Nico Johnson  0:00  

Welcome, welcome to this year's Know Before You Go R E Plus edition. If you've never listened to one of our Know Before You Go episodes, this being one of our most listened to episodes is one of those times where I bring you some of my friends in the industry who've been around for a while long enough to have gleaned some wisdom about how to maximize the moment, how to squeeze the essence out of every drop of time that you are away from your family, away from your business at these trade shows. Few are as talked about or as important in North America as RE plus formerly SPI. Yes, we all keep saying that, and it is convening this year, the week before f1 in Las Vegas, November 1718, and 19. If you're going to be in Las Vegas, as I am, I hope that this serves you well. If you're going to miss it, and you're listening just because you want to get a little bit of that conference spirit. You know, you're in for a treat. I've got some of my favorite folks in the industry here to give you a little bit of guidance about not only how they're preparing, but what unusual or unconventional ways they have learned to connect with others, and how they prep for such a big moment in the year, one in which many companies are spending hundreds of 1000s, sometimes millions, of dollars to try and connect with you. Will you be there and make the most of the moment for yourself? That's what this episode is all about. Welcome to 2026 RE Plus Know Before You Go here on SunCast. By the way, we have our own booth this year. That's right. SunCast has our pro studio live from Central Hall at Exhibit Space 4459. It's right in as you come into Central Hall. It's near our friends at Clean Tech Industry Resources. One of the guests you'll hear today. So I hope that you'll come by and see us, and you'll check out SunCast Media to see the lineup of conversations we'll be having in our studio all three days. Okay, now for our first guest, no stranger to RE Plus, Bryan Wagner is an OG who has been many times in the trenches thinking about maximizing not just the value of the trade show for your team, but for your customers. Bryan, if you are unfamiliar, is the president and GM of CPS Americas. Bryan, always great to have you on the show. Welcome.

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Bryan Wagner  2:38  

Always good to hang out with you.

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Nico Johnson  2:40  

I've always said that you guys have one of the best presence at the show because you bring so much positive energy and such a huge team. Usually tipping the scales at 3040, maybe 50 people. What's your game plan this year? We're moving into the convention center. It's a bigger venue. I'm curious, how are you sizing it up, and what are the two or three things that you are aiming to accomplish?

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Bryan Wagner  3:04  

It's twofold. It's both, you know, certainly customer focused is kind of where we start from, and then it's internal customer focus, like our internal customer being our team and all of our individuals. We do a lot of training. We get together every day. We walk through the booth, we walk through the products, we walk through messaging. Moreover, like you know, compared to just messaging, it's about you know what happens in this scenario, what happens in that scenario, how should we think about this product, what what applications, and you know, I think a lot of times it's that time to kind of sync back up. We typically always have a brand new shirt. We love our CPS swag. We love your swag too. We we still have not cracked the top swag from the show. We'll

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Nico Johnson  3:48  

keep trying. We love to

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Bryan Wagner  3:50  

keep swinging at that. But but yeah. So we love to kind of you know pretend it's like our first day of the year. This year is a little different because it's it's no longer September. Now it's in November. But that's actually we felt allowed us to prepare a little bit better for the year end, and kind of you know go into this show you know fully prepared, fully ready. You know I think the top thing we're looking to accomplish is the revamp of the brand, the revamp of the team, kind of go to one you know go to market as one team, one approach. You know kind of be thought of in the customer's lens is as creating very simple solutions for them to make quick decisions.

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Nico Johnson  4:28  

How do you prepare with such a diverse team selling products to both commercial utility scale? How do you prepare your team? Any tips for scheduling meetings, prioritizing events, or even managing your team's time?

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Bryan Wagner  4:40  

Yeah, absolutely. We we definitely focus on ensuring that everybody's has their individual outcome mapped out. Right, it's kind of like their success map, their success routine, and you know, put yourself in the in the trade show if you've been there, you know, one year, two years, five or 10 plus, you know. Everyone has a different experience, you know. Talk to your teammates. Figure out what's worked for them. Obviously, your basics of staying hydrated. You know, trying to take a seat as often as you can because you're mostly going to be on your feet, you know, for three days straight. You know, taking your breaks, right? I think. I think. You know, for me, you know, I fortunately, you know, not a not a big drinker myself, so it's kind of easy for me. If I if I went out, I you know probably a few years ago started switching to iced tea or Coca Cola.

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Bryan Wagner  5:33  

Yeah.

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Bryan Wagner  5:33  

Um. You know, even having one beer kind of throws off my next you know couple days. Totally does. Um. Sleep, obviously, it's different location, so different time zone, and and sleep becomes so critical. So I tend to go in a little bit earlier. I tend to leave a little bit later. I tend to maximize the time with with you know what we'd call friends nowadays, you know, and and partners.

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Nico Johnson  5:55  

Yeah, you and I have talked about this offline, but you know, Josh, my partner, and I have made a commitment for the last three years, that we don't drink basically from Sunday to Thursday, no alcohol, despite hosting solar fight night, hosting our power circle dinners, etc. And it has it has made all the difference. But you know, and one interesting thing is that people sort of expect that you are gonna have a drink. My go to for anybody who's looking at how do I have a not alcoholic drink without having to order a non-alcoholic drink. If you order tonic and lime, it it it is identical to a vodka soda. It's identical to a gin tonic, right? Tonic and lime, and it actually tastes good. Lo and behold, it tastes good. I enjoy it, and it's refreshing. So if you if you see me out drinking a clear liquid, it's more than likely tonic and lime. Just as an FYI, and I encourage everyone else to steal that idea because honestly, the thing that wrecks your week more than anything else I've seen is, and that steals your your attention and your energy is behaving in a manner that you would that you will regret later from staying out too late, or or or or drinking like we're like we're college kids, and we see that all too often.

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Bryan Wagner  7:05  

The first three to five years, you learn you learn learn the hard way quickly. Yeah, that you can have a lot of fun at our yeah, and we now do. It's just it's again it's about what is your desired outcome, and I think for us, it's one of our business biggest business builders every year, and now it's looking as like a multi-year investment, right? We it

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Nico Johnson  7:27  

really is.

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Bryan Wagner  7:27  

We get ROI for the next few years out of out of Arts.

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Nico Johnson  7:31  

What's your best networking hack? Anything that you go to reliably that works for you?

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Bryan Wagner  7:37  

I have to say, when I was you know kind of earlier, more inexperienced in networking, I thought it was about grabbing as many business cards as you

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Nico Johnson  7:44  

can.

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Bryan Wagner  7:45  

You know, kind of making your round as quickly as you can, making sure you're talking everyone. And you know, now I'm just very intentional. Whoever I'm with, I have to be there, even if you know you see a ton of people walking by. You're trying to say hello, and it's just staying there with that person. But one of one of my coaches kind of more or less gave me a good, you know, thing to think about that has changed the way I think about it. Is you really try to come away with when I go to Vegas at RA Plus, I'm trying to come up with one new solid relationship and potential partnership that is all you're trying to do. Maybe one, maybe two, don't stretch too far because you know if you have that one that maybe okay you know and I'm thinking of a few that that's happened over the years where I was just writing to them while I was overseas and they wrote back right away we were just talking about you we have to get together in Vegas and we and and it kind of comes from being more intentional hey you know we didn't finish that discussion. Do you have quick, quick bite to eat or grab a quick Coca Cola? I love the

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Nico Johnson  8:46  

intention of how you're structuring the thoughtfulness, and we all struggle with this, right? In particular, those of us who've been in the industry long enough or have developed a wide network, you're going to be bombarded by people coming up to you, especially as leaders, if you're leading a company and you're the host inside your booth, it's so difficult to be able to focus on that person. It's it's so very common, right? You're having a meeting at a meeting table, and someone will walk up casually as though you're not in a meeting, and just try to engage you in a conversation. And to be able to politely decline and focus back on the meeting you're on, that is a super skill. That's the advantage of these trade shows: is you can get visibility, an outsized amount of visibility if you're intentional about it. I think you guys do a great job of that, Bryan.

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Bryan Wagner  9:31  

I think here's a good example. We met, you know, we knew each other. We have a lot of game circles, and we met at a, you know, obviously, I almost said Lenny, but you know, yeah, yeah, and and with with really really getting to know each other more by being intentional and saying, okay, this one. And at that time, I didn't know that, but that's what really we were doing was

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Nico Johnson  9:54  

it was.

