at the time, the biggest solar company in the world and then, once we parted ways with them, with regional solar companies we work with about I think it was about a hundred and twenty solar companies across the US and we began just by selling appointments to them and then we got more of the pie by selling them contracts and got more involved in the process.
Speaker 2:So it was very much a development and it all changed in twenty ninety. It was obvious that the solar is a terrible product for that type of business model, doesn't have any monthly purchases or anything that makes sense for that business model. So power became the solar company in twenty nineteen. I was actually part of the pilot program at the end of twenty eighteen, when this transition was happening, where I actually had to learn how to sell solar because none of us really knew we knew how to set a point. Crazily, it was crazy, and you are, I mean. What gets even more crazy that this was only in the middle of twenty nineteen, for four years.
Speaker 2:It's like unbelievable, but from the middle of twenty nineteen, you know, the old business model was ripped up and it became effectively a new company, in its way of doing business for sure, where it became the solar company that we see today, with the cost of goods model and everything else, and that was implemented in the middle of the middle of twenty nineteen. And then the growth, as you've seen, went vertical from eight point eight million, I think we did in twenty nineteen. This year we're probably at four, fifty million in revenue, and I'm supposed to say that, but this is a candid shot, it's on sensors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the graphs I've seen, andy. It has that hockey stick curve that I absolutely love when I'm evaluating businesses and opportunities and timing, which I talk a lot about. To your point, yeah, 100%, man. You can't argue the growth If you don't mind, can you?
Speaker 2:So, mike, we're just, we're to your point, just quick. My first ever solar file was set in an appointment for Solar City back in the day and it was a 70 panel system, seven zero panel from the chiropractor that was in my business network and great, and I made two hundred Because that's what we got to the referral from Solar City.
Speaker 1:I've heard stories about it. I wasn't going to bring it up on our national podcast but since you did, that is crazy man, and the fact they were able to grab someone of your talent and experience and wealth of knowledge and entertain and grab your attention at two hundred and fifty dollars a sale like blows my mind. I don't want to make sure we're not losing anybody. Our model is completely different. Now. Average margin is around ten thousand dollars, nationwide In fact. I'm sure he's done the math. Yeah, I was going to ask OK, so what? Are you sure? We're sure that's clear. So he went from two hundred and fifty dollars on that 70 panel system to it would have been close to 20 with our current model Mind blowing Twenty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's why he's smiling from ear to ear for those who are listening and can't see him on the YouTube version Smiling from ear to ear. Let's jump over to Enterprise. This is something that got me really excited. For those who have never heard of it, what is Enterprise and why did it? Why was it forced to come to fruition?
Speaker 2:Great question.
Speaker 2:So that part of the model where I'm a solar sales consultant and if I want to develop a team, I talk to you as a solar sales consultant and you can become part of my team, that still remained right.
Speaker 2:But the complete flaw in that was that if we were talking to a solar company or an entity or a roofing company, you can't do that. You can't just bring them on as one and split commissions 50-50, and there was no freedom for them to be a company, and so we were very unattractive at the time, in the beginning, to actual companies. So I think it's now about a year and a half that Enterprise actually started to manifest and it was designed specifically so that we would be attractive to whole companies joining our ecosystem and participating in our platform, to give companies the ability to actually, if they just want to, maintain the structure that they have or create their own structure within our ecosystem and I know we're going to go more into that on what it looks like but basically designed to attract and onboard companies because we weren't attractive to it. Now we really are. The business has grown just exponentially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great segue. I heard Jonathan Budd say I might have been last month that a mastermind you and I were at that. It's our fastest growing sector by a long shot. It's just been explosive.
Speaker 1:The other thing and shame on me for not saying it earlier I love Andy for many reasons, not just the accent. One is somewhat of a unicorn because he has the corporate experience of being on the corporate side and knowing the nuances of all of the goes with that. I want to pretend it to be an expert on that, but he's also is a seller on our platform. In fact, he owns one of the largest teams of over 5,000 business partners inside power, so he's able to talk from both angles, which is so freaking rare and why I love and I really I gobble up any attention I can get of him just because it's just a wealth of knowledge. So I want to make sure those listening know that this isn't like hearsay. This is what he helped build on the corporate side and how he's utilizing it day to day with a 5,000 person sales team in a different country, by the way, which is so cool.
