Creating a Customer-Centric Organization in Technology Sales | Kelly Shamblen, CPS | EP193

Since I've been at chint, I think we've more than doubled the revenue as well as the headcount. And it's amazing to hear Brian say that he's going to want to do that again. And that's that is our goal as well. So I think it's this is going to be an interesting year, we're pivoting between a couple of different technologies our company in and of itself, is growing, like you just mentioned into a new era into the the storage market, both in red, CNI, and utility scale storage. So I'm looking forward to some of those new new projects, new challenges from those customers.

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Today on the Clean Power Hour, creating a customer centric organization in technology sales, I'm Tim Montague, your host Welcome to the Clean Power Hour, check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com Give us a rating and a review on Apple and Spotify. And please reach out to me and tell a friend about the show. I love hearing from my listeners but more listeners are wanted. So please tell a friend and connect with us at cleanpowerhour.com Or on LinkedIn. Today we're going to be drilling down on how CIG Power Systems has created a very customer centric company and organization. My guest today is Kelly Shamblen. She is the sales manager West for chint power systems. Welcome to the show, Kelly.

Thank you, Tim for having me.

And I'm sorry, you're the regional sales manager West. I always mess up something. One of my goals in life Kelly is to be less wrong. But anyway, I'm looking forward to this conversation. This is part of a series we're doing on cient with cient. And so you you my listener will be seeing lots of stories from chint employees. You might be wondering, how do you see an AI solar PPAs get financed? For many it remains a mystery. For others, there's conductor, conductor solar helps hundreds of developers and EPCs. Find investors, close transactions and collaborate effectively. With competitive bids from high quality partners. Conductor, make sure you and your customers get the best PPA deal every time free to use for developers and EPCs visit conductor.solar today. But Kelly, tell our listeners how you got into the solar industry and how you came to cient.

Sure. So my my background actually came from high tech, I grew up in Silicon Valley. And so I wore a lot of hats back in the day. Everything from HR to new business development and marketing, I took a pause for a little bit to raise my family and when I reentered Shin was introduced to them in my first interview just really connected with my, my manager and just really started enjoying just just what they were about and just how easy it was to work with them. And the fact that they were a smaller group, then half less than half the size we are today. And they It's great working opportunity. They they really focused on the customer and customer first in all aspects of the company. And I just really enjoyed having that opportunity to work with with them. And that I was hired initially as custom operations. And at the time, because from operations wore a lot of hats, we worked with the finance group, we did logistics as well as of course, the order processing as part of that custom operations role. So it was a good opportunity to get my feet wet and figure out what it was about and what solar was about. It was a great introduction.

Cool. Looks like you've been at chint for almost six years. Now. That That says a lot. You know, the average tenure in the solar industry is less than two years, I think. And, you know, I've worked I also spend time in Silicon Valley. I cut my teeth in technology doing tech recruiting. And, you know, there's there's technology, which is a wonderful thing we humans have the modern life that we have, and we have the energy transition because of technology. And that's very important. And it's it's vital to have very good technology which cient does. But it's the people that are really going to make a company stand out and differentiate from the competition, so to speak. And of course it's it's a place that we work right when you're an employee you're working with a group of people and then as a coach customer, or a vendor, for that matter, you're interfacing with this group of people. And that can make or break the deal. Like things are either going to be good and it's a, it's a good experience, it's a learning experience or just a pleasant smooth experience or not. And it's usually not honestly, there are many hiccups in the business world. But having worked now with chint for well over a year and a half, I have learned that this is one of the ways that cient has really set itself apart in the solar inverter space. And so we're gonna, we're gonna drill down on this and and share with our listeners, what it takes, because this is not easy. This is completely non trivial. But So from your experience, Kelly, when I think back, you know, five years, and I know that's not easy, but But what is it about cient in your, in your own words, I guess that really endears you and keeps you loyal to the company,

I would have to say our team is really what keeps me here, as well as our customer relationships, you know, we we make a product that is unique, it is a good product. I mean, we do have competitors in the space, obviously, but we have some great selling features on that. But honestly, what differentiates us I think, is just just the people. Like you just said, it's just an incredibly important part of the process, sometimes overlooked, but it's, it's definitely a good, something something to be taken seriously.

