The LFG Show
Talking with movers and shakers who grew up with nothing and worked their asses off to achieve success. Let's 🤬 Go!!!!
The LFG Show
The Solar Coaster: Collapse to Comeback ft. Rich Feola
Rich Feola CEO Solarexclusive.com x Solarcon
🎢 The entrepreneurial journey isn’t a straight line.
It’s a rollercoaster—full of sky-high climbs and gut-wrenching drops.
On the latest episode of The LFG Show, we sat down with Rich Feola, CEO of Solar Exclusive, for one of the rawest, realest conversations we’ve ever had. 🔥
Rich built a solar lead empire:
- 🚀 4,000+ solar companies served
- 🔥 7 million leads generated
- đź’° $3 billion in solar installs facilitated
But even rocket ships hit turbulence...
➡️ Clients went bankrupt and fraudulently charged back hundreds of thousands.
➡️ A $50M acquisition deal collapsed at the signing table.
➡️ Wildfires almost took his Malibu home.
➡️ He realized his identity was tied way too tight to his business.
💬 "When your whole world burns down, you find out what’s real.” — Rich Feola
The comeback? Legendary. đź’Ą
âś… Built AI-powered ad tech
✅ Slashed lead costs from $60 ➡️ $12-15
âś… Rebuilt his business and his mindset
This isn’t just a story about solar.
It’s a masterclass in resilience, reinvention, and faith over fear. 🙌
Big shoutout to our sponsor Ringba — the #1 platform powering the pay-per-call world. 📞
And major love to RoofsInABox.com — helping businesses grow with virtual staffing, AI tools, and done-for-you systems. 🛠️
Listen if you're winning.
Listen harder if you're rebuilding. 🌪️
Let’s GOOOO. 🚀
#LFGShow #Entrepreneurship #Resilience #Solar #AI #Leadership #Faith #Ringba #RoofsInABox
Timestamps:
0:05
Introduction to SolarCon Event
1:36
The Rise and Fall of Solar
3:01
Handling Business Downturns
6:00
The AI Software Pivot
9:00
Failed Buyout Opportunity
22:31
Faith and Separating Identity from Business
29:13
The Future of AI in Marketing
32:03
Building Industry Community Events
guys last day of solar con. This event has been fantastic. Yesterday was man, we had shark tank guys. You were david goggins, it was crazy man and uh, we're starting out. We had rich fiola here. He's a ceo solar exclusive. He's an og in the industry, he's a vet and I'm really looking forward to this interview because, uh, listen, everyone always talks about the glitz and glamour being a business owner right, but there's a lot of ups and downs. I've had my ups and downs, man, especially solar. They call this thing the solar coaster and it really is. And I'm excited to talk with you, man, and you spoke the very first day. You had a great speech and I think the title was time to come to the show, ma'am, to be on the LFC show, david appreciate it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're super stoked to be here at SolarCon. We've been the primary sponsor for the last two years and, um yeah, we've been a surge in the whole industry. I distinctly remember that summer when the IRA was first passed and it was just like everyone was selling. That was 2022, right 2022,.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was such a euphoria man. I went to RE Plus. That was actually the peak. Yeah, if you have to look back, that was the peak. I was there and I was like so happy man, I so glad I'm in solar the stocks were hitting all-time highs and faces like a 300.
Speaker 2:Everything was hit, going right in the solar and then, literally, like two months later, everything hit the fan man, yeah, yeah. So there was a lot of like hype and everything going really well and everyone was selling more, everyone was buying more leads. Like we were at our height at that point, like at four and a half million a month in revenue. Um, we worked with over 4 000 solar companies since 2017 that's insane, man, and generated over 7 million leads and it's translated and to an estimated like 3 billion in solar installs, if we estimate, like based on like normal close ratios, but about 3 billion in sales, which is crazy. But like it's not all glitz and glamour, like you said, like we had, like after like 2023 hit, interest rates started going up. You know, solar just started becoming less affordable for homeowners and it really started with a glut in the install part of the business and like people not getting paid, installs taking too long, and then like just started seeing like companies go under, sales started going down the interest rates and like we weren't immune from that either. Like we had clients who you know were spending 100 grand a month 500 grand a month, some clients and like we saw them go down to like spending 10 grand, 20 grand a month because you know they just weren't seeing as many sales. So you know, we saw a downturn and, um, it kind of hit a head in 2024, toward the end of the year, where we had a number of clients who went out of business. You know, normal course of business. They just couldn't adapt, they couldn't keep up, like they weren't able to incorporate PPAs into their product suite and they just went out of business. And some of these people, unfortunately, like they use American express cards to like pay for their ad spend and they decided, you know, oh, I'm just going to, I'm going out of business, so in order to get cash, I'm just going to charge back my lead gen provider. Oh, no. So we had a number of clients who were clients for some of them years, and we have five-star reviews from them. We have text messages, emails from them saying how many deals they'd closed, how successful they were, and like then they just go back 12 months and charge back like hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Amex transactions and like that's going to hurt any business. You know, it's going to hurt cashflow, it's going to hurt your relationship with your payment processors. And like we had to really like kind of restructure to basically get back afloat and like take care of, like, some of our longest standing clients. And so you know, we shut down for a short period of time and we took care of every single client. Every single client that was due a prorated refund receive one. That's why we still have an, a rating with the BBB, because we didn't like it's like all right, well, we're shutting down for a month, like you're screwed out of all the money you spend, like we refunded every single client and took care of every single client.
