Pat Cherubini (00:00):

We’ve tried. How, when somebody goes to a networking meeting, how do you get over the fact that it’s, you know, everybody’s saying, Hey, buy my. I don’t wanna buy your. And you know, that whole network let’s meet for coffee and all that stuff. How do you get the real connection and real relationships out of going to all those meetings? Because I

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Vibes, bro, up to you by ultimate online marketing.com.

Announcer (01:07):

Now, here are your hosts, pat and Angie Cheri.

Announcer (01:11):

All right, let’s do this.

Angie Cherubini (01:15):

Hi everyone. It’s pat Angie, Cheri. And today we have with us, I’ll be Del Gato, AKA the solar guy. <laugh>

Pat Cherubini (01:29):

Welcome a thank you so much for taking the time to be with us. And uh, can’t wait to hear your story.

Albie Delgado (01:35):

Thank you for having me.

Pat Cherubini (01:37):

So we usually just start off by saying, you know, your little introduction, we call it your intro, your origin story, you know, where did you come from? And, and, and where are you at now? You know, what’s your business?

Albie Delgado (01:48):

Well, I’m based out of New Jersey. Um, I’ve been new, uh, New Jersey, my entire life. Um, I’ve been in sales for 30 years. I’ve done networking for almost 20 years and I do residential solar. I help homeowners that wanna go green with clean, renewable energy with so solar panels.

Angie Cherubini (02:07):

Nice.

Pat Cherubini (02:08):

Are you only in Jersey or are you all over the place?

Albie Delgado (02:12):

Um, I can go. I can cover all 50 states on the residential side. I have a partner that I work with that does commercial solar as well.

Pat Cherubini (02:19):

Mm-hmm <affirmative> awesome.

Angie Cherubini (02:21):

So how did you, how, how did, how did you get into solar based off of you? You said you were in sales, so I guess first off, tell us about your initial getting into sales. I mean, if you’ve been in it, what 30, 30 years you said,

Albie Delgado (02:36):

Yeah, I’ve done a lot. I’ve I was in the mortgage industry for 12 years. I sold Kirby vacuum cleaners for a little while. That was door to door

Pat Cherubini (02:43):

Sales. Yes. Doors and everything. Yeah.

Albie Delgado (02:47):

Yes. And then I’ve done, I’ve actually done door knocking a lot. I’ve I worked for a company called cable vision, which was then became optimum, which now is alt that’s in central New Jersey. I did that for almost four years. And then I went to Comcast. I was there for a couple years on the residential and business side. And then Comcast was my last stop. And then I got into, I’ve been in solar almost two years and absolutely love it. You can help a lot of people. There’s a lot of, uh, benefits to it, uh, real saving value. And especially with people that want to go green with clean, renewable energy, this is a perfect spot. Right. So,

Angie Cherubini (03:25):

Well, tell us how, what do you think you, I mean, we, all, everybody knows Kirby sales salesman and stuff. How hard was that? I mean, what was it hard? Tell us about it. What it was like I

Albie Delgado (03:39):

Say it was hard, different. Um, I did that back in 1991, so clearly I’m aging myself, but, um, it’s okay. It was interesting. I would, I, I was trained to go to the house and I would have two bottles of soda. I have a bottle, I would’ve a two liter bottle of Coke. I have a two liter bottle of Pepsi. I would knock on the door and say, which one do you like Pepsi or Coke. They would pick one. And that basically would be your way to get in the door. And they said, no, no. Yes. And unfortunately they said we weren’t interested then I, I couldn’t let them keep the soda. That’s just how it worked. <laugh>

Angie Cherubini (04:11):

<laugh> was that your idea?

Albie Delgado (04:15):

No, it was, no, it was, it was, it was strictly a commission position. I don’t even know how I got it or I did it for like three months, but it’s memorable because again, how often do you do vacuum cleaner sales? Again, back when I did it, it was, you know, there was no internet back then. Right. You know, again, reaching my phone again. There was no internet back then or smart phones or any exciting technology these that you take advantage of today.

Pat Cherubini (04:38):

Yeah. We, we don’t keep the secret. We’ve been doing this for 24 years. So we remember not owning a computer or a phone. Yep.

Albie Delgado (04:45):

Yep.

Pat Cherubini (04:46):

It wasn’t so bad. <laugh>

Albie Delgado (04:50):

I mean, the product just, I mean the product changes, but your, the way you approach it, your knowledge and wanting to educate the consumer, that still is the same.

Pat Cherubini (04:58):

I, I can imagine that you, the things that you learned back then are just, you know, they’re ingrained in you, but you know, it’s the things that you almost can’t learn unless you do that stuff. Right.

