What Residential Solar Companies Need to do to Successfully Offer a Solar Lease

According to the State of California Energy Commission, in Q3 of 2011, the majority of residential systems were financed. What does this mean for solar installers? Simple. The solar lease is becoming the industry norm and you need to be offering it if you plan to remain competitive in the solar market place.

We reached out to BrightGrid Renewable Energy Finance, experts in residential solar leases, to answer some of the most common questions we get from solar installers about offering a solar lease. We created a 5 part mini series that answered the most common questions solar integrators have about offering a solar lease. To view all the videos, sign up for HeatSpring’s Free Course: How to Use Solar Leases to grow your Solar business. Here is the outline:

1. Part 1. Should your Business off a Solar Lease?
2. Part 2. How does a Solar Lease Work and How do you Sell It’s Value
3. Part 3. How do you Handle Customers Tough Questions About Solar Leases?
4. Part 4. What should you business consider when Selecting a Solar Manufacturing Partners?
5. Part 5. Who is a lease customer and how do you sell the leases value?

In Part 1, I spoke with Roger Franco VP of Sales and Marketing at BrightGrid and we discuss when solar businesses should offer a solar lease. Here’s what we talked about:

• When have you noticed is a good time for a business to offer a solar lease?
• Is offering a lease a magic bullet and or do companies need to invest time and money to successfully offering a lease?
• The difference between selling cash only versus leased systems and how it impact’s a solar companies sales and marketing process and operations.
• We discussed the difference between ‘early adopter’ and ‘mass market’ solar customers and how the lease provides companies access to a much larger market.
• The importance of simplification in the solar industry, specifically in marketing and sales.
• BrightGrid’s typical advice for an ‘old’ solar company that has been dealing with cash sales for many years and is now going to be offering a solar lease.
• The impact that large solar companies with huge marketing budgets is having on smallers solar companies ability to compete.
• The advice BrightGrid typically gives to new installation partners that are operating in a marketplace against large solar installers where marketing dollars is now determining market share.
• The top reasons that simply offering a lease will not make your company successful in the solar industry
• What businesses need to do to support their lease offering to be successful.
• Why offering a lease allows most installers to go from 4 to 5 installations a month to offering 20 to 30 installations and the impact it has on their sales and operations.
• The most common advice BrightGrid gives to sales teams when they begin to offer the lease.
• How does BrightGrid address the fear many installers have that solar financiers force installed costs lower.
• How long does the transition take for a company to transition and optimize from offering cash sales to offering leases?
• Why any new solar company should understand that the market is still huge and its not too late to get in the game. Our demand for power is not decreasing, but our demand for better ways of generation is.

If you are a solar installer and have questions, or you would like to work with BrightGrid, you can get more information about their residential financing product here.

If you’d like to watch the full 5 part series right now, you can sign you for the free solar lease course here.