Speaker 2:And I hate when people say, like you know, lead gen companies are scams, because we're like the exact antithesis of a scam If we're willing to give back money to everyone who didn't get the leads Right, but then, like after a month, we we restructured and just got got back up and running. We have more clients than before and we're just now positioning everything under our new AI software, which we're really excited about, which basically runs the ads for you. So we have clients pay into, you know, paying us for leads for a period of time and then after six months to 12 month period they get access to this AI software they can own so they never have to pay another lead vendor ever again. And it's been going really well. Like you know, I remember staying up till 2 AM some nights like optimizing optimizing ads in the beginning.
Speaker 2:Um, because there's so much work that has to be done when you're managing an ad campaign and I had a team of 10 guys all looking at different campaigns. At our height we had like 600 clients and like when you only have five or 10 guys like managing 600 campaigns, you can only check on the campaigns like once every two or three or four days. But now with the AI it can actually optimize the campaigns 24-7. So if it's seeing like hey, these ads are underperforming at two o'clock in the morning, it'll change them out. So that's by 6 am they're ready to go and people are seeing new ads and they're following up. We have a leads are coming in, following up. We have a leads are coming in and it just like totally changed the game for us because now we could lower our overhead, lower some of our staff. We have a lean team now and we're able to get the same, if not better, results, like some of our lead costs. We're at like $60 a lead in California. Now they're down to like $12, $13.
Speaker 1:This is like an online social media general lead. Is that the way it is? Well, that's crazy man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we saw the lead cost go from like 40 to 60 lead down to like 10 to 20 lead, like overnight. With this ai system, we just plug it in with our best ads, we plug it in with our best data and it basically just takes it from there and, uh, just crushes it well listen, there's a lot to unpack there and I mean, first of all, hats off to you.
Speaker 1:Is that I, you guys, massive name in solar space, right? I started a company called Solar Direct Marketing in 2016. It's funny, I reached out to you when you were in Jersey, I think, 2017, 2018. I was trying to maybe find out a way we could align, but then you moved to Vegas and we never got to meet man. Then I wound up moving to Miami. But either way, listen, I was part of the solar coaster too. Similar circumstance happened to me where we were a rocket ship man. I was part of the solar coaster too. Similar circumstance happened to me where we were a rocket ship man.
Speaker 1:We made Inc 500 three years in a row by our offers. I thought the thing was never gonna stop, especially after the IRA. I'm like man, this is gonna keep going. Man, I mean I felt kind of invincible. I don't know if you felt the same way.
Speaker 1:I'm like everything I did worked, and then what we did I don't know if this happened to you we just got kind of foolish in the sense that we're we see the top line coming in Right, and I mean I think one year we spent like $600,000 on events something stupid, man. Like we didn't have to. We will bring 10, 15 people like, and we could have done it much leaner Right. So I had for survival, I had to let go of a lot of people, man. Uh, not that long ago, man and I freed up like70,000 a month in overhead and now we're lean and we're mean, but it was such an eye-opener to me Like I got punched in the fucking face, you know, and I think as a business person, I feel like sharper than ever. I feel like I fucking fought Mike Tyson man and like he fucked me up, but I got back up right. So I could imagine you. I think it was a little bit. I mean, you were obviously bigger than all of us. I think we did our top year. We did 30 million right and most of that was solar. You guys probably did like 50 million right.