Angie Cherubini (05:10):

It’s good. Uh, good practices, good things that you learned back then that a lot of people don’t know today, but of course it’s probably helped you now. So that’s yes, that’s good. So

Pat Cherubini (05:21):

What was your inspiration to dump mortgage? Everything else you were doing to get into solar?

Albie Delgado (05:28):

Uh, it was a long journey. I would say I did love working in the mortgage industry. I did it for 12 years. Unfortunately, the crash of 2008 basically wiped it out. Cuz I was helping mostly homeowners that were either potential buyers or homeowners that wanted to do a refinance, but they had credit issues of challenges, you know, their credit wasn’t good. Uh, they had a lot of, you know, bad blemishes on their credit. So that’s who I targeted primarily to help them restore their credit and get into the house they wanted or to do a refinance, to, you know, pay off their bills, cut their term, cut their rate, you know, whatever their need was. We did everything we could to try to, you know, meet that standard. And the funny part is when I did mortgages, it’s very similar to what, what I do right now because I, I, I approach it the same way.

Albie Delgado (06:13):

You know, the way I follow up with people, the way I call all people, the way I email people. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, I mean, now you have texts back then you weren’t texting. So again, some things have changed. Some things have not changed. Um, one of the biggest things that I do is follow up is key. You have to follow up with clients sometimes they’ll they’ll wanna sign in a day. Sometimes they’ll wait six months or call me in a year. So one of the tricks I have, I have a, in my filing in my desk drawer, I have a, uh, file folder. So I have a folder for money through Saturday. And then I have a folder for every month for the next two years, because you never know when someone’s gonna say, Hey, call me in six months, call me. Oh right now.

Albie Delgado (06:51):

It’s not good. I’ll tell you what, I’ll follow up with you in three months. Fine. I think an notation everything’s paper too, by the way. I’m still old school with that. They’re still there. Yes. Yeah. Cause I have, uh, you know, I have uh, yeah, just papers. Yeah. I write everything down. Like I write the date and I’ll put LM for left message E for email. These are the, these are the kind of, um, shortcuts I learned doing mortgages. So I still apply them today. Like, Hey, I work then I’ll work now. So if I have somebody that says, Hey, you know what we have and really crazy busy. We really can’t talk about this right now. I’ll say, Hey, I’ll tell you what, I better follow up with you in three months. And they say, yes. Okay. I put a note on there, spoke to customer, follow up in, follow up, May 15th. And then I just follow away in the may folder. And then when may comes around, bam, I got a folder of stuff that I need to work on. It’s cool. Yeah.

Pat Cherubini (07:37):

It seems so simple.

Albie Delgado (07:39):

I, I,

Pat Cherubini (07:40):

I still have reams of notebooks where I, I, I take notes by hand. I keep trying, you know, the internet keeps trying to suck me in and I do it, but yeah, I end up not doing it. Yeah. And then I, then I kind of sit down, like I don’t really even know what I’m supposed to be doing right

Albie Delgado (07:54):

Now. Yeah. And then I have, I have, um, you know, like in basket, you know, people have in basket out baskets. I have, uh, five stackable ones. And if it’s up to me, I probably I’m gonna probably get three more. Cause again, I just like, cause I gotta be very, very actually let me see if I can show it to you. I dunno. If you can see it. Can you see those? Oh

Pat Cherubini (08:13):

Yeah. Yep.

Albie Delgado (08:13):

Okay. So those are, those are five, um, you know, oh, what I do here second here we see. Oh, I’m sorry. There you go. Okay. <laugh> so, yeah, so that’s how I keep organized. And what I do is I, I grab the fi I grab the whole stack in the morning. Then I sort it by who I got a call who I got an email who I got a text and that’s how I, that’s how I organize it. And oh, do I have an appointment? And then, and same thing with appointment. So I have an like, after this meeting, I have an appointment at four 30, so I’m ready to go with that. And we’ll present with that client by zoom and do a pro PowerPoint presentation.

Pat Cherubini (08:49):

Awesome. Nice. Keep it simple.

Albie Delgado (08:53):

Try to keep it simple

Pat Cherubini (08:53):

And effective. And that, that follow up is something that we talk about a lot with a lot of businesses, you know, they don’t follow up. You know, the saying we have is, you know, follow up until they buy or die. Mm-hmm

Albie Delgado (09:04):

<affirmative> I agree with that, you know, and uh, you know, I have some people, what I do is, you know, sometimes, and this is funny. I’m even saying this is that sometimes I’ll speak to somebody and <affirmative>, and you know, I spoke him a week ago. I’m like, I don’t wanna be a pest. So I’ll call you once every two weeks. And then if I’m not getting any traction, okay, I’ll call you once a month. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and then, you know what? And then, then you follow you forget about it’s like, you know what? I’ll I’ll get to it eventually, cuz they’re not calling me. I’ll eventually try out later. And sometimes what it’ll be like, Hey, I’m sorry, I just was busy or things were going on or you know, from my mom and a nursing home and you know, life gets in the way. A lot of times I understand that. So I’m like, Hey, you just, you know, as long as you’re not bothering them every week, every day. Yeah. They’re usually pretty cool with it. So, you know, just try to, I call it soft.

