D2DCon 2024 | Exclusive Solar Leads for Predictable Growth: Rich Feola’s Hybrid D2D + Digital Approach | The D2D Podcast

In this episode of The D2D Podcast, we dive into the world of solar lead generation with Rich Feola, founder and CEO of SolarExclusive.com. Rich has helped over 2,500 solar consultants and sales organizations consistently fill their pipelines with cost-effective, exclusive leads, leading to predictable preset appointments and ultimately more sales.

Rich shares his journey from knocking doors for 15 years to mastering online lead generation, creating a hybrid model that combines traditional door-to-door sales with cutting-edge digital marketing strategies. He explains how Solar Exclusive provides fresh, high-quality leads tailored to individual clients, ensuring exclusivity and reducing competition. With over two million leads delivered across 286 markets, Rich’s method has revolutionized the solar industry by blending online lead generation with the reliability of in-person sales.

In the episode, Rich addresses common objections about lead quality, explains the importance of quick follow-up, and highlights how the upcoming 2025 regulations will change the game for lead generation companies. He emphasizes the need for solar companies to partner with exclusive lead providers as shared leads become obsolete.

You’ll find answers to key questions such as:

• How can solar consultants generate exclusive leads and maximize their sales pipeline?
• What are the benefits of using a hybrid door-to-door and digital sales model in the solar industry?
• How do exclusive leads convert better compared to shared leads?
• What is the impact of upcoming 2025 regulations on solar lead generation?
• How can solar companies retain top talent using a combination of digital and door-to-door sales strategies?

Get in touch with Rich Feola and Solar Exclusive
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leadgenmarketing/
Website: https://solarexclusive.com/ 

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Transcript

00:07
OK, so we have Rich Feola here with Solarexclusive.com, lead generator, door-to-door veteran, really. Veteran, yeah. 15 years of knocking doors, right? Well, no, I started 15 years ago. OK, but 15 years ago, you've been in the industry for a long time. I have, yeah. So 15 years ago, I started knocking doors for a company called Power Home Remodeling Group, not the Power Home Pink Energy connection. But we sold windows and roofing and siding. And it was amazing. I was in my early 20s making six figures. All my friends were like, how are you making this money?

00:37
It's like knocking doors man, like it's awesome. So this is my people, even though we do online leads. But then I became a financial advisor and I was just bummed with all the old school marketing tactics that they used. So I wanted to figure out how to do online ads. And so I mastered Facebook ads, then a bunch of other of my business owner clients wanted me to run ads for them. And so I started running ads for dentists, mortgage brokers, realtors, and then I got a solar company and they tripled their revenue in a year. And I thought, hey, the solar industry looks pretty cool.

01:07
2016, like there's got to be some growth here. So I decided to put together a logo. My wife made the solar exclusive logo and I was like, so we just went for it. We got like 20 solar clients in a month and then we had to like figure out, oh man, solar is really different in all these different states. Like it varies based on the incentives varies based on the messaging, you know, electricity rates vary. So we went through the wringer and kind of like how to figure stuff out. But that was seven years ago, 2017. And we've worked with almost 4000 solar and roofing companies since generating them leads.

01:37
And you know, there's a lot of people in the lead gen space that say like, you know door to door is the devil You know, like you should just get online leads But I'm a lot more diplomatic because I come from the door to door from the same door to door works man Like why? Totally throw it out the window. Why not do a hybrid, you know So we talk about stuff like what I call the digital plus doors model where we can actually target a specific area and get you online appointments that are guaranteed and you just go and you close these deals with people

02:07
who actually have purchased intent. They're inviting you to their home rather than you having to knock yourself in. So instead of like selling an exclusive online virtual sales model, it's go to the home, sit like a normal sit and close it in person, is that correct? Close it in person and then go outside on their patio with their house number, get a video with them, like giving a testimonial right then and there, and then knock all the neighbors around and all their friends and family that are in the area, and then turn that into two or three referrals. Then you go from knocking six days a week to knocking two or three days a week,

02:36
I know for me after five years of knocking doors, I was 27 years old and I was like, you know I want to have a family. I want to have kids, you know and Knocking six days a week just wasn't conducive to that But there is a way to keep it going but just knock less knock smarter not harder Yeah, so go back to that part of your store. I think it's really interesting How old are you when you you see you got married right or you were married when you started this or you were married? When you when how old are you and you got married actually? I was 26 Okay, so just before 27 and then you guys had a child that sounds like yeah

03:06
We just had a child like four years ago. OK, cool. So it sounds like for you, you were seeking something kind of like balance, right? Something bigger and better. So talk about that a little bit and what drove you kind of into this space from where you were. Yeah, so what drove me there was just realizing that I was from New Jersey. So it was like the bitter cold, the bitter blistering humid heat. It just got to a point where I made my six figures a year

03:36
sometimes knocking doors and it was great. But I just wanted something deeper. I wanted something else. So my dad convinced me to become a financial advisor, which was kind of a total opposite job. Now I'm in a suit and tie, meeting with older retired people, trying to convince them to invest their millions of dollars with me. It was a totally different model. But a lot of what I learned from door to door helped me get there, because I was an introvert before that. I studied music in college, so I had never thought about doing marketing or sales. And I was terrible at the doors in the beginning.

