Compensation is Culture
A Brief History of the Solar Professional
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. — Hunter S. Thompson
I love my job. There is not a single thing I would rather be doing than spreading the gospel of solar energy. It’s important work. It’s creative work. It’s fulfilling work.
The beautiful thing about entrepreneurship is that the more you succeed, the more time you have to invest in building your business. It’s a classic virtuous circle.
Several organizations have applied this dynamic to building their solar businesses by recruiting smart, energetic representatives to engage friends, neighbors, associates and strangers. Each organization has a different business model and differing compensation plans. It’s not that one is better than another, it’s that one will work better for an independent representative based on their objectives.
Over the last few years, we’ve supported many different partners with compensation plans that fit into three major categories:
- Social Networking
- Cooperative Marketing
- Commissioned Sales
As an umbrella organization, Solar Club supports companies designed on all three of these models, directly supports representatives that enroll. Solar Club also provides direct compensation to independent entrepreneurs who want to try promoting solar without joining a separate organization.
On the Geostellar platform, every representative has the role of Solar Pro, whether they represent a partnering organization or form their own teams.
If you’re looking for a way to earn extra cash while saving the planet from the worst effects of climate change, consider becoming a Solar Pro by joining a partner, joining a team or going it alone.
Flat Referral Fees and Ambassador Programs
We started out like other solar providers with a flat referral fee. Over time, these have fluctuated between $250 and $500 per referred home that goes solar.
We were first to market with a mobile referral app, launching Solar Mojo in May 2014. We thought thousands of people would download it, check out the solar savings potential of their friends and neighbors, and submit referrals.
The app was really cool. I used it all the time, pitching solar to my extended family at Thanksgiving Dinner, in bars, at parties and on the sidelines of my kids sports events.
Nobody else did. Over the course of the next year, downloads of Solar Mojo on the App Store steadily climbed into the dozens.
The reason? We didn’t design an effective compensation plan. Like the other ambassador programs, it was fine for the occasional referral, but there was no incentive to gain expertise, build a team or grow a real business.
The Social Networking Model
Then in the summer of 2015 something interesting happened. One of our social networking partners, ACN, launched XOOM Solar on our platform at an international training event in San Jose.
I’d never seen anything like it. 25,000 people in the coliseum with laser light shows, flash pots and monster speakers kicking out the jams. On stage, inspirational leaders told their rags to riches stories and pumped up the crowd.
It was like a tent revival, and I felt myself strangely drawn to the alter. I was ready to drink the wine, eat the cracker and even gulp down the sacramental Kool-aid. Sign me up!
Not surprisingly, our volume of solar energy installations skyrocketed over the course of the next few months. We had an enormous, enthusiastic sales force turning their friends, neighbors and associates on to solar.
Then, other social networking companies such as Ascend Global Services, which provides travel services, joined Solar Club to add solar energy to their offerings, and we started to learn more about the nuances of compensation.
The Cooperative Marketing Model
In October 2016 I met up with my friend Jigar Shah, author of Creating Climate Wealth and founder of SunEdison and Generate Capital, at SXSW Eco. I brought him up to the moment on Geostellar and told him about our plans for Solar Club.
Jigar introduced me to Robert Styler, the founder and CEO of CREW (Clean Renewable Energy Worldwide). Robert is an experienced social networker who created an interesting model that crossed the the REI-style coop with traditional social networking.
CREW’s compensation plan pays the representative a significant amount, pays the representative’s mentor and puts the rest into a pool to be shared by the coop members. Robert is a deep guy, who puts the interests of his CREW members before his company or self-interests.
CREW is growing fast, and could prove to be powerful new model of direct distribution.
The Commissioned Sales Model
Some people want to start out promoting solar energy as a full-time job, on the phone, online or by visiting homes. If you work for a company that offers solar through Solar Club, we consider you a Solar Pro and provide you with the support and training you need to develop your career in solar energy.
In the commissioned sales model, the Solar Pro is paid a small base salary and is part of a team that makes phone calls following up on in-bound requests or canvassing door-to-door. Successful team leads can earn around a couple thousand dollars a week.
The commissioned sales model doesn’t offer the explosive growth potential of social networking or the equity of a coop, but there is benefit to some base compensation and a focused, organized approach to contacting potential customers, and it is easier to earn a living out of the gate.
In order to build a platform that supported Solar Pros working for different organizations with different compensation plans, we engaged one of the foremost experts in compensation plan design. This expert explained to us that the comp plan creates the outcomes for the organization by guiding the behavior of participants.
Comp plans can encourage lots of recruitment and team building, or they can promote a focus on attracting and serving customers. They can be designed to lock people in for long periods of time or they can provide rapid payouts. They can provide a way for people to build a substantial career, or they can be oriented for the hobbyist who occasionally refers a friend or neighbor.
For Solar Club to be successful supporting Solar Pros across the country, and for you to be successful offering solar energy in your communities, we had to understand the various compensation plan models and endorse the ones that are genuinely beneficial. We recognized that the comp plan had provide significant income from each solar energy sale. Some companies failed in their attempts to offer solar energy because they treated it like make-up, cell service, home security or satellite television.
Simply put, need a compensation plan that fits the company culture and attracts the people that will thrive in the plan.
We designed a baseline Solar Club Compensation Plan with the following goals:
- Pay as much money as possible upfront so that Solar Pros could invest more time gaining experience and developing their careers in solar energy.
- Reward efforts put into encouraging homeowners to go solar over recruiting and building a team.
- Be realistic about time frames and level of effort, so that the Solar Pro can be successful without a high volume of solar installations.
- Create a Partners program so that Solar Pros could join organizations and try out a compensation plan that might fit them better than the Solar Club plan for independent professionals.
Underlying all of this was a desire to work with our friends and see them succeed.
We’re all struggling to various degrees, and have all seen very hard times.
We needed to feel comfortable recruiting our friends, setting them up with their own practice and working with them toward success.
We believe we’ve achieved that with our Comp Plan, and we hope you’ll join our Solar Club as a professional, either directly or through one of our partners.
A Million Solar Pros
According to a profile in Wired, Google co-founder Larry Page “wanted everyone at Google to think big.”
It was a defining habit for him. When someone pitched an idea, Page would invariably counter with a variation that was an order of magnitude more ambitious. In 2003, when executives met to consider opening engineering offices overseas, Schmidt asked Page how quickly he would like to grow.
“How many engineers does Microsoft have?” Page asked.
About 25,000, he was told.
“We should have a million,” Page said, in all seriousness.
How many Solar Pros are we going to need to protect the planet and our progeny from the worst effects of climate change?
I don’t know.
But just in case, let’s recruit a million.
