#287 How to Build a Kick-Ass Sales Team in CleanTech | David Reasenberg, Heliene

Speaker A: For today's episode, we are speaking with David Riesenberg, the chief commercial officer at the, uh, US based solar module manufacturer Helene.

Speaker B: It's shocking, I know, but to produce a product in the US it actually costs more than it does in Southeast Asia or Asia.

Speaker A: I wanted to have Helene back on this time to talk about their sales strategy.

Speaker B: As a domestic manufacturer, you can't win when it's a race to the bottom and you're selling on price. The cost of electricity from a solar generation facility is less than any other form of gener

Speaker A: foreign. Hey, folks, welcome back to the Clean Techies podcast. I'm Silas Manor, your favorite clean tech headhunter. Before we start, I mentioned this last time, but we have a very special announcement. We are considering building out an AI chatbot that is trained entirely on all of our podcasts, all 287 of them. And building that is pretty expensive. So what we want to do is ask our community and our listeners if you are interested in something like this, please help us indicate your interest so we know it's worth building. We do not want to spend a lot of money on this and then have it be used by nobody. This would be a paid feature. This would be something you would get as a benefit of being a paid member of this substack, which costs $10 a month or a hundred dollars a year to get access to. So if, uh, you're interested, go to Chatbot cleantechis co and drop in your email or just send me a DM directly. Either way works fine. We just need to indicate how much interest there is in doing this so we can decide if we're going to invest all that money to build out this, uh, AI chatbot that is trained entirely on the knowledge and wisdom of all of these different clean tech entrepreneurs that we have been able to interview over the past five years. Well, five, almost five and a half years at this point. So. All right, go to Chatbot cleantechis co to indicate your interest if you are looking to have a little bit of a paid feature here or just DM me directly on LinkedIn. All right, so for today's episode, we have something a little bit different. Uh, we are speaking with David Reisenberg, the chief commercial officer at the US based solar module manufacturer Helene. Now, you might recognize Helene because we had them on the podcast way way back, episode 38. I had Martin, their CEO and founder, on here to talk about what they're doing broadly. But I wanted to have Helene back on this time to talk about their sales strategy because they are, to my knowledge, the largest domestic producer of solar panels in the U.S. and so, so we brought on David to talk about their sales strategy, specifically, you know, how they sell during this whole roller coaster, or they call it the solar coaster of sales. Right. Everything is very policy led and so he has a lot of tips that he's going to share. So what we cover here is how he is built and how he's building his sales team, how he structured it, his core tips, how they sell with the policy cycle in mind and how he motivates his team in all sorts of, like, nuanced ways just to make sure that things are moving forward. Well, it's a very fascinating and informative episode. It's very topic specific. So if you are building a hardware, uh, sales team in the clean tech space, I would recommend getting out of notepad and listening to this. All right. And before the show starts, big shout out to our sponsors. Layman's Terms. If you are doing media spots in the near future and you want to make sure that you do not go viral for the wrong reasons and that your message is clear and lands, and you want to get all of the tricks and secrets of the trade, reach out to Layman's Terms. Their website is lt media training.com. michael has, has prepared executives for hundreds of media appearances across television, being on Capitol Hill, pitching to investors, podcasts, you name it, he's an expert at this. Reach out to him and his team. That's LT Media Training.com LT Media Training.com. then we have, uh, Climate Finance Solutions. If you are looking to raise non dilutive grant funding, Joel and his team are the experts at helping you do that. They have a 90% success rate when they help you apply for, for a grant and they have raised, I believe, $1.6 billion worth of grant funding since 2020. That's probably a little bit low actually at this point because those numbers are a little bit old. But Joel and his team are amazing. Go to climate financesolutions.com if you are looking to raise non, um, dilutive grant funding. Then if you are looking to hire eight, eight players for your team, you're really struggling to find the best people or you're just struggling to get to all the applicants and you want to make sure the interview process is positive and you don't lose anybody to competitors throughout that interview process. You can reach out to me and my team@earthsearch.com that's erthsearch.com you can drop me an email directly@silasearch.com or drop me a DM on LinkedIn. I'm super active, in case you didn't notice. All right. On, um, with the show. All right. Welcome to the podcast, David. How are you doing today?

Speaker B: I'm well. Thanks for having me.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm going to give a quick introduction here. Um, I'll have you introduce yourself in a little bit. But we are here talking about how to build a sales team in the cleantech world. And we're doing that with David Reisenberg. That's how you pronounce your last name, correct?

Speaker B: You got it. Absolutely.