Pat Cherubini (09:47):

Not saying no, they still want more information and you know

Albie Delgado (09:50):

Yeah. And I get people to do that, like call me next week. I’m like, okay, <affirmative> what I call. I call it soft touches. You know, you won’t get in trouble doing that versus, you know, hounding somebody every day. Like a bill collector won’t do that.

Pat Cherubini (10:03):

Right. And as you know, you know, usually one Touche is never enough. It

Albie Delgado (10:07):

Usually takes of course not no

Pat Cherubini (10:10):

Lots and lots depending on the business. Yeah. It does. We deal with all kinds of small businesses and we talk, you know, when you generate a lead, which is what we do for them, a lot of times they’ll give it one shot and you know, we just tell ’em you got it’s it’s crazy. But that’s what they do. I that’s insane. They weren’t, they weren’t interested or they didn’t answer and you know, okay, money down the drain. You gotta yeah. Contacting them.

Albie Delgado (10:36):

No, it’s it is definitely a numbers game. But again, when you get a, when you get a client on the phone, you try to help them as much you can. And I’m very transparent. And what’s solar. What I do for them is I say, look, gimme your address. First. I’m gonna go on Google maps. I’m gonna look to see your roof to see number one is, you know, if there are any issues with shading, with trees, that’s the number one. If they, if, if there’s no issues we to step two. But if they say, Hey, but if I see the house and I say, Hey, look, you got too many trees, uh, we’re gonna have to do tree removal. Are you open to that? Mm-hmm <affirmative> and some people will say yes, and then we’ll proceed. Some people will say, no, I don’t want to cut down trees. And at that point, I say, thank you for your time, but I can’t do, I can’t be effective if this is something you won’t allow me to do. I understand why you don’t wanna do it, but we need to have full access to the roof. Yeah.

Pat Cherubini (11:22):

Shade. It’s not good.

Albie Delgado (11:23):

All right. Cool. Yeah. So when we get, so when we get to the next level and they’re like, okay, uh, either there’s not a tree issue or they’re willing to take down trees. Um, I get, I tell them, email me a copy of your most recent electric bill. We do a 12 month analysis. My design team will build a design and bay on that. We’ll see what we can do for them and how much we can save them.

Pat Cherubini (11:43):

Awesome.

Angie Cherubini (11:44):

Well, tell me what you know, you’re obviously telling me now what you do when you get the customer, but yes. How do you go about and get new customers or clients?

Albie Delgado (11:56):

It is all networking. I am in a BNI chapter. I dunno if you know what BNI is. Mm-hmm <affirmative> okay. You’re failure from. All right. So BNI has been, this is gonna be a major plug for BNI and they’re gonna love this. I absolutely adore BNI. And I’ll, I’m gonna do a quick story for you. I was in BNI 20 years ago as a mortgage broker did very well, but back then I didn’t sub or visit other chapters. Didn’t even think about it back then, then two years ago I was working for Comcast business. And again, I didn’t visit chapters and I occasionally sub for coworkers and then fast forward to now everything is on zoom primarily cuz of the pandemic. So that’s one of the, I hate to say it’s one of the benefits of that is that I’ve been able to work remotely from my house. But what I also been able to do is, and again, I know being I well enough, Hey, not only am I gonna visit my, uh, I’m in my chapter every Friday morning, but I’m gonna visit other chapters, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays. So between my chapter and visiting those chapters, um, I’ve been able to generate business and power partners help me help home. Others that

Angie Cherubini (12:57):

Wanna just reach out to you.

Albie Delgado (12:59):

Oh, all the time. Absolutely.

Pat Cherubini (13:03):

Since I got a BNI pro networking pro I am not good at networking. We’ve tried how, when somebody goes to a networking meeting, how do you get over the fact the it’s, you know, everybody’s saying, Hey, buy my. I don’t wanna buy your <laugh> and you know, that whole network let’s meet for coffee and all that stuff. How do you get the real connection and real relationships out of going to all those meetings? Because I, I’m not very good at it.

Albie Delgado (13:30):

Well, first of all, I do everything by zoom. I don’t do in person.

Angie Cherubini (13:35):

Okay.

