Joel wrote: 3 goals. ....or they can pay me a consultant fee to teach them
I assume that every Site Survey must include a basic education on the fundamentals of PV. This includes mythbusting and re-education. It helps that most clients are genuinely interested in learning more before they decide to invest. I have based my 'consultation' on that goal and have a 3 ring binder/flipchart with a multitude of photos, charts, graphs, important quotes etc that I can refer to to emphasize a point. The handful of incentive providers in Texas, just like the ITC, offer almost no guidelines to potential customers for choosing a quality installer, unlike the California program. I have seen numerous examples of poor PV installations already in this still infant market and documented many. I have pictures describing "bad installation practices" in the binder and emphasize them. So I consider my face time spent to be valuable to both the client and me. So the question I have mulled over for some time is, do I continue to charge a one-time fee for this service? It's refunded upon closing a deal. Discussions on this site, in the past, seem to be divided. While increased competition may lean away from the practice of charging a fee, the "educational" value justifies one. I'll assume I'm one of several quotes and I want to be remembered as the one that was the most informative and helpful. Jim Duncan North Texas Renewable Energy Inc 817.917.0527 [email protected] www.ntrei.com
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