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Bryan Wagner  9:55  

We then had dinner together, and we're at you know at a friend mutual friend's house where. We got a chance to really sit down and get to know each other, and I'd say the same for Josh. When um, you know, if you remember Power Circle, with um, was it Colorado? We were we were yeah yeah last year

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Nico Johnson  10:13  

summer season, and

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Bryan Wagner  10:14  

that was like the intentional time that we spent together. And

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Nico Johnson  10:17  

yeah,

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Bryan Wagner  10:17  

I guess if you really lean into that, I think you know this year I'm just going into probably the first time at RE Plus that I'm really going to lean into that and really look for that like hey who's the one or two people that I really want to you know maybe follow up with to ensure that you know we really do get to know each other and you know sometimes just getting to know one another may lead to no business but

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Nico Johnson  10:37  

yeah

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Bryan Wagner  10:37  

you know may lead to some other breakthrough in a different part of your life there's all these buckets outside of just work, right? Work is kind of work, right?

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Nico Johnson  10:45  

At the end of the day, like our industry, people say it all all the time when they come into our industry. It's it's a big family, and it's very it's a very congenial community. Well, Bryan, one of the things that as as we wrap here, you're going to be looking for the one or two people, but a lot of folks are going to come in with the in their mind the one or two conversations they're talking about issues they have to overcome. What do you expect to dominate the conversation on the show floor this year?

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Bryan Wagner  11:10  

Well, I think the main question everyone's looking to from CPS is how are we responding to some of the things happening in the geopolitical side of the business, which is FCC, Fioc, Bolt Power, so I think those will dominate a lot of our conversations, and we'll be fully prepared on how we're going to be responding to those and and what we'll be doing a little bit maybe better strategically in the next 1218 months compared to maybe the last 1218 where we've been a little flat-footed in some of these topics,

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Nico Johnson  11:43  

you are not alone in that, Bryan. Well, folks are going to want to swing by right off the central hall of North Hall, not to be confused with Central Hall. These the nomenclature of these booths does get a little bit confusing. CPS America is located at booth n1 363 n1 631363, right by our friends at Trina Solar. Easy to find. They're nested right between Tijuana and Trina. Booth is twice the size. On your way out North Hall to Central Hall to see us at our studio, you'll find CPS right there on your left. If you walk in the door by Next Power and Shoals, you'll see CPS right at the end of that hallway before you turn into Central Hall. Hope that people will come by and say hello to the CPS team. Bryan, thank you so much for taking the time to join us on this note before you.

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Bryan Wagner  12:36  

You as well, Nico. Look forward to seeing you out there.

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Nico Johnson  12:41  

I would dare say that our next guest needs no introduction, and if you're watching, then many of you already recognize Ms. Abby Hopper, the CEO of Gem Advisory, formerly presidency, of course, of CIA. Is how many of you met, dear Abby? And I am also grateful to call her friend and a member of Power Circle, Abby. It's good to see you here. Welcome to this year's Know Before You Go.

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Abby Hopper  13:07  

It's so good to see you, Nico. Thanks for having me.

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Nico Johnson  13:10  

Absolutely, you have not slowed down that much since leaving your post officially about a year ago that you announced that you were leaving the post. Yeah, I got one. I just thought I'd give you a second because you just announced, sort of came out of stealth with your new plan. What's the game plan?

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Abby Hopper  13:30  

I've been thinking about what do I want to do. Right, I love this industry so much, and where do I feel like I can add some value? And it really is around not only understanding how like this fast moving energy transition, but how to use that disruption as a business strategy, right? And how to use policy, and use regulatory, and use politics, and use positioning to have a competitive advantage, and not simply kind of be monitoring all these changes. So I'm excited to work with companies and organizations and boards and and just actual humans. But I mean, you know, Nico. Like I've never I've worked in the private sector for a long time. I've never owned my own thing, so it feels very heady and super fun.

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Nico Johnson  14:15  

How are you thinking this year when, in the absence of like a million things already planned for you,

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Abby Hopper  14:21  

right?

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Nico Johnson  14:22  

How are you preparing for your time?

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Abby Hopper  14:24  

This will be my first time at RE Plus, not as the CEO of SIA. I never went before I had the job, so I'm thinking about it very differently. I'm thinking about like who are the who are the people that I don't normally get to interact with? What are the companies that I've heard a lot about and I want to meet? And then, like, I really, I'm excited to walk the show floor. I I rarely get a chance to do that, and so that's like high on my list of to-dos. Is

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Nico Johnson  14:53  

there anything in particular that you've seen folks or maybe yourself have committed in terms? But the by the way, I've. Mistakes that steal you of energy, time, etc. What's something that you've learned from previous years that has changed your approach?

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Abby Hopper  15:08  

I think that the follow up to RE Plus is really the most important. We talk a lot about the prep, and that's that's important. And the date, like, there's not that many days that we're there, but the follow up is so critical, right? That like separates the wheat from the chaff. So I have learned like tricks to how do I how do I make sure I do the follow up. So in the old school, when people would give me business cards, write on down there like what I wanted to do. Try to give voice memos of like, oh, I just met Nico. Follow up with him on a dinner in December. Oh, I just met Josh. You know, remember to send him that article about whatever like that. And so the the week after RE Plus for me is such a critical time. Is

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Nico Johnson  15:50  

there anything that has become sort of an unconventional way you build valuable connections, or maybe conventional way that just works time and time again?

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Abby Hopper  16:00  

I have tried to let people know where I'm gonna be. Like I know that might sound a little Abby centric, but you know you could spend all day running around like a wild person. But if I say, all right, you know what? I'm gonna be at Solar Fight Night. Yeah, right. I will be on the dance floor at Solar Fight Night. Indeed, I will be at you know Nico's booth at this time booth 4459

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Abby Hopper  16:24  

here right I know where it is on the map I looked and I will be here it just helps give some structure yeah you know last year I um I I'm not doing a Solar Sisters event this year but last year I just said okay everyone every Solar Sister wants to meet me on the 50 yard line at whatever 9pm. Yeah, probably like 80 people showed up. So amazing! You have such goal. I might do the same thing without a Solar Sisters moniker on it, but yeah, I'm forward to it.

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Nico Johnson  16:53  

Here's what if you're listening and you're a Solar Sister who is also a founder, yes, which which narrows it a little. Reach out to Abby; she's got an invite for you for Monday lunch. Don't miss it because you won't get this invite anywhere else.

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Abby Hopper  17:08  

Nope.

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Nico Johnson  17:09  

But Monday lunch from one to 3o'clock, you can only get there through Abby if your founder solar sister. Reach out to Abby; she's got a select handful of invites that she can give you.

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Abby Hopper  17:18  

Amazing.

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Nico Johnson  17:19  

Where else is a not is a can't miss for you as you think about structuring your time in Vegas. You mentioned fight night. Of course, you'll be at the Power Circle Lounge at booth Central Hall 4459.

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Abby Hopper  17:31  

Yep.

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Nico Johnson  17:32  

Anything else?

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Abby Hopper  17:33  

I will be at the block party. I personally like the block party because you know why?

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Nico Johnson  17:38  

Must attend.

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Abby Hopper  17:39  

It's it's really fun. They do a great job of like activities, but it's very um, it's very egalitarian, right? Everyone can go, um, and so I try to make a point to be there. You know, I used to go try to go to every party that every board member had, like run in, say hello to my board member, run out. I don't have to do that this year. Yeah,

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Nico Johnson  17:59  

you were so good at it too. I mean, it was always I I I felt like you manage an unmanageable schedule candidly, and it was always refreshing when I would see you, and and you did seem to have this sort of lightness about you, which is if nothing if nothing else, a testament to your ability to manage energy and your team's ability to manage your schedule.

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Abby Hopper  18:22  

Yeah.

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Nico Johnson  18:22  

What do you think? One of the things that you've done in particular, like particularly well, and it's obvious if anybody's listening to Boots on the Ground, the podcast you launched with Jan, that you've got your finger on the pulse. So before I let you run, what is everybody going to be talking about at this year's RE Plus?