Speaker A: Nice. And, uh, you're with Helene, which, uh, we've had Martin on the podcast back on episode 38. So very early in the journey. That was, uh, I want to say it was like March of 2022. It's been a while. But, um, I recommend people check it out. You, uh, guys make solar panels in the U.S. i think, and Canada maybe. But, um, we can. Fill me in on that. But, uh, we're doing a reboot of that, of that conversation, except this time we're focused on how you guys have built an incredible sales team. I think it's really important topic for us to go over because a lot of clean tech companies are not always founded by salesforward people. They're many times founded by engineers or PhDs. And getting the sales motion correct is super critical to succeeding. So, uh, with that, I'll pause there, maybe give a little bit of an intro to yourself and your history with, uh, the company and where you guys are at today.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So, Dave Riesenberg, I'm the Chief Commercial Officer here at Hellion or Helion. Uh, there's no correct way to say it. It's a made up word. Um, but I've, uh, been with the company for a few years now, um, in the industry since 2008, um, more or less all in various sales capacities. Um, Helene, as a, as a North American module manufacturer, uh, originally spun up in 2010, uh, as a result of the Ontario fit program. Manufacturing in Canada. And most recently our focus has been the US market. Um, we began manufacturing in Minnesota, uh, late 2017, uh, which is where we've continued to invest and build out capacity, uh, for projects and developers across the U.S. um, you know, we're, uh, we kind of specialize and uh, differentiate by being a little bit more nimble than the larger incumbents and offering a product with inherently more value through a, uh, domestic, uh, localized supply chain, which we can get into, but brings, you know, additional benefits for our, for our customers and the long term asset owners.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's helpful. I, I do want to dig into that a little bit. I'm curious though first, what are some of the core, I guess you would say, like metrics that you usually share around, like you know, how much you guys have sold so far, um, any key wins in the past couple years. Because again it's been, it's been four years since, since we had you guys on the pod.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So, um, privately held. So what I can tell you is we've got 1.3 gigawatts of capacity now here in the US. That's across three different lines. Two lines up at the original location on the Iron Range, which is about 45 minutes north of Duluth in a town called Mountain Iron. And then the newest line that turned on in May of 2025 is in a suburb of Minneapolis in a town called rogers. That's another 500 megawatt line. Um, you know, metrics. If we look at the first quarter of this year, um, we were up about 70% year quarter over quarter from, from Q1 of 2025. So pretty big uh, uptick in demand for our product recently. Um, other major kind of, you know, offtake agreements would be a uh, 1.5 gigawatt deal that we did with uh, Nextamp. They're the, the US's largest community solar developer. And we also completed a 2 gigawatt um, offtake agreement with a uh, utility scale developer, uh, based out of Minneapolis, um, called Excelsior Energy Capital. Um, so you know those, lots of, lots of deals. Yeah, two examples of some, some pretty large contracts. You know, we do have a lot of run rate business to selling it to CNI community Solar, you know, one to five megawatt type projects. Um, but oftentimes we'll get aggregated portfolios to larger clients to uh, take on more of a meaningful chunk of, chunk of volume.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, that, that's really helpful. Now I'd be really curious, um, to get a little bit of a, we don't need an entire history lesson. But for people who are not super familiar with what's going on with solar panel sales, could you just give like a quick snapshot of the history? Because you know I remember at one point there was the, the pressure to only have local, um, locally made or at least manufactured solar panels. There was a, there's, I think it was during the Biden administration, something to do with the Congress not wanting Chinese stuff coming in and then obviously there's been the tariff situation. So can you just give us like a quick history lesson around solar panels sales in the US Just like so people understand where we're at today and what are the core, um, things that, that developers or people who need these panels care about. This episode is brought to you by Layman's Terms. You could have a great clean tech product, but if your answers wander, investors walk away. Layman's Terms helps founders and executives deliver during high stakes moments. Whether it's an investor conversation, media appearance or panel, your message needs to be clear and disciplined to create value. Layman's Terms has experience preparing leaders for hundreds of cable news interviews and a background in climate communications on Capitol Hill. When it matters, don't just show up, show up ready. Learn more@lt media training.com. that's LT mediatraining.com yeah, so there's been,

Speaker B: there's been a couple key, call it, you know, legislative, um, rulings that have impacted the market. Um, the biggest one happens uh, more or less when I, when I joined the company and that was the passing of the Inflation Reduction act, which created both an incentive for manufacturers to um, manufacture um, solar modules in the US and also for our clients, the off takers of the product, to develop and deploy um, solar systems, um, across the U.S. and so that really caused ah, you know, a spike in demand for US Manufacturers. We had just turned on ah, a new line at the time. And so it was kind of right place, right time and you know, it was, you know, I think, you know, timing is a lot, has a lot to do with a lot of success in all facets of life. Um, so the IRA would be one thing, you know, more recently we've seen um, the enforcement of uh, foreign entity of concern restrictions. And so what that means is essentially, you know, any product or uh, made with or sold by, you know, essentially in our industry, it would be a Chinese manufacturer, um, could prohibit our client from receiving uh, the investment tax credit, uh, that's generally monetized, um, when these projects are built. So those have been kind of two key, key drivers to the market dynamics and would have been actually very helpful for the success of our organization.

Speaker A: Mhm. With the foreign entity of concern component, is that something that's only happened recently under the Trump administration or was that still going on already under Biden?

Speaker B: Well it actually goes back TO uh, the Second World War, which just became um, enforced on January 1st in our industry. And so now there's a new test essentially that the developer needs to pass. Um, it's called a material assistance cost ratio. And you know, it is complicated, but, you know, once you understand it, it kind of works to our benefit if you can provide that, that knowledge to your client. Um, but it basically just means that a customer has to have that extra level of diligence and bring in, you know, attorneys that are looking at this and signing off on the, on the risk profile of their procurement strategy.

Speaker A: Yeah, nice to be. Nice, uh, to be somebody building, building things in the US at that time.

Speaker B: Right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, like I said, like, we, uh, you know, it works in our favor. Right. We haven't really had to change anything with our company. We just, you know, we meet, we automatically pass all these tests to begin with. So it's just a matter of going and, you know, putting it on letterhead, essentially to provide the customer with that assurance that they need.

Speaker A: Yeah, that. Also, just out of curiosity, how many. Do you know, the total headcount of people you guys have in the US like, how many jobs you've been able to, to produce?

Speaker B: Um, we've, we've hired more than. When we turned on the third line. I think we hired over 300 people.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Um, just for line three.

Speaker A: That's awesome.

Speaker B: So, yeah, I mean, the company's grown about 3x in head count, um, since I started.

Speaker A: Nice. I love to hear that again. More, more jobs in America is a positive thing, I think. I'm from the Midwest, so I have a special place in my heart for anybody who's willing to continue building manufacturing, uh, there. Because we've seen growing up a lot of, a lot of not, uh, so positive changes, uh, in the direction of people that I knew, you know, in the employment situation. So let's, uh, let's shift a little bit to, I guess, the kind of building and scaling of a sales team. So I'd like to start here. What is your core? I guess you could say philosophical kind of principle or the principles that you use when you are building a sales team from the ground up. And you can feel free to tie this into the kind of components of the story of you building the commercial team, uh, with Helene.

Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, like, as I mentioned, I've been, I've been selling solar for, for some time and really kind of the old way of doing it, um, and probably just not, not even unique to solar. But you know, generally you build out sales teams, you know, hand them a, ah, price sheet, give them some KPIs, and then tell them to go, you Know, hit the targets, right? You know, shake all the bushes, get them from other customers, develop, build relationships, so on and so forth. Um, working for publicly traded companies, you're generally set with targets. And then, you know, it's, it's uh, sell, sell, sell the first month, ship, ship, ship the second, and then collect payments and deliver, deliver, deliver the third month. And then, you know, hit, hit the reset button at the end of a recorder and then you're just back, you know, on square one, uh, the next quarter. And so I did that for many, many years. Just rinse and repeat. Um, it's not, it's not really the, the business or the way that, that we do it today. Um, and it doesn't really work for, for domestic modules. Um, a domestic module is no longer a commodity product. Right. Like, uh, you know, maybe 10 years ago, manufacturers were, you know, selling the fact that they weren't a commodity. Customers, um, would always like to tell us that we were. And they were just out there shopping around for, for the lowest price for what, um, so we kind of got to get out of that mindset. Um, it's shocking, I know, but to produce a product in the US it actually costs more than it does, um, in Southeast Asia or Asia. And those have been the bleeding sources of solar modules here in the US and so as a domestic manufacturer, you can't win, um, when it's a race to the bottom and you're selling on price. And so what that means you have to basically be able to articulate the value of your product and justify the premium, uh, that you're asking for. Right. Um, the way that I explain it internally is that you're really selling the capital stack. And we can kind of go into what that means, but you're essentially telling your customer, showing them through tools and spreadsheets that we've developed. You know, why it makes sense to pay X percent more for our product versus a low cost import coming in from Southeast Asia. So you know, we give, we've, we built the tools, um, we share them with customers, we educate them on all the different rules that they need to abide by and we help them strategize on their procurement, um, methods to provide the best financial outcome for their project. Um, it's not really a price negotiation anymore when we're selling this. In fact, we don't sell a price at all. Um, one other way we differentiate is we sell open book. And so we will actually share all of our costs with our clients, um, and allow them to basically pick and choose which cost of components, domestic, non domestic. They want in their module to bring just enough domestic content, which is something they're using to Capture an additional 10% investment tax credit while we're keeping the pricing as economically as possible. And so it's really more about selling the best financial outcome to them and showing them how they can build that product, um, to have the best irr on their asset.

Speaker A: All right, cleantech founders, let's be honest, you need to move fast. It's 2026 and you cannot hesitate. You can't have things dragging you down or slowing you down. So why are you putting off the most critical thing that you can do to help you grow, and that is hire the best talent. We've heard it time and time again on, uh, this podcast. The best talent is what helps you grow. The new year is here and every week that you miss out on, ah, hiring that head of sales, that mechanical engineer that you've been looking for for some time, you are letting somebody else eat your lunch. It is 2026 and for clean tech startups, it is currently survival of the fittest. You need the best people and you need them now so, so that you can grow your company to where you need to, to get to your next fundraising round. And you need a recruitment partner who's going to match your energy and not going to slow you down. That's me and my firm, Earth Search. We work as an integrated recruitment partner only with clean tech companies to hire their U.S. talent. And we can help you with engineers, sales, co founders, anything that you need, any talent in the U.S. we know your industry, we know your targets, and we can deliver. If you've been listening for some time, you know that for five years now, we have been having conversations with the leading clean tech entrepreneurs. In this past decade, we, as a result of this podcast, have been able to get into rooms that other clean tech recruiters have never entered. And our network isn't just a bunch of resumes. Because of this podcast and these relationships, we know the people who have been the movers and shakers to actually build the most successful clean tech companies in the past decade. You will not find more value in another recruitment partner that we are confident of. We deliver proven talent faster and cheaper than traditional search firms. So if you'd like to get the conversation started, reach out to me directly on LinkedIn or email me@silasearch.com that's erth search.com Again, Earth with no A, E, R, T H search.com and we'll get the conversation Started. We look forward to working with you to build a team of a players. Now, does that mean it's sometimes challenging to find sales team members who kind of have that same mentality, given that a lot of the industry is not that way or, or uh, like, what are you seeing there on that front, like, when it comes to actually building out the team?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I would say so. Like, getting, getting. You know, just because somebody's been selling models for 10 years doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to, you know, be a good fit for this type of transaction or this type of, you know, sales role. Um, what I kind of look for is, uh, what I would call commercial curiosity. Right. Like those, those sales reps that really want to understand the pretty dense and complicated legislation. Um, they want to get into the messy details and understand it so that they can kind of figure out how to gamify it and how to, um. I don't know if weaponize is the right word, but basically how to, how to use it to our advantage? Um, you know, all of the guidance that we're using is very, is very dense. It's written by treasury or irs. And so it's, you know, it does take a while to kind of get your head wrapped around it and really understand it before, before you can kind of make those kind of larger purchase decisions based on, based on your understanding. And it is, it is nuanced and open to interpretation too. Right. I think that's, that's one of the beauties of tax law. Um, so as long as, you know, you can get a, a majority of the market with the same understanding, you can see people making, you know, decisions against, against that, that, that, that rationale. Um, so, so yeah, so, you know, that commercial curiosity as I call it, you know, those that really want to dive in and, and understand it and pick it apart, um, if I were to add another one, maybe like, you know, having, having sales managers that really have a high sense of agency. Right. Like, you know, I mentioned we can, we can do things a little bit quicker and faster. We're a little bit more nimble. We're, you know, we're sharing costs with customers. And I think that's pretty important in this day and age. I mean, the rules are changing, you know, very, very quickly. Um, sometimes there's a different tariff rate in the afternoon than there is in the morning. And just really understanding, um, the landscape and being able to act, um, on it in a quick manner I think can kind of give us a competitive advantage. The IRS will typically drop their, their guidance on a Friday. And so if we can figure it out and then come to market and start engaging in conversations, uh, on a Monday, uh, versus. Our competitors are gonna have to go back to their, their tax council and figure out, you know, what they're going to do as a company before they direct their sales team where that'll set us apart and give us, give us a competitive edge.

