IAM287- Climate Activist and Leader in the Solar Industry Brings People Together to Act on Climate

As a leader in the solar industry and a passionate climate change activist with over 10 years in the solar industry, Thomas mentors other solar-related companies to help them create their own successful business roadmaps whilst formerly actively engaged as a President at Soligent, America's largest solar distribution company and the CEO of American Home Energy, a white label solar company that has been profitable since the first month of business.

As a climate activist, Thomas is passionate about bringing the latest solar, electric vehicle, and climate change news to his blog and bringing people together to act on climate.

• CEO Hack: Reading books on climate change
• CEO Nugget: Listen to others, be humble and understand you don't know everything
• CEO Defined: Being a servant, taking responsibility for any outcomes and allowing others to do their job

Website: https://www.americanhomeenergy.com/

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresham from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Thomas Enzendorfer of American Home Energy.

Thomas, it is awesome to have you on the show.

Thomas Enzendorfer 0:41

Good to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:42

No problem. Super excited to have you on and what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Thomas so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And as a leader in the solar industry and a passionate climate change activist with over 10 years in the solar industry, Thomas mentors other solar-related companies to help them create their own successful business roadmaps while formerly actively engaged as a President at Soligent, America's largest solar distribution company and the CEO of American Home Energy, a white label solar company that has been profitable since the first month of business.

As a climate change, as a climate activist, I am sorry, Thomas is passionate about bringing the latest solar, electric vehicle, and climate change news to his blog and bringing people together to act on climate. Thomas, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Thomas Enzendorfer 1:33

Absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 1:34

Awesome. Let's do it. So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Thomas Enzendorfer 1:43

Well, first of all, again, thank you for having me on your show, big fan of it. And I'm happy to share my story with you. So one of the things as you can probably pick up on immediately is that I wasn't born in this country. I was born in Austria, Europe.

So anybody listening in, please forgive my accent. And I try to speak slowly and properly so they can understand. But what led me to start the business, I have been an entrepreneur from the early days on. My dad always said, do whatever you want with your life just don't become a lawyer, which practically forced me into law school.

And after realizing what a big mistake that was after finishing law school, in a very miserable, short-lived career as a legal professional, I started my first business. And what really drove me home was how successful it was in the first two businesses that started in different areas. And, and I just could simply do no wrong, and everything was working perfectly until it didn't.

And so what I mean with this is, a lot of things happen in my personal life, I got diagnosed with a lead stage diagnosis of cancer a long time ago, and my daughter was born extremely premature at the same time with one pan birthweight. And I really realized that whatever you do, it really doesn't matter how successful you have been and what you have done, but you actually need to make an impact because your life is way fragile, and it doesn't really last for a long time. And so I wanted to make a difference.

And I really believe that difference can be made in renewable energy. I believe this is the one thing that our generation today can enact, let me rephrase, must do to leave a better world behind, which is getting active in renewable energy. And I, as I said, I'm an immigrant to this country, I believe in capitalism, I believe that making money is important. Having a business case around is important.

And if you can combine, having a successful business with a professional environment where you create American jobs, where you create an environment where people can make a good living off it. And you can make an impact on the environment. That's what I wanted to be in for the last 10 years. I was running one of the largest inverter manufacturers in the country. inverters, for those of you who don't know, are a crucial component of the solar system components.

I ran the inverter manufacturer for many years, I built the factory in Indiana. And then and then I joined the large distributor. And then I really wanted to get down to what is missing in this industry. And what I believe is missing in this whole industry is someone who that there are so many people out there that that have great ideas about technology that have great ideas about software that I'm afraid of ideas about how to sell.

I want to create something that allows all of those people to build their businesses by doing the heavy lifting of the investment into trucks, boots-on-the-ground engineering, and procurement. And I wanted to create the backbone for the solar industry based on my experience, and based on my knowledge of the industry, that anyone, wherever they are in the value chain can utilize and can work with.

Gresham Harkless 5:10

Awesome, I absolutely love that I'm sorry to obviously hear, you know, all those things that kind of happened at the same time. But it seems like it kind of gave you some perspective, which I appreciate you for sharing with us, because it's definitely a great reminder and understanding of how we can have an impact because time is, as you said, fragile and limited.

So making sure to have an impact is definitely great. I'm super excited to hear a little bit more about how you're doing that. So I wanted to hear a little bit more about American Home Energy, can you take us through, you know, how you're serving clients and things that people can do?

Thomas Enzendorfer 5:42

Absolutely. So maybe, because I assume most of your listeners are not from the solar space. So maybe I take one quick step back. The solar industry is a glorified construction industry. Right, we are putting solar panels on people's houses, on rooftops, on fields, wherever it is.

And we do this with high-tech technology from the panels to the aforementioned inverters to everything else around it. And that's, that is a very at this point, it's a multibillion-dollar industry, it has created hundreds of 1000s of American jobs. But one of the things as in many aspects is still a lot of people still try to reinvent the wheel over and over again.

And a lot of people have really good ideas of how to revolutionize certain aspects of this business. My background is, again, like I said, from a legal perspective, but I'm also from a perspective of operations matters. And I don't know how to build a sales organization, I don't know how to build a technology leader, I don't know how to build software. In fact, software scares me at times. What I do believe in, though, is that someone needs to do the hard-core labor behind.

Sometimes I like to compare a company to the utility behind the solar companies, to the Levi Strauss of the Gold Rush where we enable others to do well, we want to be the number one core value of our company to celebrate our partner's success. And we go out there and we say, Look, we are purely white labor, we do not have a sales team today, nor do we even have a sales team tomorrow or five years from now, what we have is an operational ability to allow the construction project that it will ultimately be athletes all sold.

