Two Things I Learned at the 2012 IGSHPA Conference

On Tuesday October 2nd we hosted an evening program titled, “How to Make Money in Renewable Energy” for 45 brave souls who traveled to Indianapolis for the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association (IGSHPA) Conference.

These were the panelists:

Allan Skouby, GeoPro – manufacturer of thermally enhanced grout.
Steven Hamstra, Greensleeves – engineer, designer + manufacturer of packaged […]

“Best Practices for Selling Geothermal” on Wednesday’s #GeoChat

On 11am on Wednesday, January 18th, HeatSpring will be hosting a #geochat with guest expert Martin Orio, VP at Water Energy Distributors on twitter. Read more about the #geochat here.

The topic for the first #geochat is “Best Practices for Selling Geothermal”. Like we discussed in our last episode of HeatSpring TV, Geothermal is a better […]

HS TV Ep. 7: “Geothermal Will Give you Better Returns than the Stock Market”

One of our goals in 2012 is to explore what can be done to make geothermal a mainstream technology.

To get some more insights into what we need to do as an industry, I had a conversion with Harold, the founder and CEO of 360Chestnut.

The discussion is around 20 minutes, here is what we talked about:

What 360 Chestnut is doing around educating homeowners about geothermal.
Why Harold loves his geothermal system more then his kids (sometimes).
How and why Harold decided to get into the geothermal industry.
What are your thoughts on installing geothermal versus upgrading the shell of a building?
What is the story of 360 Chestnut? Why was it created and what specifically are you working on within the geothermal industry?
Why every home should be at least consider geothermal.
Do you think 360 Chestnut is more of a ‘geothermal missionary’, someone who is converting non-believers, or are you preaching to the choir, are you looking to find the people that already want geothermal?
What do you see as the main problems with geothermal industry going mainstream?
How does the fragmented geothermal industry, both in manufactures and installers, make it difficult for the industry to market itself to homeowners?
Why should a contractor work with 360 Chestnut instead of creating their own site that attracts homeowners? Why would a homeowner go to your site first, instead of companies that are actually doing the installations?

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January 16th, 2012|Categories: Geothermal Heat Pumps|Tags: , , |

Geothermal Designer Tax Credit: Don’t Leave Money on the Table

“Your database of completed geothermal projects is a goldmine.”

That was the message at tonight’s New England Geothermal Professional Association member’s meeting. Charles Goulding, from Energy Tax Savers, gave a compelling presentation about some underutilized government programs that directly benefit geothermal designers. It would be impossible to do his presentation justice, but here are some of my notes (in layman’s terms) that should be interesting to anyone who has completed (or will complete) a geothermal project between 2005 and 2013: […]

Five Key Items for Writing a Solid Renewable Energy Sales Proposal

If you’re currently a contractor and interested in entering or expanding your business into the renewable energy industry, there are four main hurdles you will face.

Understanding the technology. See this free course to learn more about the technology basics.
Filling out a vast amount of government paperwork, and maneuvering around solar and geothermal permitting and incentives.
Marketing: Getting the attention of potential customers to sign your first project. Here are some tips on bringing customers to you.
Sales: Needing to convince property owner to purchase geothermal or solar AND buy them from you.

Today, lets focus on number four. Like it or not, investing in renewable energy is NOT something that property owners MUST do, and they have other options to choose from. With that in mind, having good sales skills is key to convincing a potential customer that investing in renewable energy will be both profitable and attractive for their home or business. So, you must convince them to invest into solar pv, geothermal, solar thermal or energy efficiency and then convince them to pick YOU as the contractor.

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