Episode 32: Stay Green & Make Green

00:34
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Welcome today's episode of Marketing Moves, where we help inspire you to stay ahead of the curve and make impactful moves in your own marketing journey. I'm your host, Lisa Perry Kovacs, and today we have a special guest who is making significant strides in the renewable energy sector. Joining us is Russ Bates, the visionary CEO of NextGen Clean Energy Solutions. With over 150 years of combined experience in the power generation industry, NextGen has been at the forefront of providing innovative clean energy solutions to homeowners, businesses, municipalities and healthcare facilities. Under Russ leadership, NextGen is dedicated to helping businesses improve both the environment and their bottom line, which we, of course, here at marketing moves love. Russ journey from working in coal fired power plants to now leading a clean energy company is truly inspiring.

01:36
Lisa Perry Kovacs
His passion for renewable energy and commitment to combating climate change have driven Nextgen to become a leader in the field, offering advanced solar battery storage and electric vehicle charging solutions. Today, we'll dive into the reasons small to medium sized businesses should care about sustainability, not just from a social responsibility standpoint, but from a cost savings, brand reputation and customer loyalty, and even investor appeal. Russ, welcome to marketing moves.

02:09
RussBates
Hey, thanks for having me.

02:10
Lisa Perry Kovacs
All right, so I want to start out with a simple question for our listeners who might not know. What is clean energy?

02:16
RussBates
Clean energy, a lot of people may refer to it as renewable energy. The easy one to point out is solar. Right, solar. Solar panels. Solar energy. Also wind. So micro wind turbines is another thing that we like to get into, battery storage. You mentioned EV charging. We consider that a form of a clean energy product as well. You also have hydro, geothermal and stuff like that. But we focus on wind, solar, battery storage.

02:44
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Awesome. Can you give us an overview of next gen clean energy solutions and its mission?

02:51
RussBates
Yeah, I mean, the big picture of what NextGen does is help our clients to achieve their goals. And goals are going to be varying between each client, but we want to help them save money, we want to help them meet their objectives with sustainability, and we want to make them more profitable at the same time.

03:10
Lisa Perry Kovacs
How have you seen the importance of sustainability grow over the last ten years?

03:14
RussBates
That's a great question. It has grown tremendously over the last decade. A lot of different reasons. One, obviously, the economics and efficiency of clean energy technologies has made it much more viable. So what was viable ten years ago, or maybe not as viable, is it's a much different story today. So, like, solar panels are much more efficient today than they were ten years ago, five years ago, and even a couple years ago. With that, the prices have gone down significantly. So it all equals to savings for the client. So that's the economic piece. And then you also have just the overall sustainability piece of environmental responsibility. We've got a lot more young people coming up into the workforce these days, and it's very important to them. So there's a pretty significant movement for sustainability.

04:06
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Yeah. And we're going to talk about young people and how much that they care about that in a bit. But I want to go back to something you mentioned, which is savings for the client. So most of our listeners do come from SMB small to medium sized business land. Why did you choose to focus on that as your target?

04:23
RussBates
Really? The small and medium sized businesses, they were kind of being left out. So you have the residential end, which solar is big and residential. You're going to hear me reference solar a lot because that's the big ticket item, but you're going to have the residential end that was definitely being serviced. And then you've got the utility scale projects. So you got two ends of the spectrum. In the middle, you have small medium sized businesses, and they just weren't, they were kind of falling out of the, on the wayside. That's where I saw a great opportunity to help. And whenever you think of a small medium sized business, and even some of the larger companies, they don't all have a chief sustainability officer. Right. So a lot of times it'll follow on your safety, your health folks to get in there and do that.

05:11
RussBates
And that's not their specialty. So they need a resource to be able to come in and help develop plans, to implement those plans, to develop projects, manage those projects, because the bandwidth is limited. Right. They've got their day jobs to do. And throwing sustainability on there, that's a heavy lift. So that's where we're able to come in and really be a third party option to handle all of that.

