As the sun rises, so do the stakes. Step into the thick of it with our Director of Operations, Brad Yant as we navigate the nuances of the solar system installation. Learn about the coordination, the challenges, and the sweet symphony of teamwork that turns the cogs in this green machine. What happens after the panels are in place? Brad leads us through the meticulous measures to ensure quality assurance and the open lines of communication that pave the road to customer satisfaction. With a nod to the vibrant culture at Harmon Solar, we close our chat, leaving you with a newfound appreciation for the community and collaboration that radiates from the heart of the solar industry. Join us for this enlightening journey and charge your knowledge with the expertise of a true solar operation.
As the sun rises, so do the stakes. Step into the thick of it with our Director of Operations, Brad Yant as we navigate the nuances of the solar system installation. Learn about the coordination, the challenges, and the sweet symphony of teamwork that turns the cogs in this green machine. What happens after the panels are in place? Brad leads us through the meticulous measures to ensure quality assurance and the open lines of communication that pave the road to customer satisfaction. With a nod to the vibrant culture at Harmon Solar, we close our chat, leaving you with a newfound appreciation for the community and collaboration that radiates from the heart of the solar industry. Join us for this enlightening journey and charge your knowledge with the expertise of a true solar operation.
Welcome to another edition of the Harman Solar podcast. I'm your host, rob from Mono, vp of sales and marketing at Harman Solar, and with me, as always, is my co-host, ben Walsh Lager, also known as Mr Everything. Mr.
Speaker 3:A little enthusiasm, mr.
Speaker 2:Everything.
Speaker 1:Mr Everything, how are you Ben? I'm doing well. How are you Good? It's been about a month, it's been a while. Yeah, nice little break, yeah.
Speaker 2:Took a little break, got refreshed, grew a little hair, except for you, no, trying to, I guess. That's good, yeah, yeah, I think we got a guy.
Speaker 1:We got a guy, another guy Hold on before we get into the guy. Okay, let's not talk guys. Let's recap what have we done so far. We've talked about the ins and outs of solar as a customer or homeowner.
Speaker 1:You're made the decision. Okay, I'm going to do it. I've watched the sales process. I kind of know what's going to go on, so I don't have any questions there. I know what's after the sale, before my installation goes on, and I'm all up to speed and everything. And now it's the big day. Right, it's the big day Time to get those panels.
Speaker 2:Time to get it installed.
Speaker 1:Get those panels on your roof. Wow, let's do it.
Speaker 2:It's about time, yeah Well, I mean, I don't know how long it takes, but that's pretty much what we've done.
Speaker 1:That's pretty much, yeah. From the time that we started the podcast to now it's like the length of the industry To get you to this. It worked out nice Well, you know, depending on the jurisdiction, depending on the jurisdiction.
Speaker 2:So now we're at that point and now it becomes the job of a guy, the guy, the guy that owns all of this. No pressure, no pressure at all. If you're happy with us, this is the guy you want to praise. If you're not, this is the guy you want to call and we'll have his phone number and email and home address, like always after the show. So today I forgot to memorize your home address. You can't talk it. You're not on camera. Today we have Brad Yant. He's our director of operations at Harmon Solar, brad, welcome.
Speaker 3:Good morning.
Speaker 1:Welcome.
Speaker 2:So that, brad, how long you been at Harmon. I am in my fourth year at Harmon. Fourth year is not bad. I know a random people that we brought on. Yeah, he's new. He's newer. He's not as new as our last guest. It was two years, but four years is not bad.
Speaker 1:Probably feels like a hundred A little more yeah.
Speaker 2:Tell us a little bit about you and your background. What have you done before you came to Harmon?
Speaker 3:Background 25 years doing new home builds, new home builds, new home builds.
Speaker 1:So you know everything about a house.
Speaker 3:And a guy and a guy. All right, I do. I spent a long time doing home building.
Speaker 1:Custom home, custom cook cutters, cook cutter custom and semi-customs.
Speaker 3:Everything Did a little bit of commercial development as well, so got a little bit of that experience. And then also got to demo some schools. Oh, okay. And do infill communities, which was an experience and a half. I did not know, that.
Speaker 2:So you have a good amount of background in construction, construction, building stuff. That's what you do. That's what you do. It's all about construction. So you are the director of operations at Harmon Solar Some days.
Speaker 3:Depends who's calling. What does it mean?
Speaker 2:What does it mean, what's in your world, to be the director of operations?
Speaker 3:You know, I think just trying to bring people together on our team.
Speaker 3:in all honesty, I'll probably go off a little bit, I can edit everything out, so go ahead. So obviously, like one of my first inclinations, even interaction with you, is erase lines in the sand. Yeah, you know, between sales and ops. I think you find that all the time I've got I've got previous years of, obviously, director of operations stuff and you find that combativeness in between sales and ops all the time, always, that's one of my main focuses is to try and erase those those lines right and blur them as much as possible and understand that it's all for the benefit of the company.
Speaker 2:And for people to understand that which I'm sure a lot of you do, I mean, it's you always have the sales out of the business that's getting the new business and bringing it in and wants it to go and move as fast as possible. For a lot of different reasons, because they want to keep customer happy, they want everything to be perfect and in construction always not everything is always perfect, Right, and we've talked about that and we'll get into that later on as well. But so there's always going to be a little bit of this sometimes between sales and hops, and I think we've done a good job in the last four years of kind of minimizing this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you're going to have a little bit of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's always going to be a piece of it there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but yeah, trying to blur those lines as much as possible and understand the best benefit to the business and not just personal interest.
Speaker 2:Right, no, I agree. Yeah, so talk about. So what departments are under you? What do you? What do you oversee?
Speaker 3:All the residential and then warehouse Okay, literally following me, the auditing team as well fall under me, so I've got my hands in quite a few baskets every day.
Speaker 2:All the field guys. So everything we've kind of been talking about up to this point a lot of it is is Brad's is doing again show that number.
Speaker 1:It's his doing, so he's responsible for all that, okay.
Speaker 2:So I think today we want to focus on installation day, right, like you said, we've gotten all the way up to this point and now customers hopefully ready to get installed. They've got their permits at. Finally, the designs are all done, everything was permitted and now we just need to get them on the schedule.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We have to order equipment and all that. We have to get them on the schedule.
Speaker 1:And it's not as easy as just throwing up on the roof and a couple screws right. Sure it is. Oh well, I thought it was too.
