Rich Feola of Solar Exclusive shares how ethical lead gen isn’t just the right way to do business — he says it’s the only way (and the FCC agrees).
The Wild West of lead gen is finally being tamed. With new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules closing the “lead generator loophole,” businesses across the U.S. have only a year to become compliant.
The FCC has wanted to take a crack at online marketers for a long time. For consumers fed up with robocalls and text spam, these new rules could be seen as a massive win.
This isn’t a win, however, for the many businesses that have relied on the lead gen loophole to bring in sales prospects. In the past, if a consumer consented to a single lead generator, that information could be sold to multiple telemarketers — making leads cheap and easy to throw into an autodialer.
In an industry like solar, this practice has become a norm, and many businesses are currently working with soon-to-be-illegal shared leads.
For a solar business owner, there are two reactions. Some feel they can maintain the current model without getting caught. Others see this as a kill shot to their online marketing efforts that will force a return to the “old fashioned” approach: knocking doors full time.
Online marketing expert Rich Feola, founder of Solar Exclusive, has a different take. A leader in the solar lead gen space since 2017, Feola sees this as a massive opportunity for solar companies trying to double down on new business.
“The lead generator loophole was a quantity-over-quality approach that did more to waste a sales team’s time than it did to bring in steady business,” Feola says.
According to Feola, leads who haven’t consented to a solicitation — or had only shown a passing interest in the product months prior — don’t result in productive sales calls. The leads may have been cost-effective to acquire, but the juice was still never really worth the squeeze. If anything, these new FCC rules are a welcome wake-up call to start investing in quality leads, rather than continuing to scrape the bottom of the barrel, he says.
This only affirms what Feola has been telling business owners for years.
“You could be pushing prospects into something they’re not interested in,” Feola says, “or you could be pulling in people that are already willing and qualified to make the purchase.”
The difference lies in exclusive leads — which Solar Exclusive specializes in. In this model, prospects have consented to share their information with a specific solar company — and that company is the only one who will be giving them a call.
“We generate all our leads through search engines and video streaming,” Feola says, “from people who are using those platforms to actually research solar. They are in the market and ready to buy.”
While this targeted approach costs more than shared leads, it’s soon to be the only alternative to door-knocking and other traditional marketing methods. The good news is that lead gen is one area where you definitely get what you pay for, he says.
“We talked to so many clients who have tried everyone and know we have the best quality leads,” Feola says. “It’s night and day different from anything that they’ve ever done elsewhere. Even in a tough year in solar, our clients have doubled down with us, even as our competitors go out of business.”
Feola reports that Solar Exclusive gained 100 new clients in December 2023, representing a new wave of companies looking to get compliant well ahead of when the FCC hammer drops (and better their businesses along the way).
With the age of the low-quality lead coming to an end, Feola sees opportunities for his business to grow outside of the solar world.
“We’re expanding right now — kitchen and bath, windows, roofing — moving into other home service industries,” he says. “We’re a process-oriented business that just happens to have started in solar. Our model works anywhere, and we want to keep bringing it to new industries.”
The rise of Solar Exclusive — and Feola’s vision for its future — is a big piece of the wider trend that’s going on in online marketing. Businesses are getting all too comfortable cutting corners to get leads, consumers are getting frustrated, and the FCC is moving to clean up the landscape.
Solar Exclusive represents a future where engaging a prospect with consent, precision and respect is an ideal way to do business. For Feola’s company, this isn’t a knee-jerk reaction to change; it’s something that they brought to the market seven years ago.
As he helps tame the Wild West of lead gen, Feola is excited about a new standard of excellence in solar marketing.
“We’re looking into a partnership with the Residential Solar Association, a nonprofit trying to fix many of the industry’s ethical problems, to promote better lead gen practices,” he says. “The industry is changing for the better — and it starts with the people running the ads and generating the leads.”
To see the future of solar lead gen for yourself, visit SolarExclusive.com.
The news and editorial staffs of the New York Daily News had no role in this post’s preparation.
