If there’s one thing Rich Feola has always excelled at, it’s spotting potential before anyone else in the room. From finance to solar energy to marketing, Rich has led the way toward opportunities that others never even noticed – and that success always extends to his clients along the way.
Today Rich and his company, Solar Exclusive, are taking solar marketing the industry by storm, but Rich started his career as a financial planner. As Rich’s practice thrived, he noticed he excelled at something his peers couldn’t always manage: generating quality leads with ease. While others struggled to get clients through the door, Rich’s skill with online ads brought him more clients than he needed.
Rich started offering his marketing services to other business owners. He continued running his financial practice at the same time, until he met a client at a networking group that would alter his career path.
The client was a solar company, and as Rich learned more about the industry, his intuition sparked. He had a feeling that the solar industry was about to explode, and he knew he wanted to invest in it.
Rich went all in with solar. In 2016, he sold his financial practice and built his digital marketing company, Solar Exclusive. By 2017, Solar Exclusive was strictly serving solar clients and helping them skyrocket their growth. Solar Exclusive helps clients get pre-qualified appointments that can help grow their customer base using a custom-made lead generation system – no old school door-to-door marketing needed. Unsurprisingly, the company’s cutting edge methods were magnetic from the very start. Unlike generalist agencies or jacks-of-all-trades, Solar Exclusive draws on years’ worth of experience in solar contracting and a wealth of hard-won industry knowledge. This empowered the company to hit the ground running from day one.
Spotting Potential A Mile Away
Solar Exclusive’s road to success has always been tied to Rich’s unique combination of expertise and intuition. He’s always utilized this instinct to steer the company’s success – especially when it comes to where Solar Exclusive’s clients advertise.
For the first three years in business, Solar Exclusive advertised on Facebook – and clients were getting leads left and right. As the years went on, client success with Facebook ads stayed consistent, but Rich spotted signs that Facebook ads were on the way to becoming outdated. Facebook became more competitive as it grew oversaturated with other solar ads, and with a proliferation of companies that existed solely to teach people how to create Facebook ads. Meanwhile, the cost of Facebook ads began to creep up even as the quality of the ad experience trended downward.
Rich saw the writing on the wall. He wasn’t about to stick around for Facebook’s lead-generating quality to spiral (which it ultimately did, as he’d predicted.) Instead, Rich tapped into his trademark vision and turned toward a different path. Rich noticed that most prospective leads for his clients were already on YouTube and ready to learn. Just like that very first day when he saw the potential in solar, he knew he was onto something. He jumped ahead of the curve and swiftly moved his clients to YouTube without looking back.
Advertising On The Cutting Edge
Rich’s YouTube prediction was spot on. The shift to YouTube ads brought on a quick and dramatic rise to success. Solar Exclusive’s retention rate rose to 93%, and the company went from generating $1 million to $20 million a year. To date, Solar Exclusive – and Rich’s eye for potential – has helped clients generate over $800 million in sales, with no plans to slow down.
Solar Exclusive now works with solar companies in over 39 states to generate leads in over 253 different markets. Clients’ customers keep coming back – and it’s easy to see why. For one, Solar Exclusive’s ads are actually fun to watch! Each ad provides value, with educational components that makes it easy for viewers to quickly become leads. Now, the company is even working on a celebrity partner list.
Of course, Solar Exclusive’s greatest asset is Rich himself – which is why he is hands-on in running his own company. His passion for the industry and instincts for success are second to none. Rich is the pro your business will want to lean on when the next big method in marketing emerges – because he’ll already have implemented it long before the rest of the world even spotted it.