Confidential - do not distribute.

Objectives

● Explore what successful companies in BTM rooftop solar for the C&I field are doing in
their businesses, particularly in B2B sales and marketing. Understand similar business
models and use cases. Focus on Mexico, Thailand, and Vietnam.

● Identify digital solutions that address/improve the sales and marketing process for
C&I solar.

Key Findings and Recommendations

Customer Targeting

● Better access to clients’ data, in particular electricity bills and credit ratings, enables
developers to more accurately and efficiently target customers.

○ Lack of reliable data to assess offtakers’ credit rating results in massive due
diligence to understand if customer is creditworthy
○ Utility is less likely to share customer bill data in fear of losing customers
○ Collecting contact information at scale can be a challenge. Solutions like
EnergyHawk scrape Linkedin and other sources, and could support with this.
○ Once you understand prospects, you need to gather data
■ We believe the future of the industry is in a self-selection process to
maximize sales team resource
■ Let the tool identify real leads
■ Use attributes to rank leads
● Rate plans are the #1 driver of determining the potential of
leads - indicative of how much they pay and how much they
could save
● Class codes of business
○ This can help find the right types of businesses,
particularly those with high electricity use or in relevant
verticals
○ Require electric utility bills to perform diligence on a customer - this also is a
good measure of someone's seriousness. If they’re not willing to give you a
utility bill, they’re likely not a high-potential customer.
○ Utility bills are not the only source of energy costs. Many businesses use
diesel generators as backup for unreliable grids. Factoring in the cost of this
fuel is important to provide a solid estimate of cost savings.
● Selling reliability can be as important as price in certain cases
where the grid is unreliable

1
 Confidential - do not distribute.

● Many of the first-moving customers are those focused on

reliability and backup power

● Developers, in particular in developing countries, need to be aware of inconsistent

roof quality when identifying suitable rooftops for solar systems. This inconsistency
can also be turned into an opportunity to go beyond the most obvious roofs.

○ Quality of rooftops varies widely in these markets. Some old and unstable
facilities need structural analysis (not exclusive to Mexico)
○ Digital tools help accelerate identification of sites but currently no way to
evaluate structure in tool. Still need to visit the site to evaluate.
■ In the future, the classification neural net tool will help classify different
types of rooftops
○ It’s hard to make assumptions just based on satellite data. Even in the US, site
visits are essential.
○ Go beyond the obvious flat roofs! This is where the opportunities lie. The
easiest roofs have more competition and are addressed by other players
earlier.
○ Many EPCs in Vietnam are also developers. Not just doing installation
■ Need tools like OpenSolar to help identify leads and improve proposal
generation process to take on more projects

● C&I sales strategies must be different from residential solar strategies as the needs of
each C&I customer are more unique and solutions are less standardized.

○ Targeting through research to get in front of the right decision makers

■ Land and expand - if we secure a client in a new vertical we research
remaining potential clients in that vertical
○ Invest capital and bandwidth to have a presence - conferences, trade shows

Approaching Customers

● Create a clear value proposition for customer acquisition and marketing.

○ Saving money will always be #1. But you have to be specific - emphasize what
parts of the bill solar will help them save on
■ Need historical data for this
○ Marketing is relationship building. Find out who the decision makers are, how
and why they are making the decision to go solar
■ What podcasts they’re listening to, what events they’re going to
■ Consider having webinars
■ Thought leadership is something every solar company should have.

2
 Confidential - do not distribute.

○ Establish your brand and narrative to acquire customers

■ Understand what customers care about
■ Develop a positive presence in the region
■ Repetition in marketing is key - use LinkedIn, website, trade shows, and
personal outreach
● Help them see the ad again and be reminded to take action
■ Be alongside your competition. If they sponsor something, so should
you
○ n the US, it is a young market and there is a lot of confusion and mistrust in
the PPA process. If there can be a one stop shop that makes it easier you will
do better
■ Partner with financial institutions to cover this process end to end
○ 3 key steps
■ Narrowly define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) & create targeted
lists
■ Identify where to reach your ICP
■ Create a call-to-action that turns prospects into opportunities
○ C&I is relationship-based and selling. Less about the advertising - you won't
get as many leads from ads as you would in B2C
○ In first two years [developer] just went through contacts
■ 40% of leads are now inbound from website, webinars, and other
media
■ 50% of leads are customer friend or acquaintance giving a good review
○ Position yourself as someone looking out for clients’ best interest, not
peddling products
■ Technological difference is also key. Brand, functionality, warranty etc
to drive choice
■ When it's a specialized and expensive sale you need to show why
investing in this asset is worth it and empowering them in this process
■ Partnering with good local companies is key

● Address negative perceptions of solar head-on.

