Authenticity Over Hype: How Good Faith Energy Is Redefining Solar
About this episode
Mo, Good Faith Energy's CEO, doesn’t hold back in this episode—he gets real about what it takes to run a solar company the right way. From ethical sales and rock-solid installs to actually supporting customers after the panels go up, he shares hard-earned lessons on doing things with integrity. If you've ever wrestled with misaligned teams, marketing headaches, or just want a no-BS look at how to grow with heart—this one's for you.
Transcript
I will say that our business is stronger than it has ever been.
Mo:The success of growth and where I see companies growing consistently really is your people. I mean, the story is not does it make power? Because they all make power. The story is what does it power? This is what solar installers need to know with your host Herve Billie and Joe Mahamati.
Hervé:Hi there. It's Herve and Joe in what solar installers need to know, where we interview solar CEOs and experts on how they run their business on the solar cluster. We ask their private revenue numbers. We give actionable advice and learn about trade secrets so you can run and grow your solar business. Joe and I built a solar company from 0 to 12,000,000 sales and got successfully acquired.
Hervé:If you'd like to do the same or do better, go to sungo.com/blog to get actionable behind the scenes lessons on running and growing your solar business. And now without further ado, let's jump right into the next episode. Welcome to an other episode of what solar installers need to know, where we learn from solar installers and experts about what works and what doesn't. We help you run your solar business, innovate, and discuss the future of solar. Welcome to our podcast.
Mo:Thank you, Herb, for having me.
Hervé:So quick introduction about Good Faith Energy. And, Moe, you're the CEO of the company based out of Dallas, Texas. You do a revenue of around $25,000,000 a year. You have 57 employees. You do 40 installs a month.
Hervé:That's mainly resi, but you both do batteries and your commercial. It's about 10% of your business and is growing. You have about seven crews, seven electrical crews, four roofing crews. Is that all about right?
Mo:That sounds right, man. Yeah. You got all the data. You're the data guy, so it sounds like you're spot on once again. So, yeah, all all of that is accurate.
Hervé:Alright. And where do you operate, Moe?
Mo:Yeah. Historically, we've primarily operated in the state of Texas. We're based out of North Texas, a suburb, just about twenty minutes north of Dallas called Addison. We've been able to expand a little bit in the last two or three years, especially in Houston where, they saw quite a bit of storms last year. So a lot of a lot of projects going on in Houston, some in Austin, San Antonio area, and then randomly enough, some projects out in The Caribbean where it's more of a passion project.
Mo:I've really enjoyed helping some some clients that have found us through our YouTube efforts and some of our digital marketing marketing efforts in the Caribbean nations. And then every once in a while, there's a curveball that that that kind of, you know, shows up at our door, and it's hard to turn down. So we've done, you know, one random project in North Carolina, recently sold a job in in Alabama. And so it it it's just hard to to reject those types of projects when the clients are are highly invested in good faith energy because they've watched our YouTube videos. They've learned and and educated themselves a lot through our digital marketing efforts.
Mo:And and when they show up at our doorstep, it's it's hard to turn them away.
Hervé:I remember meeting you the first time at a solar conference. I recognize you from your YouTube videos, and that's when we got started talking about. So your marketing is really well done. When you see those Tesla solar roofs, I remember one way, the copper roof, like a copper top was, like, gorgeous, beautiful. It's not just go to a project site, take some pictures, and slap it on your website and on on some channels.
Hervé:Like, how much attention do to detail? How many people are on your marketing team to to achieve something?
Mo:Like that? Great question. I I would say that from a marketing perspective, Good Faith Energy is really hyper focused on being, I would say, the cream of the crop, and and I've really been blessed to have some really incredible production marketing folks that really enjoy creating the these production style videos. Today, we have, I would say, a team of four folks, marketing specialist, a coordinator, a videographer, social media manager, and then a fractional CMO that that helps manage those folks. I obviously, you know, still enjoy those functions a lot.
Mo:I would view myself as a marketer even before a salesman, but, you know, it's it's it's very important for me to to make sure people know your brand and to have really strong branding because it shows who you are, your authenticity, to the public, what you stand for, what your values are. So marketing is super super important because it's the first impression people get of of your company. And over the years, just been blessed to have some really talented individuals work for for our company.