04:06
but I got really good and developed like a whole script for that company and like grew their revenue like was a manager of the whole door-to-door division But at some point like I just felt like I wanted to do something more. So the financial advisor Model looked appealing to me, but it was just they were using all these old-school marketing tactics So I wanted to learn how to run ads online and this kind of stumbled across the solar industry because of that one client So it was really great that you know I got into solar when I did in 2017 when it was really starting to grow

04:36
And it's just been kind of like a rocket ship since, you know, and we've been able to help a lot of companies and.

04:44
a lot of our clients say like, hey, I don't have to door knock ever again. This is amazing. And that's great for them. But there's a lot of our other clients who say, hey, we just want to supplement our reps with more appointments so that we don't lose them. Because turnover is such a huge thing. These door-to-door reps that you're training and working with for a long period of time, they're doing great for you. At some point, someone's going to get them with a carrot saying, hey, we have online leads and they're going to steal them away, right? They're going to recruit them away.

05:14
some that you can provide them just to like, you know, and you don't want to give them too much where they get lazy and they're not knocking as much. Yeah. But you want to just kind of like, whet their appetite, let them like if they're getting older, like, hey, like maybe you don't want to knock six days a week anymore. Maybe you want to go down to three or four and like we could supplement you with some online appointments. Well, it's like more eggs and more baskets, right? You're going to create some more baskets, have some more eggs and not put it all into one thing. So let me ask you this real quick, because you know, I've been in the industry for a long time. I've knocked a lot of doors. I have done leads as well, too.

05:44
and 15, you know? And I think leads tend to get a negative reputation in the industry across all home services, not just solar, roofing or alarms or whatever. So let's say that we have a conversation and I'm like, look, Rich, I appreciate what you're doing, but my experience has been that most leads, they're selling to multiple people, they're aged leads, or you're gonna give me a good batch the first round, the go around, and then you're gonna give me what kind of the leftover.

06:14
of those objections. Yeah, so when I started Solar Exclusive in 2017, I had two options on how I was going to build my business. I could have built it like Home Advisor, or like Solar Reviews, or like Clean Energy Experts, or Energy Sage, or Angie's List, where everything gets aggregated to one central database. All the leads come in, and then they get distributed all around and get sold multiple times. But I decided instead, I was going to do it where it was exclusive, one-to-one consent. So we had every single lead that came in was dedicated to a custom marketing campaign for that client.

06:43
That's why we came with the name solar exclusive. So every single campaign is exclusive and unique for every individual client Which means that they're getting these fresh leads coming in. They're exclusive right in real time There's no delay where they're getting resold multiple times here and there's not as much competition and it just converts a lot better And now there's been a law that was just passed It's pending right now But it's supposed to go into effect in 2025 where the Federal Communications Commission is now banning all of these lead generation

07:13
Age leads and call centers are not gonna be able to do what they do anymore. Right, okay. Shared leads are no longer gonna be a thing. You have to get written consent from every single lead to be contacted by one company. So now Home Advisor, if you go on Home Advisor, when they look for a roof quote or for a solar quote, they're gonna have to literally fill it out and check a box for every single company they want to contact them. Got it, okay. And it's not gonna just be like a quick opt-in and then they sell it to six companies. Sure. And then next week they sell it another six times. It's not gonna be like that anymore.

07:43
exclusive one to one consent. So this is going to push the whole industry into having to find a company like Solar Exclusive that does exclusive one to one consent. And I knew that that was going to happen eventually, but I didn't know when it was because of all these telemarketing scams and all these things. Like, the federal government is going to get involved and just ban all this. So Solar is really built on call centers right now. Like, a lot of people have a call center. They buy age data, and they just dial the heck out of this. Like, dialing numbers 20 at a time until someone picks up. That's over in 2025. It's no longer going to be a thing.

08:13
So solar companies are gonna have to find a partner in 2024 to be able to take them into this new normal in 2025 where everything's gonna be exclusive. So you're creating a campaign specifically for a company, right? So if I'm a client, you're gonna create me a custom campaign for my company specifically and that's what creates exclusivity basically, right? Exactly. I love that. So we set it up in such a way so like when people see the YouTube ads and the YouTube videos and they click, we put a tag on their IP address. So if we have two clients,

08:43
say in Florida, for instance, in Tampa, Florida, and they're both targeting the same area. If someone clicks on client A's YouTube ad, client B will never show an ad to that.

