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great episode to listen to. Clean renewable power. We're going to talk a little bit about that. We're going to talk a lot about Business B.D. Welcome to the Nice Guys for Business podcast!”

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B.D.: “Thanks for having me on here, Doug!”

 

Doug: “Hey, happy to have you here man. And I appreciate you, you sharing the love in sponsoring an episode of The Nice Guys and we'll talk a little bit about that after I stop recording here. But I know a lot of times when people chat about clean, renewable power, they think solar and wind. Now, you guys do a little slightly different spin on not bad, but you have your own thing. So can you just tell me a little bit about what Satic does and then we'll get into the whole business conversation in just a second, but I want to set it up properly for my community here.”

 

B.D.: “You bet. So we are the largest solar dealer in Western Montana, but that's not really our claim to fame, our claim to fame is manufacturing clean energy tech products and you said it properly just because something is green, renewable doesn't necessarily mean it's clean. What do I mean by that? Solar panels are green in that they're renewable. It's not coal. The electricity they produce is direct current, which now has to be phased into alternating current for use. And oftentimes that conversion is a little messy or the opposite of that when we got AC running through our lines and you need to plug in your phone, you know, anything with the battery, your phone, tablet, pad, computers, you name it is DC  And so now we've got to switch that to those. Those conversions and lighting and some other things really are, you know, reeking a little bit of havoc on the quality of our electricity. So one is green and the others actually technically clean.

 

Doug: “So tell me about how did you find cause there is some white space in there that you that you covered, I mean, somebody else had also you know many companies have short are out there that are selling how to clean your power or how to make it better. There are a lot of companies doing solar, a lot of companies are doing you know renewable energy, a lot of people are doing wind and even you know commercially. But you found this kind of this, this side niche within the industry that is a home run not only from a business perspective but in helping educate and really helping to bring a great product to the to the market. So can you discover how you discovered maybe this this white area in the in the market that you that you found?”

 

B.D.: “Yeah, how do you find your market gap, right. So I certainly didn't invent anything. It's not, you know, bleeding edge tech. I mean other companies have done it for years. So the ham radio and the audio file, he wants clean power and he he can hear, you know, the pop or ticking the speakers with the mini fridge comes on. It's definitely his personality type, the rest of us barley know it, right? So let's say we're in this, you're going to go to Best Buy or something and get a receiver, you know, stereo or something. You know, Yamaha is a great brand and right now I ride Yamaha bikes. It's 5 or 600 bucks, it’s going to be great. Well, now you're in this bougie mall in Bellevue Washington, in Seattle, and you see the Bang & Olifson store. Well, that things nine grand, and you say to yourself, what good gravy. How could it be that different? Well, it is slightly different, but to the person that cares, it's vastly different. And again, it's you know when, when my mom would vacuum, when I was a little kid it would put lines in the TV, you know, when you're watching James Cameron's Avatar, you're totally escape temporarily into this sight and sound in a in a great theater room and when the fridge comes on it, it makes the speakers pop or tick. And that's just part of the gig with the audio file it drives him nuts! So Bang & Olifson stuff, they store some power and then they feed this really good clean stored powers would have it outside that doesn't affect it. So when you buy a huge home entertainment center, you're going to buy probably a monster cable brand surge protector right, because you don't want a catastrophic surge to wipe out this $5,000 home entertainment center. So there are other things that have great components, and they work to clean and filter and regulate power. But the person that's going to buy a $9,000 receiver when a $500 one is pretty good, that’s a unique party right? What we wanted to do is rather than just do that to your stereo, our approach is do that to your whole home. Do that clean, filtered, regulated power for your whole home, so the solar is going to work better, it's going lower amp draw on big energy hogs like your AC, your freezer and your fridge, and then these things are going to run cooler because a lot of times the wasted, non working, dirty electricity, well where does it go? What happens? Well turns into heat. So you know your air conditioner is hot, you're asking it to make cold. You know the back of your fridge is hot, of course it is! The back of your freezer is hotter than blue blazes because we're asking it to make cold, right? So it shouldn't just normally be hot. What's happening is the dirty electricity is not as easily converted into work, so it converts into heat. So, you know, there's some side benefits to that. Everybody knows what a surge protector is, it's good to have it, but when you have this clean, filtered, regulated power, several things happen from those devices when they cool down it lowers your bill because that's a waste of electricity and they live a happier, longer life. And we've all, you know, plugged our phone and this time it charges really slow and hot. Well, why Doug? It didn't last time! It didn’t the last twenty times! But this time it is. You don't have to be, you know, an engineer from MIT to say this is odd, this is abnormal and experiencing something that's different and it's probably not good. And so the last part of it, I know I'm long winded here, was human health. I mean, we know what the grass looks like under power lines. It ain't bushier, Doug, it's bushy less, right? And that's just the reality because it's harmful to it. So huge studies have been done on dairy cows and the quality of their milk and associated with alternating current and dirty electricity and greenhouses and grows. Now I know I'm not grass, you're not a strawberry, we're not cows, but we are biological. And so the simple reality is that the electromagnetic fields, these frequencies, these waves that are not harmonious with the Earth's natural frequency and waves are damaging. So you know, I know that was long winded, we just started putting all that stuff together and came up with a product line that's good for you, it's good for your wallet, it's good for your stuff.”