Speaker A: Yeah, gotta, gotta bring in the pieces on Saturday, get it figured out.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, it's, it's really true.

Speaker A: Yeah, there's, it's all these very small things that I think create excellence in a sales team. So, you know, I'm, when you joined, was there already some sales team in place? Because I'm kind of curious like, how you guys ended up structuring. I know that in the early days there's always this debate. I don't know if you can speak to this specifically, but there's always like different, uh, perspectives on how to build out the sales team. Does this, does the founder bring in kind of like a minion to help them out? Does the founder bring in somebody who's just like gonna go and build out a proper team? Like, can you speak to the history of that with you guys and how you did it once you brought, once you came into the role?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, this is interesting. So like, when I came on board, you know, we had, um, so the same size team, um, five regional sales managers generally living within their respective territories across North America. But, um, the team was very siloed. Right. Everybody was kind of running with their own playbook. They had their own market intelligence, of course, their own book of business. And they were really just heads down, focusing on hitting their number. Um, and there wasn't really the need to collaborate with other sales managers. Um, and so that's changed, right? I mean today when you look at the sales team, it really is more of like a, like an open source floor of knowledge sharing that happens. Um, and we leverage that, right? Like, because all these new regulations that we're working with, um, are new. And so we'll, we'll talk to one client in Massachusetts about, you know, how they're thinking about this part of the legislation. And we'll take that information and we'll share it with a customer in Ohio and they'll be like, oh, that's interesting. Or, you know, if they're looking for a different product to bring domestic content through the inverter, we'll go, oh, well, for, you know, this customer is using this Product, you should go talk to this company. And so having this kind of, this knowledge share among the team, I think has been super, super helpful for us. Um, talking with customers, getting their understanding and you know, because, because the, it is open to interpretation just having like this, this ecosystem of, you know, we're not, we're not tax advisors at the end, so we can't tell you, you know, we're going to guarantee if you do this, this and that, you're in good shape, but we can certainly tell you what other people are doing so that you can make an informed decision. Um, so I don't think it's really, I don't, I don't think building the head count is necessarily the right, the right way to go about it. It's really more about building, you know, this, this high agency, high, you know, knowledge share, individual with that commercial curiosity and having that team kind of work together and communicate in real time, um, to share information, you know, absorbing it from the market and sharing it with other parts of the market, uh, that kind of have led to the success where we are today.

Speaker A: This episode is brought to you by Climate Finance Solutions, the firm helping climate tech companies win the major government grants that drive their scale and impact. Since 2020, they've won over $1.6 billion in public funding for their clients, with a 90% success rate on the dollars that they've applied for. Their team has also helped win more than 500 million euros in European funding and managed over $275 million in grant projects with a global team of 27 experts. CFS supports climate innovators through every stage of the funding lifecycle, from strategy to proposals to project execution. They also have a grant identification platform that enables real time monitoring and custom matching of opportunities with alerts as new grants are released. If you're a climate investor, accelerator or ecosystem builder, you can even join their partnership program to unlock pro bono support for your portfolio companies. Learn more@climate financesolutions.com all right, back to the show. How do you get. Sometimes, um, sometimes salespeople can kind of be like lone wolves. They like to operate on their own. If you had that. I don't know if that was the case. Obviously they were working in it in a siloed fashion. Like how do you get them to be interested in that collective, like taking a little bit of time to share, uh, at least at the beginning because I can assume once you start doing it, they see the benefits. But maybe there's some resistance at the beginning. Can you speak how to get the team on the same page.

Speaker B: Well, I mean, ultimately they're not going to be successful. Right. If they're not using the information that we've all aggregated collectively, then they're not going to be as successful in their role. And so it, there really isn't a, there really isn't an option just to put your head down and do your own thing. I mean, unless, you know, you have it completely figured out. But, um, I just, I just haven't seen it. Right. So, so everybody is, you know, we're, we're in Slack, we're, we're messaging about what we're seeing in the market in real time. Um, and it just, it just, it hasn't worked out for those that haven't, you know, had been a team player and been, you know, collaborative amongst the group.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, I'm curious, I guess, do you, is it because of the way you guys are selling that you largely focus on a sales team? I don't know what your, your marketing strategy is, but I know that sometimes with commodity stuff it's just about, let's try to be, you know, completely top of mind so that they think of us. Because, you know, there isn't differentiation, but because you guys have differentiation in how you and what you have. Is it, is it more important to have like a direct sales team versus kind of focusing, um, on more of a market angle, marketing angle?

Speaker B: Well, we do both. I mean, we do have a marketing team. It's not a, not a huge team. Um, but, you know, we've, you know, we've, we've gotten a lot of attention from media, um, based on, you know, both the job creation and kind of building this, this domestic supply chain, um, that, that we, that we source from. Um, and so I think that's been, been helpful. You know, we've been in the Wall Street Journal and made some other large publications to, to get the attention of some of the larger developers. You know, when I came on, um, you know, we, you know, company's been around 16 years, um, but we only had a couple hundred megawatts of capacity. Like not many people have had heard of the company. I would say that's different today. And I think a lot of it's just due to, you know, the, the PR efforts that we've had and getting our name out there and in the solar rags, if you will. Um, Martine's done a ton of interviews. I think we've done a good job just in the, you know, the marketing spheres that, that the solar industry Gets to engage in.

