Do you get a lot of solar companies knocking on your door or calling you to talk solar? Ever wonder who they really are? Do they do the installs themselves? Are they located in Arizona? Who are these guys? Join us as Tom Kopp unveils the inner workings of the Solar Dealer Network model that has taken over the industry nationwide. Tom will discuss how this model works and how Harmon has played a role in adapting the model. This isn't your average chat about renewable energy. So tune in, and let us guide you through the intricate dance of the Solar Dealer Network model and what things you need to look out for.
Do you get a lot of solar companies knocking on your door or calling you to talk solar? Ever wonder who they really are? Do they do the installs themselves? Are they located in Arizona? Who are these guys? Join us as Tom Kopp unveils the inner workings of the Solar Dealer Network model that has taken over the industry nationwide. Tom will discuss how this model works and how Harmon has played a role in adapting the model. This isn't your average chat about renewable energy. So tune in, and let us guide you through the intricate dance of the Solar Dealer Network model and what things you need to look out for.
Welcome to another edition of the Harman Solar podcast. I'm Rob from MonoVPS, sales and Marketing at Harman Solar, and with me is my cohost, ben Walshlogger. You also know him as Mr Everything Ben.
Speaker 2:It's good to be back. Is it good to be back? It is really good to be back. Belly's full, your belly's full. What did you eat?
Speaker 1:today Chalupas, chalupas, not Taco Bell Chalupas. No, homemade, homemade Chalupas. You know how many I had? Zero, because you ate them all. Well, that's what I do.
Speaker 2:So if you want me on your podcast, you gotta feed me.
Speaker 1:You gotta feed them. So today we're gonna. We're actually we've gone through the process, so now we get to start with some other things. So today we are gonna talk about what's called the dealer network. What is a dealer network? Well, that's what you're gonna find out.
Speaker 2:That's why we're doing this. Okay, right, so?
Speaker 1:And with this dealer network and we'll get into what it is and how it works and how it differs a little bit from the traditional stuff that we have in most of the industry. Has we brought in a guy? We always had a guy. No, we had a gal before we.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, we've had a gal or two. Yeah, Couple.
Speaker 1:We just seem to have more guys for some reason. I don't know, but today we got a guy who's been with Harman for a while and he kind of oversees our dealer network among a couple other things, but he's the guy that kind of helps us manage it and make sure it goes smooth. Should we bring him on? Yeah, we should, all right, so we're gonna. We're gonna bring on Tom Copp, and there's our guy. Hey, tom.
Speaker 3:Hey Tom.
Speaker 2:And that's our show.
Speaker 1:I'm the guy, I'm the guy. So, tom, how long have you been at Harman? Seven eight years, seven, eight years. So here we go with that Seven, eight years, six years, five, we're just.
Speaker 2:So if you ever want a job at Harman, you have to have already worked here seven or eight years. Yeah, because you don't hire anybody.
Speaker 1:No, no no, anyone new Right, it's all old people so tell us about your background. What did you do before Harman?
Speaker 3:Before Harman was in California, lived there for a while. Owned some automotive repair centers. That's right, you did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can say what they are. What were they? Midas, midas, that's right. Okay, he was the Midas guy. Yeah.
Speaker 3:He was there for a while, decided to come to Arizona, get out of California for another podcast.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 3:Got started with SolarCity and enjoyed the company, and then they went to Tesla. I went somewhere else and then fell into Harman.
Speaker 1:That's right. So you started with SolarCity. So that's when they were huge. Yeah, they were the king of the industry back then.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's when you either sold in lease or you didn't sell anything. There wasn't really anything else back then. There was just leases. Yeah, they shot away from doing anything purchase wise. And then there was no such thing as EPC dealer or anything like that, it was just you're an installer.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because they did it all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was back in the industry when, like everyone was separated by like you are a leasing company or you are a purchase only company.
Speaker 3:Like no one ever did both.
Speaker 1:It was always one of the other, but there was barely any purchase companies.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There was nobody.
Speaker 3:And then back then it's like you, you were integrated, right. There was never. There was never that that network of guys that wanted to get into the business but didn't want to have to worry about all the back end stuff. They were just really good at selling, right yeah.
Speaker 1:I would say the industry was a lot cleaner back then.
Speaker 3:Yeah, much cleaner. There wasn't 600 companies selling solar, there was a handful.
Speaker 1:And solar was like $8 a lot. Yeah, because there was a ton of incentives from the utilities. Remember there was like huge dollar incentives. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, srp had incentives. Everybody had incentives because everybody wanted to go solar. And then everybody and their mom decided to come to Arizona and try to sell solar.
Speaker 1:And here we are, yeah, and then you're like you're going to sell them. Yeah, Tell us about what you do now. What?
Speaker 3:your role is right now At Harmon, basically oversee the sales network across the markets that we have. So I help manage anybody that wants to get into solar but doesn't want to have to deal with the back end stuff. So once the sale is over, they don't want to deal with it anymore. So that's where I manage it. I find the guys that want to come in, they want to sell and that's all they want to do, and then they want to have a fantastic back end and that's that's when Harmon comes in.
Speaker 3:And so these guys will just come to us and say, hey, I've got sales and you know we work with them that way or I work with them that way.
Speaker 1:So right now you're managing those groups in Arizona and Oklahoma. Correct, okay, correct, and wherever else we decide to expand to, exactly.
Speaker 3:Someday. I think that's a meaning in a few weeks, right yeah, someday, someday.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you started kind of going into what a dealer is. So we're going to kind of try to break it up first and explain a full service EPC versus basically a dealer and what they are. So for a full service EPC, I mean we could talk about what we are. Yeah, that's what we are, that's what we do. I'll let you talk about that.
Speaker 2:Well, we are kind of a from start to finish type of company. So we, you know, we do the marketing, we do the sales. Once the sales done, we do the project management, we get it installed in your roof and then the full, you know, service and we're a start to finish type of company.
Speaker 1:And we're a dying breed. Yeah, that was just really weird right.
Speaker 2:I mean, what we do is Just glamour. Harmon isn't no.
