Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Swan.
Hi Andrew, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My story is quite a bit different than most people’s – I’m happy and proud to be where I’m at in my life and I didn’t get here without A LOT of help from others looking out for me. I was born in Fort Wayne Indiana on the first anniversary of Hurricane Andrew, August 24th, 1993. My name was picked out weeks before I was born and I was born with a head full of blond hair that had four cowlicks. My hair looked like a hurricane when I was born. Looking at it now, that was probably an omen about how my early life would go.
Since I was a little kid, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur and have my own business. My dad always worked for himself and I wanted to be like my dad. I was the kid who had a soda or lemonade stand multiple times a year, mowed lawns, shoveled snow, a kid who was always looking for the next little “come up”. I wasn’t given an allowance because my parents just didn’t have the money for it. I remember wanting a job so bad because I wanted to make my own money.
I’ll skip most of the boring details about growing up. I had a lot of difficulties with drugs and alcohol when I was a teenager and in my early twenties, I even got in trouble with the law for possession, but I turned everything around when I was 23. When I first turned my life around, I started working in a fiberglass factory and I absolutely hated it. I knew I couldn’t stick around in a job like that for long so I kept my eyes open for something that might be a better fit. One day I was shopping at Walmart and ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in quite a long time so I stopped and talked with him for a while. He told me he was a marketing manager for a home improvement company and that I should come work for him because I’d be great at it. It was a door-to-door position signing people up for free quotes for new roofs and windows. The job had a salary of $4 per hour higher than I was making at the fiberglass factory and had bonuses. I couldn’t turn it down at the time and I’m really glad I didn’t because it introduced an entirely new world to me.
I thought, “well, it’s a step up. Okay, sure, let’s do this”. I went there and was horrible at it for the first few weeks. Didn’t know what I was talking about, didn’t generate a single lead… But the second week I hit my bonus and I continued to hit bonus every week. I learned everything I could about home improvement and marketing. I worked my way up to assistant marketing manager there, then went and became co-marketing manager at another company. I was making decent money but didn’t exactly feel the best about being a door-to-door guy – I wanted to feel more professional, so I started looking for other jobs, but I had to keep in mind my record. I interviewed with quite a few companies in a lot of different industries and found a real estate brokerage that agreed they would go to bat for me if I did my classes, passed my test, and needed help petitioning the Indiana real estate commission for my license. It was a big risk deciding to jump into real estate because I could have done the classes, passed the test, then been denied my license because of my past. This was mid-2019 by the way – a year and a half after I had last gotten in trouble when I had a drug problem.
I did my class, passed my exam, and started working for the real estate brokerage doing marketing while I did all the extra stuff, I needed to show the Indiana real estate commission that I had recovered from my old issues and was no risk to the community if I had a real estate license. I got over 50 people to write me character reference letters, submitted successful completion certificates of classes I’d taken, and steps I’d made to recover from my problem – everything.
They gave me my license at the end of August 2019, so my first full year was 2020. I did amazing for my first full year. I sold almost 30 homes and was able to learn and practice new selling styles. I learned so much from being a realtor in Indiana, but ultimately, I knew I wanted to move somewhere with more people and more business opportunities and I wanted to open my own business wherever I went. I didn’t know how big the potential was in solar until I got here. I originally planned to work in home Improvement again until I got my Florida real estate license, with the idea being I’d eventually open my own home improvement company and real estate brokerage, or some type of marketing agency, but once I got here and saw the state of the solar industry, I knew I had to get involved with solar first.
The solar industry shares a lot of similarities to the home improvement and real estate industry so it was pretty easy to adapt once I learned the science of solar. I jumped in and started to learn everything I could and that’s how I got here today. The first company I went with, they weren’t a good fit for me and I didn’t know that much about the industry as a whole… Now I’ve partnered with an excellent installer who has a great reputation and I’m in the process of building my team and getting established – eventually I want to have my own company and own in-house installers, but for now, sky solar has great installers and I’m able to pass on all of their warranties and guarantees.