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Abby Hopper  18:37  

Yeah. Well, we will probably be in the middle of the permitting bill debate and voting. Right, Congress is going to come back on november 9. There's going to be lots of amendments. There's going to be lots of drama. It'll be the second week after that. So I think that's all we're going to be talking about. Probably with a little flavor of midterm elections. I did. I did suggest that somebody put together a map like a AI bingo. So if you're walking around the show floor, you know every every booth is going to say AI enabled, AI platform, AI whatever. You're going to be drunk before you get down the center hall. But yeah, but a shot for every AI that that might be a lot. So I don't even think that's worth talking about because everyone's going to do it. But we're going to be in the middle of permitting reform.

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Nico Johnson  19:26  

Yeah, hopefully you guys will find a slot in our lineup at the SunCast Studio. That way people people can see it on our public calendar and they can come by and get your autograph because you know you got fans.

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Abby Hopper  19:39  

You're so funny. Where

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Nico Johnson  19:40  

can folks learn more about it if they haven't already listened to the podcast as you sign off?

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Abby Hopper  19:44  

Yes, so it's at solarwakeup.com/boots

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Nico Johnson  19:49  

boots, and then and then you've got everything already sort of up and updated on your LinkedIn. So a link to your LinkedIn here, so folks can learn more about GEM Advisory.

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Abby Hopper  19:59  

Absolutely.

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Nico Johnson  20:00  

Always a pleasure. I'll see you in Vegas. Can't wait.

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Abby Hopper  20:02  

See you in Vegas, baby.

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Nico Johnson  20:03  

If you use LinkedIn, even occasionally, I'm sure you've come across mr. Aaron Nichols. I would argue he is one of the fastest rising thought leaders in the industry because he, unlike so many, genuinely has thoughts to share and doesn't filter them through AI tools, if you don't believe me, I was

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Aaron Nichols  20:24  

joking about this the other day on LinkedIn, Nico. I posted to make people laugh, but I was like, if you're going to promote someone as a thought leader, as a thought leader in your organization, make sure they have thoughts.

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Nico Johnson  20:35  

I saw that. I loved it. It was a great post. If you're not yet following this week in Solar, well, you are behind the times. You should be subscribed to the Substack and the YouTube, which I think you guys do a phenomenal job, Aaron. It's been a tremendous pleasure watching the the rise of Aaron Nichols, and in some in some ways grabbing on to your coattails. As I also somehow have the juxtaposition of being both an admirer and a mentor, yeah, you accepted my invitation to join the SunCast crew at RE Plus this year after many, many, many people asked, "Are you going?" So I want to give you a chance to join us on this year's No Before You Go. You can ask me questions if you have them, but I have some questions for you. As I know, you've thought about the last sort of over the last month. What is the game plan? What are the top two or three things that you hope to accomplish this year as you go into your first ever RE Plus?

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Aaron Nichols  21:33  

Well, first, let me say thank you. And that introduction was amazing. I'm very grateful for that, and I owe you so much. It was it was being the editor of content at SunCast early on in my career as a freelancer that taught me most of the foundation that I've used to build this week in Solar. So just thank you for that. The

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Nico Johnson  21:54  

student becomes the teacher.

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Aaron Nichols  21:56  

Now I don't know if I have things that I want to accomplish at RE Plus so much as I'm just trying to be open to the experience because I've just heard that it's this gigantic feast for the senses, and I'm really excited to find out where my preconceived notions are wrong, as I am when I go into most situations. Yeah, because you know, I talk to my wife about this a lot. As I age, the more I realize that all strong opinions I hold will eventually be proved wrong by someone, and so it's just I'm just excited to just go in and see what it really is.

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Nico Johnson  22:34  

I wonder if there are things on your radar, either through your copious reading and writing, or the interviews you're doing, that give you you feel like give you an edge on understanding what is the zeitgeist. What are people talking about this year? What do you expect to be the industry issues or questions that bubble up in most of the conversations?

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Aaron Nichols  22:55  

The thing that has bubbled up in most of the conversations I've had recently and was huge at the Amicus conference that I just went to, and that I expect to be a big issue is plug-in solar. There is so much attention around plug-in solar right now in a way that I don't think the solar industry has seen in the larger media.

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Nico Johnson  23:16  

Yeah,

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Aaron Nichols  23:16  

I mean I've only been here three years, but it's it's incredible how many mainstream news outlets are now writing about plug-in solar. How much attention there is around like plug-in solar deployment in Europe, and what's going to potentially happen when plug-in solar hits the mass market. So that's the thing I think that I'm most excited to talk about and learn more about and see who's at the forefront of. Because I had I had another European plug-in solar expert on the podcast yesterday.

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Nico Johnson  23:46  

Okay,

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Aaron Nichols  23:46  

and just in terms of like trust signals for solar, I'm very very interested in this because as we're fighting the uphill battle against companies that went out, knocked a bunch of doors, sold cheap financing, went out of business, left people with broken solar energy systems on their roofs as we're fighting upstream against that trust. I'm very excited that lack of trust. I guess I'm very excited to see how plug-in solar shows people that solar works in a very cheap way, and then over time, like let's say they're a renter, they see it works, it lowers their bills, they eventually buy a house, and then they come to someone like Exact Solar or another installer to have a full solar energy system put on their roof. So I'm, I'm very excited to see how plug-in solar is going to offer people a cheap buy-in and just a quick trust signal that can last for a long time.

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Nico Johnson  24:37  

Yeah, it's interesting. About a decade ago, this was happening with another type of plug, electric vehicle chargers, home chargers, electricians in particular would corner a neighborhood, a market by offering some relatively subsidized service of electric vehicle charging, and then while the salesperson is there, they were able to. Start asking more questions, doing discovery, and eventually upsell. If not, then then you know down the line, an existing EV owner into a solar customer, which is a logical pathway. I fully agree with you. I've talked about this, and you know credit where credit is due. You were the first in my world to really bring plug-in solar to my to sort of the front burner for me. I remember specifically the post you did with Ryan. Actually, the week of RE Plus, I think the episode I recorded with Ryan Joshua will publish. I'm going to have

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Aaron Nichols  25:34  

Ryan's amazing. He's

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Nico Johnson  25:35  

amazing. I'm going to have a conversation coming out with Kevin from Brightsaver and Nick Josephowitz from Permit Power, there's so much happening right now. I have said this out loud that if I were to quit SunCast, the thing I would do is focus on plug-in solar. And so naturally, one of the things that we're bringing bringing to the forefront with our content is more plug-in solar content. Personally, like I could get free free devices from a number of different vendors. I've opted out of like asking people for free stuff, and I'm just going and buying the stuff that I see and like because I want to have like an unfiltered, untainted approach. Like I'm going on this climbing trip to to Red River Gorge. I'm taking I won't name the vendor, but I'm taking some off some like plug-in solar stuff and some off-grid solar stuff that I've acquired just to test it and like figure out like what works. What do what do people enjoy? You know, the thing that I'll share with this before we move on. If you didn't listen to the episode I did with Stefan Schara of Craftstrom, a big surprise out of that interview was a lot of people on fixed income see plug-in solar as the logical, right-sized solution to give them some sense of reprieve from the increasing electric bills, without having to make a full commitment of 2030, $40,000 on their home. Something in the neighborhood of two to $5,000 can get many people. And he was saying, increasingly, he's seeing like people in their 60s, 70s, 80s on fixed income saying, "Yeah, I'll buy a a 2500 a $5,000 system from you and and plug it in and and and let

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Aaron Nichols  27:07  

me let me just say too, like I set up a system that even though a company sent me an inverter to test, yeah, the total cost of materials would have been less than $1,000, right? And I'm testing it in stealth mode. It's been plugged into my house for the last month and a half. Nothing has happened, and I think what I'm interested in about plugging solar is not only like I'm interested in the value of people taking energy into their own hands because I just it aligns with my values so well. But I'm also far more interested personally in just the impact that solar can have on off gridders, DIYers, that sort of stuff, rather than I am interested in the big utility scale stuff because I just think those are so much more tangible, interesting individual stories. And so the thing I'm most interested in about plug-in solar is that the precedent has never been seen before. This is the first time that people can own an energy generating resource and tie it into the grid without any kind of approval, without engineering, without permitting. So that's what I'm fascinated by because as soon like policy is always a little crack that opens, and then someone gets in and opens it just further and further and further, and then eventually just rips it open. So I'm excited to see what comes of this.