And I think that starts at the top in this case with Brian Wagner. And, you know, he, he has really created a very inviting environment. And I, you know, got to spend time with the whole company at Innovation Day, last year. But and, and now I see you all regularly, you know, bits and pieces of the team, because I'm going to a lot of trade shows myself. So I've I've gotten to know quite a few people at CPS. So let's let's flip that around, though and talk about the customer. And what is it that chint does that you think is different when it comes to serving your customers.

So we look at our customers as partners, not just transactions. So we might take a little bit more time with the customer, solving their problems really digging down and figuring out what their needs are, what their challenges are, and how we can help solve it sometimes and most oftenly, it can be out of the box, we can we can quote customers all day long, but really understanding their needs and the projects will help us to get them the best solution that they're looking for. And it might not even be the solution that they came to us for in the first place.

Well, yeah, just I'm curious, what is it? What is an example of that.

So we might have a customer that is perhaps looking for a rapid shutdown solution, but they're not exactly sure all the elements in the pieces that might be part of that. And so we, we might have something additional to offer for that we have a customer we're working with right now, who for for various reasons in their design, they're thinking that they don't need an internal transmitter that we offer in our rapid shutdown wire box, their design, the way it's laid out, they think they only need an external. So we jumped on the call with with our products team and service team, and really delve down deep into what their needs were and came up with a different solution than I think they originally thought was going to work. But in reviewing it with their design team, they they made a change on their plans, based on our advice.

You know, people do business with people that they like and trust. And if you are in business, and you don't know this, you need to really get this and integrate this into your portfolio, your playbook, whatever you want to call that. Because we have we all have options, right? Much of the the equipment in the solar industry is becoming a commodity. There's it's a quite a mature industry, right? The the photovoltaic, the modern pv cell was invented in the 50s 1954 at Bell Labs in New Jersey. So we've had 70 years now to mature this technology. And of course, the technology is always changing and evolving. And that's both interesting and challenging. Because you you have to evolve with the times whether you're an installer, a developer, an OEM, what have you. It's it's a constant evolution. But at the end of the day, we are doing business with other humans. And sometimes, you know, there's a, there's a great brand, but the, the interface, okay, the relationships and the way of doing business can leave you with a sour taste in your mouth. And companies will literally jump ship from a major brand. You know, and I know major, I know major IPPs who have left your competition and migrated to CPS, because of CPS is culture of customer service, you know, and I'll just put my finger on a few things. And maybe you can respond to those, you know, on time delivery of orders and products that are ordered, right? That's a huge thing. But then when, if and when there's a problem. And Brian Wagner is kind of famous for saying we sell a product that is guaranteed to fail. Eventually, all inverters will fail all electronics, all computers, etc, right? It's doing that heavy lifting, converting DC to AC power, it's a super heavy lift. But when there is a problem, getting that fixed in a timely manner, and really having somebody there who's going to be on your team and help you solve that problem in a collaborative fashion in a timely fashion, in a way that's not causing you any more grief than you already have. Like, when the inverter goes down. You're not generating revenue. So it is a pain point. But those two things, I think, really stand out about CPS, but what are your thoughts about that?

Yeah, I mean, I think our service department, James Oz, Oswald, in particular, they they are our secret sauce, they are what keeps us ticking, like you said, we can sell a product all day long, but making it right when things might be going wrong, whether or not it's something that is within our control or not, we do the best that we can. And absolutely that is differentiates ourselves from our competition. For sure.

