Brian: 00:02

I will say that our business is stronger than it has ever been. The success of growth and where I see companies growing consistently really is your people. I mean, the story is not does it make power? Because they all make power. The story is what does it power?

Brian: 00:17

This is what solar installers need to know with your host Herve Billie and Joe Mahamati.

Hervé: 00:21

Hi there. It's Herve and Joe in what solar installers need to know, where we interview solar CEOs and experts on how they run their business on the solar cluster. We ask their private revenue numbers. We give actionable advice and learn about trade secrets so you can run and grow your solar business. Joe and I built a solar company from 0 to 12,000,000 sales and got successfully acquired.

Hervé: 00:41

If you'd like to do the same or do better, go to sungo.com/blog to get actionable behind the scenes lessons on running and growing your solar business. And now without further ado, let's jump right into the next episode. Welcome to another episode of what solar installers need to know where we welcome Brian Hayden, CEO of HeatSpring. And, Brian, why don't you explain what HeatSpring does?

Brian: 01:04

You got it. HeatSpring is an education platform for clean energy companies, and we started in 02/2007. We were in grad school, business school, and we had a business plan to become integrators of renewable energy systems. We were gonna sell and install clean energy for building owners, And we had to get trained. We were in the training and we realized two things.

Brian: 01:31

One, the training wasn't very good. And two, the people that we were in class with, the electrician, the engineers, architects were way better suited to do the work that we wanted to do. And so we didn't wanna compete with them. We started hosting certification classes in person, and we were like the circus. We went all around the country.

Brian: 01:50

We were hosting trainings, and it was a lot of fun. But then the economy went through a rough time and we we converted and started to do everything online. So I would say our business kind of locked into place when I met a couple solar installers, Dan Leary and Will Thompson, who were starting Nexamp. We were all in Massachusetts. And those guys started with three founders, and then they were at, like, 15 people.

Brian: 02:18

And this was, like, maybe 2,008 or nine. And they said, if we're gonna have a lot of clean energy, we've gotta have big clean energy companies. And big clean energy companies need lots of good people. And so we wanna build NexSamp University and have a training program so that we can grow talent. And so that's what we decided to do for Nextamp and for other companies.

Brian: 02:42

And so today, we're a platform that's used by 70% of the top contractors, solar contractors in The US. And Nextamp, fifteen years later, they have 500 people. They are doing great and growing a lot, which is which is fun. But if you think about it, we still kind of have a long way to go too. So we're in the business of kind of helping clean energy companies grow through training.

Hervé: 03:03

I remember 02/1978, around that time, we installed some solar homes for some some of the employees of Nextamp in Washington DC. So it's around the same time. Right on. So, yeah, it was still small. Nextamp, like, yeah, what what's that company?

Hervé: 03:19

What is it? What are you doing? But they are a larger developer. Right? They don't do where it's all, like, utility scale and and large.

Brian: 03:26

Yeah. A lot of community solar. The they were in the news this last month. They signed a deal with Microsoft to do 300 megawatts of community solar. I think it's kind of like an offset for all the energy that Microsoft and all the AI companies are doing.

Brian: 03:41

There's a big demand for that.

Hervé: 03:43

Yep. Yeah. But HeatSpring, you do training not just for utility scale. It's also residential, commercial. It's solar.

Hervé: 03:51

It's heat pumps. It's and so it's not just solar. It's batteries. It's heat pumps. It's it's everything else.

Brian: 03:57

That's right. Yeah. We do a lot of certification training. So NAPCEP certifications are really popular, and that's, you know, geared a lot toward residential projects. But, yeah, we also do certification and training around other technologies that are related, energy storage, heat pumps, building science, energy audits, that that kind of thing.

Hervé: 04:16

And safety and So do we teach like

Brian: 04:20

OSHA classes. We we started working with OSHA Education Center, so we have a lot of the OSHA courses and has whopper classes and electrical safety.

Hervé: 04:29

And you have some rock stars like Sean White, for example. Can we see him?

Brian: 04:32

Yeah. Sean's Sean's the most popular instructor on the platform. I've been working with Sean for more than ten years. So it's really I would say that's one of the best parts of of being in education and training is, like, you get to be around really smart people who are interested in sharing what they know. And I feel like that's a really, like, optimistic vibe, and those are people that I I like hanging out with.