Speaker 1:But I mean, yeah, that's what you call it, that model is a dying breed because most of these installers now don't have sales teams, right, they just work with companies and that's what we talk about a dealer network. So we looked at get, we looked at doing this I don't know. I want to say 2017, maybe 16. We started batting around this idea and there was maybe a couple of companies that were doing it. Back then it wasn't a big deal, but now it is the biggest. That's what most of the companies are nowadays. So here's what I mean by that. When someone comes to your house and they're trying to sell you solar, I would say eight out of 10 times they don't actually do the installs. They're just selling you the product and they work with a company that does the install. So there is sales and marketing company, correct.
Speaker 3:Correct. Yeah, their goal is to make the sale and move on to the next sale. They don't want to deal with anything after the sales being complete.
Speaker 1:So they're in and out there. Hey, I'm gonna. I want to sell you solar. This is what I can do for you. Boom, you sign on the dotted line. They're out. Correct, Mostly, mostly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, mostly, you know. I mean a lot of them will Still do their best to keep in contact with the customer, still do their best to make sure the customer's taken care of. But a lot of them, like you said, excluding who we deal with and Harman's partners most of them just move on. We get, you've seen it, you get a lot of companies that come outside of Arizona that come in and they do blitzes where they bring a bunch of guys in for a few weeks, throw them out on the streets and take off, and problem then is is now you're dealing with a company that's not even local to Arizona. So if there's an issue, right, good luck getting someone to pick up the phone.
Speaker 3:My gosh, that is so important cash grab companies, you call it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. And here we go, we, and we got into this because we wanted to expand our reach. I mean, we have our internal sales team, but we were looking, we knew this was growing and we said let's see if we can be a part of this. There's a lot of issues with this industry, right, so a lot of there, and again there's there's good and bad, and everything right in every industry.
Speaker 1:I'm not blanketing dealer network. What I'm just talking about the dealer network. There are people that you know. All you have to do is go get an LLC, go to the commission, get an LLC for 59 bucks and you're a company.
Speaker 1:Yeah and you can start selling solar and you just have to partner with an installer that will take you on and Be that partner for you. We're very picky about who we partner with, sure? So which has always been the knock on us is, we're different. We don't do things as Willy-nilly as some other people we talked about. We've talked about in our whole process how we do things different, right? Well, a lot of people don't like that because it can tend to take a little bit more time sometimes.
Speaker 3:When you do stuff with a, with a local company, then you have the ability of feeling comfortable, regardless who's knocking on the door, right? Imagine buying your Toyota Camry from a guy local and realizing you got to go to California to get it serviced. Yeah, there's no one else to service it, just someone in California, right? But you don't know that until it's too late, right? So, as a homeowner, the biggest thing someone should ask is what's your address? Are you local? Who you working with? Who's your partner? Because you know a lot of these guys go out and talk about being a broker. You know, like an insurance broker, they're a solar broker. We all know that's not true. You know, they're just basically trying to have the best opportunity for that customer, to have the biggest opportunity For their biggest savings. I guess, if that makes sense, yeah and I would say this right.
Speaker 1:So that's that's a really good example. I love the whole. You know, having get your car serviced in California, that's true, we're a local throat to choke. I guess. We're a local company. We talked about that with one of our partners having that local company that we work with. But we're here. We have a physical location. A lot of these companies, these sales and market companies, don't have physical locations, right, they're just guys that are working out of their house and they get a bunch of their buddies together and they go out and sell solar and they partner with somebody. So that's important, understand. So in our world, in our other world, we are the company that's at this location that does it all itself. And now we partner with some of these guys because we found some of the more reputable ones and said, hey, let's be a partner with you, let's help you grow your business, but let's do it the right way.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, so you can go out and market and sell it, and we actually control it, because what we do different than a lot of people, so a lot of people, they have these businesses and they'll just go ahead and they'll build you your systems, however they want to build them, and they'll sell it to you. Oh yeah, don't get me started, right, we don't allow that. Yeah, no, no, no, no, we have a. How do we do that?
Speaker 3:Well, dan, I mean not Dan, but Dan, daniel, daniel excuse me, it was Dan we have a gentleman, daniel, that does all of it. So everything is basically the same. So if it's a mistake, we have one person to go to, but most of time 98 percent of time the designs are correct, whereas if you allow another company or another sales team to do it, they don't take setbacks in consideration, obstructions. They don't take anything into consideration except the money going in their pockets. Yeah, so all they want to do is build the biggest system, make the sale, wait a few days when the cancellation period is over, then go back and say by the way, this system's not gonna fit on your roof right In the meantime.
Speaker 3:Now the customer is upset, frustrated and now doesn't believe the person because it's a bill of good, right they're, they're basically being sold, you know, something that doesn't actually work or doesn't fit their home, and they originally purchased that. So, right, with Daniel doing everything, we know that everything fits, and if they're excited there's a problem, we go back to Daniel. You know, if a dealer has an issue or sales partner has an issue, yes, I'm gonna talk to. But again, like you said, we're a local company, we don't have that issue in regards to of a customer as a problem. They can technically call Harmon because once it's sold there are property anyway. We become they're all part of Harman's family. We don't cut out the sales team or the sales partner. We just do our job and making sure everything's taken care of correctly.
Speaker 1:Great points. And to give it even further so the contract that you sign is with Harman to Harman contract. So you're our customer. Now with the other companies you're signing the contract of whoever that installer is, and if that sales company Sells you, they can just walk away and they're done with us. Yeah, maybe the sales company that we're working with you signed with us. You're now our customer, we're gonna take care of you just like we sold you. Yep, that's how we do it.
Speaker 1:Where other installers may not do that, they may say well, that guy is the one that sold it to you, so it's his problem. You go talk to him, even though you're in a legal bound contract with that installer. They might take a little bit of different approach to it. They don't care where. We're gonna sit there and say no, you're our customer. Yeah, he did sell you. I wasn't at the kitchen table with you, with him, so we're gonna. We're gonna lean on him if he said something that wasn't 100% accurate and we're gonna hold them accountable. We do that all day long, but we try to get them to kind of speak the way we speak and sell the way we sell. Now. Is that a hundred percent always gonna happen?
Speaker 3:It doesn't yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:But I would say we have a lot of good dealers, yeah I mean, and we've get rid of dealers that we find out aren't good 100%.