Albie Delgado (13:35):

That’s number one, because everything with me is time management. Number two, every, I, I manage my Google calendar very effectively. So I know Tuesday morning, I’m gonna be an I chapter Tuesday afternoon, 1130 to one. I’m gonna be an I chapter. And what I do is I, I click on the, the chapter itself and go on their actual website. I make sure there’s no conflict. There’s no solar guy in, in there. If there’s not, I’ll visit that chapter. And I’ll say, hello, how you guys doing? I’m a guest, I’m a member of another BNI chapter. I just wanted to come visit. And the response is always very welcoming, very pleasant. Nice. And then basically I’m in there. I’m looking for people I can work with. And a lot of people reach out to me either by phone call, text, email, Hey, I was interested in solar. I had questions or I just got it. And uh, have somebody that is interested in it. That’s where I would say 90% of my business is B. And I really, I could probably say that. Yeah. So do you,

Angie Cherubini (14:28):

How do you then, how do you communicate with them? Do you get a list, everybody that was in there or no,

Albie Delgado (14:34):

No. I take notes. I’ll take notes and then I’m listening to everyone’s come commercial and example, if I see somebody that says, Hey, um, you know, I’m interested in talking to you. What I do is I write down their name. I jump on connect. I pull up their profile, I print it out and then I write notes on it. Nice. And then what I do is after the meeting, I’ll send them an email. Hey John, how you doing? I was just at your BNI chapter. When are you available to have a meeting by zoom or phone? Mm-hmm <affirmative> and we start from there, but again, follow, like you said, follow up is key. Yeah. You know, it’s very simple or what happens is, and this another secret I’ll teach you, which I think was I learned this recently. So there’s people in my there’s there’s spots in my chapter that are open, like a title person. So I’ll visit another chapter and I’ll see if there’s a title person in there. I’ll say, Hey, Mr. Or Mrs. Title person, you know, do you cover my area? Yes or no. And if you do, maybe somebody in your office is looking to expand their business, have them visit.

Pat Cherubini (15:27):

Yeah.

Albie Delgado (15:28):

It’s not very hard. I mean, people act like this is so hard. This is not hard. It’s just, you know, you have to prioritize, you know, and I have a, I have a, um, a saying on my wall, it says consistent action creates consistent results. Yeah. You know, if you want, it’s there, it’s there for the, all the heavy they’ve done all the work. So why not visit all the, I, I said, I visit chapters all the time. I get a lot of great referrals. People get to know you. I sub at a lot of chat and it’s been wonderful. Like I said, I love, and it gives me opportunities to help people. Yeah. And you’re meeting them live even though, even though it’s by zoom, but you know, it’s just as good as being there.

Pat Cherubini (16:03):

Mm-hmm <affirmative> well, we haven’t done that because we, you know, before the world shut down, we were going to some and you know, they were 30 minutes from here. So you gotta drive there. You know, it was a good time, but it was, you know, there wasn’t that, that real connection. No,

Albie Delgado (16:18):

The best thing you can do is talk to your leadership or your ambassador and say, I want to visit other chapter is how can I do that? And they’ll tell you, the first thing I would do is visit chapters in your area. Yeah. You know, and you’re gonna find chapters that don’t have what you guys are doing. You know, mean there are, I would say there’s the top four categories that I feel sorry for, uh, it’s the realtor, the mortgage person, the life insurance person and the financial advisor. Mm-hmm <affirmative> they all have an important role, but they can’t really visit other chapters because their spots are already taken. Yeah. But again, as a solar rep, I don’t have to worry about that because it’s 95% of the chapter don’t have a solar person in it. So that’s how I benefit.

Pat Cherubini (16:57):

Yeah. We, we always, we joke because we’ve done websites, lead generation for people. And we always said, man, if we could figure out how to get insurance leads or cuz they’re, those are the guys that are there. It’s the title, the real estate, the insurance. Yeah. They’re just begging for leads. And I don’t think they know, they don’t know anything else do well,

Angie Cherubini (17:15):

They have so many, um, there’s so many obstacles that they have to so many hoops that they have to go through.

Albie Delgado (17:22):

Well, you know, it’s funny, you normally think when you’re in a networking group, you’re looking for power partners and, and in theory that’s, that’s correct. However, for me, I don’t really have power partners. I just B and I is my power partners. I just visit chapters sub. Um, they actually have a national speed networking every Tuesday at four. And I go to that, there’s over a hundred people in that zoom. My thing is, yeah. That’s how I network.

Angie Cherubini (17:47):

That’s a great,

Albie Delgado (17:48):

Um, and I honestly tell you, I’ve tried other ways to network. I’ve tried, uh, coffee news. I’ve tried. Valpak I’ve done a couple different things that weren’t as effective as BNI.

Angie Cherubini (17:58):

Well, I think that’s a great that’s. Thank you. I think that’s a great tip for hopefully a lot of other business owners that will, uh, hopefully watch this. Sure. And they pro probably haven’t thought about doing something like that or looking into their own personal BNI chapter and, and seeing and checking to see if that spot is taken or not. So that, that’s awesome. That’s a great tip.

