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How ARP Solar Future-Proofed Their Business With Scoop​

Access our full customer spotlight webinar recording or video highlights playlist to learn more about ARP Solar's story.​

Our Awesome Speakers

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Scoop
Company Intro

We are the industry’s most powerful central operations hub designed for high-performing renewable teams.

John McNamara Profile Picture

John McNamara
COO at ARP Solar

John has been committed to building operational excellence at ARP and coaching fellow solar leaders to do the same. 

Tyrell Mara Cirlce with Background white

Tyrell Mara
VP Operations at Scoop

Tyrell has worked with hundreds of residential and commercial solar teams to foster transformation and growth.

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Video Description
ARP Solar’s processes were built at a time when installation volumes were low. As they started scaling, they quickly realized that what had worked in the past was no longer a viable way to operate. Headaches and friction points grew exponentially, dragging down operations and their ability to deliver quality installations with an elevated customer experience. Their main challenges revolved around:
 
  • Operations running on disconnected spreadsheets, documents & email threads
  • Difficulty finding documents and information
  • A reliance on inefficient manual handoffs

How Scoop Currently Impacts Renewable Operations​

250,000+

Project Sites

20-30X

Return on Investment

Unlimited

Users & Storage

Are You More of a Reader?

Feel free to browse through the webinar transcripts but keep in mind that this does not include the product demo and that a picture is worth a thousand words!

Tyrell: I would love to get a bit of an introduction to who you are and your journey at ARP Solar. Then, feel free to share a little bit about the company as a whole.

John:

Yeah, absolutely, definitely appreciate the opportunity to be here, Tyrell Scoop has made a major impact to the operations of our organization. And so I’m really happy to talk about it kind of share some of the successes that we’ve had. My name is John McNamara, I, you know, I have the distinct pleasure of running operations for ARP Solar Appalachian Renewable Power. I come from an operations development background, I’ve got an MBA from Capitol University, picked up a Master of sustainability leadership from Arizona State University as well. I’ve got my NABCEP, PV associate, and also have the pleasure of serving as the board president for Green Columbus, which is a nonprofit here in central Ohio, that focuses on intersectional, environmentalism, and tree equity. So sustainability is at the core of what I love to do.

At the end of last year, I had the opportunity to come on board with this incredible group of folks at ARP Solar. You know, you’ve got it on the screen here. 2008, founded by Gary Easton. And that’s definitely the heart and soul of what we’re doing. Gary has really been at the forefront of this industry. He installed his first solar system on his own home in 1999, master electrician, NABCEP, PV installation professional sits on the board of Green Energy, Ohio. And then the organization we are We do residential commercial installs throughout Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky. We’ve got a team of about 20 Incredible solar heroes. And we actually have four different apprentices that we’re bringing through the IEC, apprenticeship electrical program as well.

I think our story is very similar to a lot of folks that are on the webinar, we’ve been on that solar coaster for 15 years now. And we see a lot of opportunity coming out of the IRA. But as you have I’ve talked in the past, there’s a lot of back to that IRA, there was a lot of focus in manufacturing. And so I think there’s a little bit of a lag. And we’re going to see, as installers, that wave coming. So, I came on board kind of looking at what can we do to prepare ourselves for that? What can we do to build processes out that will allow for that scalability so that when this influx comes, we’re better prepared for it, and we can manage it, and really take advantage of that opportunity without getting out over ourselves? So that’s a little bit a little bit about ARP.

Tyrell: Fantastic. Thank you, John. That was beautiful. I’m going to stop the screen share here so you and I can kind of just have a bit of a dialogue and discussion. So, if you think back to when you were having those conversations with Gary, and thinking about the opportunity at ARP, give us a bit of a sense of, how did you orient yourself as you started to come and settle into the organization and really understand what’s going on? And where are the opportunities? And then maybe bring us into, what did it look like? What was a day in the life? And what were some of the big things that you saw right off the bat that you thought, okay, this is where we’re going to really change the game, so to speak, in terms of getting ARP Solar ready for the next stage?

