Solar thermal, solar hot water, solar hot air, solar heating, solar cooling
How to Build a Renewable Energy Division in an Existing Building Company – PART 1
A lot of residential and light commercial renewable energy work is starting to be picked up by general contractors, like Jamie Leef of S+H Construction in Cambridge. Why? General contractors are in a unique position to pick up this work because they’re used to managing projects, sales, and it supplements their existing business.
Beginning in September, I am going to be working with one of my best friends in Maine to create their renewable energy division. My friend Gilbert took over his father’s residential construction company. It’s a small local company in coastal Maine that has a repuation for building high quality, energy efficient homes.
I’m going to keep a journal of the journey on Heatspring Magazine because many of the issues we’ll be dealing with are common for everyone in the industry. What am I going to be discussing? Everything that a small business must do to make money; establishing our marketing and sales strategies, performing site visits and creating sales proposals, applying for incentives, the design process and lastly, the installation process. My goal is to be 100% open and share everything we learn. I have absolutely no fear that me sharing this material will mean less business for us. In fact, I feel it will sharpen our business strategy, writing has a tendency to do this, and it will help other contractors like yourself. Read below to get this specifics. If you like this idea, have any questions, or are working on a similar project, feel free to leave a comment or ask me on HeatSprings facebook page.
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HeatSpring TV Episode 1: General Contractors Getting into Renewables
The first episode of HeatSprint TV, known as HS TV from now on, is live! In the first episode of HS TV, I discuss 5 current new stories of importance and welcomed our first guest, Jamie from S+H Construction. We discuss being a general contractor and getting into the renewable energy industry. The conversation spanned policy, sales, Jamie’s perspective on job creation in clean energy, and what the developments he’s most excited about in the industry. Read past the break for full details and join HeatSpring on facebook to keep the most up to date on free courses, events, tips, resources and news. If you’re a clean energy professional and looking to connect with other geothermal professionals to collaborate on jobs or best practices, request to join HeatSpring’s linkedin group for Clean Energy Professionals
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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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6 Ways to Not Waste Your Money on Solar Training
BUYER BEWARE; when purchasing training, there are a lot of training providers coming into the market. Some are good, but some are bad. You’re smart–just do your homework.
Everyone looking to get into solar industry should take some quality technical solar training so they understand how the systems work, how they are designed, solar code and some basics of sales and incentives. It doesn’t matter if you are going to be selling, installing, managing, or designing–everyone will benefit from quality training about solar.
Here’s a list of the top six characteristics of quality training that every contractor should look into when purchasing training to make sure you don’t waste your money. My goal with those post is not to sell HeatSpring training, but to make sure you get the best training that fits your needs.
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The 9 Best Geothermal and Solar Resources on the Internet
This is a simple post. Here are our favorite solar and geothermal resources we’ve run into (or created!) over the past couple years that are really useful resources for understanding the technology, basic design, policy and sales of solar and geothermal systems. Tell us what we’ve missed.
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