Speaker 2:I didn't know it was that hard. Yeah, so my mistake. Yeah, it is your mistake, so let's talk about that. So you actually are, you're over. You oversee the parts ordering part too, right, so you have a part of the department that does that. So there's a department that under you that orders the equipment and gets it all and that can take some time. I don't know how long it takes to get the equipment.
Speaker 3:It depends, you know, obviously, if it's, if it's a simple job not, we don't have any duration issues. Usually If there's equipment upgrades, things of that nature that are, you know, going into something, then then, yeah, we deal with some longer lead times on some things.
Speaker 2:So if I'm a customer, what I'm at home waiting for something to happen, who calls me? Who tells me what's going on as far as scheduling? What's that process?
Speaker 3:Are we talking normal or hypothetical?
Speaker 2:Gosh, I don't know how to answer that.
Speaker 1:Do we have a hypothetical person that does this?
Speaker 3:Well, and the reason being right. I mean, once again, ralph, we've talked quite a bit. It's it's. I'd love to tell you we live in a perfect world and no one makes mistakes, and your project manager should be reaching out to you, right, that's. The goal is that the project managers is communicating with with the clients as much as feasible, feasibly possible, understanding that we go through a night and I don't want to get off from the installs, but we deal with permitting timelines, right, right, the permitting timelines are longer, so it does go quiet for a little bit. It goes dark. Hopefully, as we get closer to install, though, the guy, you've got interaction with your project manager. They've reached out to you to tell you when materials coming, install dates are confirmed with you and they will not be arbitrary or show up and temperatures off, knock on the door and say, hey, we're here to do this.
Speaker 2:So, hypothetically, Should I hear when it goes dark? Does that mean I don't hear from anybody for a period of time? Or is there actually touch points with that, or there's?
Speaker 3:still touch points are just not as frequent. Every couple weeks Maybe, yeah, every couple weeks. And then obviously, we're also trying to engage and stay engaged with the salesperson as well. Right, so everyone's on the same page and knows what's happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because the goal is to have you know your, your permits ready and materials and all that stuff by installation day. Obviously you don't want to have like, okay, we got materials and we got our permits, now let's go ahead and schedule. No, because it might be, you know, two or three months after that because the schedule so backed up, so you gotta have that like.
Speaker 3:Our goal is to kind of time it so that when we get everything, we at the same time We'd spend quite a bit of time. So, as jobs are flowing through the process, what we'll do is we'll back into trying to anticipate scheduling time frames right and we'll layer things in with tentative dates on things, yep, and that way it gives us opportunity on the calendars to move jobs in and out based on what's going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that's why we tell customers hey, this is your tentative install day. It might be sooner if something else moves around, but it also might be a little bit later if there's delays. But right, plan on this day.
Speaker 2:I just thought of something. You were actually his boss at one point, weren't you? Oh, that is accurate. So you're in a room right now with both your ex bosses. How's it feel? Well, the fact that you're Because you don't work for me anymore it feels really good.
Speaker 1:It feels good. Yeah, it feels good, and one day you two will work for me. Yeah, I'll be dead and I'll be retired.
Speaker 2:See, I'll be dead, he'll be retired. That's great.
Speaker 1:How's it make you feel, feels great, I'll still be working for me, I guess.
Speaker 2:Okay. So, like you said, not a perfect world, but you're gonna communicate with a customer. Hey let him know we're gonna be coming out. Blah, blah, blah. Now I do. We do something very different. We don't typically just come out, and if it's a one-day install, we don't come out and do it all on the first day. We actually have a roofing team that comes out first.
Speaker 3:Correct, so roof roofers, roofers show up roughly I'm gonna tell you in a perfect world about a week or two before week or two before before Install to do the roofing piece and then we go into what we call a valet with our distributor and the distributor You'll get you'll get notifications from your project manager when these dates get set up. But the distributor shows up roughly a day prior and Our intent is to get all the material loaded under your roof. So when the install team shows up day of install, all the equipment's already on the roof.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's talk about that. So two things Roofing team comes out, they're putting up the stanchions. Correct roof stanchions, just the stanchions.
Speaker 3:The yes, just the stanchions. At that point they're supposed to put everything back. Right, that all the three course material and Any tile flash kits, all that supposed to be put back together, right? Someone solar shows up.
Speaker 1:It's just ready to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's just the roof, alfie, I can go so we can explain what a stanchion is. If you don't know what a stanchion is, it's you know. I guess I can say it's that little thingy that thing they're sticking out of your. You can probably put put a link to our roofing video. Yeah, because the roofing video does talk about the stanchions and they're just metal. I'm, what do they? How do you remember? How were they six inches? Four and five generally about five inch.
Speaker 2:So there are five inch metal Round things that are gonna stick out of your roof. Sometimes it'll be the metal tile plates in there as well. We've shown you all that in the roofing video. But that's what we're talking about is their team will come out and do that first, and that could be two weeks before. Yeah so you could have your just that stuff sitting on your house for two weeks before we get out there. So that's good to know. And then you're saying that our supplier will then come out, typically a day before.
Speaker 3:Yeah, generally it's a day or two before we try and we try and plan a day before. A lot depends if we're running into holidays or what their schedule is and then we actually run into also opportunities when we'll get a phone call from them. Hey we're, we don't have the manpower to get it up on the roof and we need to place it in a secure area at the homeowner's home, Right? So then it's obviously trying to get it if if it's a backyard snare behind a gate or some place that we can feel confident that it's gonna be safe until the install crew shows up.
Speaker 2:So their goal is, though, to try to put it on the roof. That is the meaning. They're gonna put a stack of panels and stuff on the roof.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the the distributor uses. They've got a series of unistruts that go up there. We're not just free-floating panels.
Speaker 2:I'm just trying to understand as a customer like you're putting stuff in my roof, just leaving it there.
Speaker 3:They've got you in a strut, a unistrut system that they put up there and gets lagged down and then all the material goes into that. So it's all sitting up there, secure, shouldn't blow away he said it shouldn't shouldn't, shouldn't. Once again, we are dealing with humans.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, right, all right, so should should. Well, let's hope that doesn't right.
Speaker 3:We've never had that happen yet we have not right. But that's there's once again I.
Speaker 1:Ralph, you know.
Speaker 3:I think you've known me long enough to know now, right, I'll stand behind everything we do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, things are gonna happen.
Speaker 3:I agree, we don't run from them, that's. That's one of the differences with us. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:I agree with that, and just just to want everybody to understand. So, no, and all kidding aside, yeah, we do put it on your roof. It is secure, nothing's gonna happen. But the point is they are gonna sit it up there if they can, if that's, if they have the manpower, like you said and that just Makes it so much easier for when the crew comes the next day, right, so let's.