Hervé:I advise everybody listening to go take a look at your website and your YouTube channel and the the just the the social media posts are consistent, but the the quality is is there. So, basically, if you're a solo installer out there and you wanna have the same quality, you should at least have about four people managing all of that. It's what I what I understand.
Mo:And and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Hervé:Of course. What do you want good faith to be known for?
Mo:Well, there's a saying, you know, that if if we're not gonna be the cheapest, then we're gonna be the best, and we're not the cheapest installer on on the market, so it's incumbent upon us to be the best. So I I want people to recognize Good Faith Energy as being the best installer. Well, what does best mean? It's it's a very subjective term. And, typically, I've broken that down into, you know, three parts, ethical sales, quality installs, and top tier post installation support.
Mo:And when you dive into the first part, each one has several sublayers, but ethical sales, like, how how are you how are you performing your sales in an ethical manner, whether it be through educating people on the good, the bad, and the ugly of solar and battery systems and accurate proposals where, you know, we utilize drone imagery to ensure that, you know, what we are proposing is actually gonna fit and the estimated savings and production values are are going to be accurate. And, and then moving past that, like, the net metering and and what sort of net metering you can expect with your solar system and and with your backup battery system, having the right expectations around what they can actually do for you in the event of an outage. And so it's just so important from an ethical sales layer. There's there's a lot of sublayers, like I said, but it really boils down to we walked into an industry where we didn't really know what good looks like, and you have to invent what good looks like each and every day through system and process improvement. A team that's highly committed to to ensuring that the client has a great experience.
Mo:From a quality workmanship perspective, having licensed and insured electricians and and guys that you've trained, but to make sure that they they are performing installations at a very quality level. And so a big kudos to to Michael, my my business partner, who's really been the guy that's led that effort and been the general on the front lines for so many years and carries those same values that I do when I'm selling a system ethically or my sales team is, that his team is executing it at a very high level, aesthetically pleasing, functionally. You know, it's gonna work the way that that we set out out to to make it work? And then a final level, how how do you service your systems? What does your aftercare program look like?
Mo:Are are you just gonna wash your hands clean after the installation and and tell the the, you know, your clients to beat it, or are you gonna be there with them every step of the of the way when, the retail energy providers, retail electricity providers change their plans year in and year out or a power electronic fails in their system and that they need a replacement as quickly as possible after a storm, they're not sure if their system's functioning the same way it was before, do you have the tools in place like a thermal drone program that really gives them the peace of mind that their investment is being protected and that system of your fleet reliability is at the highest pedigree.
Hervé:I have a question about those three items. So what you said, ethical, good operations, and maintenance. About ethical, a lot of people are ethical when it's easy. But once your sale goes down, you're a salesperson. You need to get more sales in.
Hervé:That's usually when ethical gets thrown out the door or, like, kind of forgotten just to get enough sales in to to get by. So how do you handle that situation, at Good Faith?
Mo:Well, I think, the first thing I'd lead with is, you know, our name is Good Faith Energy. And, you know, Good Faith, just at its fundamental level means the refusal to deceive or mislead and to conduct business with honesty and and integrity. So I tell clients all the time, you know, if I was operating in in bad faith or selling in bad faith, I'd be the world's biggest hypocrite. I'm not saying that we're perfect, and I'm not saying that we've had times in our in our eleven year history where maybe something was sold, you know, at a at a a subpar level. I think it's about how you respond to those types of situations that really resonates with your client base.
Mo:And so do you fix the issue? What does your conflict resolution process look like as a company? And that typically stems from the top and trickles its way down into the the rest of the organization. So, I just you know, I've always been the kind of business owner that said, I wanna go to sleep at night. I don't wanna be rich.
Mo:I wanna be at peace. And so it doesn't matter if I lose a sale if it means that I was the most ethical person at the table because I'd rather lose the sale versus having, you know, a client with buyer's remorse that's attacking me day in and day out. So it's hard. You know? The there's those sayings like the nice guys finish last, you know, but I I don't think so.
Mo:I think the nice guys sleep at ease and and and and then rest in peace.
Hervé:Oh, the nice guy makes it to the finish line.
Mo:That's another one. That's a good one. So Yeah. Definitely.