Hervé: 04:53

Yeah. Lucky you. So describe to to to to our audience, describe how you see the current state of the solar industry.

Brian: 05:01

The industry is changing a lot. Three years ago, we were all talking about the IRA and how we were all gonna go to the moon and grow these enormous businesses. And today, you know, we're thinking a little bit more bearishly about the policy here in The US. And so there's definitely a lot of uncertainty. I'm having a lot of conversations with our customers and, you know, people we work with.

Brian: 05:27

So I would say I'm in, like, in an uncertain place. Having been in the business since 02/2007, I feel that I'm nowhere near as worried today as I was, say, in 2010 or, you know, a lot of times in the past. The industry is so much bigger now. There's so much happening. So many more people are involved.

Brian: 05:50

The products are so much better. I still think that this is an incredibly great time to be involved in this industry, but absolutely, there's changes going on.

Hervé: 06:00

So so let's speak about that more because there is a lot going on, potential policies changing the residential tax credit 25 d. Commercial is also uncertain at this point at this time of recording here. But let's speak about that again. Like, in 02/2010, can you bring us back to that time when you were in solar? Why were you so worried about it?

Hervé: 06:22

What was what was happening at that time?

Brian: 06:23

Well, we we got in. The US was going to war in The Middle East to try to procure oil, and oil prices were spiking. At that time, it just seemed like this is so unsustainable that we've gotta do something. And climate change, to be honest with you, at that time was, like, still a very controversial concept. And so when economy kind of went through a really bad stretch in 08/00/2009 coming out of 02/2010, everybody just had no money to invest and any sort of, like, discretionary spend.

Brian: 06:58

There was nothing going on. I mean, it felt like an existential moment where what we weren't sure that, like, clean energy would, like, continue. That's being a little dramatic, but it did I did kind of have those types of fears at that time. And I would say now we're just orders of magnitude further further along as an industry. And there's no way even if you were to pull all the subsidies, all the government incentives and programs, like worst case scenario, there's still a path forward for solar and for all these technologies that we work in.

Brian: 07:32

It's gonna be less fun, and we're gonna be able to move less quickly, but the technology is not going anywhere.

Hervé: 07:38

So 02/2010, if you go back to that time, Amaste was still a young company at the time. I remember when I got into solar around that time, I looked up at Brooks, Brooks Engineering to learn how to do Oh, Brooks. Yeah. So so the solar panels were still shop. Solar panels, for example, that was like the big deal at the time.

Hervé: 07:57

You think that at that time, the the industry was so new that they could have not grown at all. Whereas today, it's so big. There are so many people employed by it that you think even worst case scenario, things will just keep going.

Brian: 08:12

There will be changes, certainly, but, yeah, the industry won't die.

Hervé: 08:16

Alright. Well, talking about maybe some some trends. What are some trends that you see lately that solar installers should know about?

Brian: 08:24

I was making some notes and and thinking about some examples to talk about companies that I think are doing a really nice job adjusting to the to the new landscape. And there's a theme, and the theme is go talk to your customers. Reading news stories or reading what politicians say, I think, of course, like, gotta do some of that. But the only person whose opinion really matters is your customer. And so that's kind of like the theme I wanna hit on today.

Brian: 08:54

I think that the trends that I'm seeing are related to that point. And so I could I could give a couple examples. I was thinking about companies that I think are doing a really nice job navigating this time. One is the Amicus o and m collective. Arch Solar was on your show.

Brian: 09:15

I saw that. We're seeing a real uptick in o and m training that people are looking for because there's so much installed solar now. And to go back, if you have good relationships with your customers and finding ways to, like, optimize systems, upgrade systems, fix systems, add on to systems, that is, like, really fertile ground. And so we're seeing a lot of interest in in that type of training. I would advise companies that have a CRM system and good relationships with customers to go back and have those conversations because probably a lot of those customers, there's a lot of trust there.

Brian: 09:48

There's, you know, a comfort level. They're already bought into to what's happening. And so that's to me, if you have one hour to spend doing anything this week, it's go talk to your best customers. That's what I'm trying to do, to be totally honest with you. I think another example of a trend that I that is related is investing in customer service and customer support.

