AI workshops for solar installers: build one workflow for enquiries and proposals

Enquiries land while you are on a roof, and the proposal you promised on Tuesday gets written at nine on Thursday night. A workshop for solar installers spends four hours on one repeated job, qualifying enquiries or drafting proposals, and you leave with written instructions and a tested example you can run again on your own notes. We teach business owners and teams how to use AI on the work their business repeats, and we help you build and test a workflow you can use again. Bring one task that wastes your time.

Key takeaways

• Four hours in person on the Sunshine Coast, A$495 including GST per person, maximum 15 paid attendees, spent on one repeated business task.
• Bring one specific solar job, qualifying a new enquiry or drafting a proposal from one site visit, with the notes and price list it needs.
• Context, Task, Source, Rules and Output turn that job into instructions you can run again next week.
• You check every draft against the information your business supplied before it leaves your office.
• Private onsite training runs at your own workplace across South East Queensland when the whole crew needs the same starting point.

What can a solar installer build in a four-hour AI workshop?

You build one working AI workflow for one repeated business task. Our public Sunshine Coast workshop gives you four hours on that task. You build on your own laptop with hands-on help, and you keep the instructions and the example you tested during the session.

Which repeated solar job should you bring: enquiry qualification or proposal drafts?

Bring the one that costs you the most hours this month. Your business task determines the training example, so pick a specific piece of work rather than a category: qualifying one new enquiry from the form on your website, or drafting a proposal from one site visit. Bring the notes, measurements and price list that job needs.

Both jobs sit inside customer acquisition. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that the customer acquisition process accounted for roughly 20% of a residential solar business's total costs on average, nationwide, last year, up 18% from 2020. 12 Speed decides part of that cost. Online prospects are 7x more likely to attend sales meetings if contacted within the hour, and 78% of customers are more likely to choose the solar company that contacts them first. 3 If your first reply is the bottleneck, bring enquiry qualification. If the reply goes out fast but the proposal stalls, bring the proposal.

How do the five inputs turn site notes and an enquiry into a proposal draft?

The five inputs are Context, Task, Source, Rules and Output, and together they describe the job well enough for an assistant to do it twice the same way. We build training around your business tasks, source material and the output you need.

• Context describes the business, customer and situation: a solar installer preparing a proposal for a homeowner after a site visit.
• Task names the job the assistant needs to do, such as turning the site notes into a draft proposal.
• Source supplies the notes, documents or approved facts for that job: your measurements, the enquiry, your price list.
• Rules set the limits and identify missing information to flag. Keep the supplied prices unchanged. Itemise labour and materials. Flag anything the notes do not cover.
• Output describes the format and information the finished draft needs to contain: a scope summary, an itemised table, a total including GST and questions for you to check.

Participants test the workflow on a safe example and check the result against their source material. That test is what tells you the instructions hold up on next week's site visit.

How do you check an AI proposal draft before it reaches a homeowner?

You check the output against the information your business supplied. Compare names, dates, figures and claims with your source. Recalculate the totals. Check that the draft answers what the homeowner asked and stays inside the scope you quoted.

When a claim appears that your notes do not support, point to it. Supply the missing fact, or ask the assistant to leave it as a question for you. Check the next draft for the same problem. The person responsible for the work approves the final version before it leaves your office.

What do published reports and our own AI projects show about AI in solar sales?

Published work in the solar industry points at design and lead handling, and our own projects point at the writing and admin around them. Aurora Solar product marketing managers Sherry Huang and Stephen Gerken have demonstrated how AI speeds up lead management and conversion without giving up accuracy at any step. 4 On measurement, over half a million roof models were used to train the AI behind Aurora Solar's proprietary algorithms, which create full 3D models in 30 seconds. 5 LIDAR data and HD map imagery produce measurements of a roof's height, pitch and obstructions, work that installers have long done by hand on site. 6 Combining production models with real utility data, Aurora projects 25 years of electricity bill spending against the cost of a solar energy system. 7

Our own work covers the surrounding jobs. We helped automate Radiant Roof Repairs' internal processes using AI. In our own business, Searchmaxxed, we built AI workflows for creating blog posts, doing SEO and preparing custom proposals. We used AI to automate SEO, enquiries and admin for Glen House Homoeopathy.

Can you train your whole solar team onsite instead of sending one person?

Yes. We bring private AI training to your workplace, and we scope it around your team's tasks, experience and location. In the session, we help your team agree on the source material, the instructions and the review process for a repeated task, so the sales lead and the person writing proposals work from the same starting point.

Private onsite AI training is available on the Sunshine Coast and in Brisbane, Gold Coast, Ipswich, Noosa, Moreton Bay, Logan, Redlands, Toowoomba and Gympie. Sunshine Coast onsite training covers Maroochydore, Caloundra, Mooloolaba, Buderim, Birtinya, Nambour and Coolum. Private training takes place at the team's workplace. Sessions are scoped for roughly 4 to 20 people, and larger teams can be split across sessions. Each person brings the laptop they will use afterwards, and tool and account requirements are confirmed during scoping.

How do you book a seat or request a quote for your solar business?

Join the waitlist for the public workshop, or send an enquiry for private training. After your enquiry, we discuss your team's tasks, location and experience. We agree on the training scope and prepare a fixed quote. Team size, session length and travel determine the price.

People from other areas can travel to the Sunshine Coast public workshop, so a one-person business outside the region still has a seat available. Our industry pages show the same approach applied to plumbing and electrical, real estate and accounting and bookkeeping teams.

Frequently asked questions