Speaker A: Mhm. Yeah, I think it's, I think it's an underrated, um, skill of, of having multiple people on the team or in the company doing like different like angles and podcasts and things like that. Because there's so many ways you can talk about what you're doing and what your product is to, in different ways to different audiences. Right. It doesn't always have to be the founder, like going out and talking about, hey, this is what we're doing. It can be like there's so many niche uh, podcasts out there, everything like that. So I do think it's underrated strategy and clean tech especially. I don't, I don't know if people are sleeping on it or they just haven't thought uh, that they can activate all of their employee base to do some of this fun stuff once in a while, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, hey, I'm all about the podcast. This is my second one but I enjoy them. And anyway, any way to get the word I'm game.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So one thing I've always wondered about is what goes behind the decision on how to segment the market out, whether that is just geography. Because in your case it sounds like there are larger types of clients and then small, smaller ones where they're, you know, buying a lot more versus a lot less. Like do you segment out those smaller customers and hand them to junior reps and then, you know, work them up the ladder? Or do you just give geographies and say, you know, own this, like how, how do you think about that? And do you have any particular reasons why that works?

Speaker B: Yeah. So again, we have the same amount of sales managers as I started. Generally I always want the sales manager to live within the region that they're selling within. Um, you know, it's important to, you know, reduce the friction for them getting out in front of their customers. I really do value, you know, the face to face interactions. Um, getting, you know, taking your customer out to lunch, um, you know, building relationships with those customers. I don't think that's, that's very easy to do, uh, in a team setting. Um, and there's this crazy thing happens when you show up at your customer's office and you know, hang out with them for a few hours. They start sending you purchase orders. It's not, uh, it's not like a very complicated thing, but it really happens. Um, it's all, you know, in previous, you know, maybe five, six years ago, 10 years ago, it was also important because um, the incentives were very um, um, regional to various, uh, states generally. Uh, and so, you know, New York would have, um, different incentive programs driving different purchase behaviors than New Jersey as an example. Um, that's less of a case today. Uh, more of the, more of the, more of the demand is created through national policies than it is state policies. You still see them, but on a macro level it's really more, uh, national policy. Um, but I do, you know, I do still feel very strongly that being local, you know, being able to talk about the local sports team being in the same time zone when, when somebody wants to talk to you is, is super important now in terms of like, you know, market segment. Um, that's something that we're looking at now and actually starting to, to, to change now. Uh, when I started, uh, essentially any, any buyer within your geographic territory was, was fair game, right? And so if that's a, a small epc, you know, with a pickup truck and a ladder, or if it's a regional distributor or anything in between, uh, that was your client. Um, I do feel like as the company moves forward, we would want to differentiate market segment whereby you have, you know, one team focused on, kind of call it key accounts or utility scale developers, you know, projects that have much longer sales cycles. Um, and then a team focused on that middle market segment, call it cni if you will, everything that's behind the meter, and then another dedicated team to oversee the distribution channel. So that's kind of the direction we're going. Um, but you know, still today, um, sales manager are all local. They're all cruising around their territories and taking folks out to lunch and building and maintaining relationships with, with their customers.

Speaker A: It's good to hear that there's still some old school sales going on. Uh, I think that uh, there's too much, uh, I mean everybody likes to systematize things because it's like how you grow and scale a business. But there's also something to be said about the, the human touch. Like the, the, the unscalable things, right? The, when you can scale the unscalable by, by having people like, have that FaceTime. I think it's uh, I think it's severely underrated personally. Especially in our world that's constantly, you know, everything's digital, nobody sees each other anymore. There's no, you know, we don't have to go to meetings in person anymore. Obviously we're recording this podcast remotely. There's so m. Many examples of it. So, um, I like that a lot. I think that's, it's, it'll be fascinating to hear how that goes with the, the growth of the kind of like um, you know, segmenting out the space and getting people more focused on really honing how to sell to one type of customer. But also the challenges around like how do, how the, how did the existing sales reps take, like taking uh, kind of splitting up the market slightly where they might have been used to having kind of total domain, uh, over it. So we'll ask you about that maybe in a couple years and how that goes.

Speaker B: Yeah, well it'll be before a couple of years. We can talk in a few more months.

Speaker A: Nice, nice. So, um, let's talk about this idea you mentioned earlier about kind of policy driven sales cycles. Can you just explain a little bit more about this and just you can give it to us in the macro sense that if you're selling a clean technology product that has any sort of policy or uh, regulatory kind of components to it or that affect the, the product, how do you, how do you stay on top of those things and how do you use that to actually go and do a uh, sale?

Speaker B: Yeah, so in, I would say, you know, in traditional manufacturing, um, even construction. Right. Our customers are in the construction business at the end of the day, oftentimes has some seasonality to it. Um, in solar there's always been like this hockey stick projection that happens right at the end of the fourth quarter of customers trying to preserve the tax laws for that year. There's been ITC step downs in the past and so that's been a very common uh thing that we've seen. And then in Q1 a lot of the country is frozen and a lot of these projects are going in the ground. And so it's very difficult um, to pound piles and frozen ground. And so you will see a softening in Q1, um, you know, specific to the US solar industry. You know the really the seasonality is driven by the irs. Right. Because tax equity is such a big part of all of these, all of our sales and all of our customers projects. Um, and so now you know the demand is, really comes in like these, like kind of these surges of, of you know, what's called safe harbor, which is kind of one of the two ways to quote on begin construction, uh, to preserve uh the tax laws at that point in time. Safe harbor is important for us. That's, that's the method that we see the other, the other thing they can do is physical work that would be like putting in the road or something of that nature to begin construction on their project, um, the Safe harbor world requires our customers to spend 5% of the total project costs. Um, and then, you know, in terms of the module purchase, and it's not always a module purchase, but oftentimes it is, um, they would need to take title of the goods that they, that they spent money with us on no later than 105 days after there's a three and a half month rule. And so whatever the, you know, whatever the deadline is. And there's been several, you know, of them, uh, recently and there's another one coming up, um, later this year. We really see those, those spikes of man tied to those, those deadlines, um, dictated by, by the IRS functionally. Um, and so like, you know, again, the amount of, the amount of capital, uh, at risk or you know, in play as it relates to preserving itc, uh, is always going to be more than, than, you know, a tenth of a penny per watt. And again, so this is why we're getting out of the, the race to the bottom. And they're no longer purely just asking, you know, what is your price, but that they're starting to figure out, can you actually, you know, commercially and legally, you know, satisfy my, my requirements to uh, to reduce my risk?