08:57
that leap. Oh, god. OK. So we set it up so it's totally exclusive. So it's like an exclusive audience pool so that when someone clicks on one ad, they can't see the ad for your competitor and vice versa. So it keeps it truly separated. I love that. So what are some other objections that you guys run into? Obviously, those are some baseline ones that you're going to run into. Being vulnerable, I guess. What are some of the other things that you run into that you feel like you're able to experience a lot and that you're able to overcome as well? Yeah, absolutely. So a big one is just like, hey, these leads aren't picking up the phone.

09:27
Right? Oftentimes we see when people are calling from our CRM, but they're calling like 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes after the lead comes in. Well, the speed to the lead is so important. Like you have to call a lead like immediately when it comes in. You've got to have a dedicated person for that. Some of these guys are just doing everything themselves. Like they need to hire someone and it's actually going to be better for them in the longterm to hire someone that's just going to be their setter. You know, it's going to set those appointments. And then also, you know, there's this amazing thing like a double dial, right? Like when you're at a door and they don't answer the phone,

09:57
Are you just gonna leave or answer the door? Are you gonna leave or you're gonna knock again? Sure, you're gonna knock again, right? So like if someone doesn't pick up the phone the first time was dial it again All the times people think oh this must be important They dial the second time and they pick up so a little hacks like that to be able to get people to pick up the phone But also one of that's all stuff you learn in the financial planning, right? Like you yeah, you know anyone who's seen wolf of Wall Street smile and dial right home until they pick up until they answer, right? I love that and I think a lot of people in door-to-door Unfortunately are stuck in this like well, they didn't answer. Let's move on

10:26
You know, I mean, this is like, hey, especially with the leads, if it's exclusive, if you gave me an exclusive lead and I knew that no one else had it, I would hunt them down until I found them, right? I would knock on their. I could show up at 8 o'clock at night, Saturday morning, right? Leave a letter, call, whatever you need to do. What's the conversion rate then on that? Do you have some metrics around that? Yeah, sure. So I mean, generally speaking, we see about 20% to 40% of the leads, the raw leads, convert to an appointment. If someone's doing the right thing, 20% to 40%. Now, all teams are different. All centers are different.

10:56
I basically get 10 basic three or four. Yeah, two to four are going to set with me, right? Right. And then from there, if you're doing in-home appointments, should be like 80% to 90% of them are going to show up. Because if you set the proper expectations, you set the appointment well, they're expecting you to come, and you just show up, they're not going to turn you away at the door. So call it three out of 10 are actually going to happen probably. Yeah. And then if it's virtual, it's different. So as people are doing virtual, you got to get a hold of them, you got to confirm, you got to get on the Zoom, you got to do all this stuff.

11:26
So the sit rates on virtual are lower. But you could do a lot more volume with virtual because you could target a larger area. Totally, yeah. But the in-home works great. And so if you sit down with three, I mean, we have clients who say, yeah, I've got a 20%, 30% close ratio. But then we have some clients who say, hey, if I can get them to sit, they're going to close 50% to 70% of the time. Closer. Yeah. If you're bad closer, not much you can do about it. I could get all the qualified leads. But if I can't convert it, obviously, that's my fault. And that's where our clients stay for a long period of time.

11:56
We have clients who've been with us for years and just continue to pay us month after month because they say like, as long as I get that sit, I'm gonna close at 50, 70% of the time. 50 to 70% of the time. So they love it. So it's been good. We've worked with a lot of companies. We're kind of getting to the point now where we kind of have to, all right, like are you sure you have the process that's gonna be able to make this work? Because now we're getting to the point where we're big enough now where it's like, we're actually turning away a lot of people. We're like, you know what, you're not ready yet. They wanna give us money. They wanna give us money and we could take it

12:26
or just like, no, I think you need another six months in the industry. We want you to have a good experience, we want you to benefit from it, we want you to actually make, yeah, similar as a consultant, you know, walk into a company and I'm like, hey, do X, Y, and Z, and then you go back and you're like, well, we did X and Z and it didn't work. And you're like, well, I told you to do X, Y, and Z, right? And so it's, yeah, you kind of have to pick and choose. So we'll look at the camera and why don't you take 30 seconds and give me, not an elevator pitch, but more like, what do you want people in watching the content to know?

12:56
big core value of Solar Exclusive and we can look at the camera and we'll do that. Yeah, sure. So the core value of Solar Exclusive is to help solar professionals and roofing professionals. We have roofing exclusive as well, to generate high quality appointments that actually convert at good ratios to give you a decent cost per acquisition. And this can be done in addition to door knocking, it could replace door knocking, but it doesn't always have to. Many of our clients still are on the doors and love it. And it just supplements them so they can retain their reps, generate more sales,

13:26
and have a partner that's truly exclusive with all these pending regulations coming down the pike. So you need an exclusive lead partner going forward like Home Advisors not going to be able to figure it out. All these big companies that are doing shared leads or age leads or call centers. It's going to end pretty soon if this regulation gets passed in 2025. It's already been passed. It's just a matter of it being finalized. So if you need any help with getting exclusive solar roofing leads, check out solar exclusive com or roofing exclusive com and we'll chat with you soon.