What were some of the big things that you saw right off the bat that you thought, okay, this is going to be a problem? What challenges did you need to overcome to make sure ARP Solar was ready for the next stage?

John: Yeah, I had really identified that I wanted to be a part of a solar organization, and I was fortunate enough to cross paths with Gary, we started to sit down and talk about, Hey, what is present-day ARP? What are the challenges there? Where Where would I be able to help? And, you know, he invited me down graciously to the organization to meet some of the folks. And as I got down there, I started to observe some of the processes that they had in place.

And it certainly was, you know, 14 years of riding that roller coaster that had gotten them there and struggling through those periods where maybe the volume wasn’t as great and you’re building out processes through Google Sheets through Excel. You know, folks have their own Word document on what they’re doing in their step of the process, leveraging their emails quite a bit and a lot of disconnected steps in the process. A lot of manual handoffs and a lot of searching for information.

We talked about being detectives at ARP, in the early days, that you really had to spend a lot of your time out there searching for information. And so that was the conversation that Gary and I had is to say, Hey, how can we centralize our operations? How can we create an environment where we have a single viewpoint into a project from the beginning to the end, that we can organize our information so that as we continue to scale, and that’s really where ARP was, is they were already starting that growth.

But as you start that growth, if you don’t have those processes in there, the headaches and the friction points really exponentially grow and really drag down the operation, the speed of the operation, and the ability to deliver great installations with an elevated customer experience. So that’s, that’s the end of last year coming on board with an opportunity to kind of step into building out those processes and ensuring that there are good clean handoffs along the way.

Tyrell: What strikes me is, for Gary and the whole team there, I think it’s it’s probably similar to a lot of folks on this call and, and the industry, in general, is, these businesses are born and grown out of so much passion. Like an unrelenting amount of passion—all the way down to the folks, you know, on trucks on site sites. And so it’s amazing, we are so inspired to see what is possible with with a Google Sheet with an Excel document with a couple of text message WhatsApp threads. And it’s amazing, right? Because it really shows the passion that I think a lot of folks in this industry and businesses and leaders have.

When you were, ramping up and understanding the landscape. Was there ever a breaking point that you felt like, okay, we’ve really got to accelerate this or focus on it? Or were there some, like key things that you saw happening that just kind of exacerbated how challenging the lack of some of these next layer of processes were kind of in the in the day to day?

John: Yeah, absolutely. You know, passions are a word, I used to say that ARP was run on passion and duct tape. If it wasn’t for the absolute love that our team has for both solar, and for Gary, it was a really challenging moment in time. And what it was really doing is it was really forcing people to do 120% of their job. And an interesting hat thing happens when you’ve got folks doing 120% of their job is there, they’re dropping things because it’s not physically possible to do that. And yet, you’re creating this environment of resentment, because you really are going above and beyond in what you’re doing. And yet we’re seeing negative outcomes coming from it.

There was a conversation, we were doing a post-mortem on a negative customer interaction we had where a problem arose on a project site. And we got done kind of working through the moment. And I paused, and I said, okay, so curious question here, what are we going to do in the future to prevent this from happening again, and somebody dismissed it just as quick as they could and said, John, we do not have time for that, we need to move on to the next thing. And that’s terrifying to me because all I know is that we’re about to run into the same problem. Again, maybe it’s two weeks, maybe it’s two months, maybe it’s another year down the road. But if we don’t have the capacity and the structure, to be able to identify these friction points for our customers, all we’re going to do is go through these pain points over and over again.

And so that was a lot of the impetus to really take a step back, look at our process, conveyor belt of operations is a term that gets used a lot at Scoop, and it’s one of my favorite terms. Looking at those inputs, what we’re going to ask the associate to turn that input into, and then what the expectation of that output is, and then creating an environment where they can be successful in going through that process and creating those outputs.