Speaker 2:Oh, sorry, in the past I helped out Daniel with doing those proposals for those other dealers and you know there would be times where a dealer said, hey, you know, I want this for the system size or this for the price, and I would always, you know, fire back like no, that's probably not in the best interest of the customer. You know this is probably a better idea and I'm saying that because I know later on down the road they're going to be Harman's customer, yeah, the Harman's install, and I don't want that phone call In the future, later on, because you know why the phone call comes to me, like I don't want to have to talk to this person later on because it was, you know, designing correctly. So you know, let me educate you a little bit on what you know should be done what's best for the customer and yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and people need to understand, harman. If you, if you're as a sales team or a sales Organization, you want to come work with someone, it's Harman. If you're looking for a quick buck, don't come here. Yeah, right, if you're looking to sell a customer something that doesn't benefit them, isn't gonna do what it's supposed to do, don't come here.
Speaker 3:Like you said earlier, we have a certain amount of slots of dealers that we sales teams, of partners that we allow to work at the same time, and the reason, simple, is we don't want to get overloaded and overundated with with work that we can't do our job correctly every single time. Right, obviously, there's other solar installers, epcs, here in Arizona, but they take everybody and their mom and when they're 50, 60, 100 deals deep and they can't keep up and it takes four to six months to get something installed, so many things can go wrong and so many issues can happen and the only person that pays for it is the homeowner. I think that's the part that Harman looks at and, to be honest, to a frustrating point, as me being A former sales rep, harman looks at it like this is the homeowners issue, this is a homeowners project, this is a homeowners money. We don't care what the sales rep thinks. We need to do what's right by the home. Yeah, what?
Speaker 2:what percentage do you think you've turned away dealers? I'm sure you have a lot of dealers that come in, go. Hey, I want to sell for you guys. What, honestly? How, like how often, do you turn?
Speaker 3:them away on a daily basis. I mean we, I turned away to this week just because they didn't seem like they fit. I'm right, even over a conversation I mean, you know, we, we have that number that we keep and, yeah, we try new guys. And me and Ralph just went through it two weeks ago and we cut a guy loose that Wasn't didn't do a horrible job, but he just wasn't servicing the customers the correct way and it just doesn't work.
Speaker 2:So if you are a dealer and you're listening to this, you want to have Harman do your installs and you gotta be ethical.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, there was one dealer that was coming in that wanted to do things a certain way with the Hispanic market, yep, and we were like, well, you can't do that, that's actually illegal. Yeah it has to be done this way, the way you pitch it and stuff, and we were like we won't be participating that at all if you're gonna do it that way.
Speaker 3:And you cut him last week, yep, and it makes part is these dealers, these sales teams, sales partners, dealers 1099 contracts. You don't realize the power they have. And they're held captive by so many other companies. Yeah, because the fact that they're afraid to leave and go to a company like Harman, that's gonna do things correctly again. Like Ralph said, we might not be the fastest, but it will get done the first time and it will get done right the first time. I mean, how many houses do we see that have solar on the roof, that it's just sitting there and it's still not connected or still not working?
Speaker 1:You know that that's a great point. There's a lot of companies and there's one in particular that I could think of we'll talk about in a second that can put a paperweight on your roof. Yeah and it's just a paperweight, sure cuz I'm not gonna get turned on. You had mentioned there's a. We had talked to a guy that came over to us where he was working with a company that was installing stuff in seven days. Yeah, I.
Speaker 3:Don't know how that you know which legally is impossible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he was doing it because then the reason they did that he wanted to attract Dealers so he can get them paid right away right, they can't cancel it if it's on your roof. Right, right and that's exactly it, right? If it's on your roof, how you gonna cancel it? So he would get it done up there in seven, eight days and then pay the guys and then it would sit God knows how long. But dealers love the guy Because they got money in their pocket in a week.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Then then one dealer complains that he got charged back because that homeowner called the lender. The lender canceled Loan enforcement to take it off because they did it the wrong way. Right, it's there's. Unfortunately, with as big as this market is, there's a lot of gray area when it comes to solar and I love Harmon because it's black or white. Like Ben was saying when he helped Daniel, either works for the customer or it doesn't work for the customer. We never, ever mentioned. Does it work for the sales rep? Does it work for the owners? Does it work for you know it's? Does it work for the homeowner or doesn't it work for the home?
Speaker 1:right, that's the extent and I would say, if you ever have a dealer knock on your door, a company knock on your door and says that they partner with us, that should make you feel a little better because we've vetted them.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Tom's talking to him. He's trying to understand their business. We're kind of watching them as they first start and if they're not doing it right, he's cutting them.
Speaker 2:We're getting rid of them pretty quick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're gonna make sure that we partner with the best company, so that that's. That's kind of important, okay, so I just want to make sure people really understand what a dealer is right. Yeah so if Ben goes out and Get, goes to the corporation commission and he pays his 59 bucks or whatever it is and he gets an LLC called Ben's solar I like the name of that you should run right away when he comes in your door. But Ben.
Speaker 1:Then Ben can come to Tom and say, hey, I want to sell solar and give my jobs to you. Tom will vet him out and say, okay, we'll take your business on, we'll start you at a certain level, blah, blah, blah. And then Ben will go out and start selling as Ben's solar, as a with an install partner of Harman solar, yeah. And so then you understand he's your sales and marketing company. He's knocking doors, he's doing whatever it takes to get business, he's signing you on our paperwork and doing you know our design and our thing. We won't let Ben go sell solar and design his own thing and do what he wants. We kind of. We kind of put a little bit of control around Ben. Yeah, and some people don't like I'm assuming you talk to everybody. They kind of some people don't like it, some people love it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, most people first don't like it. We have a few that'll. It'll actually go a different direction because they don't like it. But they want access to everything. And the problem is, if we give them access to everything, then they have more opportunities to screw over a Homeowner, right? Yep, we don't want them having access to Financial information. We don't have access to social security numbers. We don't have access to anything. We just want them to be able to go in. If, if they go to and get a license I want to be Ben solar then in your sales with an act like a salesman, which all he needs you to do it's go in the house, do your job, sell it, daniel and back and I'll take care of credit, take care of designs, take care of documents, take care of everything, and then, once that's done and sold, then we have someone else to take care getting you paid. I mean, it's it's. What easier life can you have when you have so much more going on under water? Yeah, and you can just focus on looking pretty and selling.