05:35
Lisa Perry Kovacs
So you're like a fractional chief sustainability officer.

05:38
RussBates
Yeah. Yeah. That's a great way to put it. Sure.

05:40
Lisa Perry Kovacs
What are the most common industries and businesses that you serve? And are there businesses that don't make sense for you to serve.

05:47
RussBates
I'll answer your second question first. No, every business should really be looking at this and looking pretty hard at it because it's not going away. This is going to continue. And we can get into, you know, sec language and all that kind of stuff that transfers to a small and medium sized business. But really, nobody is out of the way. There's a solution for each one. It's just figuring out what it is, and that's what we do. There's no cookie cutter. Everything's customized. Right. So what may work for this company in northeast Ohio, it's going to be a little bit different than that same type of company in, let's say, Arizona or Florida or Washington state. So, yeah, there's really no business that shouldn't look at it, whether they're big or small.

06:32
RussBates
And as far as the types of companies that we work with, that, I mean, it's really across the board. Manufacturing is a great opportunity for saving on our electricity cost. That's a big expense. Right. So if you got a big manufacturing facility, you're using a lot of electricity. That's going to be a big deal. Schools, you know, we're working with some Texas schools, and electricity is like their second highest expense. So being able to say those dollars are a big deal, but it's small. Mom and pop shops, its large Fortune 500, 200, 250 corporations were really across the board.

07:11
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Yeah. And you mentioned sort of no one is exempt from this. Like, it's not really going away. So what would you say to SMB owners or leaders who don't have a sustainability policy or even sustainability goals?

07:26
RussBates
They really need to look into it. Like I said, it's coming. And I'll tie this in a little bit with like, SEC rulings and filings that you have to disclose that if you're a yemenite publicly traded company, it's not just those publicly traded companies that this affects. You know, you get scope one, scope two, and scope three, emissions. Scope three is going to affect that supply chain. So if you're, let's say, a company based here in Cleveland supplying to, you know, a Fortune 500 company or any publicly traded company, you're going to have to work on that. That's going to be something that's passed on because that's in the control of that supply chain provider. So that manufacturing facility or what have you, that's supplying, they're going to have to do this and it's going to help them, too, with other clients.

08:08
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Yeah, it's going to help them, too. I'm interested in kind of double clicking on that. So how can sustainability help an SMB make money? Is it simply a cost saving measure or is there a larger net benefit?

08:21
RussBates
It's definitely cost savings, no doubt. So. And to me, you know, my dad told me that old saying, a penny saves, a penny earned. Right. So if you're saving dollars that you're not having to put into, you know, electricity bill, if you say 50% or 80% or whatever that percentage is, that's money you can reinvest. So there's definitely the savings aspect. It's also from a customer standpoint, because, again, with the supply chain, that's going to be a big part of this for a lot of clients. But also, if you're serving your customers, they're going to start asking for this if they haven't already. And that younger generation, that next generation is, as we like to say, they're really looking at this because it's going to affect them. It's already affecting them.

09:06
RussBates
It's already affecting us as far as the climate change in that part of it. But the big push for us is being able to save dollars.

09:13
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Yeah. And it seems like consumers do increasingly prefer to buy from companies that demonstrate that environmental responsibility and those social ethics. So how can sustainability help a brand differentiate in the market?

09:27
RussBates
Well, it can attract that talent, you know, the workforce. We hear these horror stories right now of not being able find the qualified people. And I can tell you for certain that there's a lot of the younger generation that if a company doesn't have certain things in place and sustainability and, you know, watching that carbon footprint, if they don't have that in place, then there's others that do. And those ones that embrace and go ahead and move forward with sustainability initiatives, that's going to help them to attract and also retain employees. People are jumping around right now, and that's part of it that's really interesting.

10:03
Lisa Perry Kovacs
I had never thought of it that way, but that makes perfect sense. I want to get into something that might also be kind of an unexpected angle for our listeners. But ESG criteria, so environmental, social, governance criteria, that's becoming increasingly important investment decisions. So is this a topic that you're seeing coming up in your consultations with SMB owners that are maybe looking to craft an effective exit strategy?