Speaker A: So say more about that. So you're saying that like, for example, at the end of the year, if they're going to get access to the credits they have to purchase, you know, you gave Safe harbor as an example, they have to purchase certain amount of equipment so that it's like the percentage of project cost and take advantage, like take hold of the equipment or take uh, it into their custody, which means that they need a partner who can actually get them the panels in time. Is that, is that kind of the core thing you're talking about? Is that because you have a localized supply chain, there's some of these benefits that you can just remind people of and say, hey, you know, you have these things and you, you come, your sales team comes knowing the, the challenges that the customers are facing and then you can remind them of the ways you can help them. Is that correct?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that, that's exactly it. Right. I mean, people ask, uh, you know, it's funny because, you know, when, when we, we, we communicate like we have capacity available in July, customers are always asking us, well, when would it deliver? But when you manufacture the module in Minnesota on a Monday, it delivers on Thursday. Right? And that's. The people still kind of struggle with that concept because they're used to the ocean freight lead times associated with goods coming in from Southeast Asia. Um, so yeah, so 100% we leverage our local manufacturing capacity to allow us to deliver the product and transfer title, uh, within, within their, within their deadline.

Speaker A: Mhm. Now do you have somebody on staff who is a policy expert or do you like bring in some other firm who's constantly, constantly tracking the changes or is that just something you personally have set up yourself?

Speaker B: It's, I mean it's really, it's the sales team. Right. I mean those team is living and breathing it. Policy is, is the conversation they're having every day, uh, with customers in the market. Um, we do have, um, outside counsel, um, of course to help with policy. But uh, in terms of actually um, um, using the information to contract and put deals together, it's all in house within the sales team. They know the stuff like the back of their hand at this point.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's interesting. So, so in general, just by being out there talking to people and being, you know, willing to listen as well as to sell. Right. Because you, when you're selling, you need to really understand like what are the challenges they're facing. They will hear from the customers what the problems are and they'll by nature be very aware of um, all the different policy changes and things that are affecting them. And then they share that with the team. Then the team can say, okay, well we're going to keep that in mind. On uh, our next pitch. We're going to go, you know, bring these certain things to the table. Is that correct?

Speaker B: That's right, yeah. And again, you know, because not everybody has the same interpretation, um, of the rules, you know, we essentially just, you know, cater contracts to meet whatever anybody's interpretation is. Some people think, you know, that they need to take, you know, that they need to make payments by a certain date and others are okay delaying the payment until the goods arrive, um, as an example. But again there's, you know, we're nimble enough that we can, we can, we can structure contracts to meet whatever, you know, commercial requirements there are from the client.

Speaker A: Now for any other companies that are selling something in the clean tech world, do you have uh, especially if they're very lean, like just getting going maybe they're, they're going into their, they're really starting commercial production and they're getting their sales team put together. Do you have any core pieces of advice on how they should consider like finding ways to keep the policy things integrated? You know, do you think that one, you know, if it's one person doing sales, is that Going to be enough for them to be aware of, of all the changes coming. Like any, any particular kind of components you'd share there?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think, um, policy is super important. Right. Especially for our business. I don't think you, you can leverage, you can't just use it as like a buzzword, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. You have to actually, you know, make it useful for your client and then, and then prove it to them. Um, one example, um, that comes to mind is, you know, the last couple months we've done a couple webinar series. Um, one of them was with, uh, a large inverter manufacturer, SolarEdge, and then a racking manufacturer install. Um, and we brought in, uh, a tax equity advisor as well, uh, an accounting firm called novogradac. Uh, and then, you know, through this webinar, we essentially, we weren't just there like selling the product and the features, functions and benefits of our module, right? But we, we were mapping out like the, the complete method for qualifying for domestic content as well as eliminating all fiat risks. So basically we, we determined, you know, just in natural conversations, um, with, with our complementary counterparties, uh, that, you know, if we use your product and our products, um, then they're there. That's all they have to do. Right? And so we, we found a way to, I hate the expression, but hit the easy button for people to show them that like, this is a very proven method. And we have, you know, uh, an accounting firm that's already done the work. And so, you know, if just kind of showed them the way that, that this can, this can benefit them. Um, another example is what I mentioned earlier in selling Cost plus and openbook. Um, you know, if you think that, if you think back, um, that we were shipping modules with domestic content starting In July of 2023, um, the safe harbor tables that people are using to uh, qualify their projects for the bonus now came out in May of 2024. So we were effectively contracting and selling and delivering modules with domestic content before there was a safe harbor table, which means the only way to qualify your project was to get the cost from your manufacturer. And we were and pretty sure still are the only manufacturer today that's willing to open the kimono, as Martin says, and share our costs and share our gross margins and share or factory overhead, because that's exactly what our customer needed to buy our product. Um, and so that transparency and that willingness to basically give the customer more information so that they could make informed decisions, um, became a moat for us um, versus our competitors that had, you know, very, call it opaque supply chains that were much less willing to, uh, you know, share the cost of their product.

