Growing Your Young Solar Business During a Recession

Even with recent surges, the United States economy remains in a downturn. And, in every recession, credit agencies, banks, and b2b businesses respond by tightening up credit. This tightening is a completely expected and understandable response on their part. They are scared that their customers are going to close up shop and leave them in the lurch.

But the thing about being in the solar industry is that we are still growing! And in many markets, it’s happening incredibly quickly. So how do you grow a young business during a recession?

One challenge facing many young companies is that they don’t have the credit history to acquire the credit they need to manage a large uptick in installs—and even fewer have the cash on hand to be able to fund that kind of growth.

It’s painful for a business owner to have to walk away from growth opportunities just because they can’t find a way to make the cash flow work. And it’s even more painful to lose a job to an older, or larger, competitor who can turn around the installation faster with their more robust credit and better cash flow.

So, how are you supposed to grow and catch up as a small business owner?

The answer is by having your solar distributor team up with your finance provider. By working together, everyone can mitigate each other’s risk, and at the end of the day, your company is on better footing.

If you’d like to learn how to get more credit through our Split Pay program with Sunlight Financial, please contact me or your BayWa r.e. Solar Systems sales rep. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself, ahead of that phone call:

• Does our company’s credit meet our forecasted equipment needs? If not, how big is the gap?
• Does our company allocate equipment before or after it gets shipped?
• Does our company already work with Sunlight Financial? If not, would we consider onboarding with them?