Transcript
Max Ganley (0:00)
I grew up in a really unique situation. My dad's a big entrepreneur, sold his first business at 38 for 100 million. Has gone on to do a lot of things. And so where I grew up, I've been surrounded by a lot of successful people. My dad said, hey, you have to go to school. He actually didn't go to college. He was homeless at 14, didn't go to college. But he told me, hey, you have to go to college and you have to stay in college until you make 100,000, then I'll let you quit because I didn't get the chance to go to college. You've got to do it. So I went to college and then I went and did door to door. And this was back in 1415 when solar was still very unknown or new. It was kind of newer, so to say. Right. And just started killing it. My first year I made 142,000.
Podcast Host (0:33)
You started selling in the Scottsdale area. Was that like your first rodeo and then did you end up like branching out to other markets as time went by?
Max Ganley (0:40)
Yeah. So my first couple years I was just, I started just closing deals. Then naturally I had a lot of friends come and want to do it. Naturally more people came and so as I, you know, doing this a decade, I went from kind of being a sales rep to a sales manager to then a regional. And then in 2019 a few of us, we started our current company, Sunder Energy and it now in today's current state, we span across about 45 markets with over, you know, 1500 sales reps active and stuff. So it's been cool to kind of see the adaption. Sadly people have looked at the solar industry as a cash grab. So they're in here just to go and make these big commissions, you know, versus what's best for the customer or their business. And those guys are short lived. I've seen that. These guys that chase well, I'm going to make more per deal. I never see them last longer than a year or two. They always try to, you know, they're chasing all the time. Where exactly I've set my career up where it's like, hey, I've been able to build a foundation and then build off that and that provides more consistency. So what we've provided is a platform to where you're still part of that whole ecosystem but you're getting your selfishly best experience to where you're serving your client. So and it also diversifies our business. We don't have any fixed overhead, we don't own trucks, warehouses, branches. We don't have all these big fixed expenses that can go take a company down when times get tough.
Podcast Host (1:46)
The code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Today we have an amazing guest. If you are interested and curious in learning about renewable energy, the solar, if you want to be able to jump in door to door, if you want to find out a bit more about this specific industry. We have a man that's been in this industry for about 10 years in different markets, and he's built one of the biggest solar companies as well, straight out of Mesa. And so, you know, without further ado, I'm going to have Max Ganley in the studio. Thank you. Welcome, boss. How you doing?