Tyrell: Yeah, well said. I mean, there’s so much here and I’m sure a lot of it resonates for folks in the session today. And I guess one of my questions, I don’t spend too much time here, but everyone goes through this exercise of, okay, we understand the landscape and what we need to solve. We’re starting to have conversations around that and then there’s this turning to what do we need to get in place to solve it right. And that’s going out to the market and Scoop is obviously just one of many solutions and options for yourself as a leader and for all of all of these, you know, companies and businesses. How did you go out to market like maybe just give some feedback and advice just in terms of how you started that research and due diligence process. Was there anything that was really helpful for you along that path? And ultimately, I would be curious from your lens, kind of what was it that drew you to Scoop in the end?

John: 

Yeah. You know, I think one of the things that I’m most grateful for in this role is our industry, is the community of solar. And I think that there is an overwhelming feeling that we’re in this for the right reasons, you know, there’s some poor actors out there. And really, we work hard to create that community so that we can serve the customers without pushing them to those poor actors out there.

So, I turned to some of my peers, you know, the community, the network that I have, and started asking, Hey, here’s the challenges that we’re having, what should I be looking at. And, you know, I was fortunate enough to have a few good folks mentioned Scoop a couple times. And then in a mildly insane way, I got into the Conveyor Belt of Renewable Operation webinar series, which I think is a five or six-hour series, where you and Freda really go through this concept of conveyor belt of operations of process management. And I really saw a lot of the solutions for the challenges that we had for today coming out of that. I saw a focus for the field, and you spoke to this as well, that if you don’t have a tool that the field can use well and successfully, it doesn’t matter what you have on the back end for the reporting, that information isn’t going to pull through to there.

I also saw the scalability of Scoop, the fact that there is no limit to the number of users that you can have, that the users don’t have to be only from your organization. I have partners who have access to our Scoop, so they can go out and they can check on where their project is, they can submit information to us. So not only am I solving this problem for today, but I’m also building a process that’s future-protected in as much as that it can scale and is not, you know, affected by the number of users, or the amount of storage that I’m having.

A wonderful thing about Scoop is the repository that it is for documents, the number of places that we were keeping documents in the past is terrifying. And this brings it all into one centralized location, it stops us from having to log into other people’s email when they’re on vacation. And so it was it was really that list of different solutions that that was in there. And then you partner it up with great people that I’ve had the opportunity to meet. You know, I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout-out to Mac Jarvis, our Customer Success Manager, who helps me with all the different questions that I have on Scoop. And it’s just incredible and focused on my success. So it’s been a wonderful process and a partnership that I’ve had over the last eight months with you all.

Tyrell: Thanks, John. That was more than I was asking for. But I appreciate it. A couple more really pointed questions before, I hand it over to you. If you there’s so many different directions that I want to go but one that I want to touch on because okay, we’ve talked about kind of the lead up to Scoop and in this next chapter of ARP Solar’s journey. And I touched on it at the beginning in the introduction, that you know, it’s one thing to find the right tool, it’s another thing to roll it out. Right? And not only get adoption but get champions. And we know, that’s not easy. It doesn’t matter what technology, we’re talking about change, right. And we all know the story of how challenging and fearful change can be.

What was your strategy? And how did you go about equipping and empowering the team and bringing them in and ultimately really navigating this amazing effort to get scooped, adopted and really thriving in the operation? And obviously still, there’s still work that goes on every day and making it better, but what was your initial kind of approach to that?

John: 

Yeah, you know, hindsight is 20/20. And if I could climb into my time machine and go back to you know, January or February, John McNamara who is building out Scoop processes, I would tell him, simpler is better. And I think that you know, in my version 1.0 of Scoop I was really trying to roll in a lot of the bells and whistles of Scoop before I rolled it out to the team. You know, we’ll talk a little bit here about conditional display rules. We’ll talk a little bit here about auto tasks. And I wanted to build those out in the beta version of Scoop for ARP. And what I really look back and recognize is going simpler in the beginning. And then adding those in actually is what gets you the buy in going simply, and then going back out to the user and saying, How can I make this a better experience for you, you know, our goal is really to put the right information in front of the person at the right time, so that they can execute on their role.