Albie Delgado (18:23):

Yeah. You, you don’t have assumptions. You wanna have the right attitude. You wanna have the right mindset and you wanna say, you know what me be productive and I’ll give you an example. This is, this is gonna be a quick story, but this is kind of funny. So I found a networking group that’s free. It’s eight o’clock on Monday morning in North Carolina Uhhuh. And some people ask me like, why in the world are you in there? I said, well, it’s an hour. It’s free. There’s like 40 people in there. And there’s, there’s potential opportunities for people that want to go solar on the residential or commercial side. And there’s no solar guy it’s me. So if that, if that, if that opportunity’s gonna happen, I’m gonna be able to take advantage of it.

Angie Cherubini (18:58):

There you go. So,

Albie Delgado (19:00):

So again, it’s all about mindset, you know, it’s a numbers game.

Angie Cherubini (19:02):

Well, speaking of mindset then who is your mentor? I mean, who’s mentored you or is there book or something like that, that, that you, that you’ve read or you listened, you know, a podcast you’ve listened to, that’s kind of helped you.

Albie Delgado (19:17):

Um, you know, it is, uh, I think that, like I said, over 30 years of sales, it’s, you know, people I’ve worked with, uh, I’m gonna give a plug right now for a guy. He’s gonna love this when he I’m gonna tag him in this as well. His name is Mike Matthews, him and I used to work together at optimum cable vision. He was my supervisor and he was just always there to help me and, you know, just, uh, like a real, a true mentor. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know, I’ve had another boss, I’m gonna call her out as well. Her name is Kim Clark. She was a manager for me at, uh, Comcast. Again, certain people I gravitated to cuz they were willing to help. They had a great attitude and they understood the straw because they did the job. That’s how you really learn. Right.

Albie Delgado (19:54):

But again, it’s just again doing this for so long. It’s like I could sell, you know, vacuum cleaners again. But my thing is, it’s not necessarily, I mean, you know the product number one, but it’s all about exposure. You gotta get in front of the enough people. You gotta take your shots, you know? Yeah. It’s and I always say, it’s like baseball. If you get three hits out of 10, you’re an all star. So you don’t focus on the seven hits. You didn’t get, you focus on the three you got because we’re all gonna get rejection and you focus on yeah. You know what, if I got a rejection, I learn from it and move on to the next one. And that’s how you, sometimes

Pat Cherubini (20:24):

You gotta, what’s the saying, you don’t need, you don’t need to, to know anymore. You don’t need more knowledge. You need to know more people.

Albie Delgado (20:31):

Yes.

Pat Cherubini (20:32):

Get out there, meet more people.

Albie Delgado (20:34):

Yeah. So the great thing with solar, like I said, it’s, uh, you know, I I’m able to help homeowners that want to go, uh, go green with clean, renewable energy with solar panels. We show them how to own their electricity. They lock in their price and they don’t no longer have to deal with rate increases from the electric company and something else that most homeowners don’t know that by 2030, there’s a federal mandate that at least 30% of the utility company, clients, customers have to be using some sort of renewable energy. And if they don’t meet that mandate, they’re gonna get penalized. And in turn, they’re gonna pass cost onto the consumer. So why should the electric company, they should be mine.

Pat Cherubini (21:11):

They’re trying to get the utility company to make people go solar.

Albie Delgado (21:15):

Well use, use some sort of renewable energy. So solar wind, what have you? Yes, because obviously, and people don’t know this because right now the utility companies are using fossil fuels using coal, using nuclear. And none of these things are good for the environment. And for solar, we use the best form of renewable energy, which is the sun, right?

Angie Cherubini (21:33):

Is that why? I mean, is that why you got into solar?

Albie Delgado (21:37):

Because I got into solar and I had a couple friends that I worked with previously that were into it and you know, and, and I, when I sold the concept was I’m like, wow, this makes sense. This is a way to save money. This is way to help the environment. It was just a lot of upside to it as well.

Angie Cherubini (21:53):

Yeah.

Pat Cherubini (21:54):

So how’s it going? How, how are solar sales?

Albie Delgado (21:59):

They’ve been good. They’ve been very busy been, uh, and again, I’m working on 90% of the business I’m working on is residential. 10% is on the commercial side. But yeah, I just, I figured, you know what? Just be, be consistent. Just keep having the same mindset. Just keep getting the exposure, keep pushing, networking, keep going to BNI chapters, keep going to free networkings. It’s just a combination of a lot of different things. And this, this is an amazing, uh, industry. It helps a lot of people. And if you put people first, the money will follow. And that truly will of that.

Pat Cherubini (22:31):

And what, what are the misconceptions? Cuz we’re we live we’re in Ohio, central Ohio. Okay. Where it’s gray 10 months a year. It’s gray and cloudy. It’s rain four times today and now, and the sun comes back out, but we don’t get a lot of sun, especially in the winter.