Speaker 1:The other thing that comes to mind, Andy, when I think of enterprise and how I've started to really lean in on it. It's a plug and play business and I know it's not as fancy as what you just said. But man oh man, is it really seeing true for me? I love being able to talk to business leaders, business owners who already have a company, might not be in solar. I want to make sure we paint that picture too, Andy, and you can run with that in just a second.
Speaker 1:But it could be a roofer to your point. It could be someone like a real estate agent like myself, who already has a team of we call them ISAs of salespeople. We already have a team of closers that might not know how to do solar yet, but they're already trained on closing and sales that we can come over, partner with enterprise. Allow enterprise to do all the heavy lifting power in that example and be able to take our business and be profitable day, one, month, one, whatever that looks like for that person. That is the piece that I absolutely love. Was that close to being accurate in your corporate eyes?
Speaker 2:100%. So, yeah, I should have mentioned too. Yeah, so from 2020 to 2022, I was in power corporate. Literally I ran the sales support division. I'm very proud of a couple of things in that role was, first of all, the company grew by $100 million. I had a team of six and literally every design and project, all of them, came through me and my team of six to make sure that they were right and going out properly. And then I was fortunate to be one of the co builders of the certification training which is also available to enterprises, which, honestly, you've been throughout. I think it's fair to say it's world class solar training, so pretty proud of that.
Speaker 2:But I realized that the money wasn't in corporate. It was nice to be inside it, but I was, I belong in the field, I've always been an entrepreneur, and so I did my stint and came out. But one of the things that I did towards the end was when enterprise was launching or being put together and we are was able to to really take a look at that and be part of the pilot end of that side of things. And it was such an exciting program from the outset and, you know, because now we really could go up to a company and for me it was in the beginning it was always roofing companies. Right, because it was frustrating to me that we didn't have something for them, because roofing companies, every time they walk away from their brand new roof that they put on their house, they're walking away from $8000 in commission on average and it's criminal that they're just walking away from that and it was wrong that we couldn't furnish them the ability to do that. Really, it was with that in mind and also solar companies that wanted to have better products at better pricing and better dealers, lender amounts or loan products. This where the incentive came from. So we developed it.
Speaker 2:The very first enterprise program was raw and we knew that enterprises would come on board and break it right and break it and improve it, because it was very much an alpha program when we launched it not even really I love that and we had some select it was man. So we had some select enterprises and they said can it do this? Why doesn't it do that? How do we do that? And it was just this, combined like a what's the word? Like a collaborative, like a crowd sourcing, I think is the trendy word of the way of putting it, where we were getting input from companies to develop the program for companies. It was an epic process and it's morphed. So a lot of what you're enterprise now didn't come from corporate. It came, it was executed by corporate, but it came from companies like solar companies, like mortgage brokers, real estate companies, roofers, and their suggested inputs and their goals and their desires. So it was made to work with them.
Speaker 1:Really well said, man. I think that's one of the things that, in my humble opinion, my just over a year of being a power that really sets power apart from other companies. It's not their way or the highway, as they say. You call it crowd sourcing. I view that program and what you just described as more like a mastermind. But I'm going to give a real life example, without using names and Andy knows this person to help this arm board them, a massive solar company. To my knowledge, when I have been wrong before, my wife reminds me often I believe this is the largest solar company that has partnered with power that we just signed it with, super excited about it. I get goosebumps talking about it and some people and it could do a whole podcast on this.
Speaker 1:Andy, why would someone who's already selling 50 million in solar come partner? Quite frankly, they don't want to build everything we just built. They don't want to have to go through that, and so when they saw our model, they said, oh my gosh, like this was our vision. This is what we were going to go do. We were going to spend millions on this and Andy was like millions You're talking tens of millions but they saw it and they started to compute all the savings they could do by leveraging what we already have, and for them it was a no brainer. So a 50 million dollar solar company is moving their business over, and I know it was a long way to entry a segue to that. But what I love about this when they came over, they noticed things that we needed to add to enterprise immediately, and so they've been going back and forth with Rachel overseas and Andy and other key leaders getting things added, little tweaks done, and I love that they're blown away. They're like the fact that we were able to offer an input, being so new to your platform, it just blows my mind. But it's a. It's a. It's a ideology, if you will, of our company and how we foster that we want to get better. We know that what we have right now is really good, but could we make little tweaks to make it even better? And so I love that. You said that, man, because I have not shared that with anyone else, but I 100% agree with you.
