Pablo Diaz, Founder, Chairman and CEO of The Awareness Group FHLD, was recently a guest on Benzinga's All-Access. TAG offers a national platform offering a unique suite of solar services and financing solutions for commercial and residential projects. TAG's services are full-stack, taking care of every stage of the project from concept to installation. Mr. Diaz spoke about the way in which TAG is democratizing solar for clients who may not be able to access credit through other channels.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Pablo, good morning.
00:05How are you?
00:06I'm well.
00:08Good morning.
00:09Good morning.
00:10What side of the world are you on?
00:11Curious.
00:12I was hearing weather and I'm looking at 70 degrees in Arizona.
00:15So man, I'm out here in Atlanta where sometimes it's rainy and all I want to do is have Thai
00:20food and watch Netflix, but right now it's beautiful.
00:22It's sunny outside.
00:23I went for my hot girl walk this morning, so I'm feeling good and energized, man.
00:26I'm looking forward to the interview.
00:28Yeah, definitely.
00:29Us too.
00:30We've got a lot to share, and when you're ready, let's get going.
00:33By the way, love Atlanta.
00:35We do a lot of business in that region of the world, so plenty to share with you.
00:41Yeah.
00:42We'll have to link up.
00:43So let's do this.
00:44Before we kind of dive under the hood, I know you had some announcements and things like
00:45that as well.
00:46Give the folks at home a quick insight into what is it that your company does.
00:50Sure.
00:51So the Awareness Group, TAG is the acronym, we work in the alternative energy space, but
00:56I'm going to just contextualize this by going back in history a little bit.
01:00Solar, we are agnostic to the product lines, but solar is 80% of our business.
01:05It's been around since the 80s, but it didn't really hit the marketplace in a memorable
01:10way until about 2008 when financing became available to end users, building owners.
01:15So 2008 to 2024, 15 years is a fledgling industry, right?
01:21It's a baby.
01:22It's still evolving, it's still learning, and what has evolved is that the industry
01:27has bifurcated into the sales side and the contractor side.
01:32And we've owned many of both companies, and what we saw as a real need to create infrastructure
01:40so that these businesses can operate together.
01:43And in that process, we manage all of the process through our platform, and we sell
01:48our different product lines, which we're going to review shortly.
01:50So really quickly, just from a risk analysis perspective, 95% of companies in alternative
01:58energy sell to end users, the building owners, but they're only as alive as much as their
02:03next lead.
02:04The reason that is, is the technology they install is 25-year technology warranted for
02:0820, 30 years.
02:09Once you create a lead, sell something to a customer, you got to hurry up and get to
02:14the next lead.
02:16For us, our customers are the service providers, the sales organizations, the contractors,
02:21so we can sell our product lines 100 times a year, a month, to our customer base and
02:27not have to, you know, our risk assessment is significantly lower than most of our competition.
02:32So it sounds like the other competition side of things may have a lot of churn and burn
02:36type situations where they're just kind of looking for the next lead to kind of get them
02:39hooked, and then you kind of, again, go through the list themselves.
02:43Let me ask you the second question here in terms of what is a tag grid though, right?
02:48Like how does it create an ecosystem of, say, green companies?
02:52Sure.
02:53I think the tag grid, are we going to pop it up right here?
02:56You got it.
02:57There we go.
02:58So the tag grid, what I'm showing you right here is the lifecycle of a project for a sales
03:03organization or a contractor, and for that matter, just alternative energy and its current
03:13realities.
03:1493% of projects are financed, they're not cash-driven finance.
03:19So tag financial, this is our grid right here, here are our different silos of business,
03:24which we're going to quickly review, and then the middle tag is operating and managing the
03:28platform so that everything flows.
03:31Right now, most of the industry is disseminated all different places, it doesn't attach together,
03:38customers don't know who to call when there's a problem, everybody runs, and so it's not
03:43an optimal customer experience.
03:45I mean, that's part of the reason that, and very much so accountability runs out of the
03:51window, which is the reasons that solar has a bad name.
03:54We're fixing that, we have fixed that, and our economics, the data proves itself.
04:00So if we just start at the tag financial at the top, that's our, you know, we have two
04:05subdivisions in there.
04:08Under our TFC subdivision is where we do our funding for our sales organizations and our
04:14contractors.
04:15Mostly, we drive the financial product lines that we own, but when a customer doesn't always
04:22fit in our bucket of financing, then we have third-party solutions.
04:28So we're always going to get them financing.
04:30We work in the residential and commercial space.
04:31So whatever building requires, we got capital for it.
04:38Then we move over to the tag dealer program.
04:41Well, everything, any product line needs to be sold.
04:44So on our platform, we have, actually, this is a little old now, we have over 600 sales
04:49agents in 48 states that are vetted, trained, and on our platform, in order to sell the
04:56product lines that are in this network.
05:01And their scope will work, you know, sales, lead generation, and when I say that, we make
05:07each silo very sticky.