Albie Delgado (22:47):

Right? Yeah. I would say misconception.

Pat Cherubini (22:49):

Doesn’t,

Albie Delgado (22:50):

There’s a, there’s a lot of miscon about solar number one, that it’s expensive. Number two. Oh. Um, you know, and then people, for some reason, people and they all go to this and they, and it’s, there’s two things people do. And it’s hilarious when I hear it, the first one is, oh, what is my return on investment? And I say to them, well, what is your return on investment right now? You’re paying electric company every month. You’re raising their rates every year and you have no say in it. So why is it all of a sudden you’re thinking about, uh, you know, uh, return of investment. I mean, I understand you wanna say, Hey, if I’m paying a certain amount of money, but I can honestly tell you on the low end, I could say, if somebody 30,000 over the next 25, 30 years, that’s on the low I

Angie Cherubini (23:30):

Get that. Why people would throw the, that out at you?

Angie Cherubini (23:34):

Is it just cause it’s a lump? It’s, it’s a thing it’s

Albie Delgado (23:38):

Well, it’s a lack of education. People don’t know about it or they’re not sure about it, or they don’t know who to talk to a lot of realtors avoid it. But you know, the, the one thing I look at is, and this is kind of ties into it. If you look at the last three to six months of how the, uh, the car industry has gone, everybody in their mother’s pushing the electric car mm-hmm <affirmative> and I think it’s great, cuz what ha what it does for me is, you know, people don’t realize this when you have an electric car, you know, you’re not paying for gas anymore, but you have to set up a charging station at your house. That’s an extra cost and you’re gonna start racking up your electric bill, cuz on average, the electric car is gonna eat about 3 30, 500 to 4,000 kilowats a year. So you can be raising your electric bill 30% or more without even realizing, cuz no one’s told you that, but again, you’re going green with your car. Why not go green with your house?

Pat Cherubini (24:28):

And do they, I don’t think they do, you know, do they put together that you’re driving an electric car that was powered by coal or nuclear from your house?

Albie Delgado (24:39):

Yeah. Yeah. No one really talks about that, but um, I mean there’s, I mean there’s, there’s, there’s, you know, it’s all about again, it’s all about education, but my thing is, um, solar is great. Unfortunately not everybody qualifies for. So if you live in a, um, you live in a, you know, a condo mobile home, modular home, you’re not gonna qualify. Or if you have too many trees, you’re not gonna qualify. So really one outta four houses is really gonna qualify. Um, but the good thing is it’s a hundred percent, no money down free installation of the panels. Now, if someone says, Hey, I need a new roof, depends on the area you’re in. Um, you know, that’s something I would recommend like in New Jersey, you know, the company I’m with, you know, we’re able to, uh, bundle that cost into the, into the project and they’re able to take advantage of the federal tax credit of 26% by doing that.

Angie Cherubini (25:27):

Hmm.

Albie Delgado (25:28):

You know, so there are a lot of benefits again. So it’s not just solar. So Hey, if you need a new roof, we can assist you with that. If you need to do tree removal, we can assist you with that and uh, make this, make this process a lot simpler, a lot easier for you.

Pat Cherubini (25:41):

So solving problems, whatever they have. Yes. You guys can solve the problems.

Albie Delgado (25:44):

Cool.

Pat Cherubini (25:45):

Yep.

Angie Cherubini (25:45):

Nice. Well, have you ever thought about giving up? Have you ever had that feeling with giving up growing this job? Mm-hmm <affirmative>

Albie Delgado (25:57):

No there’s giving up is not an option because, um, you know, you, you need a place to live and you need a car to drive and you have, you need food in your stomach, you know? So I have enough motivation to do this. You know, my family is my why, you know, trying to take care of them and help them. And my, you know, I have kids as well, older kids, but you know, if I can help them in any way, that’s one of my why’s.

Angie Cherubini (26:19):

How many kids you got?

Albie Delgado (26:22):

Uh, they’re all older. I have a 24 year old, 27 year old, 30 year old. And then I have a 33 and the already four year old stepsons.

Angie Cherubini (26:32):

Oh my goodness. Yes. Big family then. That’s

Albie Delgado (26:35):

Good. Good family. And one, one grandchild. Her name is LA. She’ll be two next month.

Angie Cherubini (26:41):

Aw, adorable.

Pat Cherubini (26:43):

We don’t have that yet, but our youngest is 18. So we got 18 22, 25. Yep. So not far behind you,

Albie Delgado (26:52):

They get big, quick don’t they?

Angie Cherubini (26:54):

Oh, way too quick.

Pat Cherubini (26:56):

A joke. Every goes by like that man. It went by like that.

Albie Delgado (26:59):

Yeah. It goes fast.