Hervé:I had a very similar view when I was running Ipsum Solar. So very, very similar. Just just inform the customer. Tell them the way it is, let them make the decision. But yeah, it is hard sometimes.
Hervé:You lose sale. There's no other way around that. The next was about operations. How do you keep your sales in line with operations? Do you have meetings between those two teams?
Hervé:Sales, they there's always new products coming out. So how do you coordinate, like, start selling a new panel, start selling a new battery, but then your operations team knowing that, oh, we're not gonna sell that battery. We have to install a new battery. How do you keep those two departments in check and aware of each other?
Mo:Yeah. I'll also kind of preface this question with, like, I don't have all the answers, and I I also learned the hard way. So there were times where there was a there's always friction a little bit of friction between sales and operations. Always. And, you know, what I learned is instead of kind of getting blamed for a new product that's failing, that has a high failure rate and your ops team is super disgruntled.
Mo:Now before we onboard a a new product, primarily a battery or a new inverter, I'll have three sign offs, you know, one by the the head of ops, one by the head of engineering, and one by the head of service. And that way, I can get their buy in before sales starts to actually include these these products on on their proposals. And, you know, that way on the back end, like, again, it's not about the blame game. It's more about empathy and understanding that, hey. Like, we we all bought into this product.
Mo:We all signed off on it. If there's an issue, now we have to resolve it. We need to talk to the manufacturer, figure out what the deal is, and try to, learn from those mistakes or work with the manufacturer to to help them, you know, improve their their second gen or third gen, product. The other point I was gonna make is on my sales floor, they're not all just salesman. I have my sales manager who's actually the director of technical sales, Omar.
Mo:He he's got an engineering background. So our solutions are very much engineered solutions, and they're not just how much money can you afford to pay a month, and then you're approaching it from a, you know, just a monthly payment perspective. It's really trying to get to the root of that that homeowner or that client's problem and and finding a solution that that makes sense. And like you said, even if it cost us the sale, at least we were honest in terms of what a whole home backup means or what a true Yeah. 100% off offset means.
Mo:So, we have, you know, a director of technical sales. He's an engineer by trade leading the sales department on our sales floor. We have a sales engineer that essentially, before any deal is sold, he's cross referencing a fire code, electric code per the jurisdiction that the system's being sold in and ensuring compliance so that we don't have to hit the homeowner with several change orders or, you know, like, I don't like surprises. So I'm sure that most of my clients don't like surprises either. So we try to mitigate any surprises by doing our due diligence on the front end.
Mo:And, you know, there's gonna be some unforeseen things that could happen. This is construction at the end of the day, but most people are are reasonable and understand that if something unforeseen happens, it's not their fault, it's not my fault, and what can we do to to resolve the issue.
Hervé:Brings me back. Maybe I wanna take an example. Like, I was in a previous career. I'm I'm an engineer by trade. I worked at Atlas Copco, which is a huge air compressor company.
Hervé:And the sales there was actually they call it technical sales. And and you don't just sell, like, million dollar machinery, like, by a salesperson. It's super technical. They they train engineers that do that sale. And I think you can look at solar the same way.
Hervé:Either you think it's your sale, you just anybody can just sell solar, or you see it as like a technical sale. You need to know the difference between a kilowatt and a kilowatt hours. If you don't know that, maybe you shouldn't be selling solar. So maybe that's that's not a way to to to stay the ethical way.
Mo:Yeah. And I think the solar industry has got itself in a bad habit of, you know, the traditional salesman in solar are not very technical. They've they've come from from maybe different backgrounds. They've sold insurance. They've sold other nontechnical items in the past, and and then they jump into solar sales because they're infatuated with maybe some crazy sales commissions or or whatever else in in terms of different business models that are employed by a lot of our competition.
Mo:Whereas, for us, it's very much a technical sale and being able to help a client understand that, you know, we're gonna take two, three hundred drone images of the roof, and and we're gonna cross reference the codes that have been adopted by their jurisdiction. And when we present them a solution, we've already done, like I've said, our due diligence to ensure that they're actually getting what they bought.
Hervé:You also mentioned launching new products and the different departments. So the way we we solved it, we solved it towards the end when I was running a a solar company. It's like, you know how in your CRM, you have a pipeline for your sales and for your ops? We had a pipeline for new products and had different stages. So first is like, anybody has an idea, drop it in there.