Speaker A: Had that or has that created any challenges by being so open? Are there any, like, situations where it's like, well, they don't, they don't like the fact that we're making that much money or they are like, oh, like we, because like we're taking like healthy margins. We're not, we're not gouging anybody. They're always like super happy with it.

Speaker B: Uh, no, I've never heard, very rarely ever anybody push back on, um, our margin. Um, you know, it is pretty modest. Um, I think our customers understand we are a for profit organization. They understand that the product is coming with a very long warranty. Right. 25 years. They want us to be, you know, alive. You know, should there be an issue with their product in 20 years to backstop that warranty? Um, so they get it. Nobody has a problem with the fact that, that we, that we have, we take a margin.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, I always find it interesting because I think a lot of people are on, um, that's a really m. They're like, they're scared about sharing, sharing these things for no particular reason. Like, they, they just don't understand that, you know, people do have, ah, an understanding of the fact that you got to make money. Like, and I just think that there's an irrational fear around sharing these things in some cases. So it's, um, interesting to hear that that's been such a, um, kind of unlock for you guys now when it comes to hiring salespeople, you know, there's a, there's a lot of. At least with the work I do, a lot of people want somebody who is already a subject matter expert in the space or at least has a Rolodex of people in the space before they come in. Do you think that that has to be true when you are hiring typically, have you seen success bringing in people who have kind of adjacent experience but don't have existing relationships?

Speaker B: Uh, I do, yeah. I think adjacent experience is probably, uh, more useful, uh, than existing relationship. Existing registers are great, don't get me wrong. Um, and we do train. Like, I do have a full, you know, week onboarding training that, that I personally do with, with new sales managers when they come on board. Um, you know, once, once they're here, we don't really do any internal trainings. Um, the slide decks, you know, are useful just to kind of, you know, get your sea legs under under you. But they don't really create, create sales experts. Um, for my team, the real learning happens in those live conversations with clients. Right. They're having multiple calls a day or face to face meetings a day and they're getting in the reps and that's really where they learn it. And they're able to speak to it fluently and confidently. Um, as I mentioned, what my central sales manager learns from a developer in Texas, he'll relay to the sales team and that information will be leveraged with, with another customer in Washington state, for example.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Um, but really getting in those reps and you know, get, getting those shots on goal is, is kind of the training that, that the sales team needs to be successful.

Speaker A: Um, yeah, I find it fascinating that there's, there's kind of like a fine line you can walk between people who are from the space and who know the space very well. And that's kind of like the, they, they have certain ideas around how things will be done and they have habits versus people who you know, may know the customer type for example, but, and they may know kind of how to speak their language, but they may not have predisposed ideas around how to sell to that customer. And they might be open to something a little bit different because what you guys are doing is again definitely, uh, slightly different than, than your competitors. So you need to have that open mindedness while still kind of understanding the context that they're going to want to hear uh, the message in. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's very, and like don't get me wrong, the Inflation Reduction act, you know, FIAC enforcement, these were very helpful for our business. But uh, they didn't simplify anything. They've made the selling process very complicated. Um, and so really you have to dig in and really get your head wrapped around it, become fluid, become that subject matter expertise, you know, to, to prove to your customers that you're a credible source, uh, to, to win deals. Um, and just by getting out there and going through the motions day in, day out, you, you become an expert in, in the subject matter. Um, you know, shots on goal. That's what it's all about.

Speaker A: Yeah. No, I'm always curious because I think that it can be, it can be challenging sometimes to like, you know, you, some people say like higher fire, uh, fast if they're, if they're not a fit. But it's like, well what if they are. Like what if they are genuinely trying and it's just a tough time in the market or whatnot? I think that, um, it's a fine line to walk. Um, so I've seen many, many sales teams or talk to many salespeople from many sales teams that I've seen, uh, a lot of different, uh, ways of handling that and cutting the cake. But um, how do you keep people motivated in a market like this where there is so much kind of fluctuation even within the year? Do you just kind of tell people, hey, do, you know, put in the inputs Even though it's Q1 and things aren't moving as much and it'll come back later or like, how do you keep them kind of consistent? Because that can be a big challenge with salespeople is, you know, one month's great, the other month's not so great.

Speaker B: Mm. Um, my team is very passionate about what we're doing, um, about the reshoring of the supply chain, the fact that we've been kind of the leader in domestic content, um, the differentiated products that we're offering. You know, I think they're really proud of the work that they're doing. Um, you know, today we're selling products with domestic poly ingot, wafer, cell and module. Right. Like that hasn't happened since 2017. Uh, and we're going to be the first to market with that product. Um, so I think they're naturally motivated just by the line of work that they're in. Um, you know, but you know, salespeople are generally coin operated too. So I think they're motivated by selling more because they get paid more when they sell more. Um, so, you know, I think, you know, I'm glad that we're able to compensate the sales team in a manner that we are. I'd like to think that, that we compensate them very well and that's why we have very low, low turnover.

Speaker A: Hm. Yeah, I like that. I think it's um, it's, it's. I mean there's so many fine lines about a sale running a sales work. But um, that's, that's helpful, helpful context. A lot of people right now, um, who are not super in the weeds with clean tech or climate tech or maybe they want to work in the space. There's a lot of constantly saying like, oh man, it's got to be a hard time to be in clean tech right now. Uh, what is your perception generally on things right now? Because it sounds like you guys keep selling more and more and more. It's going very well. Is that just driven because of AI data center build out, some of the changes in the policy why do you, why is it going so well? And what is your perspective, um, on some of these, like, misunderstandings, fundamentally that things are, you know, such bad times in clean tech?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, hey, I mean, it hasn't been, um, terribly easy, um, under the, under this administration. But that said, we have, you know, if you think, if you think in first principles, we have a lot of things still going for us as an industry. Um, a, the cost of electricity from a solar generation facility is less than any other form of generation. Right. Um, B, a solar power plant is the fastest way to get those electrons onto the grid. And see, we're at a point in time in the US where we've seen a significant increase in the demand for electricity to your point, primarily driven by data center build outs. And so if you just think in those three terms, it's a great time to be in the industry. Right. Tons of demand. There's more demand for domestic products because of some benefits under the Inflation Reduction Act. Um, we have access, we produce the product that provides the lowest cost electricity and there's. And, uh, and we get it on the grid. If you wanted to build a, you know, an LNG plant today, um, I mean, you're looking at a minimum of five years before you'll see that thing producing any power. Whereas we can go out, our customers can go out and build a solar plant in less than a year.