Speaker 1:I would agree. We make it very, very easy for sales companies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you just go out and sell it.
Speaker 1:We do everything. We'll do everything. You sell it. Yeah, and the only disconnect I ever see there is the guy that doesn't want to sell At a reasonable rate 100%, I mean we make it to.
Speaker 3:Where are you gonna do? Show up at 6 pm and your dinners on the table? I just need you eat and leave, right? Yeah, I mean in and correct, I mean there's, there's. There's, unfortunately, sales teams out there that again homeowners not Anywhere in the thought process of doing what's right. So, yeah, I mean we've let people go because they sell too high. Yeah, we've let people go because you know customers are complaining or they're not getting what they want. Harman always takes care of the customers, always make sure it's right. But the goal with Harman and the reason of having only a certain amount of spots is the fact that we can focus on who's doing it Right and help them be better at what they're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do remember a Guy that we had on for a little bit. I'm not sure if he's still around, but he came from California and he was, you know, say I want to sell it at this price. You know like, oh, that's, that's really really high, you know well, that's what I used to sell in California. I'm like what worked in California is not gonna work in Arizona. So yeah, you know I'm sure showed great savings in California, but here it's a negative saving. So no, we're not gonna let you do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you have 40 cents a kilowatt hour in California. Yeah, you can sell a lot more than you can in Arizona.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so and that's the point I was gonna usually went around to. What I was gonna talk about is if a guy you mentioned earlier blitzes, so explain what a blitz is blitz is where you'll get a company.
Speaker 3:Let's say they're based in New Jersey, it's cold this time of year. They'll go rent an Airbnb, let's say in Phoenix, that sleeps 10. They'll send out 20 guys, they'll rotate them and they basically just Blitz a neighborhood, like in football. Right, they send everybody they can at the quarterback. It's the same thing with the blitz they're gonna send as many people in the neighborhood, they don't care what needs to be done. They're gonna sell and then in 30 days they're gone. So if there's an issue, you got to take your car to New Jersey to get it fixed.
Speaker 1:Right, it's, it's just doesn't you're gonna try to first beat on the installer that they're working with out here, but there's a good chance that install is gonna say, hey, go to New Jersey.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, not only that, but what if that and what if that installer? You don't who the installer is. There's, there's a larger install partner here in Arizona. Right, that it's all in sales rep. And for the sales team and their sales rep, all they got to do is not pick up the phone. Yeah, there's no address. There's no, nothing. You know there's. There's nothing. There's no recourse with Harmon. You can pick up the phone and talk to the owners. Yeah, right, you can talk to you, you can talk to me, you can talk. There's always someone to talk to at Harmon, which, again, harmon might not be doing it a hundred percent, but the 95% of stuff that we're doing the right way is the important stuff that's being done the right way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you really need to understand who the installer is. Yeah, I mean look them up yeah understand about them and maybe even call them and ask them hey, does this guy work with you? What's the relationship like? I mean you can do that. We've got people do that with us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the thing about the Blitz, is it all? You have to say where you guys from? Oh, new Jersey. Where's your offices? We don't have one. We're in New Jersey. Well, that should be an indicator that you know what right flag you know. Just because someone sticks a Hot dog caught on the corner doesn't mean the hot dogs are good for you, right. It doesn't mean you're gonna go eat and have a good hot dog. Where is this corner?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of them. I'm hungry, drive down, drive down Dobbins.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of them down there.
Speaker 1:Arizona is is such a hot market for solar that that's why you have these blitzes. They happen all the time, especially in the summer. If you guys are at home and you notice that in summer, office on your doors getting knocked on a lot by Solar companies, that's what's going on.
Speaker 3:Your neighborhoods getting hit, yeah, yeah if a homeowner, the first question out of their mouth. The two questions should be asked do you have an office local and Is or do you install or do you have an install partner? And I guess the third question would be is your install partner in Arizona? Yeah yeah, and that's a really good point. That'll weed out some of them are. No, that'll weed out what 90% of them.
Speaker 1:That's a really good. I didn't even think about that. Some of the installers are actually out of state installers, yeah, that get permission through whatever they do to actually install here, but they're not in it, they're not a local install.
Speaker 2:And then have subcontractors doing you know the electrical work or the roofing work or this and that we're kind of pieces together. I actually know not a solar company, but a guy who owns like an electric company and he doesn't do anything solar. He just every now and then he gets you know these calls like hey, can, this is your license, can we use your license and you help install these solar panels? Like what?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's. All you have to do is find an electrician that you can use their license and and he doesn't have to do a thing you can file everything under his name and you're good to go. You know it's, it's, it's, that's the world, it's, it's very scary. So those would be my questions to a homeowner would just be your, you know? Yeah, like I said it would be are you Selling for yourself or for somebody else? Somebody else who's your install partners, your install partner local to Arizona? And if they are, can I get the address please?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the name of the address yeah, that'll knock out 90% of the competitors in Arizona and see that guy walk away from your door.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, they're my exactly, or he'll lie up and down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but you're, you know, obviously gonna Research that yourself.
Speaker 1:So again, we, harman, got into this for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons was we were seeing what was going on and we're trying to make the industry not as bad as it has been, with some of these people that come into the industry for cash grabs, like you said earlier. So we wanted to be a part of this. We wanted to sit, not be part of the cash grab, but we wanted to be part of trying to keep it as clean as possible. We said let's build our own dealer network, let's get these sales companies to work with us, and we'll kind of put them on constraint a little bit and we'll try to do it the right way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we've been doing that now for I don't know seven, eight years. I want to say, and we've had some really, really good partners that we've been able to really guide the right way and we've done a lot of good business. I will say this if a partner of ours knocks on your door and Is pitching you solar and then you notice that worthy installer and you're like, well, I'm just gonna call Harman. They're gonna pitch me, but I'm gonna call Harman and try to get a better price or do, no, we won't look. We can't do that because we actually Value our partners tremendously and we're not gonna. That's a conflict of interest for us.