Hervé:And then we had a first stage, is this worth actually investigating it? Then we made a decision together on the management call, yes, we're going to investigate this product. And then each department had to give their feedback because you can launch a product. You can buy I'm not gonna maybe name names, but you can buy batteries that suddenly are not available anymore. So the warehouse and logistics people said, we're against it because we cannot get it.
Hervé:Payment terms, obviously, the data sheets and all that, but basically, it goes from marketing needs to know about the new product so they can market. The salespeople need to know about it so they can learn about it and know how to sell it. The ops teams need to be fully trained on it. So before you even if you make a decision to launch a new product, there are still stages after that before you can actually sell it. You need to have training.
Hervé:Like, you really there's a lot of steps actually on on a new product.
Mo:No. A 100%. I like the way you put that. You know, it's it's a road map, and it's it's almost like a a departmental road map for what all needs to happen before you just, you know, unleash your your sales folks to go out there and and sell something that they haven't been trained on. So, absolutely, marketing from marketing all the way to down to, you know, your service technicians at the very end.
Mo:Everyone needs to understand, the ins and outs of a product before it it it, you know, makes it out to your the public and and to your client base.
Hervé:Yeah. Moe, next question. What's working right for you right now to close more deals in today's market? Because I see some solar companies really struggle, and I see some others, like, taking off. So do you have some advice about how to close more deals today?
Mo:How to close more deals? I I I think I'd I'd probably lead with be who you are. You know, don't don't try to be someone you're not. Don't pretend like you're an engineer. If if you're not an engineer, don't don't don't pretend like you're an an electrician.
Mo:Electrician. If you're you're not not an an electrician, just be be authentic and and be who you are. And and I think that's that's the number one key to to closing more deals. Be knowledgeable. You know, before I made my first sale, I spent two years acquiring as much knowledge as I could from people that were way smarter than me and way more knowledgeable and and had the wisdom and the and the experience.
Mo:So I think knowledge is is at the kind of the the core of being a better salesman. I remember in my early days, a lot of my sales, I felt like I would actually be sitting at the kitchen table, and I'd be getting interviewed by my client. Like, that's like I'm interviewing for for for a job. Right? It's it's almost no different.
Mo:When you walk into a a job interview, you're gonna want to have researched the company. You're gonna wanna make sure your your your skills are as sharp as possible and align with the skills that are in high demand. You don't wanna walk in and just say, oh, I can learn that or I can figure that out or, you know, on the spot. You want to to showcase that you've done your due diligence and you're a person that does your research and has been acquiring knowledge. So I've always approached sales in a very consultative process.
Mo:I'm not really into, like, the hardcore, high pressure sales. That's just not my DNA, and I think that's trickled down into our our sales floor where we do a lot of education and a lot of training and, product knowledge and bring in manufacturers and bring in other companies. I mean, heck, I've I've taken dozens of my employees to reputable and and highly distinguished solar installation companies across the country and spent one or two days with with them just learning from them in an effort to, again, acquire knowledge and and see what kind of process improvement we can bring back to our own building. So, you know, you also need to constantly you have, like, have an insatiable thirst for for knowledge and for for improvement. So, you know, I I'll find myself listening to, you know, different sales trainers, and and then I'm not gonna just take every single word that they spew as the word of God.
Mo:You know? It's not the gospel, but I'll I'll kinda pick and choose what I feel aligns with who I am again kind of as a person and and as a professional. Nothing can beat outbeat your competition than being authentic and true to true to who you are. Don't, you know, don't falsely misrepresent yourself or your company at at the table. And like I said, if you're not gonna be the cheapest, you gotta be the best.
Mo:So how are you the best? What do you do as a company through and through? Do your Google reviews and your online reviews reflect that you're the best? Do your processes reflect it? Do your systems reflect it?
Mo:Do the people top down reflect it? And so, you know, I think I think that was a bit of a long winded answer, but I absolutely love, people skills. You know? People that have people skills, that's very important at the table. Because if if you're saying all the things that someone doesn't care to hear or doesn't relate to their their problem, you know, like, you're not gonna close a sale.
Mo:You need to walk in, and and you need to be an active listener, that they need to speak more than you. So I think those are all all aspects of of great salesmanship.
