CASE STUDY: STRATEGIC MESSAGING DEVELOPMENT
Electra Solar Panel Registry and Stewardship Program
May 1, 2024
When you have a high-stakes opportunity to pitch your idea, you need to communicate about it in a way that’s clear, effective, and meaningful to investors and buyers. Bring your know-how to the table and let’s get focused on describing your initiative in a compelling way, grounded in the types of data and context that will get their attention.
How this is helping Electra set the bar for solar panel recycling
Before I met her, Electra Founder and CEO Heather Alvis had cleared an important hurdle by being named a finalist for the American Made Solar Prize. She’d developed a persuasive presentation about her company, winning the “Ready” stage of the competition, and wanted to be as competitive as she could be for the next phase of the “Set” stage.
It’s easy to see why Electra is compelling. The company is positioning itself to address a concerning gap in the US’s plans for developing solar energy. Namely: disposing used solar panels themselves. At present, roughly 90% of panels are bound for the landfill. Washington state, in an effort to lead a productive response to this issue, passed a law which requires all new solar panel sales to have a product stewardship plan implemented in the next 14 months. Electra has the potential to chart a new course by streamlining an end-of-life recycling process for 95% of panels — all while saving money for users, installers, and manufacturers.
Heather arrived with the pitch deck she’d been using, which explained all of these important ideas in tremendous detail, including tons of research, and well thought-out projections of how it could be implemented. It was a compelling sales pitch that deserved to move forward in the competition, but also information-dense, inherently technical, and visually cluttered.
FPO image
In order to help Heather stand out in the competition, Heather and I set out on two distinct efforts.
First
She made her case to solar panel installers and manufacturers in Washington, and asked them to provide letters of intent (LOIs), which would prove Electra’s viability in the market.
Second
She worked with me to re-make the webinar + deck as a container for developing a new skill set: to “sell without selling”.
The process
Webinars and competitions like the American Made Solar Prize are ideal containers for Apex Presentations’ approach to strategic message development — there’s an extremely clear deliverable (the presentation) and objective (earn the trust of potential adopters and the panel of judges.)
To oversimplify, I walk clients through this rough sequence of events:
STEP 1
Clarify objectives and develop a plan.
STEP 2
Review existing messaging and identify revision opportunities.
STEP 3
Polish the revised messaging and prepare the presentation.
STEP 0
Gather basic context and framing.
From the beginning, Heather was immediately clear about two qualities that would be essential to the underlying credibility of her pitch: she needed to feature other “voices”, and maintain focus on solar panel installers in the state of Washington.
In other words: we had to make Electra’s value proposition feel much more immediate, specific, and relatable. I helped her identify key talking points about why and how Washington must be the national leader in end-of-life recycling, and we even reached out to the Department of Ecology itself.
Heather went into the community, beginning with collecting letters of intent (LOIs) from prospective buyers. One of the inevitable side effects of working together is pooling our networks — and I was able to introduce her to some distributors in the bioregion who I worked with during my time in the solar industry. Many of them pened LOIs, RSVP’d to attend her presentation, and are helping her develop the business itself.
Meanwhile, we used Electra’s first pitch as a jumping off point for the next version. We carved out and highlighted key messaging. We slowed down complex explanations. We found opportunities for other stakeholders to prove our points for us. We identified the most compelling data to back up our claims, and crafted them into charts that can be understood by any viewer.
As I write, Heather’s new presentation is ready for the stage. She’s got 6 LOIs in hand (not including 11 additional letters of support), and a crystal clear webinar — with a thoughtfully designed slide deck that has all the personality traits of an Apex Presentation: easy-to-follow, eye-catching, and as concise as possible.
Heather’s presentation culminates with a 90-second pitch video, which is often the most frightening and difficult portion for my clients. But in a way, it’s the same skill Heather was developing comfort with all along — by participating collaboratively in developing the webinar.
In a minute and a half, Heather succeeds in making a clear and specific argument that Electra, from its location in Washington state, is uniquely positioned to write the story of solar panel retirement — and that the momentum is already building.
Preparing for a pitch competition? Considering presenting a webinar? Strategic Message Development doesn’t just help you win competitions — it helps you uncover why your idea matters to the world.
If you need someone to talk through this process with, join me for a 20-minute consultation call and let’s discuss what we might be able to do together.