Brian: 10:11

And I wanna give a shout out to Signature Solar, a product distributor that we work with a lot. They they invest heavily in their customer support education and training, and they make sure that their customers are are building relationships. And then they're gathering information from their customers and using that to make the business better. And that cycle of investing in the relationships with the customers, investing in the people who are getting that information, that's like long term equity you're building in the business so that you can go through these, like, slight dips in the in the industry's momentum by going back to those people who trust you. So I think O and M training is is definitely something I see as a trend.

Brian: 10:50

Customer support and kind of like ethical sales is really important. And and the companies that have been doing that even during boom times are the ones who I think are having the fewest, you know, business disruptions at this point.

Hervé: 11:03

Yeah. Good point. Well, you also mentioned trust. Like, you cannot get a sale done if there's not enough trust. So going back to the customers that already trust you and maybe add different lines to your business, All the people that you sold PV solar, maybe time to talk to them more about like batteries.

Hervé: 11:21

And maybe you were kind of selling SunVoy there because that that's what what our customer portal tries to do. It's like building a long term relationship with a customer. So I think too many solar installers think about solar PV as like, oh, batteries like a one time sale. That's what we've done for many years. But in the end, if you think about instead of a one time sale building a relationship and having a long term conversation with them, there is there's a lot of potential.

Hervé: 11:49

It's really transforming this whole industry, especially now. Now there's a lot of stuff happening. These are the moments that that you need to rethink your business. The the famous phrase is like, never let a crisis go to waste. So if you need to rethink your business, getting more sailing obviously is is one way to survive.

Hervé: 12:06

But having a long term view and and nurturing those business relationships, that's that's an important one.

Brian: 12:13

The thing that I made a note was like, you're in the energy business. It doesn't have to be always, you know, rooftop PV. You have an understanding and a capability of creating and then moving around electricity and and thinking about how it's used in a building. And that is like a really valuable and timeless skill that is needed by lots of different customers. So, yeah, just kind of changing your approach to how you have those conversations.

Brian: 12:41

And it does sound like SunBoy is a great tool for that. Absolutely. I wasn't trying to give you a commercial, but, hey, I think you're doing a great job.

Hervé: 12:49

Might as well. Well, another way of looking at it is when as a sole installer, you look at an utility. A lot of times I I look at them and like, well, if your business is really to to generate energy and get it across to the homeowners and to the the businesses, solar is just one more way to generate that power. But we can also look at at solar installers, you can look at ourselves, like how are we perceived as an industry? If if the goal is to create clean power, well, what are other ways?

Hervé: 13:15

What are the different ways to provide that? And maybe, like, in a lot of European companies, they're not doing just pure solar PV. They are more like home energy management companies doing PV, also automation income in a home, energy efficiency. It's way broader usually. Most solar companies I know in Europe do not do just solar.

Hervé: 13:36

It's pretty rare. Also, because they they went through several cycles, their their sole industries have been more mature than in The US. So they went to more of those boom and burst cycles, and the only solar companies I know there have a lot of other departments. Heat pumps, HVAC is a clear one, which you also provide training for, I guess. Right?

Brian: 13:53

That's right. Yeah. You know, you you mentioned never let a crisis go to waste, and I just had a flashback. We talked about 2,010 and when things were what I've considered to be the darkest since we started. That's when we started doing online training.

Brian: 14:10

Up until then, people said, you know, you can't really learn anything online. And and and I'm a I believe that hands on training, it will always be needed, of course. But, like, there's so much you can do in these these online environments. And it was because our in person business just wasn't there. We were kind of forced to invest in software and do things a little differently.

Brian: 14:32

And we probably would have considered risky if we hadn't been through, like, a really lean, hard time. So it sucks to kind of, like, acknowledge if you're going through a hard thing, but, man, it can be so liberating as well. And you can kind of, like, be free to do the thing that you kind of knew you were supposed to do anyway. And it's like the opportunity cost is gone now. So I'm curious.

Brian: 14:53

Question for you. What do you think that is for residential PV installers right now? Like, what's the thing that they probably should have done anyway that now it's the time?

Hervé: 15:05

Well, I thought about that really hard. Four years ago, I I I was running a solar company and we had a management team in place. It was kind of running. I remember sitting right here and thinking like, what am I gonna do in my day? Like, things are just running.

Hervé: 15:21

What else can I be doing? A war in Ukraine, I think, was kind of getting started. That's four years and that's two years. Three years ago. Three.