05:09We'll get into a little bit, right?
05:11We need leads, we'll bring in lead sales organizations.
05:13Next, tag distribution, well, every project requires material to be installed.
05:20We're a funder.
05:21We have some of the best distribution relations.
05:25We have a distribution relationship, actually, with the largest distributor in the nation.
05:29They have 100 distribution locations.
05:31They're the biggest by far, and they give us phenomenal pricing that we then move over
05:37to our customers, which are sales orgs or contractors, but great margins in the process.
05:46You know, I, so what I want to touch on this real quick is the fact of the financing, right?
05:50Like, I used to sell mattresses in a previous life, and then, of course, not everyone would
05:54be able to pay cash for the type of mattress that they wanted for their back, for their
05:58health needs, or whatever the case may be, and that's where financing would come in,
06:00because then it would increase the ticket price, which would obviously increase the
06:04margins for the business side of it as well.
06:06So I'm glad that you brought up the financing aspect, and I just wanted to kind of point
06:09that out, that you're able to get more business that you wouldn't get otherwise if you strictly
06:12just relied on cash.
06:14If an industry wants to see hockey stick growth, drive the solution where a customer
06:19doesn't have to write a check, sold, sold, sold, sold, sold.
06:23I mean, that's why you're seeing, the capital and tons of Wall Street capital is moving
06:27to our industry is what's driving the scale for sure.
06:32So you're very right.
06:35Bottom tag contractor program, well, you need to install anything that's sold, right?
06:40See how the ecosystem is starting to work together?
06:42We have hundreds of contractors on our platform that can install in 48 states.
06:47They get vetted, they're licensed, bonded, insured, and we oversee the process of the
06:52installation also.
06:53As a matter of fact, our sales orgs very rarely talk to the contractors.
06:57We keep them separated because they're just buttheads.
07:00And for the customer experience, he gets to see a sequence of events.
07:04He knows who to talk to.
07:06It's managed for them.
07:08Customer gets signed here, and we take it from A to Z.
07:11Finally, every business requires more business.
07:15So we are on our broker program.
07:16We have phenomenal networking teams that just drive business.
07:20They get a little piece of the pie.
07:21We like to share the pie with everybody.
07:24That makes everybody roll in the same direction.
07:27And lastly, which is rolling out via an acquisition that's lined up is our EV.
07:36You can't have alternative energy without addressing EV.
07:40To finalize, in each one of these silos are our subsidies, our subsidiaries.
07:47As we acquire a credit of acquisitions, they go into one of these silos to either expand
07:51our footprint or expand growth, but TAG manages everything in the middle, and we create our
07:59programs to be very sticky because none of our channel, and I call them all channel partners,
08:04the contractors or sales orgs, they don't have to stay with us.
08:07The market is not developed like that.
08:10There's no exclusivity.
08:11They can jump around.
08:12So you've got to create sticky scenarios so that they'll stay.
08:16An example, our sales orgs, our fintech is bar none phenomenal, and our sales orgs get
08:22to use that fintech that helps them get more sales.
08:25That's associated with TAG Financial.
08:28We have a finance division, very robust, that closes the entire closing process, manages
08:33all the closing documents, is in the middle, right there with the sales org, and protecting
08:38the customer to make sure the customer knows what they're getting.
08:42And so that finance division now belongs to our sales orgs and our contractors and our
08:47brokers.
08:48So they get to use our products, but in every silo, we make revenue streams.
08:52Now you did a great job of kind of this slide kind of portrays the whole recap of how things
08:58work.
08:59Are there any other growth opportunities that we may have missed out on that you get a chance
09:02to mention, especially if it talks about driving growth more effectively?
09:06Like this kind of portrays how it all gets done, but is there anything else that the
09:09audience should know when it comes to growth opportunities?
09:11Yes.
09:12First, let me start by sharing some data.
09:15California, the most evolved market in the United States, been doing it the longest,
09:20greenest for short.
09:22They only have 5% residential penetration, 5%.
09:2595, 100 homes, 25 have solar.
09:29Local buildings, less than 2.5% have solar.
09:33It is an untapped marketplace in the whole United States.
09:36I never worry about competition because we have good products.
09:40We know what we're doing, and we do two things before anything else.
09:45Protect the customer, number one, and also number one, protect the capital.
09:49If you do both things, everything falls in place.
09:52So relative to growth, it's out there.
09:56Do a good job, be accountable, which is why I love the public markets.
09:59By the way, I love the regulatory oversight because it makes everybody run correctly.
10:04You don't have to cut corners.
10:05I mean, I've tried it in the past, and it doesn't work.
10:08So be a very painful experience, do it right, do it the first time right, be accountable,
10:16you're going to grow.
10:17Yeah.
10:18I mean, I completely agree.
10:19There's a lot of things in my personal life and professional life and trading life where
10:22it's like, you know what?