Speaker 2:So we've gotten to that point where we got. We got stuff on the roof, we got everything going in, we're now we get to installation day.
Speaker 1:Yep, everything's prepped and ready, like we've got all of our ingredients out. We're ready to cook.
Speaker 2:Yes, we're ready to cook.
Speaker 3:What time do we start cooking depends on time of year summer, summer I'm gonna tell you we try and get there as early as we can get there. We generally I have a 6 am Start time you'll probably see guys showing up 545 Wanted to get going. A lot of this, once again, let's talk right. A lot of this depends on HOA's sure what rules or guidelines we're working with. But obviously 110, 115 degree heat. These guys want to be off the roof by One o'clock. We don't and furthermore, we don't want our guys up there right for safety reasons. You know we put some protocols into place even for our teams in the past couple years about, you know, summer activities and how we want these installs to go so that we keep everyone healthy okay, homeowner need to be awake during that time.
Speaker 3:Well, if they're not awake when we? Arrive, there's gonna be a wake shortly, I knew that was coming.
Speaker 1:You stepped into that one. Is that Santa on my roof?
Speaker 2:Geez, yeah, they're gonna be awake real quick. Yeah, I remember when it did it at my house, I was, I Was awake, but I mean it was yeah, you could obviously hear someone's clock, you know, walking on your roof.
Speaker 1:I guess you can probably hear it.
Speaker 3:I think I think one of the things, even talking to that point, that we've been trying to coach the guys on and and I think just Recently we've started to get a little bit better at it With my interaction with the superintendent is, you know, coaching these guys, the foreman to start Engaging with the homeowners when they get on site.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was gonna go to that. That's where I was going next. Yeah, so I'm glad you walked right into that. That's perfect. What? What's the team? So well, who's out there? You have you said you have a foreman that comes out there.
Speaker 3:We should have a foreman, a roof lead and then obviously the other crew members.
Speaker 2:Okay and then. So the foreman is gonna try to engage first with a customer woman should try and engage with the client, right.
Speaker 3:That's. We actually want them it's. It's funny, and I'm not I don't mean to, this isn't a dig at Harmon by an instruction. When I got there, though, four years ago, that community from from what I saw, that communication wasn't happening, right, the foreman, right, pretty shut down with the client, just there to focus on their job, and I think we've tried to turn the corner with that is that we want them engaged with the client, absolutely. We want them to explain to the client hey, this is where this equipment's going on your wall, this is where it's gonna hang. Set some expectations right, because, once again, expectations are everything, and if a client's perceiving something different in their head and we start working and it's not what they're envisioning, we're not in a good spot at the end of the day taking all my questions away, so that's what I was gonna say is is.
Speaker 2:I would hope that we knock on the door, say hi, I'm whoever, I am with Harmon, have a, you have the plan and say this is what we're getting ready to come do. Right, we're gonna install panels, this is where they're going. We have a battery that's going here. Blah, blah, blah. Make sure everybody's copacetic Versus not saying hi, getting on the roof, putting stuff up and people like what the heck, you didn't yeah. This isn't even this.
Speaker 1:I didn't order so it goes back to a story that you told me wasn't a Harman install, but I think you told me that someone, a company, installed panels on the wrong home. Yeah, all it took was someone to knock on the door and say, hey, we're here with you, know so-and-so over here to install. But they didn't do that. They just installed panels on a home and turns out wrong house.
Speaker 2:What are you doing on my roof? Yeah, Santa came early.
Speaker 3:Thanks for the system. Yeah, I didn't.
Speaker 1:So it yeah helps alleviate stuff like that too the.
Speaker 3:The other thing to be cognizant about with that, that initial upfront conversation is Once again understanding if, if there's determining factors that hey, we're gonna move some equipment around, or or the homeowner, the client, wants something a little bit different, understand we could end up going back to do permit revisions right, that stops everything, right, yep well, I mean we can proceed with it with, you know, 99% of the install at that point, but we are gonna have to go back to the jurisdiction because it's got to show on that plan set where it's going.
Speaker 2:So what you're saying is it's a good idea to make sure everybody's on the same page before you start doing anything, oh yeah so and I know we've talked about in the process where we do a design approval With the customer we have in the past, correct.
Speaker 3:We've kind of gone to say sending that plan set to them and kind of relying upon them, if they have questions or concerns when that plan set is sent to them, to reach back out to us, because if they don't, we're just gonna assume it's good and we're gonna move forward.
Speaker 2:There, you go right. And so when we're calling to schedule the install, is anyone even touching that point anymore?
Speaker 3:Not, not to a whole. You know we're hoping at that point that they've had plenty of time to review right, because we're anticipating permit coming back in at that point.
Speaker 2:So and you would assume you hear something right there. Yeah, yeah, if you call to say I'm gonna schedule the install, well, what are you talking about? I didn't want this done, though, and you can start having that whole conference. Unfortunately, that'd be a bad time to have it, yeah but, but better at that time than the right but that's a delayed conversation now, because now you're going back and we permit and everything else.
Speaker 1:So to your point as a PM, though we we don't even get to that point until we get, like, when we send them the plan set, we say I need some sort of Verbal confirmation that this is what you want.
Speaker 2:So a verbal or text email, something that says I think, yes, in the past that's been the situation, but I know that in the, in the recent we've moved away from even that. We've more said here. It is you need to respond to us if it's not what you want, because we're moving forward Okay yeah, because we don't want to create a major delay.
Speaker 2:Well, someone takes three weeks to get back to us. That project is just sitting. We want to go get it permitted. So it's like hey, here it is, get back to us in the next 48 hours. If you don't get back to us, we're going forward. We're gonna move forward.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just trying to streamline and find some efficiency games. Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:So anyway, yeah, so we just you know they don't get back to us within 48 hours, then we're just moving forward and going down the process and then hopefully, when they're sitting on the front door, they're not having that conversation of, oh, this is not what I wanted. So everybody just needs to understand. If it get to that point and you say this is not what I wanted, now everything stops. Like we just talked about, we have to get repermitted, we can't. The installation gets put on hold for the most part, maybe some.
Speaker 2:We know plans gotta be redesigned, which is why it's so important that not only do we have to do our part, do as an.
Speaker 3:Homeowner has to do their part.