Hervé: 15:29

Yeah. And so I said, like, we need to fight more climate change. We did not a war in Europe. Like, it's gonna consume everybody's attention. So nobody's gonna fight climate change anymore.

Hervé: 15:41

It's just not not that important in the bigger scale of things. So what I started at the time was, like, getting into heat pumps. So I took my licenses, become a journeyman in HVAC. So I took the tests and and, god forbid, I passed. So I installed a few demo projects kind of seeing because I can only lead the people to do an entire HVAC heat pump business if I knew myself also how to do it.

Hervé: 16:06

And so I I I got started there. But at the same time, also SunVoy came along. We needed more software in the company because the company was growing, so build our own software And I was kind of taking up I was having multiple projects and well, it's just easier to create software than than starting an entire HVAC business. So eventually, I didn't move forward with the HVAC, but it was on my mind clearly. I think another piece, if I would still be running a solar company, I would definitely consider going more into commercial.

Hervé: 16:36

It's a much longer sales cycle, but those projects have to take much longer to to build. You don't also need a lot. So it's not a volumes game. You don't need 10 commercial projects a month. You can't handle that.

Hervé: 16:48

So what I've what I did is right before exiting Ipsen, I got some some contracts, like ten ten projects at a time. And the month after I sold Ipsen, I had another contract for 10 more projects. So it was those commercial relationships that take sometimes years to build suddenly provide me long term contracts and not just one. You can sell just one business owner a project, but now you can also work with some developers that you build a relationship with. And then it's not just one time projects, but it's continuously projects coming your way.

Hervé: 17:22

So you need to have, like, a nice business relationship, of course. And then it's up to you to do not to damage a relationship and find solutions. But so to answer your question, like, I I would do more commercial, and we won an entire blog post about how residential is different than commercial. It happens to be solar panels, but it's actually a very different industry. Customers b to b and b to c.

Hervé: 17:47

The contract terms are very different. The procurement is very different. The installation, what you actually need to do, the installation time is different. The the voltage solar panels, the inverter, three phases. So basically, everything is different between when you compare residential and a commercial project.

Hervé: 18:04

So it's kind of strange we think it's the same industry, but it's really it's not. But capable, you can move as a residential installer to do more commercial. And then, well, other adjacent projects, one of them is electrical. If you're running out of solar work, you can just do electrical work too. You have the electricians, you have the vans, and and the equipment, usually the license that go with it.

Hervé: 18:27

Roofing. I know several solar companies doing roofing. Those two type of industries may not always be growing at the same rate. There's also a lot of roofing companies that get into solar, but I think they have a harder time. They need to deal with lengthy permitting.

Hervé: 18:43

And and so I see them trying, and after a it's like, wait. I need to wait weeks on permits interconnection. Like, I'm not doing that. So it's harder, I think, for roofing company to become a solar company. As for a solar company, they're like, well, that's much easier to start taking on roofing.

Hervé: 19:00

So roofing is one city, electrical is one. Home energy automation and home energy management is another one. Energy audits. Insulation is another one. So there's a lot of adjacent industries that that can be explored by solar CEOs, I think.

Brian: 19:19

I have two I have two ideas as well. I don't wanna, like, overhype AI tools because I know that there's a lot of hype about it. But I have to say that there I've seen firsthand and experienced at at HeatSpring just huge efficiency gains by taking a minute and, like, really thinking about how to apply the very inexpensive tools that are out there. I think there's huge gains to be made in back office work. I don't know exactly what the right application is for every business, but I do know that we have a very small team.

Brian: 19:59

But but now we have somebody whose whole job is implementing AI tools to make our course development processes go faster, to build better knowledge checks. And I can say, like, firsthand, I know every business. If you take a second and really learn what what these tools can do and spend a little bit of time investigating, it's not just a party trick. And I do think that this could be a crisis situation where that would cause you to say, hey, look, like, I wasn't looking to make this big of a change, but, I kind of need to at this time. And so that's one thing I would advise.