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Nico Johnson  28:25  

Love it, Aaron. Before I let you go, one of the things that I perceive you do really well, and we haven't had a chance to really hang out much at trade shows, and RE Plus is kind of the the granddaddy of the trade shows in in America, at least 50,000 people. What's your approach to maybe unconventional ways to make valuable connections in person?

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Aaron Nichols  28:47  

I think be yourself is cliche, but I when I met my wife, she pointed out that as you age, the cliches become more true. I would say just don't try to be anything that you're not, and don't pretend to be overly interested in things that you are not. And if you don't know something, say that. That's been one of the most valuable pieces of advice I've ever gotten. I read that actually in John Cleese's autobiography when I was 22. He was one of the Monty Python guys, and he talked about what an incredible moment in his life it was the day he realized that he could just rather than pretending he knew about something and just expounding nonsense, he could be like, "Yeah, I don't actually know anything about that." And then you don't look like an idiot. And the person who knows something about the thing gets excited to explain it to you. Right. So that would probably be my top tip: just don't pretend to be anything you are, and don't pretend to know things that you don't.

‍

Nico Johnson  29:44  

I love it. So, what should folks who invariably want to come and hang out with you at the SunCast Studio? What should they ask you about? What is it that you are likely to have more knowledge about than they are? That's a good conversation starter.

‍

Aaron Nichols  29:58  

Plug in solar. I'm very much on a Stoic philosophy kick right now, so I would love to talk about the Stoics. Anything regarding off-grid camping, overlanding, really interesting off-grid setups, off-grid cabins, like using Starlink in the backcountry, anything to do with nature, protecting public land, though any of that, you'll get you'll get the what you'll get the biggest rant from me you could possibly ask for.

‍

Nico Johnson  30:26  

Fantastic. Now, if you are listening, and your company is bringing something plug-in solar or similar related to market, and you'd like Aaron and our man on the street video crew to come by your booth, raise your hand, reach out, email team@suncast.me and let us know. We'll see if we can get you in the lineup. Aaron will be going around with our executive producer Hutch and our videographer doing some man on the street interviewing. If you like to be in our RE plus video roundup, raise your hand. We'll see if we can fit you into our quickly filling up schedule again. Email team@suncast.me. Aaron, look forward to seeing you in Vegas, my friend.

‍

Aaron Nichols  31:11  

Yeah, I can't wait, man.

‍

Nico Johnson  31:15  

Ardes Johnson is the CEO for NeaVolta, a domestic manufacturer of battery energy storage, and more recently announcing a financing platform, and many many other things to come. Ardes, it's so good to see you again. I can't wait to hear all that you've got planned for RE Plus. Welcome to the show.

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Ardes Johnson  31:33  

Hey, Nico, good to see you again too.

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Nico Johnson  31:35  

Yeah, man. Off the top, something that caught my eye. Might as well bring it up. You guys be talking a lot with your customers about it, but you just announced this partnership with Luminia. You're bringing a TPO product to market. I'm curious, why now? What's the what's the impetus for a a new financing platform for the industry?

‍

Ardes Johnson  31:53  

Yeah, for for us, we look at the financing platforms are the big driver in terms of how you get residential and and CNI product to market, and one of the things that I always like to say is I want to be in control of my own destiny. Right? I think us having the TPO allows us to control our destiny as a product manufacturer, and it's somewhat unique in that sense. So we're bringing that to the table. We'll be using that on our residential product to start, but we'll ultimately, as we start to produce CNI product in our factory outside of Atlanta, we'll be utilizing that TPO for that as well. Lumineo's got a long experience in that, and with the people that the team that they have, and I wouldn't say we just started it. We've been working on it for months now. To be honest with you,

‍

Nico Johnson  32:34  

oh yeah, it

‍

Ardes Johnson  32:34  

was driven when the the new rules for fiat fiat compliance came out, and the new ITCs and the rules around that, in terms of being able to receive it, we wanted to ensure that our product, which is compliant by third-party auditors and which is able to be used under a TPO platform, that we are going to deploy it. So part of it was not only to control our own destiny, but to be able to deploy our new products that we're launching.

‍

Nico Johnson  32:57  

Ardes, this is not certainly not your first rodeo. Many are probably longtime friends of yours in the previous executive roles you've held. So you've been to RE Plus, and in fact been on this show with your activities RE Plus in past years. How does this year stand apart for you as an executive working to bring a team and product to a show that is considered by many, you know, the the most important show of the year.

‍

Ardes Johnson  33:24  

Yeah, you know, to be honest with you, we were we were even having questions about what our role and participation was going to be in the show earlier in the year. But at the end of the day, with everything that we've been doing over the past 12 months, we're utilizing RE Plus to almost be a kind of coming out party for NeaVolta in a sense, you know, we're our name is getting out there more and more every day. But I want us to be at the forefront of people's minds when they think about energy storage from a from not only from a capability and a manufacturing perspective, but from a mindset and and from policy and everything that we're driving. We believe that NeaVolta is going to be a big player in that in the coming years. So we're going to be utilizing this one to really introduce our our new products in the residential space, the coming products in CNI, and ultimately the coming products in the near term and utility scale space across all three portfolios. And I understand RE Plus is very busy, and a lot of things happen over time. You want to try to get nuggets, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. You want to get in front of customers. You want to hear from trade show experts. You want to hear from the industry. You want to see where your competitors are. To be honest with you, but for us, it's really about building alignment around what our strategy is, and that is a multi-platform, the multi-product platform that is NeaVolta, and going from who we were historically, which was you know a couple guys in a garage building a residential product to try to get into a marketplace when there wasn't a lot of product to be had back in 2016 17 and 18. Yeah, so we're going to something new, and we want to really splash it out to to the audience.

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Nico Johnson  34:55  

Ardes, as a as a CEO as an executive, how do you organize? What what advice do you have, or how do you think about organizing your team to be the most effective as an exhibitor at the show? What what would you say say to your other peers who are bringing teams to the show that has worked well for you?

‍

Ardes Johnson  35:12  

Yeah, I what I find in particularly in an environment when you've got people who are focused on different things and and you know and not necessarily thinking about the cohesive strategy of the of the upper levels, and and it's fair for them to be thinking that. So someone's really thinking on residential, someone's thinking on TPO, someone's thinking on CNI, someone's thinking on utility. It's to start to build that alignment about what we want to do. So we want to people we do cross pollinate a lot of what we do with our team. I try to I try to find a way as a leader to kind of lead without drama. You know, you want to be in you want to be in the front of the of the of the pack with your team leading the way in. But I also want to make it to where we're like, hey guys, let's breathe, let's understand where we are, but understanding what the broader strategy is, so that now we don't get in a situation where we have people that are focusing on what they want to focus on and have a negative effect on the other things. Guys, we're all together in this. Let's come together at the cohesive strategy at the highest level, and support is needed as the show goes on. We may hit more opportunities in one place than the other. We may need people to support that, and it's all about doing that in a way that we're you know in the teamwork and and that allows us to make decisions very quickly. One of our core strategies is we we like to say ready, fire, aim, course correct. Right, that's what we do, and and that's really who we are because we need to make decisions. I mean, a year ago and now we were saying what are we going to do with Fiat? Fast forward 12 months, just 12 months. I have a factory in Atlanta, Georgia, that is making product for utilities, catalytic, and I, and a lot of that would never happen in some of my previous roles based on the indecisiveness of some of the leadership. So when I came on board, it's like we're going to make decisions, right? And correct when they and they if they don't work or if there's there's things that need to be abbreviated or you know adjudicated along the way, should say, and you make it happen. We'll do that, but but make decisions and bring the team. That's what people like.

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Nico Johnson  37:10  

Ardes, what do you think customers are most concerned about or looking for as they come in to Vegas this year?