Speaker 2:You have to be able to communicate to us. You have to tell us, yes, no, let's move. If you don't communicate to us, these are the bad things that can happen down the road. Yeah which then are just gonna make you upset, because now you're gonna wait even longer to get something that you want up there To start saving your money right. So everybody has a part of this. Agreed, agreed.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:So how long Typical insta? I know this is tough because there's there's so many different kinds are small installs, large installs, but a typical install. What is it? Is it a day, is it two days?
Speaker 3:typical itself. So it'll only be a day, depending on we we schedule these things. We're looking at, obviously, looking at the plan set, looking at number of re-arrays, distance to the s, the. The main panel is about to say SES, most, most people wouldn't know what that is. Distance back to the main panel right. What are our conduit runs? How are we getting there? So all those things kind of come into consideration. We're looking at job duration Generally speaking though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, standard system, a day a day if it's, and the customer's gonna know how long prior to that, right, they're gonna tell them it's a two-day install, yeah correct, I'm not scheduled.
Speaker 3:Data is confirmed with them.
Speaker 2:Are they gonna have their power turned off during this time?
Speaker 3:If they do, it should be very, very, very quickly. Generally, on a standard install, you're looking at as to if it's gonna get shut down. It's Just to pop the back for you. Then, if you need to, the back feed breaker. Other Nat, if the job's got a D rate, yeah, you're gonna lose power for a little bit because we've got a pull. Oh, you're your main circuit breaker out to put the D rate breaker in. So you would be looking at losing power. And then, obviously, if you have an SES upgrade once again, sorry about the vernacular a main panel upgrade, so they understand then then yeah, you would also be looking at a shutdown in that scenario.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about that. So a main panel upgrade now, isn't that a more involved? Does that happen at the time installation? Does it happen before, after?
Speaker 3:Little both. Generally we want to get them before. So obviously, when the solar comes out, to tie in, right, the main panels there and we don't have to walk away from that job with wires dangling or things. Not, it happens. Yeah, right, I mean that we're able to just tie in immediately with with the main panel already being upgraded and ready to go.
Speaker 2:So, yes so does the utility have to come out for any part of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, main panel upgrade same thing. They're gonna come out, they're gonna, they're gonna pull meter socket. We actually have to go through an inspection. So once we get new panel up and start getting every all the breakers back landed in the panel, we have to get inspection through the Jurisdiction before the utility company comes back out to rest at the meter in so that can actually hurt the timeline For when the system gets installed right, because we have to go on their schedule correct.
Speaker 3:So yeah, utilities, we don't get to dictate to the utilities when we, when we have them shut down. They kind of dictate to us, based on their scheduling availability right.
Speaker 2:So anybody that's getting a main panel upgrade I mean it's that could definitely adjust the time of when your system's gonna get installed. We might be able to move really fast. But maybe utilities like hey, I'm this many weeks out, I can't come out till this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're at their mercy, like you just said again, that's if you need the main panel if you need it.
Speaker 3:Not everyone needs it.
Speaker 1:Not everyone needs it exactly don't want to scare anyone out there, no, I don't scare you, but I want reality.
Speaker 2:Right, just like if we need to get a utility input on something in the design. So if something in your design is kind of questionable, we need to go to the utility and say, hey, what do you want to see? Right, we have to wait for them to come back to us.
Speaker 3:What we generally see on those is what's going on, as a lot of older homes, older constructed homes, main panels were installed in backyards, under overhangs, carports. Those things are no longer allowed to be done that way. Yeah, and today's environment and based on all the new code updates, and so we, what we find is, if there you've got to have either D-rate or some kind of upgrade, those services have to move. They're not allowed to remain in place. We've overhead services will have to move. We've run into, you know, all of the above and Once again, now we're up against trying to figure this out. So we've got to get the utility input back from them to say, hey, this is where we can run our conductors, this is where we're expecting the new service location to be. So once again, there's there's there's 20 things behind the scenes happening that that people really don't understand Right what's going on or why there is delays.
Speaker 3:Yeah and I think, yeah, utility input, as we've kind of talked about, it's one of those gray areas that we tend to follow with the utility and go down that path with them, because what we don't want is to get the end of the process and have an upgrade and the utility come out and say, nope, sorry, doesn't work here, we're not gonna allow this and that's where I was going.
Speaker 2:So perfectly got me there. Right is. There's companies out there that just go ahead and do whatever they think is right, right, wrong or indifferent, and it's not what the utility wants right. And now we get to that point and everybody has to stop, because utility says nope.
Speaker 3:Can't do that, and let well, let me tell you the good news, right? The good news is the other companies are gonna. Soul is, everything's gonna be up on your roof, but it's not doing you any good. It's like having a paperweight up there. Right right, you're not producing anything until all this gets resolved and done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're not trying to be the bad guys here. We're trying to go off of building codes and utility Requirements, that this is all the things that they want. So it's not stuff that we want to do, is it?
Speaker 3:we just have to follow the rules and that's what we do you know, ralph and I talked earlier and and One of the things, one of the research things I did when I started it, harmon, was I started researching. You know how long solar installers had been in business here in Phoenix in the area and I would advise people to do your homework on that because, you start looking back, like beyond five and ten years, most of the install companies are no longer here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and to me there's a reason why, right, and the reason Harmon's still standing here, I think, is because they take pride in what they do, number one, but they do it the right way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so true. We've talked about that a million times. Yeah, I can't tell you just in the last year how many of them have gone out of business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if you're a homeowner and you're looking at solar, one of the questions that you should ask her in that point is how long have you been doing installs? Yeah, you know, if they're like, oh, just you know, a couple months, okay, I don't know if I want to be in business with you guys, but if it's someone that's been around since the 70s and I just wouldn't take people's word right Get online if I think we all have that capability at our fingertips today To start doing that kind of and look, it's not spending a day doing research, it's been in ten minutes, yeah, and you can start finding those answers and driving out.
Speaker 3:Who do I really want to partner with, right? Right Do I want to do? I want to partner with the company that that's still standing all these years later, that has the support. They've got an office building right. If I physically need to walk in somewhere, guess what? I can walk into their company and speak to someone.
Speaker 1:Right. So when you walk into that building and you make a slight right and you go all the way down about two weeks.
Speaker 3:Four doors, there you go. That's my office.
Speaker 2:If you can get by our security guard. That's true, she is packing, all right. So another thing that would stop you sometimes I'm gonna bring this up, I know we've talked about it but I'd like to hear from you is if we get into something and it's an unpermitted structure.
Speaker 3:Let's talk about that. We just had a house like that recently, right, so we did.
