The 90-Day Picture · Solar Installer
Local installer cuts lead costs in half by activating 7 adjacent-contractor partners to generate referred deals.
View the PDF versionThe Problem
Nina's biggest problem was sitting one house over the whole time. (Nina and Foothill Solar are a composite -- the names are made up; the build below is exactly what we do.) Every reroof in the Treasure Valley was a solar conversation nobody was having -- the homeowner had just approved five figures for a new roof, the crew was already up there, and the roofer had zero reason to mention panels. Same with the electricians doing panel upgrades and the HVAC companies swapping systems. All of them stood inside Foothill's future customers' homes, trusted, unasked. Meanwhile Nina was paying to buy the same homeowner five other installers had already bought, then racing to the phone.
The lead game was grinding her down. Ad accounts got restricted with no warning and the numbers swung month to month. Her door team churned faster than she could train them. And solar carried a trust crater she didn't dig -- the fly-by-night crews and the big names that vanished on their warranties left every homeowner assuming the worst. She couldn't fix that with more ads. She could only fix it by showing up next to the people homeowners already believed.
What We Built — The Map
Foothill was paying roughly $9k a month buying leads. One referred install nets more margin than a month of that -- so a single roofer who sends two or three deals a year genuinely covers Foothill's whole lead bill, and that roofer doesn't charge a dime for advertising. Here's the honest part we told Nina up front: most partners will send you nobody. The map isn't about all 100 producing. It's about finding the two or three who become real, and letting them carry the year. That's exactly what happened.
Three maps, built before Nina committed to anything: the adjacent contractors who send them deals, the local voices homeowners already trust, and the shows worth her time. All researched and scored for the Treasure Valley specifically.
The Partner Map -- 100 mapped, here are 20
The Voices
The Airwaves — Media & Shows
SpeakerAgent AI hunted and scored every local show for fit: Treasure Valley Home (a home-and-energy podcast, scored 89/100), the Boise Business Hour on local radio, the Boise Bench Bulletin neighborhood newsletter, and a realtor-run YouTube channel that interviews local trades. It triaged GREEN/YELLOW/RED, enriched each host, and drafted the intros -- so Nina only chased the shows worth her time and never had to write a pitch.
What Happened — The Campaign
The system researched each contact, reached out on Nina's behalf -- personalized, help-first, never a lead-vendor pitch -- and Nina showed up as herself. Here's the first four months, warts and all.
Summit reroofs 20-plus homes a month, and their customers just proved they'll spend on the house. We set up a clean trade: Summit's monthly homeowner email included a short recommendation for Foothill, plus a free solar-readiness check for anyone who'd just reroofed. That one email produced 3 site surveys and 2 signed installs in six weeks. By itself, that partnership more than covered a year of what Foothill had been paying for leads. Summit also gave a Facebook shout-out the same week -- that brought 1 form fill and no installs. The email did the work; the social post was noise. We were straight with Nina about which to repeat.
Electricians doing service upgrades are handing homeowners the exact wiring solar needs. We got Copperline sending Foothill their upgrade customers with a warm intro. Slower to build, but honest and steady: 2 referred deals, one signed, one in proposal -- and a partner who now texts Nina before she has to ask.
SpeakerAgent scored the show, enriched the host, and drafted the pitch. Nina spent 45 minutes on "what actually happens when your roof and your panels don't talk to each other." No selling. The episode drove 4 site-survey requests over the following weeks, and two realtors who heard it asked to grab coffee. A slow burn that kept paying.
Nina co-hosted a Saturday session with a realtor team and inspector Marcus Webb on "buying an older home and what it costs to run." Eleven households came. Only 1 install came directly -- but Marcus became a genuine partner who's flagged three reroofed homes since. The event bought the relationship, not the deal.
Foothill had two years of proposals that never closed -- mostly from when financing got tight. Those homeowners didn't say no; they said not yet, and nobody they trusted ever brought it back up. We built a short, useful monthly email (no "go solar" pitch -- just the podcast and straight answers) and sent a gentle note to the old-proposal list. It reopened 2 quotes, one of which signed at the new financing terms.
New pool owners open a giant electric bill in July, every year. We got Blue Canyon mentioning Foothill to their install customers. Early, but one deal is already in survey -- and it costs Foothill nothing per lead.
HVAC companies swapping in heat pumps are already selling homeowners on electrifying the house -- solar is the natural next sentence. We set up a two-way trade: Basin mentions Foothill on heat-pump jobs, Foothill sends Basin its customers with old furnaces. 2 referred site surveys so far, one signed, and a partner who now thinks of Nina first.
SpeakerAgent's map made it obvious Nina could host her own seat someday -- but we started her as a guest first to build the reps. The first booking taught her the format; the plan is a simple Treasure Valley Home segment of her own by month six, with roofers and electricians as the guests. Featuring a partner on a mic, it turns out, makes them far more eager to send people than any ask ever did.
What Didn't Work
Largest roofing outfit in town -- too big or already spoken for
We reached out to the largest roofing outfit in town four times and never heard back -- some partners are too big or already spoken for, so we stopped chasing and moved on.
Paid Instagram collaboration -- wrong audience
A paid Instagram collaboration with a local lifestyle account (off-strategy, an early test) brought 1 inquiry and no deal. A shout-out to the wrong audience is just noise. We killed it quickly and moved the hours back to the roofer and electrician partners that were actually signing installs.
The Results
Attribution is honest here: an install counts toward a partner only when the homeowner named the source or the partner made the intro. Word-of-mouth that never gets tagged isn't in these numbers.
Modest deal counts -- but solar deals are big, and two partners genuinely paid for the year. That's the honest shape of this: the map is wide so a few relationships can go deep. The bought leads and the door team didn't disappear overnight; they just stopped being the only way Foothill found a homeowner. And the roofer next door -- the one standing on Nina's future customer's house every day -- is finally on her side.
What This Feels Like On The Other Side
“I was so busy buying the same homeowner five other installers already bought that I never noticed the roofer next door was standing on my future customer's house every day. Now Summit and Copperline just send me people, and they don't charge me a thing for it. Most of the partners on the map haven't sent anyone yet -- but two of them paid for my whole year. And I've got 400 homeowners on a list nobody can shut off. -- Nina Alvarez, Foothill Solar Co.”
Hop on with us — no obligation. We build your full game plan beforethe call: the partner map for your market, the voices, the shows. We share it with you, walk through it together, and it's yours either way. If you want help implementing it, that's what we do.
Book the Free Calljustin@usingaitoscale.com · usingaitoscale.com