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Ardes Johnson  37:18  

Yeah, I think they're looking for. There's a lot of questions continued around the foreignity of concern and compliance, and people like we need decisions, we need answers from the IRS, we need Treasury to give us appropriate guidance. And I tell people, I've been doing this since 2012, whether it's in solar or energy storage. You don't necessarily want the government to give you the exact answer, you know, because you're never really going to get the answer that you like. So what they're doing is they're giving you guidance. You go work with third party professionals that help you give that guidance, and you rely on that guidance. My history says that if you do that, the worst case scenario you get say, "Hey, don't do that anymore," right? But what is currently driving out is indecision. People being indecisive, and we have a lot of experts out there trying to make predictions about what's going to happen and what people are going to say. And I can tell you, I've been to D.C. several times over the past this year, and you know sometimes you're talking with Treasury, and they don't even know what they want to say, but they want to hear from us as manufacturers. They want to understand what our pain points are, and so we're talking about those. So I think a lot of people are going to be there to understand what are we doing around that, and what are others doing around that. But particularly, everything that we're doing is built on that precept that we're going to onshore U.S. jobs, we're going to onshore U.S. manufacturing, and no matter how you look at it, from either side of the political aisle, that is going to continue to be in play for the next, you know, decade. I would say for sure.

‍

Nico Johnson  38:47  

Well, artist, thank you for taking the time to join us here on this no before you go episode. For those who are looking to maybe meet with NeaVolta, they could be found in Central Hall c7 208. Artist, is there anything else that you would leave our listeners with? The

‍

Ardes Johnson  39:03  

thing I would say is, you know, you can find out information about us on our website and go to our website neovolta.com forward slash re 2026 and book a meeting with us. We'd love to sit down and talk to you about our products and solutions. And looking forward to working with you in the future.

‍

Nico Johnson  39:18  

Likewise, I'll see you in a few weeks, my friend.

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Ardes Johnson  39:20  

All right, thanks, Nico.

‍

Nico Johnson  39:22  

Someone who's no stranger to participating and even putting on events in this industry is our next CEO, Ann Will is the founder and CEO of Groundwork Renewables, and I always enjoy seeing you at these events. Not only your wonderful hosted dinners, but the folks at your booth are always really fun to hang out with. I look forward to seeing you in Vegas. Welcome to the show.

‍

Ann Will  39:50  

Great to see you, Nico.

‍

Nico Johnson  39:51  

And you are a steady plotter and a planner. And so I'm going to kick things off with what's your game plan this year? He's moving over to a bigger venue at the convention center. What's the plan? What are the two to three things that you hope to accomplish in this year's RE Plus?

‍

Ann Will  40:08  

Yeah, so we have one question we want the industry to be thinking about about which is how do you know your modules are performing as expected? Your solar panels. So right now most owners don't. Everything else on the plant has a sensor on it, so we've launched our module monitoring program at RE Plus. We are going to be measuring a sample of modules in the field continuously from day one. So when a lender or buyer asks, you'll have an answer.

‍

Nico Johnson  40:34  

Amazing.

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Ann Will  40:34  

And we will have in our booth the actual instrument that we're releasing into the market, the module monitor, and we'll be working with our clients and and folks that walk up to the booth to kind of share the story of the program. The second thing, Nico, we're doing is we're going to be promoting our partnership with a Nerdis app plus that is a tying their factory inspection of the module manufacturing factory to the lab work that we do, so you'll have like one report from the factory all the way to the field. This is like once you deploy

‍

Nico Johnson  41:10  

quality assurance factory to field.

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Ann Will  41:12  

Yep, exactly. Amazing quality assurance factory to field of your solar modules. Perfect. I might have to borrow that.

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Nico Johnson  41:18  

Yeah. Yes, I will. How? And I've watched you grow this business from you know being scrappy startup, you know doing whatever it takes to get meetings to holding court at big dinners and you know having your own space on the show floor. Can you talk a bit about how you prepare for the show and how you prepare your team scheduling, prioritizing events, managing everyone's time.

‍

Ann Will  41:44  

Yeah, the first thing is full court press. We don't just bring salespeople to RE Plus. We bring all of our engineers, our scientists, our executives. It's the best week of the year to finally sit in person with the people that you've been on Zoom with. All of our meetings are booked before we fly, so all of our client meetings every week right now on our sales call we're tracking you know the meeting counts that have been scheduled, and then I think the big thing changing into this year is you know really recording or you know the conversations. So if we're taking a meeting in person with a client, we're going to be talking about 10 different things. We're going to make sure and with permission record that meeting so that we really walk away with all of the actions because so many when you you know people are excited to meet up in person and they just want to tell you so many things at once. Yeah, absolutely. And so you want to make sure you're capturing all of all of the ways that you can help your customers. So, so that's that's important for us as well.

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Nico Johnson  42:49  

If we separate the signal from the noise, what do you think is going to be one of the core themes? You know, one or two things that everyone in the industry is going to be talking about at this year's show.

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Ann Will  42:58  

I think the industry is growing up, and when you're you're becoming, you know, what is required to be firm power and a huge portion of now, you know, the electricity that's on the grid, we need to get every last electron out of it. And so that's, I think, you know, how are these plants performing? And that's what we've been talking a lot about. So you know we call it the expectation gap, like the difference between what you expected and what you're actually outputting. And now it's about how do we take that and optimize it and start looking at those areas of losses and and making sure we're delivering the firmest power we can to data centers into the grid.

‍

Nico Johnson  43:38  

And one of the things that everyone looks forward to is not just on the show floor, but off the show floor, the evenings. And I'd love to hear how you think about dividing and conquering. What events and sort of unconventional approaches you take to making sure that you guys get out to the various activities? And what are your favorites? What are the highlights for you off the show floor?

‍

Ann Will  43:59  

Well, my absolute favorite is our own client dinner. It's a softball you're giving Nico. You know, we started that in 2011 or 12 in Vegas, and we were like, "What if we invited our clients to to dinner and to a single dinner?" And at first, we were like, "Well, you know, they're competitors," and you know, it was always a a little bit of a you know, does that make sense? And now it's you know, I feel like it's one of the hottest tables in in town. But of course, I'm biased. It's one of my favorite events of

‍

Nico Johnson  44:32  

the year.

‍

Ann Will  44:33  

Yeah, and and getting you know getting everybody together to talk about you know, kind of the same. Everybody's trying to solve for the same problem. So you know now I'm very happy to set you know a performance engineer from one EPC next to another to talk about you know how they're getting through capacity tests and hopefully we create a space for that and a space for people to kick back and have fun and chat. So our client dinner is a big thing. It's on. Tuesday night of the of the

‍

Nico Johnson  45:02  

it's it's genuinely one of my must attend events and my my team even the the solar fight night team know that I'll be coming

‍

Ann Will  45:10  

yeah

‍

Nico Johnson  45:11  

later to that because I'm coming from your dinner yeah

‍

Ann Will  45:14  

and then as you know because you've seen this before I'm obsessed with seating charts

‍

Nico Johnson  45:19  

yeah

‍

Ann Will  45:20  

so I actually have my own hand in where everyone sits because I really am like, oh, that person needs to talk to this person about this. They have this in common, whether it's personal or whether it's business. You know, I really like mixing people up and mixing them together, so they're all not like you know one team's not all sitting together, and you get really mixed up and and get to talk to people,

‍

Nico Johnson  45:42  

and you've had a lot of experience with sort of building culture within your company. I'm curious how that extends to the ways you think about building valuable connections, perhaps in unconventional ways when you're out in public at these events.

‍

Ann Will  45:57  

I think the biggest strategy is is speak to all people in the same way, right? You know, I think it's fascinating to talk to, you know, an intern that's joined us at RE Plus or a student and what their perspective is, all the way through to an executive. I I think I've led my life that way, right? I think you find out more if you just just meet everyone where they're at, yeah, and you know, there's always a good nugget from every conversation. Yeah, everybody's always trying to solve interesting problems, and don't limit yourself in any way with whom you speak with, whether it's a a competitor or a client or a you know, don't just be chasing that one conversation that you think you need to have. Have all the conversations. So

‍

Nico Johnson  46:46  

yeah, serendipity is is something that is quite useful at these events.