Brian: 20:35

And I'll I'll say that we do have, a a little, like, tool on our site that would allow you to set up time with Brick on our team if you wanted to work with somebody who who to do that type of advisory work. So so that's one idea. And the other one I'll say is, yeah, I mean, if there is a certification or a credential or like, you know, when people are so busy, you know, they don't take the time to to do the training or get the you know, this is the kind of environment where, like, people might go back and get an MBA or go get the electrical license that you were most of the way toward or whatever it is. And maybe HeatSpring is a part of that journey or maybe not. But whatever that is, I think I do think that education and training and kind of like leveling up so that, like, when the next kind of boom cycle hits, you're just kind of, like, positioned as well as you can.

Brian: 21:25

Maybe that means getting training in the commercial stuff that you need to make the jump from residential to commercial. Whatever that new product or new market is that you think is gonna be more attractive, the tools and resources are there somewhere to go, like, learn how to do that thing and be ready to go.

Hervé: 21:40

I think as a business, but also as an individual, when you have a headwind, see it as search for the opportunity. How can this be turned into an opportunity one way or another? Like, if you have time, if you just lost your job and you have time, maybe there's a moment to take, you know, another class. So, yeah, it's an opportunity. Something bad happening, but it's a disguise.

Hervé: 22:02

It's just an opportunity waiting. You also mentioned that you were doing classes in person. I've been asked a few times to write a very long curriculum about how to install and then that that company was going to do classes, teach people how to do that. And when you look at a lengthy syllabus, it's like, that's not how those people learn how to install SOAR. It's a lot more hands on approach.

Hervé: 22:28

It's like for battery, you have all the theoretical piece of the battery in this grade. But in the end, you have the designers, engineers that design things, and then electrician is more like, where does the black wire goes? Where does the red wire go? And you show it. Alright.

Hervé: 22:42

Now you do that. It's a lot easier to train like that. So how do you provide that hands on training but in a virtual setting?

Brian: 22:53

Well, we're part of the ecosystem, and our job is to help companies grow. And so we're, like, part of the solution. You know, I think that hybrid learning is the best of all worlds. Apprenticeships are really big in solar and electrical and HVAC, and that's like at this time tested model of you have on the job training and you have a mentor and then you have classroom learning. And so most of our stuff falls into that classroom learning bucket.

Brian: 23:22

And so whenever possible, we try to provide, like, templates and field guides for, like, the on the job trainers so that they have their own kind of, like, curriculum and sort of standards to go go through. But mostly, we have to, like, empower people to do that training in person because we don't have a campus where people come and and do the hands on stuff. A lot of times we partner with, like, racking companies or manufacturers will go do stuff like in person. But for the most part, it's a lot of, like, empowering companies to do on the job training, which I think is just always gonna be needed. Like you say, there's no substitute for being on a roof and really looking at the right way to do it.

Hervé: 23:58

What about virtual reality? I mean, once you put those goggles on, you are there, and I think it's gonna come to this whole industry. And I think I see two different ways. One is those virtual reality goggles. I mean, you're so present.

Hervé: 24:12

You just your body thinks you're there. If you're taking a hit, if a ball comes to you or or or you're moving I remember I had Virgil goggles on, and I was supposed to be like, you know, in those man shafts, you have, like, little carts? It was, kind of a game and I was in it. And suddenly that thing crashes to the ground, fell, and my body react to do it. My body literally thought I just fell 10 feet except I was sitting on a chair, but my body thigh was real.

Hervé: 24:36

Long story to say, I think virtual reality will come in two different forms. Either you put the glasses on when you are installing something and you talk to your mass electrician that sits in the office and they could guide like 10 different crews. They can be present at 10 different places at the same time and guide electrician like, no. Do this, there, but the conduit go this way or that way. That's one way.

Hervé: 24:58

Or pure training is like if you are in front of a virtual installation of like a Enphase combiner box, like, how are you gonna install it? So is that coming? Are you working on on our virtual reality training?

Brian: 25:13

I think it probably is coming. There are examples of it that exists today. Absolutely. And so I I'm, like, I've I've been keeping my eyes on it, trying out anything that's out there. So I I I'm with you.

Brian: 25:26

I think I think we'll see it, you know, and it'll be more common. I don't know, like, the timing around, like, when it will be, like, totally mainstream and when that'll be the way that everybody does training. What I've experienced to date isn't there. Like, it's not I think there's applications for it, and I think some things it's really good at and other things it's, like, not so good at. Mhmm.