Pat Cherubini (27:01):

Yep.

Angie Cherubini (27:02):

So probably

Albie Delgado (27:04):

So, but yeah, never, never thought about quitting. Just think about, you know, even if it’s a bad day, say, you know what bad, you know, seasons change, you know, sometimes you have a bad streak, you have a good streak, you have a, a hot streak, you have a cold streak, you just have to go through it. No matter what you do, you know, you’re gonna deal with ups and downs in life. You know, you have to go with a bad

Angie Cherubini (27:24):

Yep. We

Pat Cherubini (27:25):

Get it. And you, and you worry about, you know, today’s youth that may not, you know, you know, no matter what you think, they’re still pretty coddled bunch and yes, you know, you, I can tell already, you know, you have to fail, you know, that’s part of life. Yeah. You fail and you learn from it and you, you fail forward. And you know, I can tell that you probably think like that.

Albie Delgado (27:45):

Well, if you make a mistake, the goal is you try to learn from it. So you don’t repeat that mistake. Right. We’re all gonna make mistakes. We all make tons of mistakes. But the thing is to learn from it to not to do it again.

Pat Cherubini (27:54):

Exactly.

Angie Cherubini (27:55):

Well, what are your, what are your goals for your business? You know, let let’s say in the next, you know, five years, what’s your goal? Where do you see yourself?

Albie Delgado (28:05):

Um, it’s gonna be a, this is gonna sound like a weird answer, but I like exactly what I’m doing. Mm-hmm <affirmative> I like, you know, I like networking. I like, you know, uh, partnering with people, um, just, just continued, you know, revenue and growth that way. Right. Um, I don’t think, and it is gonna sound funny to you cuz I’m, I’m 50, but I’m not one of those people that can say, Hey, I want to retire, not do anything. I can never see doing that. And with solar, I can actually say, Hey, you know what, even I would do this at least three days a week because it’s fun. And it’s interesting. And the money’s really good. So <laugh>

Pat Cherubini (28:40):

And what would you do if you had nothing to do? Yeah. I mean,

Albie Delgado (28:42):

I’d find things to do, you know? I would, I, I would, um, I wanna go to Cooperstown, it’s see the baseball hall of fame. Yeah. I’d love to go travel the country and you know, just go to a lot of different events, like sporting events or go visit Mount Rushmore, visit the white house. There’s so many different, you know, things you can see in so much history in this country. Right. You know, you spend your whole life just trying to check everything out. So, but something like Mount rush, I would love to go there for a weekend, you know, just to go, you know, just see that type of history that’re in history. So

Angie Cherubini (29:12):

You, we would like that too. And we are around your age as well.

Albie Delgado (29:17):

<laugh>

Angie Cherubini (29:18):

Ad bit

Pat Cherubini (29:18):

Older. We’re actually older,

Angie Cherubini (29:20):

Just a tad bit older. But um, yeah, we felt exactly the same way we talk about it all the time. We’re like, what would we do if we didn’t and do what we are doing? Yeah. And I can’t imagine, I, I can’t

Albie Delgado (29:35):

Can imagine

Angie Cherubini (29:35):

Being on a beach.

Albie Delgado (29:37):

Yeah. You wanna stay active.

Pat Cherubini (29:37):

There’s a lot of people that retire and that’s it, you know, they’re free to do what they want, but you know, without something to keep your mind engaged is, you know? Yeah. I don’t think we’re gonna have to worry about that.

Albie Delgado (29:50):

Absolutely.

Angie Cherubini (29:51):

Well, one thing that I like to do is I have this little deck of cards that has like off the wall questions.

Albie Delgado (30:00):

Okay.

Angie Cherubini (30:01):

So are you game?

Albie Delgado (30:03):

Sure.

Angie Cherubini (30:04):

All right. Let’s see what yours is. If you could be, if you could be brilliant in one subject, which would you choose?

Albie Delgado (30:16):

Um, what a question, brilliant. One

Angie Cherubini (30:19):

Subject it’s different.

Albie Delgado (30:22):

Uh, that, I don’t know. That’s a, that’s a very interesting question.

Pat Cherubini (30:27):

You’re brilliant.

Albie Delgado (30:29):

Well, I would never say I’m brilliant cuz I’m not brilliant. You know, just, I just have a lot of experience from the whole, all the journeys you are

Pat Cherubini (30:37):

The solar guy, right?

Albie Delgado (30:37):

Yeah. Um, I’d say I just, you know, just to be, to know everything, every aspect of solar, I don’t know everything about it, but I know a lot about it, but to be 100% proficient, which I guess that would be a good thing.

Angie Cherubini (30:50):

Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.

Pat Cherubini (30:52):

So we call this, you know, it’s called local vibes. You know, we talk, talk about keeping the local vibe alive and we always ask, you know, what is the local vibe where you’re at, you know, regarding business? Is it, you know, growing? Is it shrinking? Is it, you know, is there something going on there that people would should know about or, or not?