After all, it's designed all the software standard work, someone has to have a truck to go out to the site to the field to the house to the warehouse and has to actually do the labor part behind it. And before that, someone has to engineer it, someone has to get the permits, and someone has to procure the equipment, we can do all of those things. And we allow anyone in this industry to flourish with their ideas with their approaches to it. And we did all of the fixed prices so that we don't care how much money others make.

In fact, we actually do care as we celebrate their success because our only motivation is to make other people grow their businesses, as long as we can do the boots-on-the-ground engineering, procurement, and construction piece off the full value chain.

Gresham Harkless 8:39

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, I definitely love you devoting your time and energy to that, because definitely something that's very much so needed. And you might have already touched on this. But did you kind of talk or could you talk about your secret sauce, which could be for you or your organization? But what do you feel kind of sets you apart?

Thomas Enzendorfer 8:54

Yeah, so first of all, I'm always a little skeptical when someone tells you that a secret sauce. Business is grueling, hardcore, and difficult. Every single time. You always have to deal with cash flow, you always have to deal with customers' needs, and you always have to deal with employees. It's always difficult. Anybody who tells you the business starting or running was easy.

I actually would like to meet that person had a conversation one on one. So I don't believe in a secret sauce. But I do believe in going back to basics of what we actually do in the business of being human beings of being humans that actually want to do well, for our families, and for ourselves. And in our case for triple bottom line with the environment.

We actually want to do well, but others so one of our core sorts of one of the things that we really focused on early on is developed a really strong core principle of core values, those core values for us in every single one of our conference rooms. In every single one of our meetings on trucks, anywhere you go in our business, you will find our core values. placid wouldn't be referenced to them in meetings and in, in conversations all the time.

And when I may speak to them for a little bit they recite them for a second. But it goes down to treating people like you want to treat be treated yourself. Everybody wants to do well, those people who don't want to do well and are not good people, you cannot help but avoid dealing with those people, no matter what you do. But if you assume good intent in dealing with other people, if you assume that the people across from you want to do well as well, then you treat people differently.

And you become an environment of openness and environment of relationships, that allows others to be in full transparency, which allows other people to really feel comfortable doing their job if they work with us. But it also allows our partners as we refer to our customers, our partners, to really feel comfortable working with us because they know we will never leave our swim lane of doing our part and will never go against what we said we will do.

It really makes it a much less stressful and competitive environment, which I believe is one if you want to refer to it as the secret sauce of being honest and true to what we are and what we stand for. And living by our core values. If you give me the chance, I would like to recite them, obviously. But that's up to you.

Gresham Harkless 11:33

Yeah, so I wanted to ask you for what I call your CEO hack. And this might be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have. But it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Thomas Enzendorfer 11:44

All of you out there who run a business who aspire to run a business, you know, how stressful it is, like you never turn off, you're always on your phone, and you're always thinking every problem in the business is your problem. So it becomes incredibly important to find those moments where you disconnect and really reconsider everything you do.

Gresham Harkless 12:06

Nice, absolutely love that the same kind of goes for readers or leaders, or leaders or readers. Yeah, readers or leaders. So it was making sure to read is definitely put you ahead of the game. So now, I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Thomas Enzendorfer 12:24

To listen. So if I if I were to go back, to the first time I had my first business, I was in my early 20s. And it was a success story. Three of us who we went from me and my girlfriend at the time in the partner to 245 employees and $100 million of revenue in under a year. I could do no wrong. That's what I referred to them getting I was the superstar, right, I knew everything.

And that is arrogance, that is a mistake. That is the ultimate problem that a lot of leaders have, especially if you start early on. If I were to go back in a time machine, Thomas, I was just sit back and listen, be humble. Listen to people understand that you don't know everything, that there are a lot of people out there that have good ideas, and many of them are better than yours. And because in a position of authority and a position of decision making, especially because in this position, you need to be listening more, versus listening versus talking more

Gresham Harkless 13:29

Nice. I absolutely love that. And so important to make sure that you do that. And actually listening, as you said, is something that's insanely important, especially for leaders. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote unquote, CEOs on the show. So Thomas, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Thomas Enzendorfer 13:46

Being a seal means being a servant. And, and I don't mean this to sound cheesy. I hate it when people tell me that they work for me, I truly believe that nobody works for me, I have the great fortune and privilege of giving people a direction of where I want this company to go. That is my prerogative, I get to say where I want us to go. In exchange, I found people that in our case, it's a little under.

It's about 60 Something people right now that that follow that they believe in that. So now I get to enable them to do their jobs. If I have to tell them what to do. I'm not doing my job, right? As the CEO, I get to be the one who set the agenda, set the direction. And then my absolute job is to allow others to do their job, not to tell them how to do the job, but to remove barriers for them to be successful.

Gresham Harkless 14:51

Absolutely. And I love that definition from that perspective. And what I wanted to do was if somebody wants to follow up with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Thomas Enzendorfer 15:00

What's the best way to become a CEO?

Gresham Harkless 15:04

To reach out to you.

Thomas Enzendorfer 15:08

Help. Sorry. Yes. So the best way to reach out to me is there are two ways. I obviously shamelessly will push my blog climatedifference.com I have contact information on there. But also go to feel free to send an email to thomas@americanhomeenergy.com.

Gresham Harkless 15:29

Well, thank you so much, Thomas. I appreciate you for making a difference and for taking some time out. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Thomas Enzendorfer 15:36

Likewise to you and I appreciate you having me on your show.

Outro 15:41

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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