 

Doug: “So you know as a as a business owner myself and having been self-employed for the last 30 years, it's one capacity or another, they say that the riches are in the niches, and certainly there is there are better niches than others when it comes to bringing your product to the marketplace, you don't want to bring a $1000 product to a, you know, a $500 affordability market, so it's just not the not the reality of it. But in your particular case, you're bringing a market that you're bringing your product to a market that tends to be really health conscious, really focused on understanding the detriment to having unclean power. But one of the things that you said which was really interesting was you made the comparison of the Bang and Olifson and, you know, the the Samsung or just the typical off the shelf at Best Buy type of product. Tell me who you appeal to in your in like, if you're talking to one person in my audience, who is that one person that you want to hear the message? If I had 10,000 people listen, but I only had a certain segment of my audience that would really connect with your message, who is that person connecting with your message right now?”

 

B.D.: “So, so that's cracking that piece of the code is whether or not you'll be able to hang out in business long enough before you run out of money, or if you'll if you'll survive and thrive finding your customers. So you got to do like three things. Number one, who's my customer? What do they want to hear? And then where do I find them to tell them that? Right? That's the code you’ve got to break, right? So when I told people that I was going to make a $1,000 wire-in product that would wire into your electricity panel for health. People laughed so hard and so, you know, friends were like, oh yeah, that's a really great idea. And then they laugh at you in their car. You're real friends just laugh right then they just fall off their stools, they're still laughing because they they're safe with them and they love you enough to tell you the truth. It's crazy! My son was getting sick from the power lines and I knew it was true for me, but there many say that out loud you look like a foil hat weirdo and when I tell people that the 5G towers are frying you know now you're a conspiracy theorist and you just get put in all these boxes and none of them are very complimentary, right? But I knew that it was real for me. So when I started diving into the world of EMFs, electromagnetic fields, the syndrome is called EHS, Electro Hypersensitivity Syndrome. I thought there's got to be, you know, four people in America that have this, there's not. There's like 40,000 and it's growing all the time, and I had no idea that this subculture existed and nowadays, how many people, you know, don't want maybe meat that grain fed or has had a lot of antibiotics or steroids? They want this naturally nested egg, they want this, you know, cow that came from the Hutterites, the Mennonites are lovely people, it's never had steroids, it's never had vaccines, it's there's a lot of these people, right? On who wants organic, they want a non-GMO tomato, they want a tomato that isn't full of lycophyte and roundup. There's a lot of these people, so that's my customers. Like OK, if you're doing these things for your health, but you're getting radiated all the time, then then there's just another aspect which we need, we need good water, good air, some exercise and healthy food. And guess what? Sorry man, you need a dirty electricity filter in today's modern world, you need one.

