Building a Sustainable Future: Joy Seitz on Solar Energy and Leadership

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women In Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women In Motion, we have Joy Seitz and she is with American Solar and Roofing. Welcome.

Joy Seitz: Hi. Thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about American Solar and Roofing. How are you serving folks?

Joy Seitz: Great. Thank you so much. American Solar and Roofing is the original solar installer in Phoenix, Arizona. We started serving utility customers back in 2001 and continued that journey into commercial and residential projects. And so, we’re nearly 25 years old. We received our roofing license in 2008 so that we could install solar better and higher craftsmanship on the roof. And we’ve just been serving, again, residential and commercial clients since 2001.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any kind of misconception or maybe myth about solar that you’d like to dispel? Is there anything you can share with somebody who’s thinking about solar? Can you kind of talk us through this a little bit about the why is it important to consider solar as a choice?

Joy Seitz: Yeah. I mean, the first thing I always say when people say does solar really work is, well, I’m nearly 25 years old and majority of my business comes from return business. So, if it didn’t work, those two pieces of data, I would not be able to share them. And then the next thing, many people choose to do solar just because they want to control their expenses in their home, so it does lower the prices you’re paying to the utility. Another reason, obviously, is climate change. To be a part of the solution of climate change is very critical, so homeowners choosing to go solar is a vote towards pushing their local or federal government to do more to solve our climate change issues that we are experiencing throughout the globe.

Lee Kantor: Now, is it something that if I switch to solar, I’m going to see a change in a year, in five years, in ten years? Like, when am I going to kind of see a financial ROI on it?

Joy Seitz: So, depending upon the state in which you’re listening to us from, the ROI can be different just based upon the utility rates. But in Arizona, the typical ROI starts from day one, because as soon as we turn on your solar, you’re no longer buying that energy from the utility, you’re buying it from yourself. So, you’re already getting that investment from day one. But the full system is normally paid off between seven and nine years. And, again, being 25 years old, I can tell you that solar systems last a lot longer than even 25 years. You just have to make a couple investments to the product, so your ROI is seven to nine, but it can last on your home for 30 years.

Lee Kantor: Wow. So, it’s dramatic. If you’re going to be there for a while, it’s definitely something you should consider.

Joy Seitz: Yeah. And also, again, depending upon your why. So, if your why is I want to invest in solar because I want to start indicating to my city council members, to my neighbors, again, to my federal government that solar is important to the movement of and acknowledging that climate change is real. So, there have been many studies by even ASU here in Arizona, Arizona State University, where if you own solar and you put it on your home, that it does increase the value of your home. So, it’s never a bad decision to make even if you only stay there for four years, and we experience that all the time with our customers.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you seeing more and more people adopting solar?

Joy Seitz: Yes. National SEIA is saying that more and more people are adopting solar. We did have a hiccup in the residential market about 18 months ago, just some policy changes really exposed some issues within the industry that needed to be corrected. So, policy changes put a spotlight on kind of some opportunities to make our industry better. And so, right now we are in a true up phase, I think, as an industry, and we believe that 2026 actually will be a comeback year for the residential market. If you look at commercial or you look at utility scale, those are not being impacted as much, and so you’re seeing extreme backlogs even to get those projects online.

Lee Kantor: So, what’s your backstory? Have you always been involved in solar?

Joy Seitz: The job that I was carrying right before this position as CEO is I was involved in government relations, so I was working in in-house lobbying firm working on a number of different topics. And so, in 2009, I came into the company as a policy manager to do a lot of government relations work with all levels of government here. And then, as the company grew and then downsized, the requirements of the company and the needs of the company to be able to compete against utilities fighting us, and a lot more competition of the solar market coming in, the company really needed my superpowers, so then I took over as CEO in 2014.

Lee Kantor: So, what are your superpowers?

Joy Seitz: My superpowers is to be able to not be concerned of today’s issues. Today’s issues of the company from running payroll to maybe onboarding somebody or somebody quitting or even an accident, those issues as a leader can sometimes drown you and make it that you can’t see the forest or the trees. And so, my superpower is to not get emotionally tied up in today’s problems, but to always be looking eight to ten years in the future of where I believe the company can go, and really stay focused on that and stay committed and truly, mentally positive to what tomorrow can bring, and not allow today’s problems to drown me in fear and stagnate.