‍

Ann Will  46:51  

And I and I think the how can you help? How can I help you? Right? Like you know, like is is just a way to approach it and across all of those of those little touch points, so,

‍

Nico Johnson  47:04  

and I can't wait for the opportunity to say hello to you in person at your event or perhaps at your booth. Speaking of which, if folks want to find you on the show floor and come say hello themselves, what's the best way for them to do that? Where are you located?

‍

Ann Will  47:20  

So we're going to be groundwork, and we're at Central Hall in 6544. So

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Nico Johnson  47:26  

6544, and of course we're going to link all of this in the show notes. If you guys are trying to find her and you're sort of listening to this and making notes, you're going to find her in Central Hall, kind of over by Motorola and in Verus and Solar, like in that area of Central Hall.

‍

Ann Will  47:40  

Yeah, and hit me up over LinkedIn if you want to meet. I love scheduling the meetings ahead of time. We'll be running, you know, four to five meetings at the booth at any time. So

‍

Nico Johnson  47:49  

magic. We'll make sure that folks can find you very easily. And Will is CEO of Groundwork Renewal. Go find her at RE Plus. Thanks, Ann.

‍

Ann Will  47:56  

Bye, Nico.

‍

Nico Johnson  47:57  

Returning for I don't know if the fourth or fifth no before you go, is longtime friend, industry advocate, and one of the best promoters the industry has ever known, mr. Daniel Deuce, the CEO and co-founder of Clean Tech Industry Resources. Deuce, always a pleasure to see you.

‍

Daniel Dus  48:16  

Those words coming out of your mouth, the number one hype man for clean tech is you know all all aces.

‍

Nico Johnson  48:22  

Yeah, man, I appreciate you so much. And obviously, invariably, in every note before you go, in every conversation, and in countless emails and texts I get ahead of the show, folks are asking questions about what we refer to as the Met Gala of solar, the biggest party of the year, Solar Fight Night. I want to preempt lest folks think we're going to yet again go super down the rabbit hole on Fight Night in two days' time. If you're listening to this as it publishes, we have a whole episode where Daniel and I go into what's the value and the benefit of Fight Night and why do we do all this? Like, what is it for? Because so many people ask, and we don't really ever get a chance to give it proper attention. So, Daniel, before we get into sort of your plans for RE Plus, why don't you give us like 30 seconds, like the the preamble, the elevator pitch on why what Wi-Fi Night exists, and folks can tune in on Thursday to hear the longer conversation.

‍

Daniel Dus  49:15  

Well, it was founded, as you know, as a small group, just over a dozen folks, about 18 years ago, talking about how to stay in business, how to get any deal done at all, and how to execute projects for the first time, and it has grown literally every year, year over year, into a larger, more formidable group of industry leaders and folks that are especially excited to network in order to get the folks in the room to get projects done, advance projects, and advance the cause for the industry. Right? The name Fight Night. We do not have a live fight. There's no fight. Folks ask every year. We do not actually put on gloves. We do have gloves if you want to jump. To my knowledge, there's never

‍

Nico Johnson  49:57  

been a fight. Like I've never seen anybody fight. Which is a testament. Only the the

‍

Daniel Dus  50:01  

sun goddess and the fossil fuel villain once they did put in a ring and they did duke it out. But yeah, that was that was it. No actual fighting. The name comes from the fact that the industry has been a struggle to grow. Right, even when things are going great, then the next thing you know, wrenches get thrown in our path, and so that we it's an honor to that tradition. I don't expect it to get easy, and so it will never be Solar Easy Night. We'll continue the fight, and this is the group of folks leading the way. Really, they're all in one room.

‍

Nico Johnson  50:32  

And if folks are still looking for tickets, where can they get them?

‍

Daniel Dus  50:35  

SolarFight night.org is where the tickets are. I think we have roughly 25 of our 30 sponsorships are sold. We still have a few sponsorships left. We're already headed to 2000 tickets, which means we're hitting last year's record already. With still several weeks out to go. Yeah, amazing for sure. We're breaking another record. Goal is 3000 tickets so that we can donate over 100 grand to our nonprofit recipients this year that'd be amazing. Vote Solar Run on Climate and the folks doing amazing work with Don't Mess with Solar, the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition. So yeah, really excited to support this group.

‍

Nico Johnson  51:11  

Amazing, we'll be at the most advanced nightclub in North America, Zook. Once again, it is an amazing venue. It's so good that not that the folks at Create have it the next night, so be sure to get your ticket. It's for a great cause, and it is a great time. It's considered by many the best party at Ari Pass. Okay, moving right along, Deuce, you said leading into this that you are the most prepared you've ever been. Talk to me about your game plan and what do you hope to accomplish this year? As it's the that you feel the most prepared. What is the top two or three things that you want to accomplish?

‍

Daniel Dus  51:46  

Well, first of all, this is formed in the crucible of making tons of mistakes over the past 18 years and approaching the conference in the wrong way in different ways. And so this year we are starting off with our team building event on Sunday because if you wait to the end of the week, people are thrashed. Yeah, it's no good. So this year we're heading Stratosphere. We're going to the big dig. We're going to get folks into some heavy equipment, and we're doing Cirque du Soleil to so the team can have some fun, see Vegas, experience Vegas before we kick off the marathon, and then we get a suite for executive level meetings, personally for the old folks like me, I'm probably not going to leave the suite very often. So we'll have executive catered meetings there, which can provide for a quieter, more productive environment. But then we have got a booth in the main hall, and management team will be there. Also, senior team members they're probably going to stay pretty planted at the booth location, and then the the 20 somethings, the 30 somethings, more junior team members, they're going to be on the show floor all week, meeting with vendors, clients, and partners. And so, that kind of mixed triaged approach, based on energy level, ambition, and capability, and ability to walk, you know, 20 to 30 miles, is how we've triaged the week, and of course, leaving plenty of time for Solar Fight Night Tuesday night, and plenty of recovery time Wednesday morning. So, I feel like finally, after a lot of trial and error, we've hit the sweet spot for productivity for our entire 20-person team.

‍

Nico Johnson  53:16  

Is there anything that you've learned about managing expectations and your team's time and energy at the show.

‍

Daniel Dus  53:24  

You know, if you do not have your schedule exactly locked in, you can leave some block time, right, to go explore the floor. But if you land in Vegas without a concrete schedule, you are you are toast. There's no chance that you're going to recover and get a plan together on the ground. It's just too chaotic. There's not enough planning time, so our entire team, every one of our 20 team members, is going to have their schedule from the moment they wake up until the end of the day is going to be planned, scheduled, and locked down.

‍

Nico Johnson  53:52  

Yeah,

‍

Daniel Dus  53:52  

that's the way you have to do it. Everyone is busy. Everyone gets their calendars get booked up, and so we do leave time to walk the floor and make sure everyone gets to be exposed to the breadth of the industry and and things that we didn't expect. But plan there's no there's no such thing as planning ahead too in too deep too much detail.

‍

Nico Johnson  54:11  

One of your sort of event hacks year a few years ago that you shared that always stuck with me is you start as much as six months out booking restaurants for your team and for your meetings, so that you have the reservation as soon as those favorite restaurants you have are open. You'll book a reservation because they they fill up so quickly. Never more true than now. Like Vegas is going to be crawling and crazy because it's the week before f1. So I I think that's still a timeless recommendation. Is there anything that you have found as a particularly effective or maybe unconventional strategy for making valuable connections in that week?

‍

Daniel Dus  54:52  

You know, unfortunately, it's the boring stuff. It's get your profile set up immediately. Reach out in the app. Yeah, to folks that are new, get your email campaigns going early and often. It's really the block and tackle push because we're all so busy, we're all inundated with communication and planning, and so you really have to push hard to get on the right calendars that are really going to add value to your schedule. And so it's it's no kind of special sauce there, other than elbow grease, and take advantage of the phenomenal tools that the conference and modern technology make available for you. Right?

‍

Nico Johnson  55:28  

Yeah, could not agree more. The conference app. I find so many people don't think about downloading it until they get there, and that right. And and by then, like you don't even know how to navigate the app. You're already running from meeting to meeting. It can be an asset. It gets better every year because they have these beacons, and it actually will tell you you're 10 minutes away from your next meeting. What a godsend! Like years ago, we were meeting missing meetings because it was just not clear. Like, how do I find this person that's on a different floor? You can short circuit that by downloading and getting familiar with the app ahead of time. And even one thing I know your team is doing, and my team is doing, is get in the app early, and you can like you can just like scrape the app for contacts and names, and you can yeah outreach to hundreds of people. There's no limit to the number of people you can outreach to. Everybody who registers to use the app gets a chance to say yes, I'm available for connection and networking. My team reaches out to most of those folks and says hello, stop by, check us out. Here's our lineup. So I encourage people. Yeah, it's an underutilized resource.