There are so many solar companies that use the same types of tactics here in the Tampa Bay area, it can be difficult to get going when you’re brand new, especially if you don’t know that many people to begin with. Sky solar as an entity isn’t new – they’ve been doing great work for years – however, I’m new here so I need to do everything I can to meet new people. There have been, and still are, so many companies out there who are overly aggressive or even lie when they knock on doors and make telemarketing calls. They’ll twist facts, misrepresent things, or incorrectly size systems when they do sell them to people. Then on top of that, they use old fashioned, high pressure, one call close tactics. I don’t always think companies do things like that on purpose. I don’t think very many people or companies are intentionally setting out to do people wrong. I think a lot of it is newer employees and inexperienced guys repeating things they hear or think they hear, or are given one script and that’s what they go with, not actually knowing anything else. It’s the same in-home improvement. Part of what I’m doing is educating people about the sales process, as well as giving them a fair quote while walking them through the details of that quote so they understand why it’s that much. That way – whether they ever use me for work or not, they never fall for a trick or get taken advantage of when they get solar or hire someone to work in their home. They’ll know how to determine the best companies from the worst. I walk them through the process from A-Z, explain energy-saving, other things they can do to cut costs so they can decrease the size of system they need, explain types of financing, pros, and cons, absolutely everything so that if or when they decide to do the work or if they know someone else who needs help with solar, I’m the one they call.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No. It’s been pretty tough. I’ll keep the rest of the discussion to my business here in Florida. This place is different compared to Indiana and other parts of the country. There are way more door-to-door people, there are way more telemarketers, there are way more “fly by night” companies and potential scams here in the bay area, so homeowners are much more on guard. I’ve been combining digital marketing with door-to-door, telemarketing, and other more traditional field marketing methods to connect with customers. Once I’ve connected with the homeowner, I take a more “consultive” approach, and that makes me stand out from the competition. That should significantly increase the number of people I end up working with and I believe I’ll have even better results with the tactics I’m using when I have more capital to throw at advertising. That takes extra money and time to do – and I could use more of both. That problem will work itself out in time. I also didn’t know a single person when I moved here so I couldn’t even think about referrals. I’m developing a network and getting involved with the community. I just recently became an official business affiliate of the Pinellas And Hillsborough Realtor Organizations – I’m hoping that will help separate me from the rest. I also plan on getting my Florida Real Estate license while maintaining my Indiana Real Estate Brokers’ license. Maintaining my connections and credentials in the real estate industry will help me educate and inform all of my other clients.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
So, my business as a whole in Florida Is very young. Right now, I’m fully focused on building the solar portion of my business here in the Tampa Bay area & the rest of Florida. To do that I’ve partnered with Sky Solar, and I’m technically an employee of theirs, but they know about my plans and where some of my other focuses lie. They know I’m building something inside of them that will potentially become a separate entity – but even if that were to happen, me splitting off my own company, they would still be a major partner of mine in the solar field. Eventually, I also plan to include other home improvements and real estate sale & buying services. I want to be a one-stop property shop, and the best way I think I can establish that is to come into an industry, become the trustworthy & honest “go-to” guy who people know, for a fact, will give them a straight answer. I want my clients to be able to teach other people some of the things that I share with them so they can save money or avoid getting taken advantage of. My main goal is to educate people about the science and economics of solar and solar sales process so that if they ever find themselves in a position where solar would save them a lot of money, they can capitalize on it… but I’ll also be the first to admit that it isn’t the best choice for everyone. When it is the best choice, people save thousands and thousands of dollars – and being able to help someone pay significantly less for something they were going to NEED to buy anyway – makes me feel good about it. I can have a business, make a good living, and help a lot of people, it doesn’t get much better than that. O, on top of all that I can usually beat most other companies’ prices, guarantees, and warranties. It just feels great when you can hold your head high and know you’re making a difference while doing it right and not cutting corners.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
The funny thing about COVID, I was actually here on vacation the week before everything started getting shut down, right when it was getting really big on the news. That was the trip when I decided that I would move here. I had just got a listing signed digitally while on vacation and when I got back, I had to get ready to get the home active on the market. I held the first open house when a lot of companies were mandated to be closed. Real estate was considered an essential business and it was odd trying to practice safety standards. I had masks and gloves, only let one group in at a time, and did a lot of digital open houses/showings. I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that there’s always a way to make things happen. A lot of things became easier for people like me in the sense that I could meet with most people over zoom or other video apps and it sped up everyone else’s implementation and acceptance of things I had already been doing, like digital document signatures. I know I wasn’t the only one who had to adjust to that sort of thing but I found I could do a lot more in a day when I didn’t have to drive to appointments and I could just schedule video conferences back-to-back. There’s always a way to make things happen.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected] and [email protected]
- Website: skysolar.us
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrewswanbiz/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewSwanbiz/
