Pink Energy (formerly Powerhome Solar) - National Sales Executive of the Year
Company: POWERHOME SOLAR, Mooresville, NC
Company Description: POWERHOME SOLAR is an energy efficiency company that provides high-quality American-made solar panels as part of a complete energy-savings package for residential customers. The company launched in 2014 in Mooresville, N.C., and today has more than 2,200 employees, including a commercial division. Operating in 15 states, it is ranked No. 520 on the 2021 Inc. 5000.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: National Sales Executive of the Year
Nomination Title: Ben Brookhart
Ben Brookhart is the Chief Sales Officer for POWERHOME SOLAR. He is a fearless innovator who has successfully started four home security companies that collectively earned more than $250 million in sales. Brookhart was one of the company’s original co-founders in 2014, however stayed in the home security business until finally joining POWERHOME SOLAR full time in November of 2019 to begin a new career in renewable energy.
In the past year, Brookhart has overseen POWERHOME SOLAR’s sales team and has helped create jobs in the solar energy market, leading POWERHOME SOLAR to employ more than 2,200 people and reach nearly $600 million in annual revenue. Brookhart’s creation of a regional management department and other key support roles allowed our sales team to scale amid the pandemic and position us for future growth. Additionally, his sales leadership structure has been replicated by three other departments within the company – customer service, solar service and installation.
Since joining the team in November 2019, Brookhart has beeninstrumental to POWERHOME SOLAR’s success. In Brookhart’s first full year with the company, POWERHOME SOLAR’S revenue grew 93% year-over-year to $365 million despite a global pandemic.
POWERHOME SOLAR had a decision to make in March 2020 about whether to remain open amid the COVID-19 uncertainty. It opted to forge ahead as an essential business providing energy infrastructure. Brookhart and all other members of the executive team removed themselves from payroll to give employees the opportunity to continue earning paychecks, while also giving concerned workers the chance to take leave without penalty until conditions improved. He also helped make a key decision to partner with Generac to offer our customers battery storage with their solar panels.
While the company encountered soft sales over those first 30 days of lockdowns, Brookhart and his sales team did not expect what lie ahead. Record sales months propelled the company to $365 million in revenue at the end of 2020, which was a 93% year-over-year increase despite the pandemic. As COVID lingered throughout 2021, that didn’t stop our sales team from thriving as POWERHOME SOLAR continued to grow, finishing 2021 with nearly $600 million in revenue and with continued jobs growth for the company. At the beginning of COVID-19, POWERHOME SOLAR had 750 employees throughout its 10-state footprint. As 2022 approached, our employee count rose to over 2,200 and our footprint increased to 15 states. Nearly 400 of those jobs are sales representatives.
Prior to Brookhart’s arrival at POWERHOME SOLAR, the company experienced an 88% year-over-year increase in revenue in 2019 to $189 million. Brookhart beat that mark by leading the sales team to a 93% increase to $365 million in revenue in 2020 and followed it in 2021 by driving 64% growth to nearly $600 million – despite operating amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He had not worked in solar prior to joining our company.
Brookhart’s leadership was significant because he reinforced the value of battery storage with customers. POWERHOME SOLAR’s pivot to using Generac PWRCell batteries was widely embraced by our customers, and Brookhart and his team’s ability to showcase the value of Generac’s best-in-class battery storage technology has made our company a clear industry leader. More than 60 percent of our customers added battery storage in 2020, and our battery attachment rate in 2021 was nearly 95 percent – well above the approximate 30 percent rate seen by our competitors. We anticipate the future of electric vehicles and climate change will continue to stress the electricity grid, and we want our customers to be prepared for it.
Brookhart’s leadership propelled our team to serve approximately 8,000 customers in 2020 and another approximately 10,000 in 2021. Such success led to POWERHOME SOLAR being ranked No. 520 on the 2021 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America, the fourth time in five years POWERHOME SOLAR made this prestigious list.
https://www.powerhome.com/inc-5000-2020-powerhome-solar-ranking-results/
https://www.powerhome.com/powerhome-generac-partnership-battery/