I'm curious if you could share, you know, some of your experience, or experiences working with customers and how you see, you know, let's just say, going from zero to 60, where you have a new customer who's not familiar with cient, either the technology or the company, and then you know, someone that has stayed true to you over the years. Can you give us an example? You don't have to name names, but I'm just curious, like, how is that evolved? And what is the feedback that you get from the, from that customer or customers chair.

So my approach with my customers really is organic, I don't have a sales, traditional sales background, I've always been in a people business essentially. So I really kind of take every every customer on a one off basis. So we do retain our customers, I think it's over 90% retention rate. And we do that by just being real with them problem solving with them. If it's a big customer that might have a bigger problem, we definitely bring in resources, we're hiring significantly to support that. And I work with a variety of team members to solve this problem. So whether it's the customer service side, or cops or products, we have a new a new role in our company called customer success on that will be brought in as well to help with with anything that large or small customer, I don't really differentiate between the two customers a customer and I want to make, make them happy as that can be, you know, things that you know, things don't always go perfect. And we try to make it right, best we can. But I think just being real with the customer and connecting with them is the important part.

And you've certainly been through some ups and downs. On the technology side, not every new product is a as smooth the rollout as you would like to see. So I'm curious if you could shine a little light on how has changed handle that phenomenon? Because every technology company deals with this. It's really a question of how you deal with it. How do you recover? How do you make it right? And how do you move forward?

That's right, I again, I think that's what distinguishes us from our competition. We don't shy away from some of those problems. We face them head on, we put resources behind them. And we make the best choices we can for the customer in mind, sometimes painful on our part, but we make sure that it's done right. And we stand by stand by our product stand by our service.

What do you think about difficult people and you know, there's a spectrum there. But obviously, you're dealing with a whole spectrum of sizes and experience levels, but how do you deal with customers who are quote unquote giving you a hard time or being difficult?

Yeah, I mean, that's the nature of the beast and in any, in any industry, excuse me, and in this one in particular, I just try to take it one step at a time with them. Try not to take it personally, first of all, because it's easy to react when somebody's not not exactly happy with you, and I just tried to understand it, if it's something that I can help them with directly, I will if I have to bring in a second resource, you know, just really understanding their problem. And getting to it is kind of my approach with them just being absolutely real and looking for the best solution for them at that moment. And it might not be resolved in one phone call, it might take a couple emails, it might take some some delving in on a you know, if it's a product related issue, or something like that, but we try to do the research to find out that what they're looking for exactly.

Ultimately, I think people really just want to be heard. And they want to be taken seriously right? And not just shrugged off, so to speak. That's and that's completely non trivial. Surprisingly, you and

I have done that before with customers, if they, if all they really want to do is just vent about something I whether it's personal, actually or not. I will sit there and listen. And it's part of building that partnership and that we pour and, you know, keeping them engaged is really the important part.

You're a woman in an industry that is dominated by men. I think more than 80% of the employees in clean energy are men. What does that been like for you working in a male dominated industry? And how is that changing? You certainly seen things change, things are changing. There are many more women coming into clean energy, there are many women working at cient. But what does that been like for you? And what do you have to say to women? Who are perhaps, you know, on some level tentative about working in a male industry like technology?

Yeah, interestingly enough, every industry I've been in has been male dominated. So I kind of feel like it's second nature to me. Actually, when I started at Shin, I was one of three women. So we have definitely made strides in that. In building, I'm not even sure the number we have now. It's probably maybe a quarter of our workforce if I were to think about it, but you know, it's it's really hard, especially in our environment socially, these days, it's really hard to navigate, because people can, they can kind of get, you know, over their skis a little bit with kind of comments. And so yeah, just understanding that people have different backgrounds, and especially with men, you might have various ages that you're dealing with. And sometimes it's not necessarily the most PC comments, but you just sort of take it one step at a time, I think, just really kind of thinking about it. I approach every single thing differently with them. But being patient, I think and not reacting or being reactive towards people. Certainly if it's a situation that needs to be escalated to immediately escalated via your manager or HR, however, however you see fit, but yeah, I think I also use humor a little bit sometimes, too, when people have off colored comments that they'll make, and just kind of put it back on them as well. So yeah, it's definitely a delicate balance. It's something that we live with, I guess, every day as women in our industry.