Speaker 1:But when that happened, I'm like damn man, because I know you guys were ramping up but and you wrote like you wrote, you put something online and you took care of your clients, you took care of your employees. I and you being vulnerable about it. I mean I think people want it. They'd rather. They'd rather do business with the person that's vulnerable, that's going to like not afraid to show the skeletons. That happened and you're still around, man. So I know I just said a lot, man, but I appreciate it, man, that you're willing to to talk about, talk about their audience, because people need to hear this stuff. Man, business is like it's not all this man, you got this, you got this, you got that.
Speaker 2:Man, you know yeah, for sure I appreciate that. Yeah, it was definitely tough to like like have the conversation with my cfo and be like because of these clients like charging back their ad spend because, like the thing is with ad spend, like we just wanted to make it convenient for clients because we got such good results, like it wasn't really a big risk for me. Like taking the ad spend on a credit card. You know, most agencies wouldn't take the ad spend on a credit card because once that money comes in on the credit card, we spend it on the ads. So like when someone charges back $100,000 in ad spend, like that $100,000 has already been spent by us on Google or Facebook or wherever. And so when you have $100,000, you spend it, you collect it on a credit card, then you spend it, then they take the $100,000, you spend it, you collect it on a credit card, then you spend it, then they take the $100,000 back. Now you're down $200,000 because you spent the first $100,000 and they take back $100K. So it hurts cashflow. So you know, when that happened it was like I was talking to my CFO like are we really going to go broke because people are just going out of business and they're doing a cash grab, like it's literally fraud. So we had to sue a bunch of clients and we ended up winning. We got some of the money back. That's why we had to shut down for a period of time, just like get that money back and then operate again.
Speaker 2:But, um, you know, it was a wild ride and I was just kind of like open and honest with people like, hey, look like this industry is, like it's messed up, like there's salespeople ripping people off signing up 90 year old you know old ladies who don't even know what they're signing. You know there's clients who you know we found out about, we cut ties with them. They were getting paid the uh SREC money in Illinois and they weren't paying it to the homeowners, they were just using it to like fund their expenses. Yeah, and we had another client, the district attorney of Tennessee like stormed their office and like confiscated all their computers because they were doing shady stuff. They were selling fake panels and fake inverters, just wild, wild stuff that happens in this industry that you don't really know that you've been a part of it.
Speaker 2:So like I, it was just like really like yanking on my heartstrings and I was just like made an announcement Just like oh, this industry needs to change. Like this industry needs to, like, get its act together. And like you can't be, like the industry is only as good as the people that are in it. And if the, if most of the people in the solar industry are thieves and crooks and don't pay people like I wanted to show that we're going to be different. So, you know, I made an offer to a bunch of my employees, paid them severance made, you know, um, have the ability to refund every single client that was wronged with, like this whole situation that happened because of clients that stole money. And like, now we're back, better than ever, and we're, you know, thriving, so it's great.
Speaker 1:There is a new endeavor called Roofs in the Box. It's just man from day one. It's taken off when.
Speaker 3:I first started getting in the roofing industry, what was happening was my fixed costs were always there, and so for me I was looking at how can we, kind of one, save on these costs? And then, two, how do I not lay people off during down times? But also maybe even the ability to pocket more money during the slow season or even the peak season. Since we've done this before, like with our Legion companies where we have virtual staffing and from Argentina or Columbia, I'm like why don't we do the same thing in the construction business? Now, once we figured it out, we reduced their fixed costs by 70%, and so now during the downtime they have real, seasoned, veteran type of players, but during the uptime they pocket. 70% of their operational costs are now going back in their pocket, and then, when it's time to scale, you have the back end prepared, already ready to go to help them lift off.
Speaker 3:Depending on what state you're in, you're averaging at about 12 and a half percent on what you pay out on taxes, insurance, like all the different insurances that you have to pay out, right? So, yeah, you don't have to pay out unemployment, you don't have to pay out bike insurance, medicare, social Security, the things that business owners have to eat. Roof to box is not just limited to roof your home improvement companies. You can use it for any services, right? You can use it for IT. We use them internally for data cells, for hygiene, for analytics. It doesn't even matter what the vertical is. It's like business in a box at the end of the day. Pretty much, yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's go into that moment. The first day I had something similar happen to me not to your scale, but I had a freaking jerk-off. He's from Jersey, you know the jerk-off term, right, but this jerk-off long, crazy story man, I was in Israel with my family in Tel Aviv, right, and the guy got ahead of us 225 grand. He's like a serial scammer. He's scammed people over a million dollars in the industry, right, I found out too late, but I was able to get back $150,000 back from the guy somehow. Man, people were amazed I was able to do it. And my last day in Israel my family, I got like four hours left. We're just enjoying a nice meal.