Speaker 2:Like I guess they had a I can't remember what they had that was unpermitted, was it a?
Speaker 3:overhang, or I wanna say it was a weird patio that wasn't permitted. And what we run into is, generally we can get down the road a little bit in permitting and then we'll install, and then all of a sudden it'll get flagged as we start calling for our final inspections, or what we like to call green tag inspections, and we won't be able to obtain inspection right. So here we go client systems on your house, not functional, not turned on, can't get inspection until unpermitted structures resolved Right. And now all of a sudden you're up against a clock of loan expirations or payments, starting homeowners now making loan payments but solar's not turned on right. It just causes havoc for everyone.
Speaker 2:It's a rolling effect, and the one I'm thinking of recently was just the battery.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were just doing a battery, we weren't even looking at doing solar, a design install and patio is unpermitted.
Speaker 3:And so once again we've gotta go back and say, hey, we've gotta call a timeout right. Once again not gonna make the client happy that we're calling a timeout, but let's be realistic with what's going on. Right, we could get down this road. You're gonna have this battery purchases contract whether you're paying cash or it's a finance deal. There's money vested into it at this point and it's gonna go nowhere fast.
Speaker 2:To your point that you were just talking about. So now we can't move on this thing. And then they're gonna come out and say, well, tear, that you're gonna have to tear this patio down. Or they're gonna say, hey, here's a $900 fine, $1,000 fine. Who wants to play that game? Nobody, right. And your point that you were making was we don't just not our rules, we're just we have to play by the rules.
Speaker 1:A lot of customers think it's oh, harman said this, harman said no, the utility said that. You jurisdiction said this. Like it's not us, we're trying to protect you.
Speaker 2:So if we see that, we pause right away and say we're not going forward because this is what's gonna happen, Unless you get an inspector or somebody that's just a clueless and doesn't care. But typically nowadays we're seeing more and more of that's not the case. They are looking at stuff, so we have to prevent that. So that's just another thing that can pause it.
Speaker 1:Same thing with EV chargers. I know we see that a lot of people have unpermitted EV chargers. Yeah, that's very common Very common because they don't know any better. They have an electric car.
Speaker 3:let me put my EV charger in my garage, my buddy's friend does electrical he came over and ran a 50 amp circuit for me and I'm not gonna obviously name jurisdictions, but there's jurisdictions out there now that they require a picture of the panel at time of permits. So when we first submit and the reason being is because they wanna be able to identify the circuit set where they're when the house was built and what's currently there on that main panel cover to show what's been altered or what's new, and it gets flagged immediately at that point if that's in those jurisdictions.
Speaker 1:And then we have to have those conversations with the homeowner and say, hey, your system will not be installed or turned on unless you get a permit for your EV charger. So we can help you do that, but you need to have a permit for this, because what you just paid for for your solar system, like you were saying, it's a paperweight now.
Speaker 3:Let's talk reality. I don't mind and I've instructed our teams right, we don't mind being the guy helping doing this right, but there's a delay there. So that expectation I'm an expectation guy and we have to set that expectation properly that, okay, here's what we're up against, here's the delay. We don't mind helping. You just know that it's gonna take some time to walk through that, because once again, we're gonna have to go out and gather information. What did your electrician do? How did they wire it? Because we've now got to identify that on a plan set, get it submitted, wait for the permit, have that inspected and get approval on that before we even take our next steps and we've found out.
Speaker 1:I can think of one instance in particular where that friend's electrician who did the EV charger apparently they did it wrong and it wasn't up to code, so then we had to go out and redo it the correct way. So, even though it was working, their EV charger was working fine, but it just wasn't up to code and it wasn't permitted. So, like you said, it took delays.
Speaker 3:Let's talk about the code, because I actually have some background there. The code what people don't understand? The code is a minimum standard. It's not the maximum right. There's reasons why it's there and it's to protect life and safety of the homeowner. That's really what you're looking at. Yeah, and we follow that code. I say unfortunately, it's really not unfortunate. People sometimes view it as unfortunate because, yeah, I can delay some processes.
Speaker 1:Every morning, when the bell rings at Harmon, we stand up and recite that code.
Speaker 2:And some companies don't follow. That's just gonna say that Okay, so go back to the installation. Then we're okay that we go off on tangents. We're gonna talk about this stuff. That's what I do best. Yeah, very true. So guys spend their day there. The panels are up and installed, they've run the conduit, everything's hooked into the. So let's kind of walk through it right, walk through it go ahead.
Speaker 3:Elfie are gonna go on, racking's gonna go on. So when I say racking the railing that the modules are gonna start to, they're gonna start doing all their wire management, which is obviously pre-running all their PV wire. Jboxes get installed. Your foreman is generally downstairs, he's generally not up on the roof unless they need some help up there, and he's starting to do all the groundwork which is hanging equipment, start doing all the pipe work, bending all the pipe downstairs, getting all that ready. The guys then should be able to get to a point, once all that stuff up on the roof is taken care of and wire management is done, where modules start getting landed on all of the railing that's there and getting secured down with end clamps and mid clamps Obviously sounds really fast. In essence, right Took about 15 seconds to get that done. It takes the majority of a day, depending on system size and arrays and location. And then we obviously, before our guys get done, we want them cleaning up the job site, right? I'll give you a great story. I know we talk about other installers.
Speaker 3:I actually got a call I'm gonna say it was a couple of months ago from a salesperson pretty upset with us that hey, here's a photo you guys left. You guys left a drink up on the roof. It happened, it's reality, it happened. I'm looking at the photo. It was real, it's. And that's why I start making some phone calls, right? Cause that's what I do I gotta get to the bottom of the problem and figure out who I can get out there and get it taken care of, re-walk the roof, make sure everything was cleaned up and copacetic, and as I called the super and I'm not trying to bag on my super cause I love the guy yeah, brad, I went up there, I was helping the guys, I had the drink in my hand, I set it down and I actually forgot it.
Speaker 2:Center right Once again super, but it's reality One star review.
Speaker 3:Well, once again, when I talk about reality in humans and it happens, here's our super. He didn't do it, blatantly, he did it. It was mistakenly left there. We ended up getting a phone call. He went back right, re-walk, got his drink down off the but once again things happened right. We're a phone call away. I think that's one of the things that we stand behind is we're gonna make sure we do things right Doesn't mean we're gonna try. Look, my main intent to be efficient is to do things right the first time out of the gate.