Speaker A: Well, yeah, I think it's, uh, it's, it's definitely something, uh, I hear a lot of people talk about and they say it just doesn't make, it's kind of like nonsense. Why, why are the policies the way they are with, uh, that said, I've also heard some of my, some of my friends speculating that, uh, they're going to bring back some of the tax credits. I'm curious if you have any perspective or insights on what's happening now. Like, is the Trump administration becoming more friendly to solar because they recognize, like, hey, this is literally the fastest and cheapest way we can get more data centers on the grid.

Speaker B: Yeah, look, I think, I think there is bipartisan support for the industry. And I think, yeah, I do feel like, um, the administration understands that we need electricity and solar is one form of generation that shouldn't be ignored. I think they're looking at all forms of generation and that's great. Um, it's not to say that we should only be doing solar. I think we do it all right, um, and, uh, just let the market dynamics determine which assets get investments. Um, so, yeah, I don't think. There's no reason to think that we won't continue to see national legislation that supports our industry. We've seen investment tax credit extensions in the past, as you mentioned. There's a bill that's, that's circulating just over the last couple weeks, um, that would go on and extend, um, the ITC4080. Uh, so I think that's great. I'm not concerned about, you know, this industry going anywhere with or without tax credits.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's, um. There's so many things that, again, I've mentioned this too many times probably at this point, but when, when Trump was elected, Samuel and I, uh, we had like a, basically an episode speculating what would actually happen, um, and how they would, how the Trump administration would, would focus especially on battery and solar policies. And um, we were generally like, I, at least I took the perspective that it makes a lot of sense to continue these policies because it's like, it's about, on shoring production in most cases. And if we want to build drones, we're going to have to have batteries, want to make them here, like all these things, uh, solar again, the cheapest, cheapest, uh, fastest energy that you can get. So I was like, I think that will be fine. And then we saw, you know, the backlash against it. And now it's funny that they're changing their tune. I think, I think now that the, um, uh, the taste has worn off, uh, they're forgetting who, you know, who was promoting the policies before and they're like, oh, no, it's just, it's just good policy. We'll just keep it or will add it. Like they're going to take credit for it. But, uh, it's funny. I just find it kind, uh, of hilarious to an extent. It is sad to an extent as well. But, um, that, you know, people just get so offended by, you know, oh, you know, the other politician did that. So I can't do the same thing. I can't be seen supporting that where it's like, no, guys, just do the thing that's good for America, do the thing that's good for, you know, helping lower energy costs and do all that stuff. So, um, I do, I do kind of find it comical. I mean, I don't want to laugh about it too much, but it is a, ah, it is an interesting time to be in this space for sure.

Speaker B: Yeah. If you're not, if you're not, if you're not going to laugh, you're going to cry, so.

Speaker A: Or laugh until we cry I guess maybe. But um, uh anyways this has been a pleasure. I really enjoyed all the insights here. I think um, this is super helpful. I love to see obviously companies building this especially at scale, uh building things in America and uh, making, making America just like making energy costs lower like doing all these things. You guys are doing some really good work and bringing jobs of course to, to America. Any final uh, call outs or kind of exciting announcements you guys have anything you want to uh, call the AUD to check out or anything of that nature?

Speaker B: We're uh, you know we'll be, we'll be at ACP Clean Power in Houston next month and then later in the month at the PV module tech conference in uh Napa. And then of course uh, we'll have the full team out in Las Vegas for, for Re plus and in uh, in November time frame. So if you want to find us and see how our Minnesota uh made products can, can boost your project IRR definitely uh, come track us down.

Speaker A: Thanks so much for coming on.

Speaker B: Thanks Alex.

Speaker A: All right everybody, thank you so much for tuning in today. If you like the show, please leave us a review on your favorite podcasting player. Share with your friends. All of it really, really helps us grow. And if you're interested and you prefer to watch, we actually are posting on YouTube now. We're getting a lot better at that. So hopefully we can juice the algorithm a little bit and get some more uh, get some more views. And then finally one more shout out to our sponsors. If you are looking to raise non dilutive grant funding, reach out to Joel and his team@climate financesolutions.com they are the experts at uh, helping clean tech companies raise non diluted funding. They've done it for a long time, they are very good at it. Reach out to them. Climate financesolutions.com and if you're looking for help screening your applicants because you just don't have time to get through all the applicants but you want to make sure it's a good process or you're struggling to find the right talent, you've got a really challenging search currently or upcoming. Reach out to me and my team@earthsearch.com that's erth search.com so Earth with no A. I know, don't get on me on the spelling. We had to get the available domain and then you uh, can also reach me on, on LinkedIn directly with a DM. And finally we have layman's terms if you are going to be doing media appearances anytime soon. You're doing some investor pitches. If you're just going to go on media tour to promote what you're working on, you should probably reach out to Michael. He and his team are very good at this. They've been doing it for a while. They have helped executives prepare for hundreds of media appearances across all these different mediums. He's very good at what he does. If you're interested in hearing how good he is, you can actually hear a lot of his advice from last episode, episode 286 of the podcast. I highly recommend you check it out. But he and his team are very good. What they do. Go to ltmediatraining.com to get in touch with them as well. All right, thank you guys so much. And we'll see you next time on the Clean Techies Podcast.

Speaker B: It.