Recently I came across an article in the ‘Ecogeneration magazine’ that talked about training in the Solar industry. In this article, Jeremy Chunn talks about the importance of training in the Solar industry and how “the Solar training sector has a weight on its shoulders turning out installers fit to convert the country to clean energy. But as the battery surge approaches the stakes are high”.
The reason this article resonated with us at Assertive Marketing was the fact that one of the main educators of this industry that was mentioned in the article has had a major impact not only on the industry but on ourselves. I know the importance of a good trainer as I went through the process of learning the Solar industry by one of the best. I was working as the Marketing Manager for a local Melbourne company called Setec when we started to introduce the PowerRouter into the Australian market.
I had worked with electronics before and knew as much as a Marketing Manager should know. My knowledge was more about what the customer will want from such items. However, I did not know anything about the Solar industry and its storage side of things. Which at that time was new to everyone. That’s when Rob Moss came into the picture. He moved into our department from R&D to firstly learn about and then teach the technology that was behind battery and storage. The marketing strategy was to educate the installers so they would not be afraid of selling the technology.
One day after hearing Rob and another colleague (Off-grid certified installer) Veli Markovic discuss the finer technicalities of the product I decided to do something about it. “I need to know this stuff so can someone please help? ” I said. Rob turned to me and said, “What do you want to know?” I replied, “Everything you know”. He just said, “I’ll give that a try.” He knew too well I wasn’t technical.
So, over the next several months he set aside an hour a day and went through every principal and technical spec. I was amazed by how easy he made it sound and how well he designed his lessons so that I had enough of listening then solving by myself. It helped me as what we started to do was list every technical specification in industry terms then in consumer terms. What it means to the customer. It was a good team as Veli also added his expertise as an installer.
Since then Rob and I have gone on to do the NABERS exam and he has also certified himself as a trainer. He is now one of the leading trainers in the industry working with both Selectronic and SkillBuild.
The Why process
I recently did the “Why” process with Rob and sure enough, we established that his why is “To help other people/businesses succeed in what they do” and he does this by becoming “The go-to source of knowledge”.
When it comes to learning from the experts the Solar industry has a great source. More importantly, when it comes to helping the industry succeed, with Rob Moss it is in the right hands.