Speaker 3:But dealing with humans, dealing- with the imperfect world doesn't always go down that way, and the good thing is is we stand behind what we do and we're gonna come back and take care of what we need to take care of.
Speaker 1:I don't think in all my years here that we've ever said you know what, yeah, we did mess up, but we're not gonna do anything about it.
Speaker 2:Well, and we've talked with us all the time is there's construction, things happen. Yeah, it's not about the thing that happens and hopefully it's not too bad. It's about how you react to it right, and we will always react in a positive way and make it right. We're always gonna make it right. Our ownership has preached that since I've been here 11 years and they preach that since day one. So that's important. We'll make it right. Well, everybody else make it right.
Speaker 3:I don't know you know, I'll tell you, I used to hear in the home building industry all the time Well, I can't see it from my house that and that's exactly opposite. The way we operate right, because I think being a local, being a local contractor, working for our owners, and how they value the business right, repeat and refer. I say repeat, but it's referral businesses is what helps drive us, and so that's a that's a huge thing for us is trying to maintain referrals and and I used to say this all the time and I've actually talked there's a couple clients that that have reached out, even multiple times, since we've been done with their projects throughout the four years I've been there, and One of my favorite lines that I love to tell people is at the end of the day, I want you waving at me with five fingers, not one. How do I get there?
Speaker 1:right, Can that be here? That's my goal.
Speaker 2:Can that be Harman's slogan? I would love that t-shirt.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm gonna tell my wife that that but that's my, you know, I learned it in the home-building industry, because here's the deal with you as we were building communities, right, you're. You're in and out of streets even once homeowners start taking possession of their houses, and you're still there, right, and people get frustrated, and that used to be our thing is, hey, the end of the day, I need you waving at me with five fingers, not one, yeah how do? I get there.
Speaker 2:What do I need to do?
Speaker 3:and I think that philosophy is always stuck with me, even into this industry is right? You drive through the Phoenix neighborhoods and see how many solar systems are installed on homes, right? Yeah, drive down the streets, look, wave at us with five fingers. That's our, that's our goal. How do we, how do we get there with you, right?
Speaker 2:we need down in the back of our shirts. It's a good one. It's a good one, I really like I'll let you. Yeah, I really like that. That's phenomenal. It's kind of like you're, you know, you're the one that you say we've actually put that up at the home shows. Now, not everyone should get so little bit. Everyone should look at it. Yeah, and that's our, that's our motto now, but we also have to have the finger. That's the same second motto.
Speaker 1:I like it.
Speaker 2:Have them side by side, I like that Okay, so your team has spent their day doing everything. You just said we got the drinks down, everything and it's it's all good. What's next?
Speaker 3:What's next is, generally, we're gonna try and get someone out to QC, qa, qc, the system.
Speaker 2:Okay, what's?
Speaker 3:that? What's that person? Well, let me kind of back up. First thing, what is QA, qc, quality, assurance, quality?
Speaker 1:control. I knew what it was. It's just for the listeners, yeah.
Speaker 3:Let's talk about our guys generally. Generally, we tell our guys we want them to bump the system and but, and when they say bump the system, right before they leave, we want to make sure that everything's is working to its functional intent when we leave. Once again, are the guys gonna miss something? Sure there's. You know there's 30 stickers that have to go on in certain locations and and Identifying things here and there. So, yeah, things get missed. You know I hate the once again, I hate to be the bare bad news. So we send someone, we try and get someone out, to QA, qc the system, have a look, make sure that whatever we miss gets rectified, gets taken care. Once again, that person's only human too, right? And if they they're on the phone and they got 20 other things going on, are they fully or did they miss something?
Speaker 3:Because then, what we generally do within once we're done install is good to go, generally within a couple days, we're calling for for what we call green tag inspection Clients lingo final inspection. Right, we're calling for final inspection on your solar install. Inspectors gonna come out, they're gonna open up our plan set. They're gonna start taking a look. Do we have all of our Identification markers, our stickers on? Is everything good to go? Our back feet breaker sized accordingly? Is our conduit sized accordingly? You know J-box is correct things of that.
Speaker 2:They they're gonna take a look at all of that and this person's from the city correct from the jurisdiction and the plans are inside the actual Panel right, yeah, we'll leave them in the panel we have.
Speaker 3:We have had clients take them inside.
Speaker 3:We just ask that please put them back, because if not the jurisdiction will then essentially walk away and go hey, no plans on site, sorry, we failed your inspection, right? So so we try and leave them readily accessible for the inspector Once we get notification, whether it's a pass or fail. Look, fails do happen. That's, that's the real world, right? We then we actually internally have a what we call a go-back list, right, so gets put on this list. We're running guys constantly if there are go backs to get back out to jobs, to take care of any Corrections that need to be made can you give an example of what, what kind of what's a go-back?
Speaker 2:So give me example of go backs that commonly happen.
Speaker 3:We we missed a placard right or the placard, so we we actually the plack. So some of the placards that go on right we actually source out to an Engraving or a sign company.
Speaker 3:These are the little things that go on the inside on the on the panel door thing they get riveted on things of that nature, and so let's say that then the foreman that's out there, it doesn't really pay attention to that placard. Once again, they supposed to, but things happen. He's in our trying to get wrapped up and saw the placard. Let's see the placards off by a module, count right, and the inspector looks at that and failed, okay, doesn't match. So things like that happen. Our intent, though, is to get through final inspection, which we're gonna call green tag. Right, green tag. Once the inspector says, hey, it's, it's built accordingly to your plan set, it's correct, everything is good to go. We're gonna green light you.
Speaker 3:They then send notification to the utility company. Right, it used to be when I first even started at Harmon we were able to also call the utility company and say, hey, we passed final inspection, yeah, or green tag. Now it's all automated. So the jurisdictions are Sending over approvals to the utility, which we've seen that actually delay up to like two days, 48 hours for the for the jurisdiction To get that paperwork, yeah, processed and sent over to the utility Once the utility receives it. Right, we've got a duration there of them. Once again, now they hold the ball and Utility is several weeks out from physically coming out and what we call commissioning the system, which is setting the meter socket. They, the utility, will come out. They'll let us know that they're coming out to set meter socket. They'll give us a notification, generally right after they install. We receive their notification pretty quickly after they install, but generally it could be up to a two, three, four week gap from the time we pass Until utility gets after to install meter socket.