Speaker 1:My CFO calls me Dave. We got a problem. I need you to get on with Bank of America, that guy. Somehow he reversed an ACH. He made a payment to us like in December of 2022 for 23 grand, the last payment we got from him. He somehow reversed the freaking ACA. So there's like a 90 day period of time you can do that, right, and like an 89th day he did it.
Speaker 1:And I'm like are you kidding me? And then the bank had to talk to me. I had to do weird like international stuff and I was like how the hell is this possible? I didn't know you could reverse, I don't know if you knew they could do what they did with damn money back. And I was just so pissed not even about the money about my last few hours in Israel, my family, you know we're business owners, right, and like we were always hustling whatever, I feel like they never stops in our head with the mind, the, the, the business. So I'm finally in. I had such a great time. This guy like freaking ruined my my time, but it was like 23 G's and I was so freaking pissed. I'm on the plane trying to figure this crap out, man. But like what, what went on in your mind Like the first, the first time that happened, how much was in. Like what was going on in your mind? It was like almost like you got attacked, I imagine, right, like yeah, it was just like.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was just like a kick in the stomach. You know, it was just like you, you deliver like results for clients too. And the craziest part about it was that this client like sent us emails like here here's how many deals I've closed. Like thanks so much. Like he was like appreciative, like I mean I feel for the guy, like maybe, yeah, he went through a tough time. Maybe he got burned by his installer, maybe he got burned by the finance company, maybe he had his pipeline pulled or something. That's still not a legitimate reason to like go and commit fraud and steal from your, from the hand that fed you all those deals, you know. So it was just like it was terrible. Sorry for the noise in the background. We have our punching bag. We're giving away a Tag Heir watch, giving away a Solar Exclusive watch.
Speaker 1:Great, he's a great brand or two. We'll talk about it in a minute, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we're giving away a Solar Exclusive watch and they're pounding the punching bag trying to get the high score. But, yeah, so it. You first hear about that, like, and honestly, like I had peace when it happened, like I really did, like I was just like all right, well, there's nothing I can do to change this, I've just got to fight it, you know, and it took, you know, a few months to go back and forth with the credit card companies and we won some of the. It sucks, but you know, um, you don't expect those things. You know, and it really has to do with the industry in general.
Speaker 2:Like the industry has just had a downturn and a massive downturn, yeah, a massive downturn, and it's like, you know, everyone's experiencing that wave. You know, you experienced the wave up, you experienced the wave down too, and you know, um, it's happening across the board. Like credit card processors right now are experiencing this across the board in this economy. Right now, people are just stealing back credit card payments all over the place. So it's been an epidemic, not only just in the solar industry, but in really any industry impacted by this economy, and it sucks for the business owners because we're the ones that get stuck with the bill.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does. How do you as before, I asked you this question what so you decided to shut down solar exclusive right, regroup, like what? What on your mind did you? Because you have a family, right? Yeah, and, and I think that's what, if you're like single, you know you don't have a wife, you don't have a kids, it's a different story, right, I think you could be like a little bit more um, I don't know, like I don't want to say reckless, more brazen, like you're more willing to take some crazy risks, but when you have kids, you have to think about your kids, especially at the age we're at and stuff. But what did you feel? What went through your mind? Did you feel like a failure? Or you let people down no-transcript through for like a few days, I don't know, maybe a week or so. I'm like fuck, I gotta stop. Did you go through something similar? What was going through your mind when you're like damn, I gotta, I gotta shut the doors?
Speaker 2:yeah, I was just like f this industry. Like I was just like this industry is totally like corrupt. I was like like I wouldn't be surprised if, like, there's like federal agencies, department of justice, like investigating this industry because there's so much shady stuff that goes on. It's like the wild, wild west, you know. And I was like, do I even want to be part of this industry anymore? Do I even really really want to be attached to it, you know? And I had to just come to terms with the fact that, like I'm not responsible for like the misdeeds of the industry.
Speaker 2:We've always done things by the book. We've spent every single dollar that a client spends in advertising. We've never stolen anything from any client. We've never ripped off a client. We've always taken care of clients, especially clients that felt like they got burned or maybe like we made a mistake. Like've always refunded them. Like that's why we have an, a rating with the bbb. Like there's some legion companies, you know, even here at this conference, they have an f rating with the bbb. They just don't even respond to like the complaints that people have. Like we've always responded to people, we've always taken care of people. We've always we've always resolved their complaints and that's why we're still standing.