Speaker 1:I really do the other thing with enterprise that I love, and I know you mentioned the Roofer. I think that's a great one. I think personally, once again, limited experience of why we don't have more roofers is they're not trained, they just don't know. A mentor years ago taught me for anyone listening that owns a business, especially one that touches houses, you can either go out and get more clients or you can learn how to get more of the same client. And when I learned that in real estate, that's why we started to open the HVAC company. We partner with a Roofer, we partner with a landscaper anyone that was touched on that house I wanted to own a piece or a company of, so I could monetize that relationship. That's what power does through enterprise. You're already doing the hard work. You already have a database of homeowners to be able to plug that into our ecosystem. It'd be profitable. Day one like blows my freaking mind. Anything you want to add on that?
Speaker 2:I do, because one of the really cool things about what you've just said is let's take the example of the roofing company. The roofing company realizes that they're losing tons of revenue or leaving tons of money on the roof. They, as you said, probably don't want to deep dive into solar sales and don't do that. There's no need for them to go and get trained because we have an army of tier 3s they call. They're tier 3 sellers that are proven closers. So a roofing company can come in, go through their database, send a project to a tier 3 mentor, split the commission on it. It's a huge win and they're not have to do through the training. Or they can we have the training available to them if they want it.
Speaker 2:Or companies can come in. If they train in a certain way that they do things, they can do that too. It's really like an Alucard type system, but really one of the things I love the most is, if companies don't want to learn the deep dive into solar, like you said, maybe they're antsy about that. Well then, don't do that. Just go through your database and set appointments for us to go close them and we'll split the commission.
Speaker 1:Well said again, man, it's Alucard with growth, because what I have found so far is a lot of the business owners, especially in real estate, they don't want a distraction. They're very centered, very focused on the one thing. Yet they know they're leaving money on the table. For many of them it could be six figures a month, if not more, which huge. Hopefully that grabs some attention. I have stories on that. They're able to plug it into enterprise tag.
Speaker 1:Someone like Andy who knows a lot more than everybody on solar, have him go run that deal. They're making 50%, so, on average, three to five grand. All they did was collect a utility bill. There is no distraction whatsoever. In fact, a lot of these it was a simple database letter they mailed out. It was a leave behind after they installed a roof. Whatever that looks like for your company. The other cool part, though, is some of my partners start like that because they don't want the distraction, andy. Yet they realize Andy can do this. Hell, I can do it too.
Speaker 1:I sell roofs like what's the script, what's the language? Yeah, they end up growing and two more. We don't force it, but if you want it now, they're like, hey, I'd rather bring on a close or higher than make a hundred percent. I'll do it myself, which is cool, like we can foster that relationship too. Plug and play you can start as little or as slow as you want and grow into it If your heart, if your heart deems that necessary, and I love that about our model. In terms of enterprise, though, is it, as we mentioned if you touch a home, you're drawn to that model roofers, real estate agents Are there any other fields that you've seen be really successful coming over? Obviously, solar companies. What else to jump out at you?
Speaker 2:HVAC is another one that's a good one.
Speaker 2:Did you mention mortgage brokers? They're dying on the vine and they have a skill set that enables them to generate business. But they're dying on the vine right now because the interest rates. It's just a no brainer for them to come in and again either develop the skills to go and do it a hundred percent or tag closes to go and split commissions and not lose too much sleep over whether they can sell solar or not. Great point, man Anybody that's interfacing with a homeowner is really a good candidate for an enterprise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the only thing I would add to that is anyone that has a database of homeowners not to say you didn't say that, but I think that's important. I have one partner who a multi-millionaire killing it in the water purification game and so he's selling these high end, like really high. I don't even know if you could get water filters for this, for what he sells them for. God love him, but he does, and he has thousands and thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of clients, and so he just introduced a simple database letter that went to them. He has no interest in learning it whatsoever. I don't know if he can spell the word solar much like me, but he'll tag our team and they're closing deals and he's making an absolute fortune.
Speaker 1:The other thing he said about mortgage I had a real estate professional, a good friend of mine, reach out to me last night. No joke, we've had some landmark cases here in the US. Not sure how much you follow on that For real estate. That has a lot of us concerned. I don't want to use the word scared, but this was a high end producer and he's man. I don't know what Q1, q2 looks like next year. I've been blowing you off. Can we talk solar? And he reached out to me because of it. So I do think there are a lot of people in mortgage and real estate who are looking for something, and this is a plug and play model into what you already do. Let's yeah, let's talk about the train your team with power. I know you had a strong fingerprint. If you will, aren't helping to design our tier one and, I believe, tier two, maybe in tier three system. Can you touch briefly on the training at power for those that want to utilize it through enterprise and through power as a whole.