10:23Maybe we shouldn't try to take the shortcuts because in the long term, it doesn't exactly
10:26pay out.
10:27You talked about tech financial, and I know you mentioned it's already launched.
10:32How does that work out in terms of the ecosystem?
10:34Have things been running smoothly on that side?
10:36Yes.
10:37First, let me talk about our, real quickly, our prepaid PPA.
10:40It's one of the most dynamic type of financing available, but historically, it's always been
10:47FICO driven and high income driven.
10:49We don't review either one of those.
10:52We don't analyze any one of those quantifications to approve a customer.
10:57We do look at a credit profile, but not FICO and not, we're democratizing solar.
11:02Why is it that only half of the population that has good credit and high income gets
11:06the benefits and the subsidies of solar?
11:08It's not fair.
11:09Yeah.
11:10There's a whole demographic, half of the United States that has not had the benefit to experience
11:14it.
11:15They should.
11:16And when we look at the other data, and we did a deep data dive, I mean, data savant over
11:19here, right?
11:20Data tells you everything.
11:23It's not FICO and it's not high income earners that determine if they're going to pay their
11:28electrical bill.
11:29Yeah.
11:30It isn't.
11:31So through our credit profile analysis, we've driven this product.
11:36We did a 10 week soft launch with one channel partner.
11:38Mind you, we got 600 sales agents, 200 contractors, one.
11:44In that 10 weeks, we did almost 13 million in business without even trying.
11:49Since then, which has been like nine weeks, we've done 32 million in business.
11:55We've only onboarded 10 channel partners.
11:58We've created 27 million in notes that are assets that we own, and almost 12 million
12:04in ITC credits that we can monetize and that TAG owns.
12:08So imagine, only 10 we've onboarded.
12:11Why is that?
12:12Because I want more tools for the sales agents in the home.
12:15I want it to be pristine, perfect.
12:17So when we go hard launch, it's flowing, right?
12:20Growth is a phenomenal, beautiful thing if it's structured and paced, because they can
12:24kill you.
12:25Again, painful experience.
12:26It has killed me before.
12:28So I consider it a slow, fast, get in there, build the infrastructure, strong foundation
12:33so you go fast.
12:34Well, I mean, what you said earlier in that answer kind of reminded me of how some people,
12:40accessibility and ease of use and all that for the consumer is always the number one
12:43thing in my opinion, just because from what you said, the example, and not exactly the
12:48exact way to compare it, but it reminds me of how some people will qualify or they won't
12:52qualify rather to own a home, but they qualify to pay a rent for that same exact amount,
12:56if not higher.
12:57So the system's not exactly perfect in that sense.
13:00Before I let you go, because I know we're running out of time, is there anything else
13:02that you kind of...
13:03Oh, you're good.
13:04Is there anything else that you wanted to cover that you wanted our viewers to kind
13:06of know about in terms of what's going on with the company or maybe what to expect in
13:10the next five, six months or a year ahead?
13:14So I really want to talk real quickly about the regulatory landscape.
13:19I used to follow Trump before he was a political entonation.
13:22He's a businessman, right?
13:23He's a businessman.
13:24There's five times more jobs being created in alternative energy space than fossil fuels.
13:29Elon Musk, who is my hero, my businessman hero, he's alternative energy.
13:35He's the richest man on the planet because of alternative energy, and he's got the fear
13:39of the new administration.
13:42Alternative energy is baked in the cake.
13:45It's like Obamacare.
13:46You can't undo it because it helps.
13:48And if it's done correctly, and as we add creative acquisitions through our M&A strategies
13:55that we have in place, we're just going to continue to grow and scale.
13:59We're in pace to do 150 million in the next 12 months without even trying.
14:03We're doing 3 million a week right now with 10 channel partners.
14:07And so the scale is phenomenal.
14:09We have industry experts as our partners, and they just love the business model.
14:13Yeah.
14:14I think, like you said, right, with the election, with the result, you kind of know what's going
14:17to take off.
14:18I know in 2020, it was the cannabis space.
14:20I saw a nice little run on that side of things.
14:22Of course, now this new administration, you've seen crypto, you've seen EV, alternative energy,
14:26solar, all that good stuff.
14:28They're coming in as well.
14:29I appreciate your time here today, man.
14:31And I look forward to kind of having more of these conversations as you achieve more
14:34and more milestones from 3 million to maybe 10 million.
14:36I'd love to talk to you again.
14:37I'd love to do that again.
14:39Thank you so much.
14:40I got you.
14:4110 million.
14:42It'll happen, Pablo.
14:43All right.
14:44We'll be back.
14:45And thank you so much for your time.
14:46Absolutely.
14:47You got it.
14:48That is Pablo Diaz, who is the founder, chairman, and CEO of The Awareness Group, ticker on
14:51the OTC markets as FHLD.
14:53Pablo, thank you for your time once again.
14:55Thank you, sir.