 

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because without, you know, you and I don't have any history, we did one show together, it's but you weren't even the interviewer, you're just really in 5 minutes found it, so that's it. We have two businesses, and to answer this succinctly clearly as I have because this is what took us from doing a couple $1,000,000 a year in revenue to nearly a million a month. This was a game changer. We have two customers, okay/ So our main customer goes down our store, www/saticshield.com, and they're worried about EMF, they maybe talk to building biologist or they've done their research and now they're ready for dirty electricity EMF filter. They go on our store, they buy. Okay, now we know that there are some main culprits, some main causes of EMF. So I always tell people, look I love making money, I'm grateful for my store, I’m grateful for my company, but a lot of this stuff you can do yourself with no money. It's like OK, smoking's bad for you, we're going to put a cotton filter on the product, yes, or stop smoking, you know, which is really better? So is it really better to buy one of B.D. Erickson’s filters or is it better to find culprits and turn them off or get rid of them? It's way better. So I spent, I spent two years on EMF Guide just telling people, you know, no matter how humble you are financially, there are things that you can do right now to really limit your overexposure. Two of the biggest culprits right now, here we go, number one, the smart meter. So the utilities are putting a new meter on our homes called the smart meter. It is a huge receiver transponder, right? This thing is like a cell phone tower on the side of your house. So he's a big culprit. Maybe the next biggest culprit is a solar inverter. Now if I'm going to take you solar we have to do two things if you're on grid in 90% of solar installations are on grid, you’re just lowering your bill, we need two things, we need a solar inverter and we need a net meter! So the two biggest culprits for dirty electricity come with solar automatically and you are, and I hate to say it but I'm going to say it, I’m going to speak and own my truth, you're frying them! You’re frying that family! So when we do solar, we put clean power products on that's even cleaner than before, truly clean not just green. And we start to reach out to solar companies. And it was tough because solar are hard, they’re stinkers, guys are their early adopters, they're always the smartest guy in the room, the first thing out of their mouth is always oh I’ve tested those they don't work even though you know they haven’t, so you’ve got to be gracious and say something like I know that you've tested something like it, but we really want you to try ours because, you know, unbeknownst to you, and I'm not suggesting anyone to be nefarious, you’re accidentally putting the two biggest causes of dirty electricity and EMFs on this little family’s home. And so we really found some early adopted solar companies that said, you know what, we've tested your products and it was a hard pill to swallow, but it's true. You’re right. So then we went from selling maybe, you know, a hundred a month to solar companies in our store to doing 1000 a month as these big solar companies just started installing it with their equipment. It just, you know, when you're doing solar, you're going to be standing at the breaker panel with a screwdriver anyway, adding this piece of equipment about the size of the shoe box was a really easy add for them, and that, Doug, it changed our life. We've literally went from, you know, 100 units a month to over one thousand a month just with solar leaving on pallets and it changed our world.”

 

Doug: “What did you lead with? Just curious, did you leave with solar or did you lead with creating clean power products? What was your lead-in product?”

 

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B.D.: “It's Mecca. It is. This is where fly fishermen come to worship.”

 

Doug: “It is, it totally is. So talk to my consumers that are out there for just a second then we'll get back into the business talk and talk about your product line, but I'd love to hear from the consumer standpoint. You know I've contemplated solar, technology changes so fast, you know, the price of solar you now have a days it's either hey you pay X amount of dollars up front or you can lease it every month and by the time you're done, you're spending the same in your lease as you would for your electric bill. And then I'm on I own a, you know I own a solar panel on top of my roof at the end of this lease and at the end of the solar panels, and they're outdated, you know, what's your advice to, it's like asking, you know, a fisherman what's a good bait to use, because it's probably going to lead back to solar, but I'm going to ask it anyway, but what's your advice when it comes to adding solar? Do people do it? Do they wait? Just not as it relates to clean power, but just as it relates to, hey, I really want to try to be more efficient with my use of power and my use of my bank account too.”

 

B.D.: “Yeah. So for most of my customers, it's one of two decisions. And you know, pick either one. I'm going to give you both, so number one, let's say I'm a red pillar and I believe that the world is about to crumble economically, you know, we're printing too much money and we're the countries are moving off the dollar, I want to have zombie apocalypse go to hell power when it all goes to hell I want power, so this person now has a hybrid inverter, they have batteries, they have a generator, and they have hidden fuel and they stay off grid as long as they can, when it melts, they're ready. So that's about 70% of the installs we do, that's very expensive and only a handful of people can really do that well.”

Doug: “Wait that’s 70% of your installs?! 70% I was going to think that would be like a .1% of your install to the zombie apocalypse wanters.”

 

B.D.: “You know, I live in Western Montana…”  

 

Doug: “Okay, enough said.”  

 

B.D.: “I live in the prepper capital of the world. You know, people move from California, I think we have three families moving into Missoula from California a day who are seeking some level of asylum like that. And not since that the installers can do those really complex ones. We get a ton of them, as many as we can install, yeah. So the other, the other portion of a system that just wants to lower their bill and it's a totally financial, yeah, I'd like to save the planet that be nice, I'll help. Yeah, like to go green and do my part but it really has to make financial sense. And so, you know, we don't do leases or PPA's, we only sell the equipment installed and we only do it soup to nuts, I’m not going to sell you a panel or an inverter, you know, we're not going to work with your contractor, we’re the contractors, we’re the engineers, we’re the electricians, we’re all of it, and we're going to do it soup to nuts. And that's it. I'll only do it that way because I have a super high standard, I’ve had solar on every house I've lived in since I was a kid. I mean, I put it on myself. And I have a really high standard, I don't want any wire showing, I just want the panels black on black look like they're floating, I only do tier-one equipment, I'm not tempted at all the stack them high or sell them cheap, I want to do a really slow and really well, and that's kind of expensive, but as long as to let's say you're going to buy it, it's going to be 40,000 bucks. Well, the credit union here will finance that for 15 years and as long as that payment is equal to less than your power bill, of course I’m doing it, that’s a no brainer because I'm adding an asset, a valuable asset to the roof of my house so my home has more equity instantly because my home is more valuable and I'm paying the same amount, but I'm not paying it to the utility, I'm paying it to me! And come year 10 or come year 15, that's gone, you're done! And you know it seems like a long time, it's not, I can't believe how old I am, I could have paid for solar panels three times just in my adult life already. So I think it's a wise decision financially. But you have to, you know, make sure you got some good roof space, not only hips and valleys, you want some southern facing exposure, you want your roof in decent repair, you know, so there are some barriers to entry, but if those stars lined up, if those things are in order, go solar man, do it.”

 

Doug: “And again, this is just from a curiosity perspective, why is it that they can't, you know, the roofing companies that are out there can't create shingles that actually have all of the same technology in it. Can we not make a solar panel as thin as the panels that are out there right now?”

 

B.D.: “Yeah, Tesla and Dupont have both done it. I was out in Hawaii last year for the new Tesla roof and it was a really great demonstration. They let us take golf balls and drivers and tee off right into these panels. And I can whack it, you know, and it was a really interesting fun way to demonstrate the product line. It's expensive, but then you roof your home rather than roofing shingles your roof with these really neat solar panels and then you’re done.”

 

Doug: “Right, yeah, I mean, I think about it and I live in a in a small home in California that we bought a couple of years ago, and if I had to reroof my house right now, I probably would be spending $25,000 to reroof the house with the same type of shingle that's on there. On top of which, if I had a solar company coming out, I'm probably going to spend 15 or 20 grand to panel my.. So why can't we combine the two things together? There's got to be an invention in there, it sounds like there is.”

 

B.D.: “Yeah, that's a natural progression of thinking.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

entrepreneurs and designers, we fall so in love with our thing, we get so close to it that, you know, we think that people are going to buy it for this or buy it for that, I really thought that more people would buy our product because it saves 12 or 15% on your bill. They don't. They don't fight for that. In fact, that's a terrible customer because that customer is a penny pincher. That customer is so frugally minded that they're out there looking for ways he wants to get it at the very best price he can, in fact, this is how that customer actually says, I'll tell you what, put it on for free and if it saves money, then after a year almost saved enough, I can pay you, I'm not teasing, I get that conversation. Or, you know, when you put it on for free and split the savings, No. No because in every month I've got to analyze your bill with you, we have to arrive and how much is due to the weather and how much is due to the box and that the beg from the dollar and that customer needs to be begged for the dollar, right? So nobody bought it. So even though it does save you money, we can't give them away for that. The person that wants it for health, for health, I mean, money is no object. But look at what we pay on vitamins every month, look at what we pay on supplements and organic food and our beef and all that stuff, there's no, if you know it to be true, then that's a different conversation and I've had to fire a lot of customers and it's very hard. Like I said, when there's no check for you, you almost want to take any customer you can. But the cheapest customers are the biggest pain in the neck. If the customers that pay full tilt, they love you, they give you a five star review, you never hear from me again is the person that got it for you for $4 under cost and made you install it that gives you the four-star review, two star, the worst customer? Forget it. Cut them loose.”

 

Doug: “I love it. I grew up in that environment. I spent 30 years as a barmitzvah DJ and I was a $5000 DJ in a sea of 350 to $500 DJ's, and those guys that were selling it for 350 to 500 were saying to me how can you deal in this DJ market working 75 to 100 gigs a year? I'm like my clients, when I call them, they answer the phone because they respect me, because I pay, they pay the right price, they will basically carry me to the gig. I mean the clients that are spending 40 grand to have solar panels added to their house, it's a different level of client, a more respectable, not saying that somebody that's willing to pay, that's paying less than that isn't respectable, but the penny pinching person, the pain in the ass client, customer is the one that's going to spend the least amount of money and give you the most headache along the way in doing it. So I appreciate you not sharing that. It's so very true, so very true.”

 

B.D.: “And the more you charge, the more perceived value it has. Right? And do you realize that? Do you really want someone that's just going to, you know, hit play on DJ, you know, hit play on the playlist on Apple or do you want someone that's going to turn your event into a party?”

 

Doug: “Yeah, man. Thank you, man!”  

 

B.D.: “Right?! It's all about experience. So charge a little bit more, but give a really great customer experience.”

 

Doug: “Yeah, it is. It is truly the customer experience. Again, you hit it right on the head. I spent more time talking to those DJ's that I would train and talk about, you know, anybody can run a 4 hour event, it's the year of planning that happens before that event when you're making your customers feel comfortable, that's what they're paying for, you know it's not, it's not the actual event. I'm hoping at a minimum you're a great. DJ, Now you’ve got to give good service good and a good customer experience on top of all of that as well. And I know that's what you do as a as a company and I so very much appreciate you sharing your message. If someone was in our audience and was interested in hearing more about any aspect of what we talked about today, and I know you got a lot of blog posts on your website and you have your services and you're about stuff, what's the best way for somebody to actually reach out to somebody on your team to get more info?”

 

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say it's accessible, BD, and his team will be accessible to you guys if you have any questions or information about what their team does, or if you have a problem that you think could be solved by the products and services that BD and his team offer, please reach out and like he said and again, I get a real good vibe from the couple of experiences that I've had with BD, he's not the guy that's going to be on the other end of the phone selling you into his services, he wants to find out what the problem is and if you can do it just by turning a couple of things off or by tweaking some things in your home right now or your business and he's going to help you do that. B.D., thank you so much for sharing your message with our team today.”

 

B.D.: “ It was fun. Thanks for dragging some of those questions out of me.”

 

Doug: “Yeah, my pleasure. Nice Guy community never underestimated the value of Nice again. Special thanks to B.D. Erickson. All of his information about Satic will be right there in the shownotes. Steve O'Brien, go ahead and take us out of here.”