Albie Delgado (31:11):

I think things are getting better cuz now, you know, the, the pandemic has, I, I like to say it’s lifted and people are doing more indoor. I mean outdoor things, uh, you know, the weather’s changing, you know, we already passed the, um, you know, daylight savings has passed. We’re now in spring, it’s getting lighter. It’s gonna be getting warmer. So you, you know, it just, and again, I, I always go back to mindset and attitude. That’s everything. I don’t care if it’s raining all day, if it’s sunny all day, it’s, that’s how you approach the day. That’s how I look at it. But N nothing really major to report just that, you know, you, you you’ll see growth. It’s what you look for. And uh, again, I love the seasons and we’re in spring and before, you know, we’ll be in summer. Yay, beautiful weather. They’re on the way. So I’m very excited about that.

Angie Cherubini (31:53):

I hope I hope. Well, what, um, what P what’s your best piece of advice for someone who is thinking about starting a, a solar business sales in their area or, or sales that in general, in, in their area, what would you tell?

Albie Delgado (32:11):

Lot of sacrifice, lot of hours, lot of sacrifice, lot of learning. You’re gonna make mistakes, just learn from them, move on. And the number one piece of advice is follow up. Do not let that person go. Cause you never know, you know, they may not be ready today or tomorrow, but they’re eventually gonna be ready and you’ll be top of mind. So,

Pat Cherubini (32:32):

And I, and I can reiterate, you know, like I did earlier, it, it doesn’t matter if you’re selling solar or if you’re selling, you know, mowing somebody’s grass, you follow up until they tell you not to.

Albie Delgado (32:43):

Yep.

Angie Cherubini (32:45):

Well, we know that, I, I mean, we don’t know each other very well, but is there anything that you would want to ask us? Is there any, anything in general that marketing wise that you wanna ask us that we can help you with?

Albie Delgado (33:00):

Um, not really. Again, like I said, I’ve been selling for 30 years. I’ve learned a lot and I think this is the best, um, environment, because again, everything I do is zoom. Everything I do is, you know, remote. And it allows me to between my calendar and my discipline. It allows me to maximize my efforts and my time.

Angie Cherubini (33:19):

Fantastic. So how, why don’t you tell everybody how they can get in touch with you if they would like to reach out

Albie Delgado (33:26):

If they’re interested in knowing more about solar, if it’s for them, whether it’s for their business or for their home, they can reach out to me by my cell phone is (609) 802-6403. And they can call me your me time or they can just shoot me an email. And it’s very simple. It’s lb dot Delgado, gmail.com.

Angie Cherubini (33:48):

Nice.

Pat Cherubini (33:49):

Gotcha. We’ll include that in the, in the show notes. So anybody can reach out there and, and get ahold of you and hopefully get some, uh, solars panel set up. Yep.

Albie Delgado (33:58):

Yeah. Just give ’em a free analysis. Let them know. Hey, before you decide whether solar is for you or not, the let’s see let’s crunch the numbers, we’ll go over a detailed PowerPoint presentation and then you make the decision if this is for you or not.

Angie Cherubini (34:10):

Sounds great. Well,

Pat Cherubini (34:14):

Any more questions you gotta wrap it up.

Angie Cherubini (34:15):

I think, I think we’re good.

Pat Cherubini (34:17):

Well, Al it was nice talking to you and we really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us and, and do a little networking and gimme some network advice. I truly appreciate it.

Angie Cherubini (34:27):

Yes.

Albie Delgado (34:28):

Well, it was my pleasure to, to share this, uh, with you guys. I, I really appreciate you taking the time outta your schedule to help me. And, uh, I have to, I have to thank Jimmy as well, cuz if it wasn’t for, Jimmy’s the one that put me in touch with you guys, then I love Himer guy and what’s that

Pat Cherubini (34:44):

Jimmy be healer. I was just, we get his name in there. So his

Albie Delgado (34:48):

Should, Jimmy is awesome. He’s a quality guy. And if you wanna do business with him, I recommend it. Cuz he, he he’s got great body language just the way he carries himself, the way he talks, the way he, you

Pat Cherubini (34:58):

Knows. Got really

Albie Delgado (34:59):

Good. He does, you know.

Pat Cherubini (35:02):

Well, cool. So with that, we’ll wrap it up and uh, again, thank you very much and we’re always looking to keep the vibes alive and, and if you ever need any more help or have any ideas or anything you need just reach out and we’ll send people your way too. So we truly appreciate it.

Albie Delgado (35:18):

All right. Appreciate your time. Thank you very much. All right. Cool.

Angie Cherubini (35:20):

Thanks. Have a, have a great one. Thanks.

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