Brian: 25:47

But it's, you know, just like we do mostly, like, online virtual classes, but there's always gonna be hands on training. I think, like, virtual reality is gonna, like, fill one piece of it as well, and I think there's gonna be some things that it's gonna do great. So, yeah, absolutely, that's going to happen. Of course. I don't know exactly when and to and at what scale.

Brian: 26:09

It's not like a when I look at our product roadmap, it's not the next thing. Like, I think there's, like, so many other things that we want to do before that. I think that to me, good content is, like, fresh content that's very relevant and it's what people need. So to be delivered, like, just in time and and to me is more important than, like, the best, most immersive experience because I think context is, like, more important than, like, production quality. Like, if somebody wants to learn it and, like, they see why they would want to learn it, then I think that they're they're flexible on exactly how you present it to them.

Brian: 26:46

But if, like, they don't see the point, you could make it the most exciting game in the world, you know, and it's like nobody is gonna care.

Hervé: 26:54

Yeah. No. Right. Let's speak about a typical solar CEO giving you a call about, like, I just had a meeting. I just had a a thought.

Hervé: 27:03

I'm gonna invest more in my people and get training done. Do you have that type of conversation? Do you recognize situation? It's stereotypical you know how this is gonna go? Or, like, what do you advise to set up if if a source CEO has a has the ambition to set up training in their solar company correctly, what should they be doing?

Brian: 27:24

I think if you were to ask any solar CEO if training's important, a 100% would say yes. However, some act like it is and others don't. The ones who act like training is important actually believe that they're not doing it from a moral standpoint. They're not doing it because it's not a moral thing. It's just there's self interest.

Brian: 27:46

And what they see is that if you're trying to maximize the business outcomes over the long run, ten years, five years, then you have to have good culture and good people who know what they're doing. And you have to plan for a little bit of coming and going in and out of the business just because life is messy. And so you can't just rely on, like, the one person, and you have to develop, like, a whole bench and culture of Kiefor and and build a real, like, learning organization. So that's the minority. There aren't a whole ton of companies that act like that because learning and and training doesn't maximize ROI over the three month horizon.

Hervé: 28:28

Mhmm.

Brian: 28:28

And so most leaders aren't thinking beyond three to six months. And so that's the more common conversations we have. And so those people, like, either don't don't do training at all and and we never see them or there's, like, an acute issue. Like, maybe there's a safety issue that causes the hiccup on a job site or they have a customer and the RFP, like, calls out, like, certifications that you need. Mhmm.

Brian: 28:57

And there's, like, an acute short term need at and that's when you talk about that meeting. Like, the company, like, they have a meeting and they're like, alright. What's the blocker to, like, selling this next big project? And somebody's like, well, we need to get NAPCEP certifications. And so then everybody comes out of that meeting and I get, like, three calls and emails from people saying, like, hey.

Brian: 29:18

We need to do this right now. And we're happy to do that, of course. You know? And so I don't wanna be too critical of that because those are also our customers. But frequently, six months, eight months later, we're not hearing from them anymore, and they got what they needed, and then they just kinda moved on.

Brian: 29:36

And so they're very likely to have that same situation happen again in the future. So don't know how to how to how to, like, avoid that. I mean, if you're in that situation, you can't it is what it is. But if you're able to plan for business success over, like, a longer term horizon, I think that there are lots of examples and CEOs who will tell you it is, like, an incredibly great investment that they've made in their business and it pays back, you know, a hundredfold over time. It's just over a long time.

Brian: 30:03

Good.

Hervé: 30:03

Good. But on those wise words, Brian, I wanna thank you for being part of the podcast. It first started with, like, the the state of the solar industry going back to 2010 about how at that moment, it was there were very uncertain times for the solar industry, and we worked worked ourselves through it, and we survived. These times will be probably no difference. We'll we'll get through it.

Hervé: 30:25

We also spoke about AI, about different ways of doing learning. We spoke about different ways to adapt as a solar company to the to the current market, looking at different opportunities. And then we also spoke towards the end about a typical way to set up training successfully and think for the long term as a as a long term business value and long term relationship with not just your customers, but long term relationship with your your employees. So so thank you, Brian.

Brian: 30:54

Thank you.

Hervé: 30:56

If you'd like to do the same or do better, go to sunvoy.com/blog and get actionable behind the scenes lessons on running and growing your solar business.