10:30
RussBates
I'll say, yeah, we definitely are hearing that ESG term has certainly come up. Right. With regards to. Let me back up a little bit. It's becoming more and more important every day you're hearing more on this. So to me, and I think to the overall world in general, it doesn't matter who's in office, it may slow down, it may speed up this transition we're seeing, but it's going to happen. So whenever we talk to clients, it definitely comes up. As far as, like an exit strategy, we've not had that situation yet, but I can say talking with different investors, that's something that they are looking at. If you've got that plan in place, and especially if you've already got it implemented, that's a big check mark for an investor. In a lot of ways, 100% makes.

11:18
Lisa Perry Kovacs
You a lot more valuable. In some ways, you're a brand rep for clean energy in and of itself, because I imagine a lot of what you do involves education. So how does Nextgen collaborate with local governments to promote and rep the idea of sustainability? Like maybe your partnership with the city of Euclid?

11:40
RussBates
Yeah, it's really, you hit the nail on the head with the education piece. So that's the biggest problem we have. And I was totally guilty of this. Like, 20 years ago, even 15 years ago, I came from the fossil fuel background, so I was running projects in coal fired power plants, right? I had different projects going on in various areas where I grew up indiana and actually across the country. And it's one of those things that I didn't have an open mind to clean energy because I was certainly hearing one side of it. You know, whenever you're working in coal fired plants and fossil fuel plants, natural gas and such, you're here one side and you're seeing, hey, I'm making good money.

12:23
RussBates
You know, it's helping the economy, it's doing all those great things, but you do have to open up to it a little bit. And I ended up doing that. And I didn't go to just one source. I started looking across. Google's a great thing, right? You can find great things on Google, and then you can find some not so great things. But I would encourage people to do their own research like I did and educated myself. And I totally changed my perspective once I understood more. Especially again, like you mentioned, the last ten years, there's been so much improvement, so much technological advancement that you can't really deny it. The numbers really speak for themselves.

13:02
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Like you said, Google can be such a good thing, and it can be a little bit of a scary thing because there might be some misinformation what would you say to listeners if they want to become educated on this topic? Where should they begin?

13:15
RussBates
I would just get on the Internet and start looking. I mean, if you want to find something negative about clean energy, it's easy to find. If you want to find something positive about clean energy, it's easy to find. It's really filtering through and seeing what those truths are. Clean energy has its, you know, I'll say limitations right now, but it's getting better and better. Right. So we're seeing that. I tell people, I mention this a lot. If I could snap my fingers and get rid of fossil fuels today, I wouldn't do it. It would be the wrong move. We need to have a transition, which is what's happening right now. You got socioeconomic, you've got all kind of things that you got to factor in. So just getting rid of them, like, that's the wrong thing in my opinion. I wouldn't do that.

13:59
RussBates
But the transition has to move forward and back to your education piece. That's, that's what really moves the needle when people are open minded and can understand and see. All right, here's what it is. Here's what this does and kind of walk through, and that's what we like to do is walk through that process with them.

14:16
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Yeah. And you mentioned being open minded. I'd venture to guess that the clean energy community is pretty open minded. Can you talk a little bit about the community?

14:25
RussBates
Yeah. The clean energy community is, I'd say it's a pretty open minded group, but I won't say everybody in clean energy is of the same opinion that I am on certain things. So it's not like you're branded and this is the message you put out. We'll tell clients we'll do free consultations and preliminary designs and budgetary financials to give them an idea of what that's going to look like. And if it doesn't make sense, we're going to tell them this doesn't make financial sense. Or, hey, this really does make sense. And here's the ways we can help with bringing in financing and project management, all that kind of stuff. But if it doesn't, we're going to tell them that if I wouldn't do it myself, we're not going to advise our clients to.

15:05
Lisa Perry Kovacs
I love that methodology. It's similar to what we practice and preach at Vividfront. So looking forward, what's next for NextGen? So what upcoming projects or initiatives are you most excited about?

