[RE-wrenches] NABCEP Sales

[Mark Frye]

Keith et. Al.
 
Not really sure that this is appropriate for Wrenches but.....
 
Here in California, the big installers like SolarCity and Sungevity etc. are
moving to closing the sale on the first visit to the site, cleaning up the
details after the fact.
 
But, the big thing now is that these groups have succesfully integrated the
financial services into the product offering. 0$ down leases are now the
main offering. 

This is a huge bar that the small shops can't even begin to touch.
 
Mark Frye 
Berkeley Solar Electric Systems 
303 Redbud Way 
Nevada City,  CA 95959 
(530) 401-8024 
 <http://www.berkeleysolar.com/> www.berkeleysolar.com  
 

  _____  

From: re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org
[mailto:re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Keith Cronin
Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2012 10:39 AM
To: RE-wrenches
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] NABCEP Sales


Jessie


Great question and it spawned a few additional questions.


1. How many on the list here do urban only or 97% on grid vs off grid
systems?
2. How many urban solar folks today, have segued to mostly micro inverters
vs string inverters?
3. How many wrenches here do mostly battery systems?
4. How many folks here have sales engineers or sell systems themselves?
5. If you have a sales team, what are they allowed to do? Go on the roof and
measure? Open an electrical panel/meter?


Reason I ask, is the trends seem to be shifting in our area and perhaps
because its more urban. Sales folks are trained to do preliminary work-
google earth/pictometry etc. 
Then have a baseline for system sizing, prior to the site visit. They
contact prospects and go over their needs and get the electric bill prior to
the visit.
If the prospects express all of the buying signs or its a referral- hot to
trot, many companies here will give a proposal within the second visit,
pending the electrician/pre inspection to dial in the electrical and roof
verification items to ensure whats being proposed can actually be installed
for final proposal presentation. Many companies don't allow sales folks on
roofs or near electrical panels for many reasons including liability and
lack of background.


So, if you're a small company- all electricians, so to speak, this test and
the supporting framework would be very helpful.
For alot of the larger companies- and I mean over 5-10+ sales force, I
believe the structure of how they approach prospects has shifted over the
last couple of years, especially in light of micro inverters and their
relative design simplicity. I believe this trend will continue, as we see
more and more micro or AC output modules entering into the marketplace.

For the folks that are doing off grid stuff, I've always found it to be a
more unique niche, as its a very technical sale and requires a deeper skill
set, as the competence of the sales/designer/installer/service team is
usually a small group of people from a small company, but I reserve the
right to be wrong about this. I see a future when and where we will all be
off grid and there will be a huge market to service the energy storage
devices that support our baseline energy from solar or another non firm
energy resource to power our futures, as grid saturation and feeder
capacities at the utility level will cause us to head in this direction,
naturally.
 
Aloha, Keith

  _____  

From: Jesse Dahl <dahlsolar at gmail.com>
To: Wrenches <RE-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> 
Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2012 8:05 AM
Subject: [RE-wrenches] NABCEP Sales



Hello,


I'm prepping for the NABCEP sales exam and was wondering if others on here
have taken it?  What are your thoughts?

Jesse
Sent from my iPad!!!
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