Hervé:Now in this conversation where we spoke about you involving marketing, you also mentioned you you have you bring employees across the country to go see other solar installers, so how you you continuously try to improve. So of all the different parts of being a CEO, which part do you like the most?
Mo:What do I like the most? I I know Inventory management No.
Hervé:HR, accounting.
Mo:No. No. I think I this is gonna sound kinda cliche, but but education. I I I love the educational piece. I'm passionate about education.
Mo:I think you'll see in a lot of our our YouTube videos where I'm just educating folks about solar, its products, or the process, different electric companies, how how, you know, we call all intersect in this world. I love helping employees. You know, I love I love problem solving as a like, I would say don't be a business owner in solar specifically if if you don't enjoy problem solving, because there's different problems that, show up every day. I mean, I'm eleven years in, and and I'll still see something new every single day. So I I really enjoy being able to be wide and deep in in the organization.
Mo:So even when I launch a new product, like, I wanna be the first guy to sell it, you know, because I wanna be, you know, the one that fails forward. And so I I think that as a business owner, you gotta gotta have grit. You gotta, you know, wanna problem solve, and you gotta be good at sales.
Hervé:You mentioned failing forward. Like, talk about mistakes. What are some mistakes that you remember you made that you can tell
Mo:others about? Done it all, man. I've done it all. Like, I tell people all the time in my company, you know, if you fail, then just know that I've already failed before you, and I've costed this company more money than anyone anyone will. And I think that I I bought all the ground mount equipment for a project before the guy got approved for financing.
Mo:And then he failed his finance check, and I was sitting on, you know, three inch pipes or whatever for for two years. And I've made a lot of mistakes, man. I I I don't know if I can pinpoint every single one, but I I've sold a whole home backup that was only a partial home backup. I've sold a a 100% offset to a client that only had a, avoided wholesale rate for for, the the sell rate. So it wasn't a 100%.
Mo:And and so, again, like I I mentioned earlier, what what do you do when something like this comes across your desk where someone's maybe upset or that their expectations were set incorrectly? Do you just brush it and sweep it under the rug, or do you try your hardest to to make it right for that person? So, I mean, countless, countless examples of how I failed forward through throughout my career. I've onboarded products that were just by myself without walking, you know, that product or anyone, without training any salespeople on it, without having any marketing materials, without training any ops folks. And I think that's how you learn, you know, yeah, they they can be very expensive lessons.
Mo:I tell people all the time, like, I've I've gotten the the world's most expensive MBA. But at the end of the day, if you love what you do and you have a passion for for the industry that you're in, you're gonna find a way to continue to to fight and and grind and and make things right for the people that you serve.
Hervé:When you were talking, I another one one of my mistakes I remembered was on a church. We were installing, like, a 100 something kilowatt system, and it was during December in the Northeast here, close to question on DC. We were installing solar panels, and then came Christmas and the holidays. So the system was attached but not fully finished. A lot of scrolls are over here.
Hervé:And so the scroll guard wasn't attached yet. The wheels were still kind of hanging out, so not cut. And there's still some work to be done. We came back in January after it snowed some more and whatever, like way longer. We thought we would be back in a few days, but it was actually a week or two later.
Hervé:We arrived there, and the scrolls went on the panels and destroyed so much wiring. At the time, we were a new company, and so we had I had to go talk to to the people. Like, I was Yeah. What do you do? What do you do?
Hervé:Conflict resolution and finding a solution that works for everyone. That was that's what you have to do.
Mo:It is. It is. You can't give it up, man. You gotta find a solution. And there's 99.9% of the time, there's something that you can do that resolves the issue and and, you know, just mitigates the the exposure and and and and and the anger that someone could feel for maybe being misled or or having the wrong expectations.
Hervé:Moe, I have a a last question for you. What do you wish more people understood about running a solar company?
Mo:There's a lot of headwinds in solar. You know? I think in order to be a great solar company, you need to employ great people. You need to adopt great systems. You need to process improve every single day.
Mo:You need to constantly audit all of your departments, all of your your your people, all of the processes that that they are working within those workflows. So you can't just walk in and expect to, you know, be rich. Like, it it's not it's not gonna happen. You know? It's been eleven years now for Good Faith Energy, and I can't tell you that from, you know, where I started as a a 23, four year old wanting to change the world and and have an impact and fight global chain climate change and social impact to where to where we are today where those values are still embedded and instilled with within us.
