Tales from the road – the More Power, More Profit Tour

Just before the holidays, I spent a day with one of our distributors in Anaheim for the second stop of the More Power, More Profit roadshow. The three-hour event featured a few short presentations and plenty of time for some hands-on learning with the inverters.

Aside from some great prizes and giveaways, we explained how installers can not only save more money by using SMA inverters, but also make more money with every sale. It is a different kind of event than what we’ve done in the past and, as a technical trainer, I really enjoyed it! Showing the full-value of our inverters to our industry’s hard-working installers makes all the difference.

The scene from the More Power, More Profit Tour’s stop in Southern California.

This new training approach focuses on helping expand the customer’s sales conversation beyond the normal inverter vs. inverter, warranty vs. warranty or claims vs. reality. We focus on how to be more customer-focused, build lasting relationships and create a bigger profit margin at the end of the year just by taking advantage of the features that come with the Sunny Boy TL-US with Secure Power Supply.

Installers also got to put their skills to the test with a competition to see who could wire the Secure Power Supply into the Sunny Boy the fastest. So far the fastest time was a tremendous 2:42 with August Heiss with Cool Blew Electric & Solar; stripping wire, running conduit, wiring a two-gang junction box and connecting it all to the inverter in less than three minutes!.

We can’t forget about the SMA Solar Sprinter, our biggest training tool and road-warrior; it’s a mobile micro-grid and power-producing van! It’s complete with a solar array on the roof, a Sunny Boy 3000TL-US with Secure Power Supply and a Sunny Island battery inverter. I jokingly tell people that if the zombie apocalypse comes, this van will be the first thing I run for.

The event at CED Anaheim was a huge success and I could tell our new approach really opened some eyes and won people over. Be on the lookout for our 2015 schedule on the Solar Academy website.

See you on the road next year!