I don't think you have a a typical or typical background for technology sales. Salespeople come from all walks. But I think you're you're a good example. You have a degree in social science, I believe. And here you are working in this very heavy technology industry working for an inverter manufacturer. What do you say to people who come from a non technical background? I mean, it's, it would be no big deal, right? If you have a degree in electrical engineering, to then segue into the sales component of the industry, so to speak. But I think there is more of a perceived barrier for people coming in from outside of a technical background. What do you say to people about that?

Yeah, I mean, we actually in ship, we have a variety of people with various backgrounds, obviously, our technical folks have to and are required to have that background but those of us that we've recently hired and myself included, I think I'm really having the ability to reach people and have the people skills is probably more important. You can learn The technology to the degree that you need to and in technical sales, I'm relying all the time on our products team for the you know, in depth technical conversations, but you can't actually learn it with the resources that you can. So I wouldn't let you hold that back. I wouldn't let that hold you back. I am from that perspective, but I think I think there's definitely opportunities out there. In all in all parts of the company, whether it's finance, HR, sales, business development, customer operations, customer service, pretty much most everything, obviously, but the super technical side of our business you can do without without a technical degree.

Yeah. So, for those in our audience who are not familiar with CPS America, we CPSS tube, two brands, same company, CPS America, or chint power systems. But for those in our audience who are not familiar, whether they're an energy professional or an aspiring energy professional, what do you say to them, to pique their interest in learning more about CPS,

I say go check on our website, talk to any one of us that are here, reach out to us, I'm on LinkedIn, several of our other employees are on LinkedIn. And I'm just to understand who we are. But ultimately, I say we're a customer centric company. And if you want to be part of something like that, and we're, we're more than willing to talk to you. And we're looking always for good people with good integrity and that are willing to work hard and just actually have fun. Ultimately, we spent a lot of time in the office and you know, we're part of a big team and, and a family and that's really important.

And to customers who might be looking around and trying to find a better solution, a better relationship, a different technology. You know, I'm always surprised how many people are not familiar with CPS, CPS is a you know, a major global inverter manufacturer. And you know, in the CNI space, you are, you're in the top three on a regular basis, right? In terms of volume of sales here in North America, so you have a great toehold in the CNI space. And now you're growing into utility. And I hear rumblings that you're going to be expanding into the residential space as well. But to those customers who are not familiar with CPS, what can they expect from you and your team and your colleagues at CPS, when they start to learn about and explore working with CPS.

We're here for the long haul, we are not interested in just taking your money and and making a sale, we're actually interested in building a partnership with you. It takes time to do that. Obviously, it takes time to build trust. But our biggest partners are the ones that we really spent a lot of time working hard on making that right. So we are looking for people to partner with and we're looking for people that might have solution or a need that they can't solve other places that we might be able to find for them.

And when you think about 2024 or 2025. You know, we're in a fast growing industry. CPS itself is growing fast. I think I think I've heard that you're expected to double the team in 2024. So that is that is rapid growth. What are you what are the challenges and opportunities that you're looking forward to this year?

Wow, since I've been at chint, I think we've more than doubled the revenue as well as the headcount. And it's amazing to hear Brian say that he's gonna want to do that again. And that's that is our goal as well. So I think it's this is going to be an interesting year, we're pivoting between a couple of different technologies, our company in and of itself, is growing, like you just mentioned, into a new era into the the storage market, both in CNI and utility scale storage. So I'm looking forward to some of those new new projects, new challenges from those customers on that side. And in the meantime, we have a in our bedrock of our company, really, like you just mentioned is the CNI space. So all of those products within 1000 volt and 1500 volt product lines is kind of our bread and butter, and we'll just continue to grow those areas as well. But yeah, I think it's going to be an exciting year. It's going to be a lot of new new product and new challenges out there for us, so it'll be good in 2025. I think same thing as we get a foothold more into the utility space and growing I think we're going to make a name for ourselves and really disrupt that that Central Market.

