Photon Rainbow, a solar installer in Albuquerque, NM, delivers such extraordinary customer service that they don’t require traditional marketing to support their business. They rely solely on word-of-mouth, referrals, cross promotions, and events. Yet competition in the New Mexico solar market remains fierce, leaving Mark Kelly, founder of Photon Rainbow, in search of a way to distinguish his company.
Standing out from the Competition
Thankfully, Kelly found Pearl Certification as a resource to accomplish just that. “Pearl Certification helps us with every single sales presentation to build more value and close more deals,” says Kelly.
Pearl’s Contractor Success team trained Photon Rainbow’s 10 sales contractors on how to leverage Pearl in their pitches, optimize Pearl’s customized marketing tools and resources, and explain the benefits of home certification to potential customers. “Our onboarding was amazing! Everyone was super helpful, and we learned so much,” says Kelly.
“Pearl Certification helps us with every single sales presentation to build more value and close more deals.”
Increasing Home Value
Kelly cites increasing home value as the single greatest benefit of working with Pearl. “Increasing home value is really important to us and our customers,” says Kelly.
As a Pearl Contractor, Photon Rainbow receives exclusive access to the Pearl Solar Equity Calculator®, a tool designed to demonstrate the value solar installations can add to a home. Pearl’s solar calculator is the industry’s first tool to calculate discounted cash flow using certified contractor data, NREL software to calculate solar production numbers, and an API to Freddie Mac’s 30-year mortgage rate.
Funding Home Improvements
Endeavoring to provide contractors with all the tools and resources they need to fully support their homeowner customers, Pearl Certification provides ongoing education on the billion-dollar Inflation Reduction Act through webinars, FAQs, reference sheets, marketing tools, and more.
Thanks to the IRA, energy-efficient home improvements are more affordable than ever, and Pearl equips contractors to guide their customers through the home improvement process. “Pearl has educated us on how to navigate the IRA landscape in ways we did not know,” says Kelly.
Supporting the Industry
The Albuquerque solar industry suffered in 2017 when a national solar installer sold power purchase agreements to homeowners, misleading them about the new net metering laws, the impact of the agreement on selling their home, and the existence of an escalator clause hidden in the agreement. This horrible situation gave many real estate agents a negative impression of solar.
Recognizing that the success of Photon Rainbow is tied to real estate agents’ understanding of the value of solar, Kelly began hosting solar education presentations to correct this misconception held by local real estate agents.
“Solar is getting so prevalent in our town that now real estate agents are trying to get educated about solar instead of trying to avoid it,” says Kelly. “The real estate professionals here in our town are so appreciative that they finally know that solar can be such a benefit to people's lives. Our presentations have really helped us win the hearts of local real estate agents who had some really bad experiences a couple years ago.”
Looking to the Future
Kelly plans to expand his business and acknowledges that Pearl Certification plays a key role in the future of his business. “We want to continue to expand our volume, our market reach, and our mission to help homeowners live more comfortably, renewably, and efficiently by getting into other industries, such as roofing, HVAC, windows, and energy audits,” says Kelly. “Pearl helps by bundling all those things into the Green Door portal and making the value of all those things visible!”
Pearl’s free, award-winning Green Door app connects contractors with their homeowner customers, enabling them to share documents about their installations, issue maintenance reminders, and more.
To learn more about differentiating your business with Pearl Certification, complete the below form and a member of the Pearl team will be in touch soon.
