Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Greg Chapman. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Greg, thanks for joining us today. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

I have had many first clients over the years and all of them I found by sharing what I am doing with friends and family. A lot of people are shy when they are launching a company. Maybe are scared to believe in themselves or that what they are doing can have value to other people? It can be any number of reasons honestly, but someone once said to me, Don’t be a Ninja Professional. Meaning, don’t hide from people, instead do the opposite and tell everyone you can what you do!

I can’t sit here and claim that I was loud and proud when I was a new entrepreneur as I was in fact a sheepish version of the man I am now. But that didn’t stop me from getting my first cash client!

At the time I was just getting into photography and still had a crop sensor camera and some basic kit lenses. I was mostly just shooting around town for fun, learning about the camera and myself when a friend mentioned that he has a friend that needs some photos for his website.

I ended up making $500 if my memory serves correctly to take photos of the inside and outside of two party buses!

It was a fun job that I was proud of for a long time and it showed me that collecting checks from clients can be easy, fun and rewarding!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have been in many industries as an entrepreneur, but the core lessons and skills of building and running a business are relatively the same across most industries. I have been on a path of learning and experiencing many different things in my life which has led me to a point where I try to live and work with simplicity.

I got tired of trying to start something new and exciting and decided to start a business in the home services sector that is predictable and profitable. I launched a solar company. The industry is growing rapidly across the world, the technology is getting more affordable and efficient every single day, and there is a lot of space for people to enter the industry with new businesses.

We bring a level of creative marketing expertise paired with leadership development to an industry that is mostly run by people with a hard sales mentality. We are set up as a brokerage that can offer many solutions for our clients which means we are truly problem solving for our customers as opposed to just trying to get them to give us money. We are also obseesed with the creative story-telling aspect of moarketing and we are working hard to get our creative ad creation up and running consistently with a style that we call Goomba Marketing. Make them laugh and they will love you forever.

At the end of the day we love the solar industry because we can help real people save real money while making enough money to support our families. I can’t think of a better reason to be in business than that!

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

My business partner Anthony and I met in a peculiar way.

The years leading up to 2020 I was running a small business marketing company called The Gentleman Gorilla out of my house. We had a big team and a long client list and we were having fun and making money.

My then business partner said that he had a long time friend that was moving back to town and was going to come and “help us out”.

Not knowing who this man was or what he was about, but trusting my business partner, I agreed and he moved into my house and started helping us out any way he could. He ended up being the one that stuck with me though the years and we have started a few projects together, leading us to today where we started a solar brokerage and have very bright growth projections in front of us.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When quarantine hit I lost 95% of my clients within the first week.

I quite literally made a list and called through my clients asking if they were still going to be able to pay us or if they were even going to be in business still!

I fought and clawed my way through the first year, completing about 170 photo, video and sound productions that year, mostly just trying to keep myself busy. By the end of the year one of my old clients called me up and asked if I would be interested in getting into selling adaptogenic mushroom products like Lion’s Mane and Cordyceps as the industry was really starting to grow. I accepted and spent the next few years building a small online mushroom supplement company called Divana Mushrooms.

I still have this business and it is still growing but it is not my focus, instead I view it more as my playground, or hobby business as it allows me to play with my website, marketing and sales techniques with little negative repercussions as we grow.

I think it is important for everyone to have something that they can use to sharpen their skills and try new ideas without fear of messing up your business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sunnysandiegosolar.com
• Instagram: @sunnysdsolar
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gregchapman87
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapmangreg/