CASE STUDY · COMMERCIAL SOLAR INSTALLER · 6 MIN READ

Get Zero: How Perry Hawkes Chooses Commercial Solar Leads From the Daily Feed

leads he took in July

18

leads he took in July

of the leads offered that he takes

40 to 50%

of the leads offered that he takes

his biggest close, with a 100kWh battery

75kWp

his biggest close, with a 100kWh battery

when a 300kWp project is expected

Q1 2027

when a 300kWp project is expected

6:19

Who Perry is, and the gap he had to fill

Get Zero has been trading for about six years under a couple of different names, with the same leadership team throughout and solar as its main focus. Perry leads its commercial energy strategy, and he joined not long before the business started working with our team.

Moving jobs meant leaving behind a strong flow of leads and a pipeline he had built. The new role had everything else:

“The only thing that was missing is a load of leads that could come in and keep me really entertained and stop my mind from wandering to get a bit bored.”

Why a lead generation sceptic said yes

Perry says plainly that he does not like lead generation companies, and that he had turned our team down before: "I'm not interested. Don't wanna do it. I'm not paying for your lead. Go away."

What changed was the job. At Get Zero he is not only selling; he is also building the business and getting the rest of the team working. Finding his own leads would have eaten the time that work needs. Now, in his words, the appointments drop into his diary "and I can just be thinking about strategy and how I'm getting the rest of my team working".

Twelve weeks in, his verdict on the wait: "I wish I'd done it months ago because my life would be far easier". If you are weighing up where your next commercial jobs come from, our guide to how to get commercial solar leads compares the channels side by side.

How he chooses: about half of what he is shown

New leads arrive every day in a WhatsApp group, and Perry picks the ones worth a visit. He is selective on purpose: "I'm quite finicky and quite picky about what I will go and see." He took 18 in July and reckons that is 40 to 50% of what he was sent, so at least 36 had been put in front of him by 17 July, the day of the interview.

When a lead is right, distance stops mattering. These are the leads "that really get me excited and yeah I'd drive four hours to go and see this." Once he has picked, he hands the diary over: "There's a couple there in Oxford. Just say to them, 'Look, find me a day.'"

Solar Surveys UK is built for the same habit. You browse the live leads free, look at as many as you like and go after only the sites that are worth the drive for you.

The 75kWp job, from the group chat to the close

His biggest close so far is a 75kWp on-roof system with a 100kWh battery. This is how it went:

1. 1

   The lead is posted and he asks to see it

   "that lead got dropped into the WhatsApp group. Picked it up."

   He told Georgia on our team he would like to go, and she asked for a couple of dates.

2. 2

   The appointment is booked and confirmed twice

   "She confirmed it Monday afternoon with the customer, confirmed with me it was still happening."

   It was a Tuesday morning appointment, and it went into the portal and his diary.

3. 3

   He sells it his way

   "I'm just left to do sales my-- the way that I wanna do it."

   After the visit he told our team roughly what size he expected, then designed the system and stayed in touch with the customer himself.

4. 4

   A second visit, and the close

   He went back for another visit to finish it. Nothing more was owed to us after the appointment: "It's just paid you for the lead. It's my relationships between me and the customer."

If your own process after the first visit needs tightening, our guides to selling commercial solar and the commercial solar survey checklist set out what to cover at each stage.

Job sizes and timescales

Most of Perry's leads sit around 30 to 40kWp. They are "a little bit smaller than I like, but it's good for the business, a nice easy quick sale." The larger ones move more slowly. His 300kWp project is not expected to land until the first quarter of 2027, but he is confident of his position: "we're the guys they're talking to and we're the only guys they're talking to, 100%."

Systems that size usually need a full grid application with the network operator before anything goes on the roof. Our G99 application guide covers who submits it and how long each step takes.

Paying for attended appointments, and growing with it

Asked whether paying for attended appointments scales for Get Zero, Perry said he plans to add more of his reps to the group and take more leads as the business grows: "the sort of ROI that we're experiencing from yourselves at the minute is excellent."

You only pay for appointments that are actually attended, and any that aren't viable we replace. What a lead costs depends on the job; our guide to commercial solar lead costs explains how it is worked out.

On service, he deals mostly with Bryn and Georgia: "Anything you drop in the chat, someone's straight away there." When they cannot answer on the spot, they call him back "within fifteen, twenty minutes."

The full interview is in the video above. TNW Marketing's own write-up of Perry Hawkes's interview is on tnwmarketing.com. More installers talk about their leads in our case studies and on the reviews page.

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