Yeah, check out my article on central to string there is a movement in North America that has already happened actually, in other markets around the world in Asia and Northern Europe, where you were using central inverters, you know, say one megawatt to 10 megawatt inverters. Now, you're starting to see 350 kW or even 275 Kw inverters being used in these very large 100 megawatt projects. So check out my article in PV magazine, and connect with us at upcoming conferences. Both me and Chad will be at many of the regional rd plus events. Of course, here in Illinois, we have three major conferences happening the Midwest solar Expo in May. We have the solar farm summit in July, and we have already plus Midwest in November. So check out cleanpowerhour.com. Go to the events tab, you'll see links to all of those events. And I have several upcoming webinars as well. So join us on our free live webinars. You might be wondering, how do you see an eye solar PPAs get financed? For many it remains a mystery. For others, there's conductor, conductor solar helps hundreds of developers and EPCs. Find investors, close transactions and collaborate effectively. With competitive bids from high quality partners. Conductor, make sure you and your customers get the best PPA deal every time free to use for developers and EPCs. Visit conductor.solar today. Kelly in our last few minutes together. What else should our listeners know about you and CPS? Yeah, so

we've kind of covered the fact that CPS is a customer centric company. We want to partner with you, customer wise as well as prospective employees that are looking to find a new home. We are a small knit team right now we have a DNA of running lean and mean. And even though we are so growing, that family kind of feeling personal feeling is still here. And we really support each other we we grow our team, the way we work we kind of touched on earlier. But the way that chint kind of works and is unique is we want that direct customer relationship. We want the direct customer relationship to work for us and to work for you, we support you guys working directly one on one instead of in other resources because that way, if there's something like we talked about earlier, goes wrong, we're right there for you. And we have the history, the knowledge base to react as quickly as we possibly can. So

if you want to learn more about job opportunities at cient, go to their LinkedIn page, just search for chint Power Systems, Americas you'll find their LinkedIn page, they have many of their jobs listed there, or at chintpowersystems.com. And you can find all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com Give us a rating and a review. I want to thank you for being here. Our listeners, I really appreciate you giving our giving us your time. I do this for you twice a week. And with that, I want to thank Kelly Shamblen regional sales manager West for Chint Power Systems for being with us today. Thank you, Kelly.

Thanks for having me.

I'm Tim Montague. Let's grow solar and storage. Hey, listeners. This is Tim, I want to give a shout out to all of you. I do this for you twice a week. Thank you for being here. Thank you for giving us your time. I really appreciate you and what you're all about. You are part and parcel of the energy transition, whether you're an energy professional today, or an aspiring energy professional. So thank you, I want to let you know that the Clean Power Hour has launched a listener survey. And it would mean so much to me. If you would go to cleanpowerhour.com click on the About Us link right there on the main navigation that takes you to the about page and you'll see a big graphic listener survey, just click on that graphic and it takes just a couple of minutes. If you fill out the survey, I will send you a lovely baseball cap with our logo on it. The other thing I want our listeners to know is that this podcast is made possible by corporate sponsors. We have chint power systems, the leading three phase string inverter manufacturer in North America. So check out CPS America. But we are very actively looking for additional support to make this show work. And you see here our media kit with all the sponsor benefits and statistics about the show, you know, we're dropping two episodes a week. We have now over 320,000 downloads on YouTube. And we're getting about 45,000 downloads per month. So this is a great way to bring your brand to our listeners and our listeners are decision makers in clean energy. This includes projects executives, engineers, finance, project management, and many other professionals who are making decisions about and developing, designing, installing and making possible clean energy projects. So check out clean power hour.com both our listener survey on the about us and our media kit and become a sponsor today. Thank you so much. Let's go solar and storage