And so getting their feedback is really what’s going to lead to that success. And honestly, one of my favorite parts of Scoop is that real-time ability to make changes, we maintain a Slack channel called Scoop, change log. And that is an opportunity for folks to say, hey, it would make my life easier if X, Y or Z happened. And I can get a notification on that, I can pop into Scoop configuration, publish a change in five minutes, and say, hey, refresh that page, go out and see if that makes sense to you. And if that supports you better in what you want to do. And that is what got me the buy-in is saying, hey, I know that you have autonomy and your role, I know that you have knowledge and you have skills that you want to be successful with, um, let me get things out of your way with the right things in front of you, and allow you to be successful in that moment. And that’s really where we saw people come on board with it, and really embrace for Scoop.

Tyrell: I’m gonna pull back on one of our previous conversations, because this resonated for me, and I probably needed to hear my simplistic view of the world. But you use this analogy of a vehicle and putting tires on a vehicle, would you be willing to just kind of share that framework?

John: Yeah, absolutely. So I talked about tightening the lugs, when you’re changing a tire, that when you go to change a tire on your car, you do the star pattern where you tighten the lugs a little bit, they may not be loose, the vehicle may not even be safe at that point. But you go on to the next one, you tighten it a little bit. And you look to improve how that tire is adhered to the vehicle. And that was really a lot of the philosophy as we rolled out Scoop to say, hey, perfect is not the goal right now. Good is the goal right now. And let’s continue to evolve that out.

So we will look at each one of the different apps that we use within Scoop, and look for different opportunities to improve the way we’re communicating with each other. But we’re not looking to do it all in one fell swoop. If you go to change the tire on your car, and you put one lug on there, and you tighten it all the way down, and then you do the next one, the next one. Next one, you’re gonna have a really bumpy ride as you go down the road. And for us, it’s made more sense to just take it in a progressive mode, take it in a way we’re going around, and we’re getting better and we’re evolving each and every day.

Tyrell: Yeah, I mean, thank you for sharing that. I think even for me, it’s like, that orchestration of the lugs, as simple as it is, you’re also acknowledging the value that each of those hubs play in the hole. And, there are some really important parallels as it relates to the people on our teams and the simple acknowledgment that your feedback is as critical to this as what I’ve put in front of you. And so even to hear that, that Slack channel is still alive and well today, you know, is really valuable. And I appreciate that. And actually, I’m able to kind of take more and more out of that analogy. So thanks for reading scribing last question.

I’m gonna have to bite my tongue to keep us moving forward. But give me a little bit of a view. And even if you could, you know, use an example of like, a year ago versus today, what does the world that ARP Solar look like today? What are some of those glimmers of excitement that you get when you see the team working today versus when you came into it? And maybe like, what, what is the team experience? And, you know, in terms of the output of the operation, how would you describe the changes that you’ve seen and where you all are going?

John: I think for me, text messages are probably the most emotional component of our evolution that ARP, I think in the beginning of this year, text messages were 90% Panic. You know, a need for something and reaching out to the entirety of the organization for that. And so you would be getting these texts at 10 o’clock at night. You’d be getting these texts at five o’clock in the morning when the installation crews are rolling into the warehouse. It was nonstop and it was really negative. And having a centralized communication platform, having a space where people go to first to find their answers, and are most likely to find the answers to the questions that they have. It eliminates that energy almost completely.

And so now an off-hours text message for me is most likely a birthday wish or a funny picture that’s rolling through about something that happened during the day. And so we see that change. Yeah, no, it’s a real energy. And sometimes you don’t recognize the change as it’s happening. But you look back and you go, Oh, my goodness, the vibe here was completely different 10 months ago than it is today. And you take a deep breath and go, okay, all right, let’s go around and let’s tighten some more lugs. And let’s keep getting better. So that’s awesome.

Webinar Details

Topics Covered Include:

  • Strategies to Adapt to Changing Solar Industry Dynamics
  • Deal-Breakers in Operational Bottlenecks
  • Empowering Teams Through Change Management
  • Live Demo: ARP Solar’s Top Dashboards to Track Performance
  • Live Demo: View of ARP Solar’s Fully Integrated Tech Stack
  • Live Demo: ARP Solar’s Project Trackers and Workflows

Watch the Recording