Speaker 2:You know, and I just had to kind of come to the terms with the fact that you know I'm not the industry like the, even though the industry is messed up, like I can still provide a great service, I can still do things ethically and honestly and not and still be separated from you know the negatives of this industry.
Speaker 2:But like, yeah, it definitely felt like hey, like I failed my family, I failed my team, I failed everyone. But at the end of the day, I just had to come to realize that, like there's a lot of stuff out of my control here, can't control the equity markets, can't control the downturn of installations, timelines and stuff like that, people getting overwhelmed. Like we had a deal for $50 million to get bought out just a couple of years ago and it fell through because they were reviewing the install timelines of the industry. They said like, hey, this is, we were a week away from closing. A week away from closing, I was going to walk away with a $50 million check and they were like you know what? Like we started to hear some things about installs being delayed.
Speaker 1:What was this exactly? What was the timeline that this happened? This was like January 2023. Wow, we were. Wow. We had bio offers 22 million, 30 million, a very similar. We actually signed the agreements. Yeah, I think we signed in march 2023, no, february 2023. We're two months into it. Solar, what the shit? Valuation went down 40, like we're not fucking doing this anymore. Yeah, but we're. It was like you started the loi process in 2023.
Speaker 2:I started the loi process in 2022. I was at the closing table and they were like hey, like we're starting to see some stuff happening in the industry with the install timelines. Like we want to pull out, yeah, and like some attorneys recommended they pull out. It was a private equity firm and like it just fell through. And uh, yeah, sometimes you start to overthink, you start to think like hey, like you know, like why, god? Like why did this happen? You know, but like everything happens for a reason. You know, like maybe I would have like totally turned into a terrible person if I had a $50 million. You know, maybe I would have corrupted my soul and like ruin my family, you know, and done something even worse, you know something stupid with that money, or something you know.
Speaker 2:So you know, I look at it as a blessing in disguise. You know like we're still in it and we serve other industries too, like it's not just, like we're in solar. Like solar, yeah, it's our map, it's our biggest brand. But we have other brands too, like roofing exclusive. We do life insurance exclusive. Um, you know water treatment. We're in all different home service industries. So you know the the fact is like what I want to do is expand into more just advertising in general. So I've been doing advertising coaching for a lot of coaching students of mine, coaching them on their ad agencies and like if this AI software really blows up, like we could probably do it in any industry and just provide a software that runs ads through AI, because I think a lot of these ad agencies are going to be like disintegrated once AI really starts to adapt.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. I agree with that. I love the pivot you made, you know. And so when did you decide, like fuck it, I got to get out the mud, get up and pivot. What was like that epiphany that said I'm going to pivot to the AI?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so over the last several months, before like this whole thing happened with the credit cards and the temporary shutdown it was.
Speaker 2:It was I had been speaking with one of previous contacts at Google because we had a team at Google that helped us with our ads and stuff because we were spending so much and this guy started building this AI platform for advertising to connect straight with Google, connect straight with Facebook, and so I started looking into this platform and then I trained it based upon my marketing mind like our best performing ads, our best performing results, like how I like to write ad copy, the types of creatives I like to create, and we program this guy's system and like built it out for us and now we can duplicate it in any solar business.
Speaker 2:So it integrates directly with GoHighLevel and you literally have a menu on there where you can run all your ads right from there and it'll optimize the ads 24-7 for you. It does all the work that an ad agency would do. You just have to feed it all the right data. So we have all the data that we fed it. We have all the creative intel that we fed it. Now it's like a superhero agency of AI just doing the work for you, yeah, and you talked about this on stage.
Speaker 1:You have so much, you spend tens of millions of dollars, right, and you have all this data that you feed into the AI, right, and it'll do the work, the heavy lifting for you and spit out best campaigns.
Speaker 2:A lot of people think, oh, I'm just going to get ChatGPT, it'll write an ad for me, it'll tell me how to run YouTube ads. It'll tell me because, yeah, you could do that. I had a conversation with a guy who did the same thing. He was like a 21-year-old kid. He's like I'm going to study every single thing ChatGPT says about YouTube ads. I'm going to study every single thing about how to get leads with solar. And he spent $8,000 and got two appointments. You could study everything ChatGPT does. Chatgpt could spit out ads for you.
