Context
Despite its sunny climate, Florida ranked behind 19 other states in renewable energy adoption through 2017. State policy had restricted solar development, and most generation capacity remained in utility hands.
When the Florida Public Service Commission cleared the way for residential solar leasing in April 2017, Sunrun became the first national installer to enter the market. But with minimal residential solar adoption and cheap grid power, Floridians needed convincing.
I led the research and sales enablement work to develop a compelling value proposition tailored to the Florida market.
My Role
I partnered with Jonathan Horiel (Sunrun) and Carissa Justice & Diva DiMartini (nimble copywriting) to:
- Conduct customer research through sales appointment ride-alongs
- Synthesize insights into actionable sales strategy
- Design and prototype new market-specific sales presentation
- Manage copywriting collaboration for messaging development
- Test messaging hooks with retail lead generators
- Train 30+ salespeople on the new presentation
- Track adoption and iterate based on feedback
Approach
Field Research
Jon and I shadowed sales appointments across Tampa and Orlando teams. We took extensive notes during consultations, focusing on:
- What sparked initial interest?
- What did homeowners expect from their appointment?
- Where were gaps in understanding?
- What value proposition resonated most?
We brought teams together for open dinners where salespeople could honestly share challenges and successes. We distilled pages of notes into Post-It insights, revealing shared concerns and unmet needs.
The Key Finding
Overall category awareness was incredibly low. Most Floridians didn't know anyone who had gone solar. Our existing presentation assumed category commitment and jumped straight to "why Sunrun."
We needed to start at the beginning - building commitment to solar as a category before presenting why Sunrun was the right choice.
Redesigned Presentation
We developed a new presentation that would:
- Start with personal, community, and global benefits of renewable energy
- Address low category awareness with social proof
- Mix rational messaging (rate predictability, control) with emotional benefits
- Only after building category commitment, present the case for Sunrun specifically
Iterative Testing
Working with retail lead generators at Costco, we tested different opening "hooks" corresponding to presentation elements. By tracking hundreds of shopper responses daily, we got rapid feedback on which messaging resonated.
We collaborated in Figma for rapid iteration on wording, imagery, and emotional resonance. nimble helped us produce copy that landed.
Deploy and Learn
We built a fully interactive prototype in Tiled to gather feedback without a full development cycle. The platform captured interaction data - which slides salespeople used, for how long, and whether customers revisited the presentation after meetings.
We supplemented quantitative data with qualitative feedback via Google Forms to understand how reps were using the presentation and what could be improved.
Impact
Market Entry Success:
- Developed sales enablement materials for 30+ salespeople entering a new market
- Identified two critical insights that shaped go-to-market strategy
- Built systematic feedback loops for rapid iteration
Strategic Learning:
- Florida's low solar awareness required category education before product differentiation
- Mixed rational/emotional messaging performed better than purely functional benefits
- Starting with rate predictability and control, then expanding to bigger-picture benefits, created the most effective customer journey
Cross-Functional Collaboration:
- Successfully managed collaboration with external copywriting agency
- Built rapid prototyping workflow using Figma and Tiled
- Created feedback systems combining quantitative interaction data and qualitative insights
What I Learned
Start where customers are, not where you want them to be. Our initial presentation assumed too much category knowledge. Meeting customers at their actual starting point - curiosity about solar in general - made the entire conversation more effective.
Rapid testing beats lengthy deliberation. Testing messaging hooks with hundreds of real customers per day gave us actionable data faster than any focus group could.
Behavioral insights matter. The most successful messaging combined rational control (predictable rates) with emotional benefits (environmental impact). Customers made decisions with their heads and hearts.
This project taught me how to conduct effective customer research in the field, synthesize insights into strategy, and build feedback loops that enable continuous improvement in market positioning.