‍

Daniel Dus  56:32  

Nico, we're neighbors. That's right. So for folks coming by to see Nico and the SunCast Lounge right around the corner, CIR will have our booth. I don't know, 15 feet away. So please, it's unbelievably close.

‍

Nico Johnson  56:45  

And what's it's really it's kismet because almost every year since since Anaheim 22, you have had your like you've had a location like a meeting location inside of one of our stages. This year we opted out of doing a stage, and yet through the alignment of the stars, our booth literally by happenstance ended up just as close as they were last year, which is amazing. Perfect. Yeah, it's perfect. Before we wrap, you have so many conversations with that are consequential moments in our industry around projects that are happening and sort of the hurdles folks are overcoming. You know where many of the skeletons are buried. As we go into Las Vegas, what's everyone going to be talking about? Which industry issues or questions you expect to dominate conversations this year?

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Daniel Dus  57:32  

Yeah, of course it's going to be broken down by industry segment. The utility segment has its own set of challenges, primarily around permitting, etc., and the CNI space, which is blossoming right now, has a deploy, deploy, deploy bottleneck, which is exactly what we're structured to set up to solve for. But I really think that there are going to be a ton of conversations about how do we hit the December 27 deadlines in the CNI space? How do we sprint that fast? It doesn't leave much room, especially when we have 232 and other wrenches, like I said, being thrown at us as we're sprinting towards the finish line. And so, flexibility, moving fast. I've never seen time be so so cost so costly. Project delays can be so costly in this environment because of the amount of risk and and how quickly things are changing. So I do think that speed to power across all segments is really top of mind for everybody. It's a sprint to the finish line on these portfolios and projects, and I expect to have a lot of conversations about how to pull things forward, do more sooner in project deployment, in order to see more projects be successful. That's that's what I I think we'll probably be focused on.

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Nico Johnson  58:47  

And Daniel, outside of Solar Fight Night, how do you think about organizing the time away from the show floor?

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Daniel Dus  58:54  

Yeah, so we have OG Fight Night Monday night. That's our sponsors only, invite only event. Of course, I'm always at the Power Circle event, and so I'm looking forward to that Monday. Outside of that OG Fight Night and Fight Night, I'm pretty much toast and usually in in client meetings and one on ones. But my team will be registered for sort of the premier vendor OEM events in order to make sure that those relationships are tight. We want to make sure we understand their product roadmaps, what's coming, what to expect out of both pricing and technology curves, and so they're going to spend a ton of time making sure they get those one-on-one discussions with folks in person because those, as you know, are invaluable. So that's really how we've been focused on scheduling our extracurriculars.

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Nico Johnson  59:41  

Do you have a special way for folks to schedule time with you? Do you have a fancy URL or anything like that?

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Daniel Dus  59:47  

Yeah, we have our standard Microsoft booking link, so nothing, nothing super fancy. We've got someone that acts as the center point to controlling the several spaces that we have at at the show. So most folks reach out to me. On LinkedIn or anyone on my team, and would love to get scheduled. Yep, and of course, hope to see everyone at Fight Night. Hopefully, we're going to have a lot to celebrate, and there'll be a vibe shift in the air, sir.

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Nico Johnson  1:00:11  

Indeed. So, Solar Fight night.org and cleantechindustryresources.com. You'll find CIR and Daniel and his team at their booth at Central Hall 4761, literally just around the corner from the SunCast booth 4459. Hope we'll see you all in Central Hall, Daniel. As always, great to see you here. Can't wait to hang out in Vegas.

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Daniel Dus  1:00:33  

Yeah, see you in Vegas.

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Nico Johnson  1:00:35  

For years, I showed up at trade shows, and there was one smiling face in the crowd. I knew I had to go see. It was one of the most fun people I knew. It was one of the people I absolutely knew was going to be dressed to the nines or dressed in his favorite track suit. Either way, he was dressed to impress. That guy is Chris Felkamp. If you haven't met Chris, I would highly encourage you to go by and find him. And in a few minutes, you'll see exactly why I think so highly of him. Chris is the senior director of sales for Renewables DG at Forgent. Now that is a mouthful, Chris. It's great to finally have you on SunCast, my friend.

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Chris Felkamp  1:01:09  

Thank you, my friend. It's I appreciate the compliments, but we all know the well-dressed person at every show is mr. Nico. So, but I appreciate. I'd like to say a number two.

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Nico Johnson  1:01:19  

Yeah, man. Well, I, you know our track suits for Solar Fight Night are in fact modeled after the famous Terra Smart track suits. Just if you didn't realize them again,

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Nico Johnson  1:01:29  

yeah, exactly. We got a new one coming out this year. So Chris, you know it's not for nothing. I wanted to have you on because we both have been in the trenches for years. The ground game for sales and biz dev, one way or the other, by hook or crook, leads you through and into the conference circuits. It's one of those things you kind of have to do, but maybe someone say we get to do and we enjoy it because it kind of is a family reunion. How many years have you have you been going? Have you have you counted up how many years you've gone to RE Plus.

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Chris Felkamp  1:02:01  

I was actually trying to figure it out before I jumped on this with you, and I think it was Dallas. I want to see 16 years now. I think Dallas was my first

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Nico Johnson  1:02:08  

one. Yeah, Dallas was either 2010 or 2011. Yeah, dude.

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Chris Felkamp  1:02:12  

Yeah,

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Nico Johnson  1:02:12  

that's a long time, man. That's wild because I feel like is Dallas the one? We're gonna ramble a little bit. Is Dallas the one that like you'd walk through and then it stepped down and you walk into the back room and you guys were right on the other side of that. It was like nearly almost like oh god that was in

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Chris Felkamp  1:02:29  

my young that was in my young age I was in my

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Nico Johnson  1:02:31  

so random that we have these anchored memories. Really, it's so random that we have these anchored memories. But one of the reasons, and I tell people this all the time, is my life motto is be memorable, and one thing that always stood out to me is how throughout your career I've seen you just sort of champion this idea of like stand out in other people's minds, and so I'm going to talk a little bit about sort of the game plan, the ground game that you take into trade shows because I think that you have thought about it a lot. At least you you show up as someone who seems prepared. I wonder at a macro level, in particular with like MGM Forgent, when you go into RE Plus this year in Vegas, what's your game plan? What's it? What are the two or three things that you hope to accomplish? And you're coming at it from the sales and business development perspective.

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Chris Felkamp  1:03:18  

Yeah, I think that's a good question. You know, I think one of the things that to very make it simple is just making, like we talked about, just making connection with with friends, making connections with new people. I'd like to think that I'm just a people person. I just enjoy talking to people and enjoy developing relationships. And I think people like to buy from people. My dad always taught me that as a kid. So

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Nico Johnson  1:03:38  

yeah,

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Chris Felkamp  1:03:39  

that's primarily what I always kind of started is just really connecting with existing clients, and then trying to you know go talk with new people that maybe we just never really had that that one-on-one time together over the years. It's it's funny because a lot of times people I've talked to I've never actually sold to for many years.

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Nico Johnson  1:03:57  

Yeah. So

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Chris Felkamp  1:03:57  

now with the new opportunity of Forgent, it's kind of changed a little bit too because I was at one company for a long time previous to to be here at Forgent. So yeah,

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Nico Johnson  1:04:04  

how do you, especially now that you are kind of wearing a new suit, you're in a bit of a more corporate role now than the decade prior. How are you thinking about preparing for this particular trade show, this RE Plus? It's one of the biggest in history. It's moving to the conference center. You know, any tips on prioritizing your events, managing your time and your meetings?