Speaker 2:It it's not really going to change your life. Like, ai is very powerful when you feed it the right prompts. Right Like it has everything to do with the prompt. So like, if you feed it the data and you feed it the information, that has already gotten results. Like we've generated 7 million leads before AI. So we just how do we generate those 7 million leads? Well, it was all these parameters, all these factors, all these creative techniques. So we fed that into the AI and now it just like, took it to the next level.
Speaker 4:When I first heard of Roofs in a Box, I thought no way could everything be combined in one platform, from your CRM to AI, even virtual assistant helping manage all these things together. It has completely changed my business and I couldn't be where I'm at without it. So over the last eight months or so, I've saved at least a million dollars on what it would cost, salary-wise, to hire the engineer. I wouldn't have been able to do what I've done without Roof's in a Box or be able to do what I am currently doing without Roof's in a Box. If you are looking to scale, get your business organized or get it ready to sell, you definitely want to give Roof's in a Box a call. They'll get everything tightened up, get you set up to do whatever you need to do for a fraction of the cost. Not everybody's got a million dollars just laying around higher operations managers that have their own call center. So give Ruth's Unbox a call.
Speaker 1:They'll get it taken care of. That's awesome I love it, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I want to go back to one thing. You appreciate this. So, going back to the buyouts, right, I mean, I'm hella similar. I'm like man, I got this check coming. This is crazy. Like it got real, right, I'm like damn. At first I'm like this isn't going to happen. Like fuck, this is not going to happen, this is bullshit. Then it got real. So I'm like man, what am I going to? I started going to masterminds about where to put your money. Like I wasn't going to buy Lamborghinis, anything through. I was like fuck, it was like another punch in the gut, right. So, anyway, I went to a mastermind with this guy named Eric Spofford.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you know him. He's in Florida. He had a lot of drug rehab centers in the Northeast, but he had a similar situation where twice he had buyout offers of $45 million and crazy stuff happened at the last minute. Like his CFO goes on a bender. The guy's sober for like five years, goes on a crazy bender is on the news, ruins the reputation of the company. People pull out, kind of like what happened when they saw the. Yeah, his soul ties, I'm done. The guy's revenue goes down like 70. He has to go back selling again two years later, man, he sold his company for 115 million. So I sold the guy.
Speaker 1:I'm like, wow, that made me feel great. Because I'm like, like you know what, everything happens for a reason, right, I mean, he wouldn't even happen with 45 million, right, don't get me wrong. But he got back in the grind, restructured stuff and then boom, two, three years later, 115 million. So it's like it's what you do, doing that adversity, right, he could have, I mean, he could. This guy, that guy's been sober 20 years, he could have done whatever, just giving up, right. But he's like, what am I gonna do? I gotta get the fuck up, I gotta feed my family. And he came back stronger man, and the guy's crushing it, man. So, yeah, that gave me kind of made me feel good.
Speaker 1:Right, and hearing your story, I mean, this is what entrepreneurs need to hear, man, it's just not this. We, we, especially with social media, so jaded. You see these guys living this crazy life we get to portray like whatever you want to portray, right, but at the end of the day, this is what it's about is by getting the fuck up, it's ups and downs, and all these successful people even uh brett, or freedom talked about yesterday. This doesn't happen. Success don't happen overnight. It's a fucking process. It takes, take decades, man, to get there right. So I love, I love what you're doing. I think that's why I was excited to get you on the show, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah for sure. And it was kind of like when it rains, it pours kind of situation, because right at the same time that this was all happening, where clients stole money from us and we had it shut down, there were two major fires in Malibu. And I have a 13,000 square foot house in Malibu. It's like my beach house, it's my baby. I throw company events there, I throw, you know, coaching events there and like I know that like insurance only pays like 70, 70 cents on the dollar, if I lost this house it would have like it would have been a double gut punch, you know, but thank God like the house was preserved by the fire and like there was literally a fire in December. I mean there was a fire in January.
Speaker 2:January was a lot worse, but like literally almost lost my house in Malibu. I mean January was a lot worse, but like literally almost lost my house in Malibu and like, yeah, like first world problems, but like that happening along with like everything in the business, like you know, like it's easy to like lose sight of, like what really matters in life, you know, and like get so absorbed with like the wealth and like the success and all those things, and like when you start to see success in business, you start to get to the point where, like your business like almost becomes part of you and like when your business fails, it almost feels like you're a personal failure. But it's like totally separate, like I can still be a great dad, a great husband, a great you know Christian. I can still live a great life and like give to the needy and care for charitable causes and like be a good person, separated from like the success of my business.