Speaker 2:The goal of the training from the outset was to take somebody that has never encountered the solar cells at all and help them become absolutely professional in solar cells and then to give them the skill sets and then, in combination with the mentoring side of things that tier threes offer, really become world class and honestly, to equip somebody. If somebody came in and did our training from tier one, certificate to one is a two hour online program. It's not extensive but it gives them enough of a background to be able to have some kind of rational conversation with a homeowner, to get a utility bill and then work with the tier three. The tier two is about a 40 hour masterclass online and tier three will follow. I wasn't part of tier three, but I know it's being developed right now, including ethics and integrity all of the things that you want in someone's conduct and ability. So the goal is to take someone to be professionally successful enough that, if they wanted to, could go and work anywhere literally in the solar industry, but knowing what we know about power and knowing full well that the grass is not greener and that they would stay. But that's where it came from and that's the whole. Goal is just to be.
Speaker 2:I have two members of my team who separately went to what they call I forget what he's called, but solar university, basically for one of a better name. It might be that, so I better be careful but it was 15 grand to go through training and they told me that our training just leaves it in the dirt. Wow, for 15 grand worth to the solar university. So that's why we did it, because it's about delivering value. When people successfully sell, guess what happens if we develop sellers wherever they come from. We sell more solar. That means we buy more panels, we buy more racking, the prices go down, the homeowner gets a better deal, the sellers make more money. It's a flywheel, as Jonathan calls it, the flywheel model. So we want to develop our sellers into be able to sell more solar because we want the better buying conditions, we want better loan products and lower dealer fees that we get when we hit these benchmarks of sales. So it was all integral to that and just really equipping people to be successful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I'll give a testimonial of sorts. Having gone through that this past year Zero solar experience I'm like the gentleman I was making fun of on the team who I love, couldn't spell solar, couldn't spell power. I still misspell it. I knew nothing about it, but I knew the business model made sense for my days.
Speaker 2:I can't spell it in ENERG. Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1:In fact my spell check doesn't even pick it up anymore. So now I send emails from my real estate business misspelling power. So funny. Just know that's going to happen to everyone else that partners with us as well. But what I love about the training is, once again, to kind of make a long story short. I had no background in this. I had no experience. Yet I think I closed three deals my first week. It has nothing to do with me, it's just because I jumped into the ecosystem. I was able to do it and you can do it from anywhere.
Speaker 1:I'll paint another picture for anyone else running a brick and mortar like real estate, All of my training. I didn't sell a house for six months because I had to go learn everything about it. It was all in person, it was none virtual. I had to go meet with the broker. I had to drive down to the office in traffic, miss time from the family. Everything Andy just mentioned is done online. I'll look heart. I'll steal his word again. You could do 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there. Knock all two hours of it out in one setting, completely up to you. You can retake it. You can take it with your spouse, with your partner. The way they've made the training truly at your fingertips is game changing.
Speaker 1:The other piece I'll add to this and I love about this I'm not qualified to teach solar. I'm very good at team building. I love doing the podcast, other things on that. I love getting around smart people like Andy who are much better at this than I am, Yet I'm able to build a team of. I think I have 450 sellers now in our first year who are, I think, 13 or four Thank you, man 13 or 14 mentors, frontline. That has nothing to do with me. It's because I got around smart people and plugged them into our ecosystem and had them trained from people like you. So any team builders that are listening that are like, how do I go to just introduce them to the platform, tell them to click here. It truly is. I hate using the easy button, but dog garden, it's about as easy as you can get. Power's built it all for us.
Speaker 2:You just got to utilize it 100% and we're talking about the life by design. Without that leverage. You mentioned my team size and then what? How many are active? But a couple of thousand active people. If I was trying to train them one to one, can you imagine how long I'd last?
Speaker 2:now, you wouldn't be smiling right now would be nice to know I wouldn't be cursing, probably, but the so that's why I love it to that again. It was built to have that leverage so a team builder, a leader that has an organization, even from the old direct sales industry, can come in here and really create something team wise, without the burnout, and actually let their team flourish by pointing into the training. That's really.