15:18
RussBates
Well, we've got so much in various stages of development. The San Antonio Independent School district is one that I think about off the top of my head. We've got a contract in place with them. They have over 100 facilities. They're in Texas. And we're going to develop different projects and initiatives and stuff to really help that. That school corporation out. So that's exciting. We've got some projects in Puerto Rico that are in development. We've actually got a proposal going in for a military base there that goes in Monday. So, yeah, just a lot of different things because it's across the nation. I mean, it's exciting whenever we're approached by somebody in Europe, hey, would you be interested in helping us to develop this project? Now, we're not quite there yet, right?

16:00
RussBates
So we don't want to outrun our headlights, and we explain that, but those are still pretty exciting to get invites there in Africa and India and South America. So we're not, again, not to that point, but that's on our radar.

16:15
Lisa Perry Kovacs
What's the latest with electrical vehicles?

16:17
RussBates
I would say they've taken a bit of a smack, a kick in the confidence a little bit here as of late, but that's got a lot of different variables in there. A big problem is charging stations. Right? There's. There's not enough.

16:31
Lisa Perry Kovacs
So it's an inconvenience.

16:33
RussBates
Well, it can be. I've been driving electric vehicle. My. My wife Elisa, she's drives an EV as well. We've been driving them for years and never had any problems. And I've taken some long trips, too. Right. I'm originally from southern Indiana. I've driven over there, Chicago. I've driven all over the place several times. So for me, it's not an inconvenience. I've got a Tesla, so I can get on the Tesla supercharger, and it's a little bit easier than what's out there with a lot of the stations. So it's an inconvenience probably in some people's minds that are used to just pulling in and gassing up. You're in there, you gas up, and you're gone in 15 minutes or something for a road trip.

17:09
RussBates
So it's a little bit different, but it's once you get the hang of it and kind of understand how to adjust your schedule, I feel I'm actually a lot more productive by being able to stop charge up. I work. So I'll pull my computer out. I can go get something to eat. I can do a lot of different things that I need to do anyways, and I think I get more done than I would if I was just stopping and maybe getting my destination a little bit faster.

17:33
Lisa Perry Kovacs
How do you find the charging stations for me with. Is there an app?

17:38
RussBates
There's an app, yeah. Yeah, there's an app. Plug shares an app that you can get. It'll show every station that's registered. Right. So not every station's on there because not everybody's going to register their station. If there's a company and they've just got stations for their employees, they're not putting it out on the open market for everybody to come in and use their stations. But, yeah, Plugshare shows everything with Tesla. It's like I just program in where I'm going and it'll show me, all right, you need to stop here to charge up and you need to be there for x amount of time, then you can continue your trip.

18:10
Lisa Perry Kovacs
How much time is the average fill up?

18:14
RussBates
It's going to vary on what you need. Right. What you're. What's your destination? If I can stop at some places for 15 minutes and charge up and then go to the next charging station, it really is up to you. You can kind of set those parameters however you want. But, you know, on average, let's say you're about, you know, in the 10% range, it's going to vary from vehicle and the charging station infrastructure. Right. But if you want to say, all right, for a fill up, it's going to be 45 to minutes to an hour to fully charge. So if I'm going to do that, all right, I've got 45 minutes. That's time for me to go get my lunch. I can pull my laptop out and get some things done there, too. So again, at the end of the.

18:57
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Day, walk around, relieve.

18:58
RussBates
That's good for you. Anyway, I used to, whenever I was driving an internal combustion engine vehicle, I would stop. It was a race to get home, right, and, or to get wherever I'm going. So I would stop, I'd fill up and I'm on the road, man. My back was bothering me, you know, on those trips and wasn't healthy. Right. So to me, it's. It's a better lifestyle. That's my opinion, and I feel I'm more productive.

19:26
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Yeah. I feel like that lifestyle is not really being effectively marketed or branded. Like, I hadn't even considered that. You know, you see these promotions from different car brands and just like, go hybrid, go electric. But they're not talking about the lifestyle.