Mo:You're gonna have to deal with liberation day tariffs, you know, and you're gonna have to deal with interest rates fluctuation. You're gonna have to, deal with product failures and how do you resolve those. There's just so many things that get thrown your way. And, you know, and I I use this example all the time. We have a roofing business.
Mo:I can sell a roof, and I can install it within a week. You know, I can subcontract all the labor. I can pull an over the counter permit where needed, and I can collect all the money on the job and make, you know, 30 or 40 points just like that. Solar is not like that. It's hard to generate the lead.
Mo:It's hard to win the sale over the competition or even just to create a strong enough business case that it makes more sense to go solar than continuing to pay your electric bill. It's hard to get the do the, you know, the project delivery cycle and to project manage and to engineer and to get the engineering stamps. It's hard to get the permits back in a reasonable amount of time from most jurisdictions. It's hard to install a lot of these systems, especially the ones coupled with battery backup. It's it's hard to collect money from people, you know, especially if there's a few little dings or issues here and there.
Mo:You know, people will give you their their punch list, and they want you to to work through the punch list before they make that substantial payment. The cash flow is difficult, and is is very cyclical business. So what are you doing in your off season to ensure that you can continue to generate the cash needed to operate the business? So entrepreneurship is not for the weak, man. I'm sure other businesses, other business owners in different industries can can relate to a lot of what I'm saying, but in their own context.
Mo:And so, you know, I hope at least some of that made made sense. But what I would say is if you find an industry and a business that that you love, that you genuinely fall in love with, you'll find a way to make it work.
Hervé:Yeah. It's it's hard, but it's also so rewarding. Yeah.
Mo:Yeah. It is. Yeah. I used to say starting a business is the most rewarding thing, and and and growing and watching it get nourished and flourished is the most rewarding thing that I've ever experienced in my life. And I think now I say it's more that I've I've been able to maintain my marriage and and have three children.
Mo:So, yeah, it's it's a beautiful thing. Though at the end of the day, it's it's almost like your child. You know? You give birth to a newborn. The only difference is that, you know, typically, children, you know, grow linearly.
Mo:They're one, and they're two, and then they're three, four, five, and you see them hit milestones. And and it's it's really beautiful with a business. You could see an 11 year old business move back in time and be a three year old again. And then it can fast forward to being eight the next year and then, you know, move backwards again to be a newborn. I've seen it with my mentors.
Mo:I've seen, you know, companies that I modeled my business around go from three, four hundred employees down to 30 and, just keep fighting to keep their doors open. So don't, you know, don't take it for granted. Be humble. Don't be arrogant. One day, you're a king at the peak of the mountain.
Mo:The next day, you're you're at the bottom of the trench in the valley trying to dig yourself out, and you gotta be level headed, and and you gotta just, you know, deal with the ebbs and flows just like in life.
Hervé:Seeing opportunities, adapt, change, but then there's so much external factors that are out of your control. Like, yep, by definition, you can't control this external. It's done to you, and you need to roll with the punches.
Mo:That's right.
Hervé:Moe, I I wanna thank you. Thank you for filing climate change. Thank you for the impact that you had, not just on the planet, but also on me and and the impact also with SunVoice. Thank you very much, Moe, for all the And
Mo:for for all the listeners, if you haven't invested in in SunVoy and rolled out your your own application, you know, for fleet management, for referral tracking, for direct service tickets, for just post install, the top tier support, kinda like what I mentioned earlier. I would highly recommend you you look into to SunVoy, Herbie, and and your team. You guys are are are phenomenal professionals, and, I really mean that from the bottom of heart. You guys have have helped Good Faith Energy on so many levels take it to the next level. So, again, make sure to to look into SunVoy as a serious, serious sales, marketing, and service tool for your business.
Hervé:Thanks for those closing words, bro.
Mo:Very much appreciate Alright, man. Thanks so much. Thank you. Take care. Alright.
Mo:Bye bye.
Hervé:If you'd like to do the same or do better, go to sunvoy.com/blog and get actionable behind the scenes lessons on running and growing your solar business.