Speaker 1:And if they've come and talked to you and they're you're buying solar from them. We're not gonna, we're not gonna, let you go around them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that wouldn't be good business and we would. That's not ethical. We wouldn't do that to you. You know, if you have a home business and you're selling products at your home, you know if you're I don't know, selling Tupperware or a Avon, and we go, oh that's cool, but I'm gonna go somewhere else and get you know better pricing from them, you would. You wouldn't like that if we did that.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly the relationship that we keep and harm is one of few companies. And if you do sell Mrs Smith and two weeks that are, mrs Smith calls to Harman saying, hey, I got a family member that wants to. My solar harm is one of the few installers actually refer you back to your salesman, right back to the, the team or the partner that originally sold it. Right, we're not gonna keep that in house and sell it and make more money. We're gonna give it back to the guy who caused the phone call.
Speaker 1:We didn't create that lead, we didn't create that customer, that sales company did. They deserve to have that back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's not ours, that's ethical Yep ethical Ethical ethical right so let's talk about some of the other things.
Speaker 1:So the differences so we know that the we talked about the differences. As far as there are sales and marketing company, they're their own thing where their partners and stuff. But once a job is sold, what differences are? There are their differences, I mean, for that customer. Is he gonna?
Speaker 2:so if I sell a system for Harman, versus.
Speaker 1:Versus another dealer selling a system.
Speaker 3:What happens afterwards?
Speaker 3:there's a customer know a difference you know, I don't think a customer know a difference. If the sales partner pitched Positions it right and does the right thing by going saying Harman is our sales, my sales partner, my preferred partner, it should be the end of conversations. Hey, now that everything is done, you should be expecting a phone call from Harman. They're gonna set up your side audit, they're gonna do the permitting, they're gonna do design, they're gonna do everything. But make sure you call me if you have any questions. But you're basically Harman's now. You're part of the Harman family, right? So they're really. I guess the only thing that would really be different would be, instead of the homeowner calling Harman to talk to their sales rep, they would just be calling our partner to talk to the sales rep, and some sales companies like they have their own project managers.
Speaker 1:There's a few of them, yeah, where they want to manage the project instead of letting Harman do it. So what Harman does in that case is we have a project manager that works with their project manager and fees them all the information that they'll then feed to you as a customer.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I guess the only difference could be who you hear from with every step of the way, right? Right, so you're gonna hear back from your sales rep and their project manager or you hear from our side and our project manager? Yeah, one thing I wanted to go back on. That's really important. You're talking about the difference between the EPC and the sales partner.
Speaker 3:If Ben solar goes out and gets LLC wants to do it, ben can only sell cash deals because he has no way to get financing. You know, to get these financing and work with these finance companies takes years and years and years of experience and, to be honest, you got to have financial stability to do that, right? I mean, remember we had that one lender credit human. It took us eight months to get them. Yeah, and we're a pretty financially secure and profitable company and for them to take eight months to get that to us, ben solar would never get that. He would never get any lending.
Speaker 3:So these guys that want to jump in and go, hey, let me go sell solar I don't think they really understand the actual Frustrations of trying to do that, because even as good as Harman is, we get denied sometimes. Yeah, you know, but that was just something I was thinking of, because that's the biggest thing I think. If you want to get a lease, you're not gonna do it If it's been solar. If you want to get financing, anyone of our lenders is not gonna be been solar. So you have to partner with the right person.
Speaker 1:So if Ben solar partners with Harman, now you're gonna use our finance except Ben gets every, then gets everything under our roof. Right and that's our risk. Right we're allowing Ben solar now use our financing connections and partners and our our relationships to sell solar 100% and again we go back to again to go back to who we pick.
Speaker 3:So if Ben decides to go out and lie and not tell the truth, right, it's on Harman's paper, so it comes back to Harman. So for us we have to be very particular who we work for. Like you said, they've got to be vetted and we got to know they're doing the right thing, because again it's opens up a financial can of worms if we're having issues with someone we allow on. And has that happened?
Speaker 1:before? Absolutely yes. And have we got rid of those dealers? Yes, have we taken care of the customer? Exactly every time, every time, and sometimes it's painful.
Speaker 2:Can we change the name of Ben solar? I just don't like the initials.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean.
Speaker 1:Think about that, but I kind of like it yeah wow, I kind of like that a lot. Yeah, that really describes a lot about you. What?
Speaker 3:Oh, you meant, you meant best solar that's what.
Speaker 1:I thought. So we understand the processes are a little bit different, but they're the same in the end.
Speaker 2:Oh, what I was gonna mention when we were talking about after the sale. I know from my project management experience, like we, when we would get a new project, we didn't know who it came from, who sold it. We would just be, it would just, you know, come across our desk and say, hey, you know, ben, this is your new, this is your new, your new customer. Yeah, I could sure I could go back in our system and find out who sold it, what company sold it, things like that. But that's not how it was presented. It was. It was Ben, this is your customer. So you're automatically thinking this is a Harman customer. Now Treat them like a Harman customer. Set up, you know, set up the audit and all the do all the things that you normally do with every other customer.
Speaker 2:So in that aspect, it is the same whether that's a good point when you were a Harman customer or some other Another customer you, in the end you're a Harman customer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because in Ben's eyes that's who it was right it's. It doesn't matter who it's coming from. Once Ben got his hands on it, knew it's a Harman customer. Then we treated everybody the same. There was no right difference between customer a customer b.
Speaker 1:The biggest difference is we're not at the kitchen table when you're getting sold, so we have no idea. I mean, here's just to explain the process. So that sales company gives us the information about you, your usage, your address, your name, all that information, our team takes it in and builds a system that's going to work for your situation, like we've talked about a million times. Right, we give that proposal to that dealer. Now they may take that proposal and put it into their own proposal and use the numbers from our proposal, or they may just give you the proposal we gave them that has their name on it. We don't know, we're not sitting there, so we're hoping that they're giving you the accurate information and then you're buying it based on that.
Speaker 1:My point being so, let's say it's installed and it's all working, and a year from now you're looking at this going. Well, this is not what the guy told me. We've heard that a couple of times. This is not what the guy told me. I don't see that Our responsibility to you is. We have an installation contract with you, the customer. We have to ensure that what we put on your roof is doing what it's designed to do. That's the phone calls you get right. So we have to make sure that we're holding up on our end. Now, if somebody told you something different outside of what the system's supposed to do, like I don't know, they promised you $10,000. They promised you this.