Speaker 2:You know, and I had to come to like realize that because I'd become so tied to the success that, like, when everything seemed like it was going to be lost, like my business was, you know, potentially at the verge of ruin my Malibu house, which was like one of my largest investments, it's potentially going to get ruined. You know like it was like super disheartening and like almost on the verge of a mental breakdown. You know, so like thankfully it's all working out, like we've listed the house down in Malibu, like I just want to get rid of it. I'm worried there's going to be a third fire. I don't blame you, man, yeah, so like we're listed that house and you know everything's going to be fine how you adapt.
Speaker 1:When did you come to that realization? Because I think a lot of, and you've been in business. How long have you been in business? Eight years, nine years? Yeah, similar to me. So when did you come to that realization that you have to separate the two?
Speaker 2:Because I think that's happened to me too and I've gotten better at it, I think with I don't know if it age or what it is, maybe the the adversity man, or maybe getting punched so many times you're like, yeah, you got to separate it, right.
Speaker 2:But when did it like you realize like I gotta switch his mentality? Yeah, it happened like probably like a good two years ago. Um, like I converted to, uh, greek orthodox, so I'm eastern orthodox christian now and like it really helped me like get in line my spiritual life and uh, yeah so. But even when all this happened over the last six months, like it kind of really showed me like there was still a lot of that left in me. There was still a lot of like this. Like me and the business were like intertwined, you know, because, like for a lot of business owners, like your business kind of becomes your mistress, you know, yeah, it like becomes your baby and like now, like I feel like there's a healthy separation between life and work and uh, that wasn't always there, but that process started like two years ago when I started exploring my faith in a deeper way that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I love that. Yeah, you talk about that. It's great. So, ai, right, I, I, I go to a lot of these shows, I travel. I was in dubai. Um, what was it two months ago for affiliate world, I spoke, I did a moderated panel and a lot of these shows, I travel a lot. I was in Dubai. What was it? Two months ago for Affiliate World, I moderated a panel and a friend of mine who's big into AI this guy does stupid volume man, like nine figures a year and pay per call, like no home improvement stuff, like more insurance kind of stuff. Anyway, he was saying like if you don't adapt, if you don't start implementing AI right now, everyone here, you guys, are going to be out of business. 90% of you right, it's evolving so fast. Do you agree with that?
Speaker 2:no-transcript. Businesses win versus other businesses lose. There might be some businesses that, like continue to run but just don't thrive, right like I think. I think that the companies that successfully implement ai are going to thrive and the companies that don't successfully implement ai are not going to thrive. So I don't think it's a matter of, like, survival necessarily, but I think it's a matter of success for sure.
Speaker 1:So, going back to your product, right? What's the main from hearing what you're providing for the solar companies, home improvement companies you're essentially helping them reduce the cost acquisition dramatically, right? I mean, if they're used to spending, like you mentioned California, I know California solar leads are way through the roof, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, people pay like 90 to 110 dollars for an exclusive lead in California and solar and like we're able to generate them for like 12, 13, 14, 15 dollars and like, yeah, we charge a fee on top of that. So it usually becomes like 20, 25, 30 bucks a lead. Like still, you can't really beat that, compared to, you know, paying 90 to 110 dollars a lead. Like the cost requisition is going to be drastically lower for like people who use us versus like some of these traditional lead vendors Got it, so it produces at least four of them.
Speaker 1:Their call center has to contact the lead or their inside sales team, or do you?
Speaker 2:And we're also implementing like an AI dialer. Now we're still testing it out, but just for an extra fee you can have AI dial all the leads for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Cause I see that we have very different business model from what I understand. I mean, I I remember we talked about this a while ago when, when I did a solar directs, I would go out for, like the whales, I'd go out to the, the freedoms, the momentum solars right, I'd want the guys. And we were just talking about some of my home improvement clients, the people that spend. I want to hear 4,000. That's amazing. You seem like you. You probably penetrated a good chunk, like 60, 70% of the whole solar market, which my hat's off to you man yeah, work with a lot of the sales orgs.
Speaker 2:The sales orgs were our clients. Like you went out for the big installers, yeah, we went out for the sales orgs, the medium sized sales who are doing 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 deals a month like they need. They often work with like three, four, five different lead vendors. So you know, there's a point where, at our height, like, yeah, a lot of sales orgs were using us.
