Sam Ward Electrical case study: MCS-ready commercial solar leads for an electrician moving into PV

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

Sam, would you like to introduce yourself and talk a little bit about Sam Ward Electrical? Yeah. My name's Sam Ward. I'm the director and principal electrician installer at Sam Ward Electrical. I've been running this business for about four years, four and a half years.

Started out as primarily a commercial electrician, installing on a subcontract basis on building sites, new building sites. And about four years ago, I decided to set up on, on my own. I was doing EV, EV charges, re- regular electrical installations. And over the last 18 months, I've diversified into solar PV and battery storage.

Nice ... and recently, it recently started working with yourselves. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. And with us then, has it been I think it's been around a couple of months, maybe? Two, two months Yeah. It's about that. Since we've- I can't remember exactly when, but yeah. A cou- couple of perhaps maybe two or three months.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, perfect. And in terms of the service that we provide which part of it has been the most valuable to you so far? Typically, I'm hesitant to get on board with this, this type of work. But the thing that draw, drew me towards your company was the level of detail that you go into with the client.

So you do a lot of what I would call the legwork in terms of qualifying the leads, and I think that's what sets you apart from other companies. 'Cause you- Appreciate that ... one, you go in, you go into a lot of detail, and it's the right detail as well. So it's the detail that's required for, an MCS qualified site survey, so you know the information you need for the initial survey.

And that allows the likes of me to feel confident and, yeah, that, that lead is suitable for me or that lead's not suitable for me. There's that, and there's no pressure to take anything that you don't want. It's just offered to you. And if you like the look of it, you go for it. If you don't, no issue.

Yeah, I appreciate that. It's good. Yeah, so for context, for anyone who's who's not watching who's not worked with us yet, obviously we have the WhatsApp group chat where we'll send them the leads that we've fully qualified over the phone. You guys then get to pick the needs that you want based on, the, the qualification and you know, all of the answers that we've got from the customer.

Then obviously from there we would book it in for a survey, you guys would go to it and all that sort of thing. Yeah. So that's in terms of the, the service. And is there any particular information that you look out for on those write-ups? Yeah, I mean I look out for... So you would tell me on there how much energy and what the bill- billing usage is for that particular job, so there'll be a cost towards that.

There'll be the locations on there, so I can see if that's somewhere that's within my remit to work in. From the, the billing information I'll be able to determine if what size system they require. Again, I can see if that's suitable for me. I can offer that to the client.

And then you've got, so you've got, I know that I'm dealing with the bill payers. You've got the point of contact on there. So I know it's viable and it's not just somebody who works at the company. I know I'm dealing with the correct person. Yeah. And with all of that information there, you might have been able to tell but we've gathered it through sort of trial and error of, surveys potentially going wrong and, them going better the next time.

Because- Yeah ... for example, with the three phase one, we had it before where we had a high spender, but we didn't have the three phase or single phase single phase question in our qualification. And then what the installer did is they went out to the survey and they realized it was actually a, a single phase as opposed to a three phase- which limits the installation. So all of those questions on that writeup that we provide to you, getting past the trial and error that we've had in the past. Yeah. Have you worked with any other lead gen, businesses before? No, I haven't. I think the reason why is also the reason why I've worked with you.

It's your level of detail and the way you operate is the reason why I've worked with others, 'cause they don't have the same level of detail or don't operate in the same way. With, with you there's no sort of, like I said before, there's no pressure to, to to book a lead or go with an appointment.

It's it's whether I feel like that's suitable for me and I can progress with it. Whereas I don't feel that's other companies operate in the same way. So- ... that's why I decided to go with you guys. I appreciate it. And what do they do then? Just a general curious question.

Like what has your experience been with other companies or even though you haven't worked with them, like what- my perception- What is it? Yeah, my, my perception of other companies is it's you pay up front and they send, they sell you these leads. That is my feeling.

Whether that's actually true or not, I don't know. But that's my perception of it Okay, that makes sense. And in terms of the sort of average deal size that we're bringing you at the moment, could be kilowatts or pounds and pence- ... what's that sort of looking like at the moment? you offer a v- a variety of deal size, s- size, sizes, but I go with the size of building size that I, I can offer.

Yeah. Yeah, there we go. I didn't press anything, it just decided to switch itself off. So yeah, on- All good

on the WhatsApp chat, which is where you send the deals through, there's various sizes in kilowatts systems, in various locations. So I would select the ones that, one, a company my size can offer to a customer, a- and two, in a location that I'm willing to work in. Yeah. I su- I suppose that's a bit- bit of a, a benefit as well is that you you know what you're getting into, potential- Yeah

size of project- Yeah ... location as well before you even decide whether or not you want it. In terms of volume at the moment, what, how many leads are we bringing you, daily, weekly basis at the moment? There, there's a, there seems to be a good amount every day. I'd say on average it's between five and 10 new leads in the WhatsApp chat on a daily basis.

Yeah. And that's consistent as well, so there's not like there's a day or a period of time where there's no leads coming in.

It's every day. Yeah. Apart from Saturday and Sunday. Gives you a lot to choose from. Yeah. Bar Saturday and Sunday. Maybe I should make that the element of improvement. Oh, you don't have to. I don't work weekends so you don't have to, but, and in terms of customer service and sort of communication with our team how have you found that to be so far?

It's very good. There there's always... I hear off a couple of your your colleagues on perhaps a daily or maybe every couple of days checking in on if I've been to visit a client, they'll check in to see how that went as well as feedback. They'll call the day before or a couple of days before to check that it's still okay to go ahead and give me a reminder that it's going ahead.

Not that I need it, it's in the diary, they're very thorough with that, that side of things. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously it's appreciated. It's good. Yeah. Perfect. I appreciate that a lot. And in terms of the performance based approach where you obviously only pay if the site survey is attended, it's qualified, et cetera, do you think that's scalable for a company like yours?

Scalable, did you say? Yeah, it is. Yeah. It's the best way for, for, for me to do it. It works for me. You could say if a lead isn't as good as it appears to be, or if the, the client generally isn't interested as they should be, then obviously it's not gonna go anywhere. And it's only fair that isn't chargeable, I feel.

But that, I think that's what you would honor as a company. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And one final question sort of tip off then would you recommend us to other installers who are looking to get a regular flow of, Yes, I would. Okay. And I have. Yes. I did yesterday actually.

Yeah. Went to- I appreciate that ... went to the Solar and Storage and met with a, a friend who's also an electrician, and I was talking about you guys and I did recommend him to you, so yeah. I appreciate that a lot, actually. Yeah. Thank you very much.