Speaker 3:I have no idea what they told you, you promised you no bill.
Speaker 1:Right, they promised you no bill. They told you you're going to get checks cut from your tax, whatever it is. That's not a Herman thing. We don't represent that. We actually in our contract, you'll see, there's language that basically says you sat with this company, we're just installing this for you, so we can't take on that liability because we didn't do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always tell people we are like the cooks in the kitchen. Right, You're sitting at the table in the restaurant. You're talking to your waiter or waitress, that waiter or waitress tells us the cooks in the kitchen what to make. We don't know what you guys talked about, but we're just getting our information from your server and we're making your order. So we developed your system, we installed your system up to our standards. But whatever you guys talked about, we don't know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you told the waiter you wanted medium rare and it came back, well done. We didn't know that as the cook, unless we heard something from your waiter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your waiter might have told us well done, so we made it well done, exactly, Exactly so that's one of the biggest differences between the sales company or buying direct from Herman.
Speaker 1:If it's a Herman employee on your room or in your kitchen table that's representing us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we know what they're saying at that point.
Speaker 1:We hope. We know what they're saying. We know what. The guy's been here long enough. We know what they're saying, but we're responsible for what comes out of their mouth. If it's another company that's at your kitchen table and we're just the installer, I have no responsibility or liability for what that company tells you and this is the key right that we try to work with companies that we can trust at your kitchen table, versus all the guys out there that I wouldn't trust at all with anybody that I know, because I know they're out there trying to put every penny they can in their pocket.
Speaker 1:So I would say can I give you 100% insurance that anybody that works with Herman is 100% legit? No, I can't, but I'm gonna tell you they're probably gonna be better than most and as soon as they do something wrong, we're gonna be all over them, if not dump them, Right, yeah we wanna make sure we're going back to the car analogy.
Speaker 3:We wanna make sure if your car's gonna work on, it's an authorized Toyota mechanic.
Speaker 2:Right, that's a good point.
Speaker 3:It doesn't mean that they're gonna still do everything the way Toyota wants it done, but we're gonna have, in the back of our mind, the peace of mind knowing that, okay, well, they're doing things the way that Toyota wants it done. Same thing with Herman. We only bring on the sales partners and the dealers that are doing things the way Herman wants it done, so that we can focus on the customers and the tasks at hand without having to worry about what's going on at the kitchen table. Right, it just gives us a lot more peace of mind. But again, we make mistakes and sometimes we allow people to sell with Herman that don't do their job, but they don't last very long.
Speaker 1:I love that analogy. That's like if you buy a Ford and you haven't worked on with a Ford dealer all the time, I mean you know that you're going there, they're Ford certified and trained and they're working on it. But if you take it to Joe's independent shop that maybe knows how to work on Ford's, there's no guarantee and you can't blame Ford if this guy messes up your car 100%. I made the car. It works great. If he touches it and screws it up, that's not my fault.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like you know what I need to replace my fan belt and Joe's independent goes. Well, we can make this one fit, right, and it's not supposed to even fit for that car. Something breaks and six months down the road your engine blows because it overheats right, you go back to Joe's independent. It's like where'd Joe's independent go? Well, not us. We've been here since 1974, harmon's not going anywhere. We have no plans of going anywhere, whereas 99% of people that are knocking on your door cannot say the same thing.
Speaker 1:That's kind of what these dealer network is. It's, the dealer network is the aftermarket repair industry.
Speaker 2:For all of them. That's kind of what it is Very true.
Speaker 1:You either go to a dealer, or you go to an aftermarket repair. Either way you're gonna, you know, hopefully get the thing done right, but you're gonna have more confidence, probably taking it to a dealer I know I take my car no, nothing but a dealer.
Speaker 3:That's just the way I deal. We've been doing the same thing recently. We didn't do that before because of the problem of, hey, take our F-150 and we're thinking we're getting a Ford part or a Ford OEM replacement part. Come to find out, no, they're putting you know auto boys on brakes on my car and they squeak the whole time.
Speaker 3:Well, I would have went to Ford, that wouldn't have been an issue. So we do the same thing. We take our cars back to a dealership Because at least we have someone larger to hold accountable with. If John L Way Lexus is there today and I get my car worked and John Lexus L Way has gone tomorrow, I can still go to Lexus, doesn't?
Speaker 1:mean anything, you can go to any.
Speaker 3:Lexus dealer Yep exactly.
Speaker 1:And probably the biggest difference is in the car industry. The dealers are more expensive, typically, typically. That's why people don't like to go to them. That's not necessarily the case in the solar industry, so it actually could be the other way around.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:A dealer could be more expensive than we would be. I would say for the most part, they probably are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Not always.
Speaker 3:No, but you have those, these EPC partners, dealer partners that you work with, that will. They don't care. It's like you know give me a sale, don't care how you sell it, what you sell it for, I'll pay you, I'll keep my money. Let's move on. And when there's a problem, you know, joe's independent doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 1:I would say the Harman dealers are really good about that. They're not gouging. No, the way I've seen with these other dealers that work with other installers, they are gouging people.
Speaker 3:Yes, badly. Yes, we're talking with 25%, 20, 25% more is what I've seen compared to the Harman sales partners.
Speaker 1:I go on Reddit sometimes and I look at people's. You know how they start threads on there and you see where they dealt with a sales company and they're getting charged X and I'm like, wow, that's a lot of money for that system.
Speaker 2:It comes down to that leash that we have on them. You know, when Daniel sends an email out with the proposal, it's Daniel who's typing in the numbers for the price and you're on that email and you're on that email. It's like we, everyone knows that you're not hiding anything. Everyone knows what you want to charge, you know for the customer and how much you want to make, and you know things like that. And it's really up to that team of people to decide yes, this is okay.
Speaker 1:And our number one rule is we will not pitch a negative Right. So if a dealer comes to us with a price and it turns out it's going to put you upside down, we won't allow them to pitch it. We just don't. That's just a rule. We've always had that. A lot of people don't like so, but we just do that as a point of integrity. You say we want to try to save you something day one. We know there's a total savings over 20 years. That's how the industry is. But we're trying to see if we can save you money day one. It's gotten. You know it gets tough sometimes, but for the most part we can do that yeah.