19:41
RussBates
No, that goes back to the education piece. Right. People, if you don't know and you hear a lot of, I'll say there's some truth into some of the information of, well, you're limited on what you could do. There's range. Range anxiety. Well, that's going away. You're getting a much better range out of vehicles now. And that's, the technology continues to advance. But, yeah, there's very poor messaging, if any, on, hey, you just need to adjust how you do things. Having more stations, like if you have stations set up here, somebody's got an ev, they just come up here and plug in and walk away. Right. That saves you from maybe having to stop and get gas like you normally would. Right. It may, people may think, oh, that's a major inconvenience. It's your perspective. Is that glass, to me, that glass is full.

20:25
RussBates
By doing this, some people are going to say, oh, that glass is empty. It's just how you have a view of it and having an open mind. And it's changed. I mean, whenever we first, I wasn't around, but internal combustion engines, you know, the Ford Model T, people were saying all the terrible things of that technology. Well, it advanced and people moved, and that was around however many decades ago. It was 100 something years. So it's just advancements. It's change.

20:53
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Yeah.

20:54
RussBates
And people get.

20:55
Lisa Perry Kovacs
We demonize it, for sure. We get afraid of it.

20:58
RussBates
Yeah. Yeah. Change is something that I've learned to embrace. I like my boring life, but, I mean, I'm excited about some of these changes in technology, too. Again, open mind, I think is important, for sure.

21:10
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Well, I'm inspired to check out an electric car now. So this was helpful.

21:15
RussBates
Yeah, I love them.

21:16
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Awesome. Well, Russ, it's been a pleasure. I love learning about unique or unexpected ways to approach branding and, you know, market position. I think ultimately adopting sustainable practices can position those SMBs regardless of industry. Like you said, any. Any company, any industry. As those forward thinking leaders, open minded, it can help attract eco conscious buyers and the right talent, like you mentioned, make their business more attractive to investors and help align them with stakeholders in the clean energy community that can lead to powerful new business relationships. We always close our show with a set of rapid fire questions, just kind of get the blood flowing, keep you on your toes. Are you ready?

21:53
RussBates
Sure.

21:54
Lisa Perry Kovacs
There's three. Okay. The first is solar or wind?

21:58
RussBates
Solar.

21:58
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Okay. Favorite food in Cleveland?

22:03
RussBates
Anything my wife makes.

22:05
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Oh, great answer. His wife's actually here today on set, so he had to say.

22:09
RussBates
I would have said that if she wasn't.

22:10
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Okay. I love it. And then east side or west side?

22:15
RussBates
I like them both. I can't pick. I'm not from here, so I don't have a preference. But I've seen great things on all throughout Cleveland. I'm really impressed with Cleveland. I've been here in this area for coming up on a decade now. And yeah, I can't give you a straight answer on that.

22:35
Lisa Perry Kovacs
Great answer. It was the same answer Mayor Bibb had. He was just on. So it was a good, safe political answer. Russ, thank you again for joining us in sunny downtown Cleveland. Where can business leaders get in touch with you if they're interested in learning more about incorporating sustainability in their business?

22:52
RussBates
Pretty easy to find on LinkedIn. So, Russ Bates, you can get us on the website nextgencleanenergy.com. And that's NXT, g e n because we try to be cool. You can email me russgencleanenergy.com. You can even call me. I give out my number and it comes right to me. 2162-178-2360 my gosh.

23:14
Lisa Perry Kovacs
I love that you just gave your number. That's badass. That's a first on the show. Thanks, Russ. Appreciate it. So great meeting you. So great having you. Enjoy the rest of your day.

23:22
RussBates
Thank you for having me.

23:25
Lisa Perry Kovacs
We hope you enjoyed this episode. Now it's time to start making moves. Head to vividfront.com marketingmoves for exclusive marketing materials. Every episode, we add more of our greatest insider secrets to help you move towards success. See you next time.