Harvest Green Developments case study: two G99 applications from four site meetings

Word for word from the video, with filler words such as “um” left out.

So James, would you like to introduce yourself and talk a little bit about Harvest Green? Absolutely. So yes, my name is James Clifford from Harvest Green Developments. I'm the business development director here and I've been with the business for seven years in a month's time.

Yeah been part of the finish for a while. Long time. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. We specialize in commercial solar. Our main. Stages of our work and obviously what we've done over, over the past few years is commercial solar. But we increasingly la layering in battery storage and EV charging mix as added services.

Yeah. Brilliant. And you guys have some pretty big clients, don't you? Yeah we've got a, we've got a few bigger clients that we we work with. Absolutely. It's always, we're always trying to increase that that mix. But yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah that's why we're working together.

Absolutely. So how long have you guys been working with us so far? It's not been that long, is it? No. Around since the beginning of the year, isn't it? So about three months. Okay. Perfect. And what part of the service has been most valuable to you so far? As we've discussed I feel that the service that you provide in terms of short circuiting the sales process is really useful.

So obviously we've got a team that we obviously try and canvas the markets. We try and do our, a lot of our own due diligence and a lot of our own investigations into which businesses are interested in solar and storage. But that initial. Part of the works obviously is it's time consuming.

And it's challenging to be in the right place at the right time with someone who wants to move forwards. The beauty of working with your platform is that you are bringing us warm inquiries, warm leads to the business that we can then engage with those clients using the technical expertise that we've got, and.

It's a quicker process. So already we obviously got a couple of G99 applications in for the sites that we've looked at. Tier OUTTA four is not a bad hit rate. Wow. And and from that, obviously that's the next, next step of assessing whether those sites are gonna be suitable for doing what we're trying to do.

So those how describe it. Those buying signals that are, yeah. Showing people, showing their interest, people showing that they want to engage with this topic further and to, understand and explore what options we can provide. Yeah that's really good. Two two G99s.

And is that. Like two G nine G99s put in from them already. Yeah so two, two letter authorities. So we've submitted two G99s off the back of that 1, 1, 1, 1 per client for the two, two that have moved forward on that. Wow. And I like to think that there's probably gonna be, hopefully at least another one out of the the four sites that we've looked at so far.

Because like I said. If those clients are genuinely interested in what we're doing and they're a warm inquiry, then it should be relatively straightforward for them to want to move to the next stage. And that's always the challenge you've got with sort of general business development in the marketplace.

You're always trying to get to the clients that are wanting to move forward and progress to that next level of due diligence, interest in terms of what you're doing, pricing, et cetera. So it's just trying to make sure that we're speaking to the right people at the right time. Yeah. Perfect. And so out of those two G99 then, do you think worst case, one of them would probably go ahead or, yeah.

Yeah, I'd like to think that one of those, or one of those or, yeah I'd like to think that both of them will move forward with solar. Obviously it's our role to make sure that's with Harvest Green Developments rather than our competitors. But as we spoke about when we, first worked with you and looked to work together on the service.

When we are at that level of meeting clients and showing them what we can do, technically, showing them what we can do with with the solutions for them we have a really good hit rate in terms of transitioning that into a sale. Obviously there is wastage along the the pipeline as you would expect in any business, of course, perhaps majority of those people that drop out.

In my experience, weren't ready to commit to buying a system or pushing forward with a PPA or something along those lines at with anybody. So it's not a loss to us because they wouldn't have moved forward with anybody. So yeah we, like I said, we try and keep a as good a a track rate on our opportunities that we do work.

Perfect. And in terms of the sort of average deal size that we've put you in front of, what would you say that is roughly of the ones we're looking at so far? I think the average is coming out at around about 140, 150 kilowatt. That's what, okay. That's quite a good size I think.

Especially for what you guys are looking for, you, you quite the, those bigger systems and absolutely. Yeah. I mean our, I think our average system size now is somewhere nearly in the region, round about 400 kilowatt. Okay. And layering in more battery storage into that obviously adds to the, to the transaction value, but yeah. Of the ones we've looked at so far. Yeah. But like I said there's been good interest and good, really good conversations across the four sites I've looked at so far. It's obviously just trying to keep engaged with those clients and make sure that they they understand what they need to do, what they what their options are available to them and how we can support 'em moving forward.

Yeah, of course. And how has the communication and customer service been with me and the team? Yeah, really good. Really good. Really straightforward. You've been receptive to improvements that I've suggested. Only, only minor stuff, just in terms of little bits of extra detail that we would normally like to find.

And each of the clients has been engaged with that process, so they've clearly been, consulted with and prepped for the meeting that's been happening. So it's not like I've gone in there. And it's been a surprise to them, which as I said, we were already open with you. We haven't done anything prior to working with you in terms of this kind of marketing engagement in terms of these inquiries.

It was a worry and a fear of mine that, yeah. The clients wouldn't be, teed up in the right position. Yeah. But before that, we've been so to see so far it's been really straightforward. Yeah. And in terms of the sort of per performance based approach where, we guarantee the attended appointment or we replace it, is that a scalable sort of approach for you guys?

Absolutely. Yeah. And like I said, our key interest is to grow our, portfolio. And doing that, we just gotta have a bigger sales funnel. We're gonna have more inquiries coming in. It doesn't matter what stage they're at, but obviously the stage where they're engaged with looking at solar, they're getting quotes.

They're doing that kinda due diligence. That's an ideal stage to be involved with. As I said to you it. If we can short circuit that sales process and typically we can be looking and speaking with clients for two, three years before they really engage with the process because it might just not be the right time for them, or they might not have the budget for it, or they might have done other schemes and and have other interests for their capital.

The approach they far with the the businesses that you've brought to us has been that they're. Engaged, they're interested, they're ready to look at solar actively. And obviously that means that we can then go straight into design development in terms of gaining permissions and obviously costing out a solution for them, which you know, is ideal for us because then we're not having to wait, 12, 18, 24 months to get to 'em, to ready for that.

Yeah. No, for sure. And then one final question then would you recommend us to other companies or solar installers to get more a more consistent flow of work? Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. As I said, it's, it is a new process for us. And we're still, we're engaged in the marketplace to try and understand what the opportunities are like for us.

But I've been really happy with the process that we've done so far and and the quality of the leads has been high. And like I said, we all know. This market any kind of engagement with an end client can be hit or miss. You don't know exactly what their what their interest level is at.

And like I said from what we've discussed so far with the site meetings that I've had the level of interest has been good. Yeah, I. I'm comfortable with the quality of the leads you've put across the level of data, the engagement from your team has been really good.

The willingness to improve aspects of it where I've asked for a little bit more data is great. So yeah. Yeah. Hence why. Yeah. I really appreciate that. Hence why we're carrying on with the yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I really appreciate that.