Speaker 2:Cause I don't want those phone calls. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think it's important that people realize that Dan and Julie have set it up to where we have it to, where we're not going to allow one dealer, one sales partner, to do anything that's going to affect Harmon's reputation in Arizona. Right, they've built it so long and been around for so long that that's why we're so strict on who we allow in. Right, it is unfortunate. It is an exclusive club. It really really is. If you get in, feel lucky and if you get kicked out, then you did something wrong.
Speaker 1:I can think of just a couple of things. You know, when we're in our meetings and we're talking about customers and problems, where the customer wants something installed in a certain place or they want it done a certain way, and it's sold by a dealer and they didn't know, because you know, we go and inspect it and do our thing and we're like we can't do this, yeah, it's not going to happen, and the dealer kind of you know the customer is like wow, this is what I want.
Speaker 1:Well, if you go with a different company, I'm sure you'll get it. They'll probably try to do it for you. It doesn't not going to be safe or it may not work, but we're just not going to do it, and that applies to our dealers, I mean. So if you're a dealer with us, if it's not something that can be done, we're not doing it. I don't care if the other guy will do it for you. No matter what we won't, we're going to do it the right way. So that's where we're different, like he just said, and it is kind of an exclusive club, and that's why there are some people that don't want to join that club.
Speaker 3:No, we get. I get a lot of people that you explain the situation and what we do and they're like, oh, you know, I'll go somewhere else. And it's like. I appreciate their honesty because I eventually we're going to tell them to go somewhere else because they're not going to do what they're supposed to be doing Right.
Speaker 1:We are not going to sit there and take their liability and risk for their stupidity because they want to make a lot of money and do things the wrong way. Yeah that's just not who we are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, our dealers are not a. Do it and ask for forgiveness later. We're just, we're just not going to do that.
Speaker 1:I'm a dealer, you sign your contract, I get my commission, it's, I get my money and I'm off to the next guy. Well, guess what? You're our customer for the next 20, 30 years. We don't get to just say oh sorry and go walk away. So we have to make sure that you come in as a customer the right way from the beginning, because we own you in a sense. Yeah, 100%, and we're a dealer is like next yeah, there's so many install partners out there that just don't care that you can.
Speaker 3:literally every week you can be working with something different and have different rules and different regulations and different expectations. We've stayed pretty consistent as long as I've been with Harman. I remember first starting to sell with Harman and getting frustrated because some of the things that Harman wanted to do and I'm like just do it, nope, we don't do it.
Speaker 3:We don't do it. And it came back to where if I would have pushed it then I would have done the wrong thing for the customer right. And that was my first getting into solar the first time and working with Solar City. It was like it's a wild, wild west do what you want whenever you want. You start getting wrangled in and start getting pulled back into the right way to do things and it hurts at first but in the long run I mean I've got hundreds of customers. I don't have any dissatisfied customers. I don't get called, I don't get bothered, I get referrals.
Speaker 1:We've had a lot of new guys come in and they'll say well, that's not how I was taught. Yeah, that's scary, but it happens all the time.
Speaker 2:And how many did you sell? That happened to you and you came in because you were being taught the wrong way.
Speaker 2:I came in from another company and I left that company just because I was like this doesn't feel right. What they want me to say, what they want me to do, that doesn't make any sense. But I don't see how all these other younger guys are going out and selling and doing it. It's like I gotta leave. So then I came here. I was like, yeah, I was taught way wrong, way different. This makes more sense now, the way to do it.
Speaker 3:I talked to a possible sales partner a couple of days ago, the one gentleman that you saw, we talked yesterday about SRP. He was like what?
Speaker 2:What's this? Energy management?
Speaker 3:system.
Speaker 1:What's this.
Speaker 3:I said well, let me explain it. Explain to him you know what. I really appreciate your honesty, because this was never I was told you do this size offset, don't worry about it, buyback's fantastic. And then you start telling them to do research and these guys actually start taking someone else's word or doing their homework and they start going holy crud.
Speaker 1:Buyback is fantastic, yeah. Exactly 2.81 cents is fantastic yeah great.
Speaker 3:So 140% offset in SRP, you'll get all your money back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you don't know, go look and listen to our SRP podcast and you'll learn everything you want to learn about Every time I hear those stories, I'm always thinking how many systems did you sell?
Speaker 2:Yeah, how many customers are out there right now?
Speaker 1:Oh, we have one guy and I know you know him. He now lives up in the Midwest, but he was taught by somebody that's on the radio constantly about how great they are for solar. I'm not gonna say who, but he was selling 100% wrong, 100% wrong. He's like, well, that's how she told me to sell. And I'm like, well, wow, she really messed you up because what she was telling you is 100% inaccurate, but she made a lot of sales and a lot of money. I'm like I'm sure she did.
Speaker 3:That's that lady from Ben's solar right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he quickly realized oh my gosh, I've been messing people up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know how some of these guys can sleep at night with the way they do stuff. I really, really don't. It's just crazy On their gold plated mattresses. Yeah, pretty much right.
Speaker 1:Gold plated mattresses. Okay, so I think we've gone over this pretty well. Sure, I mean, the biggest thing you talked about is ask the questions. What questions should they ask again?
Speaker 3:Are you the installer? Are you a sales team? Is your installer local in Arizona and, if they are, what's the address? Bingo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's where you start the conversation with somebody that they keep on talking about solar with you at your door. Have those questions ready and ask those questions and you know what? Let them give you a quote. And then come to us and let us give you a real quote.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't think we've been beat on pricing by a legitimate quote ever. I would agree. Remember Oklahoma we were 20 to 25% lower without even making an effort. Arizona. It's the same thing. I don't think I mean as much, as Ben probably still gets and I get, and we don't do sales a lot. It's just amazing, right? Yeah, I just don't get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always talk to my customers, get four or five quotes, which they're always like what you want me to get more quotes? Yeah, go ahead, get four or five quotes. And we always come in like wow, you guys are like very competitive.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I've always talked, see, yeah, and I always tell customers get quotes, even if harm's not who you go with. Call me and ask me and I'll be honest with you. And if you choose to go with someone else, that'll be your choice. But at least you'll have every single bullet for that gun to make sure you can shoot down any sort of questions or gray areas that you might have. I just want you it's your money, it doesn't matter who you go with, just make sure you go with the right person.