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Chris Felkamp  1:04:28  

Depending on you know the kind of person, whether you're you're new or you've been doing this, I think everybody has a different approach. I start to talk to people that I've been working with, just my current clients. Obviously, making sure that you know those relationships are always touched first because we're obviously continuing quoting new stuff for them, and then to continue to build on that as we you know we have new products such as switchgear and all kinds of different electrical equipment now. So, so one of the things I like to do other than that is also looking at all the networking events, looking at all the individual opportunities of training because a lot of people do a lot of. Training as well, and then just organically just going out and just meeting people, and just always having business cards, having a smiling face, and candidly just talking to any person I can talk to.

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Nico Johnson  1:05:11  

Do you carve time out? And I find this so hard for folks like us that been in the industry for a long time and like have meetings, sort of this meeting cadence. But do you carve time to walk the show floor.

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Chris Felkamp  1:05:22  

I would like to say I do. I truthfully don't at this point. I try to as I get a little bit older, and I realize it's it's good for me to maybe have like an extra half hour to maybe just go grab a coffee, go grab something to eat, and then typically that's what I like to do is just go watch the you know go walk the trade show. But what typically happens is you probably know too as you start seeing people as you're walking, and you're only two two rows over, and you don't get to walk around. So

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Nico Johnson  1:05:47  

seriously, yeah, I do. I do two things that I want you to borrow this year. I walk the show floor usually because we're setting up a booth or whatever stage. I'll walk the show floor and I'll sort of look around and anchor, you know, my coffee snob. So I'll find like who has, you know, how REC always had the best coffee historically. I'll find like who within walking distance of where I'm going to be has the best coffee, and then who's the next best coffee, and I'll anchor on them, right? And so I'll just I'll go I like trade around and go, and I'll make friends with the baristas because I'll be getting like two three coffees a day, even though if I've got coffee at my own place, and then the other is, I'll schedule walking meetings. And I know this year in particular, nobody's talked about walking meetings, Chris. But you and I should have a walking meeting, and it will guarantee us that we will see like some block of the show floor while we talk, and it gives us an excuse, like bake it in walking meeting with Chris 4o'clock on X day, and you just know at that time you're going to get to stretch your legs, you're going to get to walk around the meetings. We're we're so obsessive about like trying to have them back to back in a place, like maybe your booth. I encourage you to get out of the booth and having anchors like where's the good coffee is a good excuse if nothing else, you know, a lot of times we learn from mistakes that we make, and I'm curious if you have seen people making mistakes that they should avoid, or something that even you've learned in previous years that has changed your approach to trade shows.

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Chris Felkamp  1:07:12  

I think I think one of the biggest thing I've learned is just to pace myself and do quality over quantity.

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Nico Johnson  1:07:18  

Yeah.

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Chris Felkamp  1:07:18  

In the past, obviously, you want to you want to do everything, and I'm I'm just kind of I'm wired that way. I'm sure a lot of people are wired that way to do everything. Usually by day three, I've lost my voice. So yeah, I think one of the biggest things I always try to do is is it's a big event. Remember, it's there's a lot of people. You know, focus kind of your eye on the prize and kind of what you're you know you're trying to accomplish. Whether it's talking to five specific people or talking to you know to your big clients, or taking them out for dinner. I try to really just make sure I think just pacing myself and just not overexciting myself.

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Nico Johnson  1:07:49  

Chris, I feel like you've got your finger on the pulse more than most folks. You're talking to so many of the biggest developers. What is everyone going to be talking about this year? Which industry issues or questions do you anticipate will dominate the conversations over dinner, coffee, and walking dates?

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Chris Felkamp  1:08:05  

Well, for at least for us, I think obviously data centers, battery storage, a lot of stuff going on with the election. Obviously, is very you know important going on right now. Tariffs, you know, raw material costs, freight costs, gas cost, safe harbor is another big topic that we've been talking for the last couple years. But I think all that's combined within the solar coaster that you and I have been in for a long time. That I think we all just kind of learn how to navigate through it. And and there's a lot of good people to lean on within the industry that we just talk to. We work together, and we'll persevere like we always do,

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Nico Johnson  1:08:42  

Chris. I have you as the last in the lineup because I know that you have a particular opinion and enthusiasm for something that everybody's talking about.

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Chris Felkamp  1:08:52  

Oh man!

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Nico Johnson  1:08:53  

So I I've been asking folks like, what are you most excited about for RE Plus? But for you, I actually already know what it is, and it is that RE plus this year coincides with f1? So for those who are maybe not f1 fans, I know that you're a huge f1 fan. What advice do you have for folks who are you know coming to Vegas at the same time as all the f1 nuts? And what are you most excited about about the about f1 this year in particular because I imagine you are going to be sticking around. We

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Chris Felkamp  1:09:24  

will, all right. This will be my wife and I, who's also in the renewable industry. That you know, we've been very blessed and fortunate. We've actually gone to four races this year, three international, and this will be our fifth. So I think something that I always tell people just the energy around it's it's like re plus. There's just that energy. As soon as you get there, you you land, you feel it. You're like, all right, this is gonna be a great week. And then you're gonna add the race there that week, and you're gonna see the track. And it's it's gonna be really cool for a lot of people that have watched it on TV. Yeah, you should come by a booth. I will I will talk your ear off, and it's a lot of fun. I would encourage if anybody is there for an extra day, at least maybe stay for an extra night and watch the practices.

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Nico Johnson  1:10:05  

So I'm staying until Saturday. Unfortunately, I have to leave Saturday. What should I prioritize Friday if I'm only going to do if I wanted to do something F1 ish on Friday?

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Chris Felkamp  1:10:16  

Go the track. I mean, it's actually it starts. What's funny is it starts Thursday night, the night that RE Plus ends, because it's a night race. It's Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. So you have the opportunity to go each day. So we should link up. Amazing.

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Nico Johnson  1:10:29  

We should, we should totally link up. I don't have the slightest clue how to get tickets other than ask ChatGPT. So I I need to get on that.

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Chris Felkamp  1:10:37  

I got your handle,

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Nico Johnson  1:10:39  

Chris. I appreciate so much your enthusiasm, your energy. If folks do want to come talk your ear off about F1 or Transformers, where can they find you on the show floor?

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Chris Felkamp  1:10:49  

We'll be basically in the North Hall in at booth 1926 by some of our closest friends over at the Create Booth, and we will be there to to talk with anybody. We have a great group. We will be actually hosting a happy hour on Tuesday, I believe from four to six. So come on by and probably see a lot of familiar faces. So it's gonna be a lot of fun. I

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Nico Johnson  1:11:08  

will absolutely endorse. I haven't heard of any other times of other happy hours. So you get the the luxury and privilege of being the only one to promote their happy hour on this year's No Before You Go. Be there at the Forge and Booth in 1926 North Hall, right behind the Create Energy booth. Easy to find, four to six on Tuesday. I'll see you there. Let's get a beer together, Chris. So good to see you, my friend. Thanks for joining us on this year's No Before You Go. See you in the. I

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Chris Felkamp  1:11:34  

appreciate it. It's been long overdue. Thanks, Nico.

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Nico Johnson  1:11:37  

So I hope this is helpful for you. It's always helpful for me. As you've noticed, I've been taking notes and making plans myself. The annual know before you go episode is one of the highlights for me to be able to reach out and catch up with old friends. I hope that it helped you prepare. There's still two weeks left before RE Plus. We're here to help you have your game plan together so that you show up ready to attack the show with as much energy as you can must. Remember my strong suggestion: take it easy on the alcohol, get plenty of sleep, and make new friends. If you're looking for a way to connect with us, and if you're interested in how we might help share your story with a broader audience. There's still time to party and play with us at RE Plus. You can go to SunCast Media and click on the banner there for RE Plus. Learn more about everything that we're doing at the show and find ways that we can collaborate and cooperate together to share your story with our audience. I'm so grateful that you took the time to tune in here. Thank you to each of our guests from today's episode for contributing and helping everyone else orient themselves to a more productive RE Plus. I hope that this has been helpful to you. Thanks to our sponsors who help make this show possible. They pay the bills and keep the lights on. All we ask you to pay is attention. Please come by and say hello again. It's Central Hall 4459, and I hope we'll see you in Las Vegas. I'm signing off and going to pack my bags. Las Vegas, here we come. Remember, you are what you listen to. Thanks again for showing up, Solo Warrior, it's half the battle.

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