○ Some regions have a perception of solar as unreliable, often because of

cheap Chinese imports. A rebuilding of trust, especially outside of urban
areas, is important.
■ Similarly, with storage, business owners often think it’s very expensive
because they had previously been sold oversized systems. Need to
reset expectations and show how developer can make it financially
viable - i.e. hybrid systems

● Leverage digital solutions to streamline the sales process.

3
 Confidential - do not distribute.

● Be transparent.

■ The culture in solar is currently that you hold information until the very end,
and then give the price. When solar was more expensive this makes
sense—but now solar can be saving you money on electric bills, so we want
to give this cost-saving information up front
● Transparency means changing this culture
■ When we go to customers, our priority is transparency
○ Dropoff happens when there are any discrepancies from the initial promises in
the sales stage to the proposal presentation
■ Need to ensure best practices happen at the sales stage, including
collecting detailed qualifications information and closely connecting
sales team to installation team
○ Many customers ask for more systems than they need. Helping them
understand what they really need for their unique project is important to build
a good sales relationship.
○ Telling customers that they’re not a fit helps with referrals down the line and
builds goodwill

● Identify decision makers within potential customers and educate them.

○ Within potential customers’ businesses, usually one person thinks of the idea
and has to sell the idea to other internal stakeholder
■ What is useful is a tool that would help them pitch to other internal
stakeholders and note savings, ESG impact, etc., based on
address—such as one that lives on the developers’ website
○ Gauge their internal decision making process and timeline
■ Show them a real life example of what solar looks like in their portfolio
■ Majority of our job is to efficiently educate our customers and evaluate
if we should spend the time educating further
○ ESG people are making the others pay attention
■ Make a direct proposition to them unless you know someone in the
executive suite

● Take different sales and marketing approaches per jurisdiction. In developing

countries, the approach in the capital city (or other more developed regions) is very
different than the rest of the country.

○ Mexico City and Monterrey are closer to a US business place.

Internationalized, more sophisticated and financial-oriented
■ Outside of Mexico City, the mentality is like Japan 50 years ago.
Top-down male-dominated hierarchies in the family-owned
businesses

4
 Confidential - do not distribute.

■ More developers are going after Mexico City for this reason, but
targeting companies with subsidiaries could be very effective

Foster Potential Customers

● Diversify your offering to increase conversion.

○ If you have a diversified offering and can help companies solve their heat and
electricity needs, you would be differentiated
■ Be an energy solutions provider
■ If you have battery storage and can release at a time off-peak, you can
demand shave

● Consider aggregating projects or building a relationship with a channel partner (e.g.

commercial real estate company).

○ Leverage contacts as a large conglomerate and identify all of their needs.

■ Do an energy assessment across all of them and help aggregate all of
these projects
■ Bring this to a bank and show diversity of projects to make up for
weaker underlying credit rating
○ Aggregation is a key strategy used by developers - focusing on companies
that have many buildings or locations and implementing replicable projects
across a portfolio (GTM)

● A strong technical sales team can help navigate the long and difficult sales cycles
characteristics of C&I contracts.

○ Hiring for sales in C&I is challenging. Intersection of tech, construction and

sales. The technical sales piece is key.
■ Incredibly long sales cycle. Need to invest multiple years to make it
worth it
■ Use recruiters and great HR team but expect 50% of those hires to still
fail
● Successful ones are committed to the larger effort, not just
making money. No ego. Motivated by challenge
○ Have an engineer that nourishes the relationship. Initiate the relationship so
that the engineering stakeholder takes the value proposition to the finance
unit
■ Engineer won't be on board if they see it for the first time from the
finance team
■ C&I also requires energy advisors that field any customer questions
and build relationships with technical teams in C&I businesses

5
 Confidential - do not distribute.

● Anticipate their questions and be prepared with detailed answers and ability to turn
around quick proposals.

○ Inbounds that always have the same three questions: How much will the
system cost me, how much will it save me, what are my finance options?
■ This take 3-10 days because engineer needs to do design,
procurement needs to price products, and sales and marketing makes
proposal, and the finance piece needs to be put in place
○ Keep the customer proactively engaged. Automate tasks at any stage (both
internal and external), including emails to the customer with updates

● Automate your communication to keep potential customers engaged.

○ Using drip campaigns that vary based on stage will enable your sales team to
engage with more customers and prioritize high-potential customers for calls
and site visits

● Foster existing customers via sustained communication to gain repeat business.

