How do I get a premium as a Solar installer?

Deserve it. As simple as that.

The Late Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet’s partner once said that the best way to get a great partner is to be one. Like attracts like. This applies to most things in life.

One of the biggest problems for solar installers is the lack of margin, especially in competitive markets like India and South East Asia. At Zolt, we used to command healthy premiums but eventually they got eroded as the product started getting commoditised. I can assure you that competing on price is a surefire way to shutting down your business.

As the industry outlook is getting better, this is the right time to get your act together and deserve a premium.

You cannot penny-pinch your way to higher margins. In-fact it is only going to impact you negatively in the long term. 

A few simple things you can do to get better premiums:

1. Fix your product offering: This is a no brainer. You cannot get a premium by providing a substandard product or service. Give the best product you can offer within the customer’s budget. It’s not just about solar panels and inverters, think about the BoS too – down to connectors, lugs, nuts and bolts. We’ll discuss this in more detail in a separate write-up.
2. Fix your reputation: In this connected world, reputation is one thing that is extremely hard to build and easy to lose. One bad review and your sales / marketing flow starts getting negatively affected. Even if you offer the best quality of product but your people & process sucks, it’s wasted. The top dog in the company always needs to have their eye on this. 
3. Get more referrals: Good customer experience leads to happy customers. Happy customers lead to more referrals and good referrals lead to high premiums as they have the least competition in closing deals. We’ll discuss the best way to get referrals in a different article.
4. Fix your brand: You need not invest millions in an agency to get fancy branding. Just hire a good designer and unify your brand across different channels and material. Having a uniform experience across different touch points raises the customer’s opinion of a company. From the CEO to the salesperson to the  installation guy, everyone must deliver a consistent experience to the customer.

So, there you go, work on it, let this infuse across the company and aim for greatness.