Speaker 2:So what you're saying. That system could be up on the roof. It passed the system, the city inspection and it just sits. Nothing we control. Correct, right, because now we need, you need the utility Set the production they gotta bring that little meter thing and they got to stick it in the yeah in the thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the thing in a thing they're kind of to kind of summarize it you know, back in the very beginning of the process, we developed the plans, we submitted to the you know, you know the jurisdiction, and said this is what we're installing. Then we go out and install that based off the plans. And then the city comes back out and goes okay, did you install it based off of these plans? We need to check these things. So that's that whole process and why it takes so long.
Speaker 2:And then city, like you said, then the utility has to come out and turn it on exactly in a sense correct.
Speaker 3:They're also gonna look at it while they're there. Before they just set the meter there, make sure that everything is as good on their end. Right, they'll set meter in general. We then get notification that we ask clients like Because it'll be about a day gap before the utility notifies us that they've set. So we'll tell clients, call, call your project manager and let them know. Hey, I saw the guy out. They set meter today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good point. And we get that phone call. We don't know when the city, when the utility comes out to do this. No, they don't tell us no.
Speaker 2:They don't give us a day or a time, they just show right, so they'll tell us maybe a day or two later. Correct, so if it happens, you need to call in, talk to your project manager. You've been talking to them all this time. It just helps. It helps expedite that process. And then would we go out and turn it on or would we ask the customer to turn on?
Speaker 3:we'll then. We'll then schedule someone back out to that site and Essentially, they are gonna walk the homeowner through the commissioning process, they're gonna get the system turned on and by doing that, what they're also gonna do is showing I show them how to set up monitoring Right. A lot of people want and I, my novice starting into solar right. Oh, so you guys monitor all the systems? No, we don't monitor right.
Speaker 2:There it is.
Speaker 3:We. We set the monitoring up for the client to monitor their system. Why doesn't mean if something goes on You're not gonna call us. If something goes on, you're gonna call us and we'll come back for that. But client clients have that kind of ownership as far as monitoring their solar production, making sure that that everything is functioning.
Speaker 2:So we're gonna put the little flashy thing up. Yeah, herman, solar does not monitor your solar system.
Speaker 1:I always tell people it's like a check engine light in your car. When the check engine light comes on, do you call a dealer or does a dealer call you? You call it either. It's true same thing with you know when something goes wrong with your monitoring. Is Harmon call you or do you call Harmon you?
Speaker 2:gotta call us yeah.
Speaker 3:I say same same thing yeah, so we walk through it with them.
Speaker 2:We turn it on. They're monitoring a setup.
Speaker 3:Yeah so. So what happens is, what's interesting is when the guy is the form, is responsible for what, turning in what we call wire map when our install is done, right, which kind of says, hey, here's the module numbers, here's where they're at up on your roof, right, we've got, he's got a sticker map that he creates, and then the system gets built that way into that software system, so it's panel of a monitoring or not, right now, right. So that way, if something were to happen, especially on like n-phase with micro inverters, you can tell immediately what module right you're having an issue with right, exactly, okay.
Speaker 2:So real quick back to the QA guys. So we kind of talked about him a little bit. Does he? Is he basically there? He's checking out everything to make sure it's everything's good and clean. He goes up on the roof Should go up on the roof as well see if there's any panels that are tiles that need to be replaced, because typically tiles can so form. It so form and create.
Speaker 3:We have an end-of-day report for the form and to create. Foreman are supposed to let us know. Right, hey, we had, we busted, I'm gonna throw it out there 50 tiles, right, it's not unheard of. Okay, so we have a roofing team. Right, we send our roofing team back to Reinstall reinstall any, any roof tiles that are broke or busted or need to be you know, adjusted, yeah, the other.
Speaker 3:The other thing that that I do like to talk about it's come up a couple times is we will generally so once again. Concrete roof tiles are done in die lots, right, what? What happens to anything that's died when the Sun beats on it for years?
Speaker 2:It's gonna crack. Well, the color fades.
Speaker 3:Oh hey, yeah so here's what we deal with, here's what we do. We're clients, right Is so we. All of a sudden we go out to do tile replacements or repair tiles and now you've got a shade variation on your roof, right? So our guys are trained. What we'd rather do, right, is peel tiles out from under the array, put the new tile that we've ordered Under the array where it's not visible, and then take that tile and utilize it in areas where we broke tile, so that if I'm, look, if I'm the guy, your next door neighbor, walking by your house, I really don't see any evidence of, hey, there's discoloration of the tile or it doesn't match, or. But mind you, being in the building industry for the years I was what I can't tell you. It's the same thing with rooftop. Go drive even new production neighborhoods and you'll see tiles that look like they got patched patches on the on the roof, because once again, there they're done in die lots.
Speaker 2:I didn't even think about doing that. Yeah, that's what. That's what you know. We do that. That's why I know I didn't know that that's why he's here.
Speaker 3:You both learn something. I learned one thing that's gonna get there only one day.
Speaker 2:No, that's really interesting. That's that makes a lot of sense. Huh, yeah.
Speaker 3:I learned two things today.
Speaker 1:The first one I was following directions to get here.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Second one was that I'm actually good-looking.
Speaker 2:I don't like that, I go, that's not, we're gonna edit that out. Yes, so the the point of the cockpock my QA also was if you notice that there's some broken stuff up there, there's some tiles missing. Yeah, we know we're gonna come back and we're gonna come back.
Speaker 3:So the QA guy obviously he's not rolling around with just a truckload of roof tiles or things of that. So what he'll do is he'll let they'll let you know our super no, we've got a list. It'll get added that list, and we're gonna, we're gonna put it on that. Hey, we're gonna come back on such and such. They can't reach back out to you. Hey, can we come this day? We're gonna send someone by, whether it's to do tiles, whether it's wire management, something slipped there. There's a multitude of things, right? But but yeah, we're still gonna communicate through that.
Speaker 2:So I mean it for some reason as a customer. Maybe you didn't talk to the forum before he left, maybe you weren't home, whatever, and he didn't tell you hey, there's that up there, we're gonna come back and get that. Know that, we are gonna do that. If you're not comfortable, you can call your PM. They'll tell you the same thing regardless. But yeah, it's, we get that phone call. Sometimes, though I know in the sales size, we get it. There's panels missers, there's things missing up there.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, we know, don't worry, we're gonna come fix that when I done. Yet expectations, expect you're right. Expectations, yeah, okay. I mean so that's, that's that's installation day and beyond, even right right and at that point we're beyond you're done with your. You know they're a commission, they're turned on, the monitoring is set up and you guys are good to go.
Speaker 3:Next job Till the phone call comes.
Speaker 2:No phone call.