○ Automatic email campaigns to existing customers keeps them engaged and

is the easiest opportunity to upsell or sell to additional buildings they own or
manage

Negotiation

● Data can help foster interest in PPAs and overcome customer concerns.

○ In Mexico, there are companies interested in getting into solar PPAs. Very
apparent for the last few years but a bunch of things that presented issues in
realizing that potential:
■ Lack of visibility for policies requiring integration. Issues of corruption in
the process of interconnection
■ Getting in touch with a local utility for knowing what tech is needed for
connection, step-down voltage
■ This process is all very unclear in Mexico. It’s very ad hoc, which leads
to corruption
■ If you’re able to get homogenous data across your PPAs and work with
regulators, you will do well in this and other developing markets

● There is a market for customers that are perceived as having low bankability.

6
 Confidential - do not distribute.

○ Big problem with bankability. [Developer] lost a lot of deals where we had
good customers that couldn't get bank approval.
■ Most developers won't even spend time with offtakers that they can't
get a loan for
○ Review contracts and negotiating teams every 3 months or more
■ Clients want a lot of different terms, and it's not as standard as a B2C
deal, so we are flexible and manage the risk (i.e. marketing agreement,
warranty etc)
○ Consider EPC/building owner contract versus long term PPA
■ Depends on the client and the EPC business
■ A lot of the developers don’t have access to the capital needed for
large PPA projects

● Consider buying PPAs from smaller developers.

○ Mix investment grade with sub investment grade in portfolio to diversify and
increase chances of financing

● Keep regulations in mind.

○ Mexico
■ Regulatory cap on rooftop solar system capacity limits (0,5 MW)
● If you want to install larger than this it becomes utility-scale
○ This adds lots of extra time and costs. There are
excessive fees to apply for the permit with no guarantee
of getting it

■ Unclear regulations and interconnection processes

● Energy reform and counter-reform
○ Public utility was supposed to be privatized to improve
efficiency. President is trying to undo reform because
much of the renewables installed from 2014 though
today were installed by private companies such as
(Ibedrola, Acciona) and he wants to bring the public
utility back to its “glory”
○ Private companies have been slowing down projects
due to risk
○ Bi-directional meters depend on CFE (national utility)
and get delayed
● Lack of visibility for policies requiring integration
○ Getting in touch with a local utility (for knowing what
tech is needed for connection, step-down voltage) is all

7
 Confidential - do not distribute.

very unclear in Mexico. It’s very ad hoc, which leads to

corruption and it stops developers from really investing
○ The risk that a developer has to take is large and has to
be done on the frontend, esp for larger projects
● The current government, however, is much more amenable to
C&I-scale solar than utility-scale solar

○ When prospecting new countries, looking at government incentives and tariff

structures is important.

● Be mindful of inconsistent equipment and workmanship quality and availability.

○ Components and installation are inconsistent. This can be a key differentiator

if you demonstrate high quality.
○ In the next 3 years there could be a shortage of skilled installers. Get out
ahead of this.

● During negotiation, be sure to check competitors’ assumptions and point out

misinformation.

○ Competitors’ sales people are convincing customers with false data and
taking advantage of customers (e.g. making assumptions about solar panels
delivering more energy than they can). Having your engineer review all
proposals with the customer and showing the underlying assumptions is a
strong strategy to counteract this.

● Local developers vs international developers - is there a difference?

○ Mexico: not much difference in quality of national vs international providers,

50-50 split, only difference is customer’s preference, quality and other
features variable across the board
○ Some companies have a preference for one or the other - but there are both
pros and cons to both
○ Multiple developers and experts expressed similar views.

Award / Construction & Operation

● To close contracts, craft a clear proposal that can be easily shared and evaluated
within the potential customer.

○ Back up the proposal with firm data. Customize each proposal.

8
 Confidential - do not distribute.

○ Proposals almost always get adapted, which means its a very manual process.

● Enable the customer to have visibility into the proposal and project status through an
online portal, and be proactive in communicating with them even after it closes.

● Procurement and price volatility remain an issue, but there are strategies around this.
○ Consider putting down capital upfront to avoid issues in equipment
procurement, locking in prices and ordering in bulk. This involves taking on
additional risk, but creates more stability
■ Outsource dealing with customs, as this can take a lot of time and
money, and significantly slow projects
■ Working in a consortium can enable the scale needed to outsource
dealing with logistics and customs.
○ Aggregated orders (paying up front) can lock in prices and insulate from
equipment price volatility. Time in which you make the order is the big
difference - exact size makes less difference.
■ Price volatility is more of an issue for PV panels than for power
electronics