Speaker 1:You know, no, you're everywhere one of their lead vendors, yeah, so and let me you know what one thing that you were good at and you could tell by your booth over here. Man, did this booth have you? I remember the first solo con I went to. I didn't go to the very first one, I went to the, the second one, and I think it was a salt lake and you had a. You had a big you're. You know you walk in here, look, you see solar suits. Right, you got the van. The branding is so important. You're all over social media.
Speaker 1:And I remember one thing you did which I liked and I think I I do these masterminds now I think I I got this from you too. You would get the installers. You'd have like a big party, whether it's a Malibu or you ran out of place and you'd get them all together under one roof, right, and I thought that was genius, man, because they'd get to network, they'd get to talk to each other, you'd provide value and then, at the end of the day, they do business with you, right. So can you talk about that? Because that's not cheap to do something like that, right, but it's an ROI you get. But you were the first one I actually saw do that in this industry and that was like maybe 2018, 2019, you started doing that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was actually 2020. But, yeah, I wonder sometimes if Jake was inspired for SolarCon by some of our events that we did originally, because I remember meeting Jake at our event in San Diego, like it was literally in the middle of COVID. We rented out a corner like event hall downtown san diego, right next to, uh, pepco stadium, right next to the padres ballpark, and literally there were like three story high windows you could see in and it was in the middle of covid.
Speaker 1:So like, literally, our event team put up drapes to like block the cops from being able to see how you were like yeah, I remember it was dark in there, but it was nice, it was like it looked kind of sleek like a like a lounge or something. Man, yeah, I didn't know that's.
Speaker 2:That was a reason behind that, wow yeah, because it's the middle of covid, yeah, and so like you didn't see any of like san diego from the windows, because it would look sick if, like you saw san diego outside the windows, yeah, but like we had to drape everything because there was literally no one in the streets. It was like the middle of COVID. So, you know, we had people bring masks and stuff, but like everyone was taking their masks off, we were like this is the first time we've gotten together, so it was like more of in, like just like getting the solar companies together. But it was also the fact that it was in the middle of COVID and they're just like man, it just feels so good to get together.
Speaker 2:In like six months, I've been able to be with more than two or three people at a time and like it was just like that, coupled with like getting all the solar companies together, like and I spoke and we just did an open bar, it was like a wedding. We basically threw a wedding for the solar industry and like we did a bunch of those events and it worked really well. Like we would get a ton of clients and people would network and uh, yeah, I was like yeah, you're right, 2019 2020.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember seeing that. I'm like, wow, that that's amazing, right, and uh, I think a lot of people it's not even like rocket science, right, but I don't know, I don't know why I didn't do something like that. I do masterminds with media buyers and stuff, but that was that was really genius you're doing. And again, are you speaking at all these shows, right, and I think that that personal brand, you're a position as an expert and I think a lot of people at media buyers they lose sight of that, right, they don't you get out there. Get out there, get outside your comfort zone, get do some social media content, go on podcasts, do something to talk about your vulnerability, the good, the bad and and they people relate to you, right, they're willing to do business with you because they trust you, I think, right yeah that's what happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, thanks for having me on, dude. I really appreciate it. No, I'm glad I mean this. I mean this is what it's about. It's not all about this. Like I said, it's about. It's a journey, right. Life is a journey, right. Not everything goes straight up, man, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So if you want to learn anything about Solar Exclusive, feel free to check out solarexclusivecom. Check out our website. You can learn about our AI software. Get a demo, help you out if you're a solar company, roofing company, any home service based company, life insurance we could do it all for uh legion. So I know dave has got a rock solid legion operation too, so definitely check him out as well. And uh work, work with him. And and uh yeah, looking forward to see how you grow your business yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:follow him on ig. We'll put your social, your stuff on there. Success leads clues. Everybody risk been killing it for a long time. Massive billions of dollars in solar, so that's pretty impressive, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm glad to have you on the show, man, let's fucking go, guys. Thank you. Get ready to level your shit up with the LFG Show. We travel the globe to bring you heavy hitters from all walks of life. We've been the best digital marketers, government contracting experts, to top athletic and celebrity doctors. We've got it all covered. We're talking to guys who've cashed in for billions with a, b and the best thing is we're just getting started. So hold on tight. We're about to crank it up a notch. Get ready for next level networking and masterminds within the LFG community. Scare money, don't make no money, or honey. Hit the subscribe button, drop a like, leave a comment and let's fucking go.