Speaker 3:It's okay that there it happens. And once again, I want our clients to know right, that's the difference that separates Harmon. When you call, you're gonna talk to someone, yeah right, we're not just gonna keep hitting voicemail. You might you might get a voicemail for sitting in meetings or something.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm but we'll call you back and we're gonna we're gonna resolve your issue. Once again, we're gonna try and Meet in the middle of if we did something wrong, we're coming back, or if you're just unhappy with something, then we're gonna try and find some middle ground with you. Mm-hmm, yeah, I'm great, and I want to see five fingers, not one.
Speaker 2:I love that. We're doing that. We're gonna get that shirt. All right. What are we missing? Did you? Can you think of anything else that?
Speaker 1:is a. That's a lot. I think that's it. It's on your roof, it's turned on. Start saving money right.
Speaker 2:That's it. That's the name of the game. That's the name of the game. Can you think of anything else you want to share with our, our viewers? What's?
Speaker 3:just expectations. I'm a huge Expectation guy. Yeah, I agree, it's, I think. I think we all have internal expectations on everything every day. It's not always a good thing, but we all internalize and do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah and I think, unless you you're talking to people about those expectations, your perception sometimes gets very, very misconstrued. And so I think it's it's critical that we, we set proper expectations, the clients understand those expectations right. And if you don't understand a call, yeah, pick up a phone and call and let's, let's have those conversations Right, because the end of the day, I Want you happy with us, yep, and and how do we get there? I look, I can't solve the world's problems, but if I can make your life a little bit Easier and better, then that's the intent of this, right. I mean, we're not there to upset you. We're there to install a product that you wanted installed on your home and get you across that finish line With with what? The way you anticipated it, right. But once again, it it's from the word goals, setting these expectations correctly at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:We've talked about a million times. It's all about communication right. We don't want to find out. You're not happy when we read a review, right. We want to avoid that, but at the same time, once we've taken care of that situation and fixed it, we want the review to be hey, maybe they weren't perfect, but in the end, yeah, they were perfect, right.
Speaker 3:Well see, and I'll disagree with you.
Speaker 2:Okay, disagree with me.
Speaker 3:There's no succinct, it's perfection.
Speaker 2:Well, there isn't my house.
Speaker 1:I don't know. And here we are in your house. You're right.
Speaker 3:You're right, there's no, there's no such thing. We can be, we can. We can be good at what we do, right. We can't be perfect at what we do.
Speaker 2:We can meet expectations.
Speaker 3:Yes, perfect.
Speaker 2:But we have to set them first.
Speaker 3:We have to set them and we have to be very clear with what they are and sometimes Maybe in the sales side of the of the conversation.
Speaker 2:Maybe sometimes people don't give proper expectations.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, not only that, let's let's be realist, right? Sometimes people only hear what they want to hear to that's true too. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, on both ends, that's yeah. So it's once again we're humans, we're all trying to to get to this finish line together, right? And and how do we do that, right, to make everyone happy when we cross over that finish line?
Speaker 2:It's a partnership and so we talk about it all the time. You guys play a role in this, so you're buying this whole or from us, but you are partnering with us to get this to the finish line, yep, so there's things you have to do, there's communications we need from you and, as long as we all kind of play together, nice, this could be a great process, and it usually is yeah, for the majority it is. There's always the squeaky. You know the squeaky wheel that we have to deal with here and there, but for the moment, we fix. We fix those issues.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's gonna happen right.
Speaker 2:I mean when we were sitting in a meeting with leadership and we're talking about this stuff. We're not talking about all those stuff that went great. We're talking about the ones where there's things going on that we need to fix to get to the next level, and we need everybody To play their part to make it work. That's, that's what your big part of your job is. So, yeah, I don't envy your job.
Speaker 3:Well, there's days I don't need. Now we're home page. Yeah, it's just it's expectations.
Speaker 2:Yes, so we have now gone through.
Speaker 1:The entire process. We're done. Thanks for coming to our podcast signing off forever. We're all done right.
Speaker 2:We're 13 episodes in or whatever, and we finally got to the end now. We're not done with the podcast. Obviously we're gonna do a lot more stuff, sure, but we've gone through from a to z. Yep, this is the process. Brad's the back end, right, so perfect. We've done the whole thing. And what's next? What's next, we'll see. We're probably gonna.
Speaker 1:We're probably gonna we have a lot of options. We do have a lot of options. Viewers, if you have suggestions, feel free to give us the best option.
Speaker 3:Yet you guys don't like it. You might not. You know what I honestly think we should do. We need to bring a client.
Speaker 1:Yes, we talked about that. I have a couple in mind They've already reached out to, so I yeah, I think that's I.
Speaker 3:I I had some discussion a while back and we haven't done it yet, but I think it look. I'd like to bring in to inter ops meeting once a month. Right, bring a client in to get their perspective in front of our team. I would love that.
Speaker 1:I have it's.
Speaker 3:I think it's hugely beneficial.
Speaker 1:I do kind of piggyback of what you've been saying a lot of. I have a customer that things didn't go well at first but then we fixed it and now he's happy. I thought he would be a good that's the person I want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want the person that was happy all the way through. I want the person that wasn't happy and then is happy at the end, and Probably even a person that maybe is not happy. You know at the end and why they're not happy and what did we do? That's gonna be an expert. I guarantee you. It's not gonna be that they didn't get what they bought. It's gonna be something else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cuz anyone could bring on people that are. You know all sunshine and rainbows, but let's be transparent.
Speaker 2:Agreed, so what we'll look at doing things like that. We'll also get into the dealer network. I want to talk about that. I think it's important to understand.
Speaker 2:In solar, like we've talked about there, there's a us that we have our own internal sales team and there's also sales companies out there that don't install but they sell you solar, yeah, and how we work with some companies like that, and you need to understand how that process works because it's different. So I want to make that. I want to put that out there as well. Okay, so we'll, we'll get up. We got options for the next one, so we'll Hang on. We'll let you know, brad, thanks for joining us, appreciate it, thanks for all you do.
Speaker 2:I know that we don't always see eye to eye, but we, at the end of the day, we do. It was good to get out of the office. Yeah it's always good to get out of the office.
Speaker 2:That's why I work remote, yeah, so it's good to get out of the office for me too. Mr Everything, thank you again for joining us. I'll see you next time and thanks for viewing this again. If you need to get in touch with the harman solar 800, 281, 31, 89, or you can visit us at harman solar calm. We'll see you next time, thank you.