Speaker 1:If it sounds too good to be true, it's probably not.
Speaker 3:Remember three out of four dentists, that fourth dentist was a kook man. He was always a crazy guy, Didn't know what he was doing, but he was probably the one that was right yeah we're typically that fourth dentist Yep, exactly right.
Speaker 1:That's so true. So don't be afraid to get multiple quotes. Unless you're dealing with a dealer that has us as an installer, we're not gonna give you a quote. Yeah, so just understand that we won't do it. That's the integrity thing with our dealer partners. When we have partners, we create partners. They really are partners. We try to be the best partner possible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, didn't you have a partner who was with us for a while, went and came back?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah that's happened on multiple partners where they worked with us for a long time and they were happy, and then, for whatever reason, somebody the install network is very competitive, so you have all these installers trying to steal people because they want more business, and so they got really aggressive with this guy and he left. And then he quickly realized that, oh my goodness, everything they told me was a lie. They really didn't give me this price. They're really not doing what they said they were gonna do. It's so hard for me to get paid. It's ridiculous. You guys always paid me. You guys were always honest and upfront with me blah blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:But they were. They were preaching. We can go faster, faster. Faster is not always better. We talked about all the time. Faster speed does not equal quality or does not equal better. It just equals a paperweight on your roof.
Speaker 3:Yeah, their speed limit is for a reason, so you can do things properly and safely, right there are rules we have to play by.
Speaker 1:They're not our rules, but we have to play by them, and so we do. Does everyone do that? Absolutely not, and you'll find out.
Speaker 3:The one thing that attracted me or I enjoy about the sales partner program with Harmon is is that we're not a greedy company. By any means. Remember end of 2023, heading into 2024, we had that panel manufacturer we deal with. They gave us a better price. We turn around and gave every one of our dealer partners a better price. What other companies can actually lower their price ever?
Speaker 3:Right, I mean we've actually lowered our price two or three times. I mean our pricing now is based off of an individual, not based off of volume, not based off of how big your company is. I like Harmon because we've treated every single person equally, regardless. If you have one guy or 50 guys, everybody starts at the same price and you go from there which is the way it should be right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great dealer program. If you're a dealer and you're hearing this and you want to learn about it, I would say you know, give us a call, give us an email. What's that solar? What's that email?
Speaker 2:Just put Tom's number on the solar.
Speaker 3:I think it's a.
Speaker 1:Solar partners.
Speaker 3:Yeah, solar partners, I think.
Speaker 1:And Harmon.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll look and give it to you, but yeah, Okay, we'll flash that on the screen for you.
Speaker 1:So you have that. But yeah, give us, reach out to us. You can also call us 800-281-3189 and you can ask Gio or whoever answers the phone. Hey, I want to talk to Tom about becoming a dealer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, extension 150.
Speaker 1:Extension 150. Social security number 557.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, reach out to us because our program is really good and it's, if you're looking for a real partner to be with that's going to help you grow your business the right way. You would want to definitely talk to us.
Speaker 3:And, if all is mistaken, we might even have, might even get better here in the next few weeks.
Speaker 1:We have some things coming down that are going to be pretty interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, might get even better.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We're giving away a free chocolate ice cream cone with every purchase.
Speaker 2:So Ben's solar is signing up? Yeah, we're giving Chalupa.
Speaker 1:We've seen your background information we're not interested.
Speaker 3:Well, you know why it's called BS solar.
Speaker 2:I'm still working here.
Speaker 1:All right, I think that's. I think we've hit it. Yeah, all right, so that was our dealer network. That was our dealer network. Yeah, hopefully you have an understanding of what a dealer network is and when somebody knocks on your door, you have an understanding of, maybe, the questions to ask and how to deal with them and then kind of kind of see through the fog at the who you're really dealing with, because make sure they have an address here, make sure they're a local installer.
Speaker 1:Those things are so important. We've been here since 75. There's a reason for that. Understand that you're an installer that you're working with, or the company you're working with is from Arizona, not from New Jersey, not from California.
Speaker 3:Those things are kind of important. Yeah, you know I just thought about it that everybody that works on a home through harm and electricians are certified electricians. I can't say that about other installers, can't say that about any other EPCs, because I know a few that don't. It's just who they can say, hey, do this, do that, and they hope it's done right.
Speaker 1:You're in that world and you talk to a lot of those different people. So you've seen a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I talk to a lot of other gentlemen in my position that are very frustrated, but they don't leave because it's a paycheck, yeah, yeah, and a lot of times they're really good paycheck, yeah, exactly. So just make sure, as a homeowner, you do your due diligence to make sure that your money is being spent wisely and your investment is being given back to you in a timely manner, not in your 19.
Speaker 2:We laugh, but that is so true, I laugh because it's true, you're 19,.
Speaker 3:If the utility company goes up 180% and you're 19, we'll throw them out. You'll be making money. It's unfortunate.
Speaker 1:And the utility companies are always gonna go up. We just went through it. Aps has got to prove for eight and a half percent increase. Yes, love it, and that won't be the last one, I guarantee you. That's everybody. All the utilities are on the country, all right, solar's more important than ever, but you got to make sure you hook up with the right partner and that's the dealer network. So, tom, thanks for joining us. Oh, thanks for having me Appreciate your wisdom and your experience.
Speaker 3:Even though it's last, the chulup was made up for it. Thanks, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:And what are we talking about next Service?
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:We're gonna bring in a guy.
Speaker 2:So we got our. You know, you bought your solar system, it's installed, everything's going great, but oh no, something broke. What do I do? Who do I call? What happens so?
Speaker 3:You could call that a bed solar. Well the thing is is how many of the service calls are from installers that are no longer around. Oh yeah, we're gonna talk about that. A lot of our businesses from that too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're bringing on our service manager who is gonna talk about that department? And how they're there for you, and we're one of the few companies that has a service department, a pretty big one too. Stay tuned, so stay tuned. We'll see you next time and we'll talk to you soon. Music.