Speaker 1:Here's one other thing, andy. I don't know if you've ever heard this or anyone talk about it. Perhaps you have. I've never said it on a national call. The other thing I love about our ecosystem is and I've built a lot of teams, primarily in real estate and a few other industries you've turnover when you build a sales organization, especially if you have high standards. There are some people think they can sell if they talk a mean game. They don't show up and so I've had to let people go. Sometimes people think they can do it themselves and they end up growing right law of the lid.
Speaker 1:What I love about our model is as a team builder. If I introduce someone to the platform, they join my sales team, my power team, and yet they want to go branch off and go do their own thing. They're still underneath my umbrella, so all the time I did spend with them the energy, the resources I'm still going to get compensated for the rest of their lives through the power revenue share model, and so I just want to leave that with people. Make sure they get that. That is huge.
Speaker 1:My real say this that did not happen if someone left me, whether I let them go or they left me. For whatever reason that relationship was done, there was no compensation. I can never get the time back, the energy, the resources I gave them here at power. Once they get a taste of our model, they can't leave. Where else are they going to go own the company they work for? If they're building a team, we're also. They're going to leave their team behind so you can build this thing once and get paid for the rest of your life. I freaking love it. You can see I'm watching you to smile from ear to ear talking about it. Have you ever thought about it from that perspective?
Speaker 2:Me too, 100% all the time. And do you want me to put some numbers? Yeah, please, man. So as a team builder, you'll get this. So we have a six generational override program. So I think it's actually modeled on the XP realty, if I'm not mistaken. It's so close, it's very close, yes.
Speaker 2:So generation one. So in other words, I enroll in you consultant, I get 20% of powers shared. Doesn't come from the seller side, it comes from power share. Power makes 30% on the margin splits and from that it pays out half of it in the override. So I make 20%. That averages 600 bucks per project for sales. I have nothing to do with Right.
Speaker 2:So on generation, just literally on generation one, if I have 50 people that are capable of doing one sale a month, it's 30 grand Passive. So now you want to talk about enterprises. Why are enterprises so darned exciting for people who bring them into power? Or if you are an enterprise that knows other enterprises, if I have three roofing companies that between them just three that are capable of 50 transactions a month, between them, 30 grand a month passive, right, pretty epic, 50 times 600. So and then generationally, it's it's also that. So it's, it adds up, it's, you know, a lot of my team don't team build. A lot of my team do personal sales and make great living. So team building is certainly not mandatory or net or required if you don't want to, but for those of you who are team builders it's extraordinary because you make exponentially more money from a very small amount of people compared to anything else that you could possibly think of in that kind of revenue share model.
Speaker 1:Oh, huge. I very well said the couple things. I'll add to that. We have no financial responsibility for that team and I say that with a weight coming off my shoulders my real estate business. I had to pay for brick and mortar, I had to pay for their support, I had to do payroll, I had to do everything. We didn't have a sale that month. I was out. In fact I go and say my monthly note was $1,700, $400, $17,400 a month, regardless if we sold anything. That was my fixed operating expense. I come here. It's $85 a month. My accountant laughs at me like she's like where's the rest of it? When I entered the sheet it used to be a folder and anyway, yeah, I know you get your kids into racing.
Speaker 2:You stop saying that. I look at my shoulder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really, but it's mind blowing. And the other thing too is I arm boarded someone it's probably been a week or so now who's with another large solar company and I was really taking a deep dive on the revenue share model. In fact, for anyone listening, I'll throw a calculator up that I made for our team. I'll go and share it with you so you can plug and play and see what it looks like. To Andy's point about having 30, 50 sales, 30 sales. But this young man he had mentioned to me, he goes Aaron.
Speaker 1:For every person I referred to our company who was a seller, I forgot what he called it, his terminology. They gave us a $200 Amazon gift card and I was like was that every time they sold something I was trying to help him? You know what I mean? He was like, no, it was one and done. And I said, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. On average we're making close to $1,000 a deal and there's no cap on that. You end up getting a whale, like Patrick Adieu did is doing 50 units by themselves. That's 30 grand off one conversation, no financial responsibility. It can change your life.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Let's you live in the United Kingdom with a great amount of freedom, for example, yeah, you're obviously living life by design In closing, if you don't mind and you had no idea I was going to bring this up, but as a team builder, I would be sad or mad at myself if I didn't ask you Building, managing leading teams. Do you have any tips, any nuggets that you could give Other team builders that maybe want have goals or ambitions of building a large organization like you did? Like? How do you manage your time? How are you leading them? How are you helping them?
Speaker 2:Great, question and, if you don't mind, I'm going to just build into that a little bit, because one of the most key parts of the enterprise program that you mentioned and I haven't mentioned yet, to my shame, is, as an enterprise you mentioned, you've got 17 grand a month in outgoing in your real estate company. If you're at that company or you're a solar company or you're a roofing company, you probably don't want to pay all of the people involved in that solar process, the full commission. So you may not right. One of the joys for an enterprise is you have full control over how you split the commissions. So if you're paying let's say you've got appointment sedits and you're paying for their office space, you buy a car and you're paying them salary you can pay them zero commission on that project in-path, or you can pay them 10%, 20%. It's entirely up to you and as a company, as an enterprise, you can set a minimum margin that your company must have before there's any split. So 1500 bucks, two grand, whatever it is on a project, you can set that as a default. So any project that solves, you're always getting covering your minimum nut and then you get to adjust commissions based on whether someone's an appointment, sedder or a seller or an admin, you can have all of that created for you extraordinary right.
Speaker 2:So you have a full blown company within our company that's doing everything for you, right? So again, from proposal designs, the proposal tool, the online, the contract processing, the agreements, processing the survey of the project, the CAD designer, permits, the installation, the procurement and beyond, the warranty for 30 years is all handled for you as an enterprise. All you do is come in and bring your structure and go out and bring in these projects and then power is doing everything else with your brand on it if you want it. So you can keep the ego part of that, if you will I mean that in a good way and have your brand on the proposals and everything else. So you're running it just like your own company, but you are getting far better conditions on equipment types and pricing and loan types and pricing than you could possibly do if you were just starting your own solar company or you're a smaller scale company. That wasn't a big multi-state company. Phenomenal, and is it?
Speaker 1:If you bring this in A quick example on that, andy, because I get this question a lot, it's very similar to a real estate team like mine who I own, a team it's called Browning Homes Group, shameless Plug. We fly our umbrella or our flag underneath the EXP umbrella so my clients don't know of EXP. We're branding ourselves so you can do the exact same thing at Power. You could build a solar company. If you already have a solar company a roofing company, hvac, whatever that looks like you're building it with your same branding. Your customers could have no idea about Power as a whole. You're branding yourself. You're just flying your flag underneath the Power umbrella.
Speaker 1:To get everything that Andy just talked about, we had a and I hate using numbers, but I don't know them 100% accurate. Correct me if I'm wrong that the gentleman that we met at Solar Convention a few months ago who came out in Hawaii dynamite guy he's going to be a future guest was talking about he saves, I want to say he said $240,000 a year in operating expenses, inventory, warehousing salaries, all this other stuff, just by moving his huge solar business over to Power. Do you recall what he shared on?
Speaker 2:that, and this is an enormously successful company. This isn't a startup. This is an enormously successful existing solar company that recognized the benefit of playing in our ecosystem and cutting its costs by a quarter of a million dollars a year. It's a phenomenal program. The enterprise program rocks. It's why it's blowing up.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:Go ahead. I was going to say just to your team building point, the team building point we are attracted to single sellers. I spent my day just before this presentation. I had a group interview with potential sellers for my team. So one-to-one sellers, plugging them into our processes, working with them and developing successful professionals is very straightforward. If you are a team builder and you can bring in a roofing company, a mortgage company, an elite gen company, now you're multiplying your effort, you're leveraging, Because instead of one person doing a deal a month, if you have an enterprise that can do 30 deals a month, you can do the math on revenue.
Speaker 1:I do that math often. Just follow the bouncing ball, yeah, follow the money. As another one of my mentors taught me years ago. The money leaves a trail. My friends, obviously, when you have a company like ours that's growing fastest growing solar company, there are reasons, and enterprise is really the lunchpin behind that. If you will, andy, I'll speak for our audience. I can't thank you enough. I know your time is so busy, especially with the time zones and everything else. Man, I'm honored to call you a friend, honored to call you a mentor. Thank you for dropping bombs and nuggets In fact, audience. If you got value, please like share. Send this to someone else who's either in solar but maybe not hitting the growth they want, or they're thinking about launching a solar division. Andy and I are here to help. We come from contribution. We don't live in scarcity. So thank you Once again, andy. Thank you so much to the audience. Be good, be safe and God bless. We'll talk soon, my friends.