Lee Kantor: So, how do you, as a leader, communicate that vision and get buy-in from kind of the people who maybe lack that vision on your team? Is it something that you have to work on, like communication skills, or do you have to just choose the right people that kind of buy-in? How do you, as a leader, kind of you’re seeing farther than they are, and they’re the ones who are dealing with the problem that need to be triaged?

Joy Seitz: Right. So, everything you say, and I would say I was lucky enough to be connected to another female CEO who was in the roofing distribution side. So, I was buying my roofing products from her, and she introduced me to EOS, which is the Entrepreneurial Operating System. I am not here, I do not get paid by them. But that, honestly, saved my life and saved my sanity. And I shouldn’t say life, that’s crazy. But it saved my sanity and it really put me on the right path.

Joy Seitz: So, the key thing to EOS was really identifying that I am a visionary. I kept trying to live in the seat of an operations role, like a COO role. I am truly a visionary. I am able to come in and see the problems that we’re having and say to my very strong team you can solve it like this, this, this, or this, and then I have to let go of the vine and give them an opportunity to use their superpowers to solve those day-to-day problems.

Joy Seitz: So, as soon as I realized that there are two major functions to run, really, a company, which is that visionary role, which is not that day-to-day thinking, I was able to find an internal candidate who helps me as my chief of staff integrator to help me run the day-to-day. And those two roles are just drastic. And so, as soon as I figured that out, and I learned EOS, and I learned my superpowers and how I can leverage other people’s superpowers, I really got my life back and I really even got more positive. I saw the roadmap to how my vision could actually come into play.

Lee Kantor: I think that’s so important, and I think the EOS framework is really important for people to at least learn a little more about it. And like you mentioned, the visionary and – what is it? The integrator?

Joy Seitz: The integrator.

Lee Kantor: So, they work hand-in-hand. One is kind of seeing down the road and the other is making sure the trains run on time. And you got to work together and you got to let go. So, those are important components to it. And there’s books about it. There’s people that teach it around the country. So, I think it’s a great framework for a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of entrepreneurs have benefited from it.

Lee Kantor: When you were making this shift, this was kind of a mindset shift for you because you were probably doing both parts of this and you were probably frustrated by the operation side, and now here you have at least a roadmap of this is a different way of looking at what I’m doing. Was that difficult for you to buy-in or did you get it right away, and you’re like, “Look, I’m just going to find an operations person and it’ll be their problem to deal with all this stuff.”

Joy Seitz: Yes, and. So, I love to say that I read a lot of books, but I don’t. I listened to the book Rocket Fuel on audible, and it’s only a 2.5 hour book that describes the visionary and the integrator role. And after I got through the first, like, 34 minutes of it and explained the visionary, a layer of shame kind of fell off my body. I stopped shaming myself for not being able to get the traction that I wanted to get.

Joy Seitz: I fully embraced it and I fully accepted it, like, “Oh, my gosh. This is what I need to get done.” It has taken me, though years, to find the right team member, the right puzzle piece is what they would call it in EOS, to really latch on to me because every visionary is different and everybody has a different way that they do things. And it’s super critical for the visionary to find the right person that they can trust and really partner with that sees them and respects them and wants to do that work.

Joy Seitz: So, once I figured it out, I was like, “Okay, great. This makes sense,” and I just thought it was going to click. And like, no. I mean, the visionary integrator role is like a marriage. And I actually say that I interviewed integrator candidates more than I interviewed my husband before I got married. Especially if you have aggressive goals. I have very aggressive goals for my company. Like on a scale of 1 to 5 as a visionary, I’m a 5, which means that I need an integrator as a 5. I’m doing crazy things with crazy goals and objectives that are very high for myself and for my team. So, that requires me to have a level five team to support me.

Lee Kantor: Now, any advice for the listeners that maybe are visionaries and are trying to find the right fit for an integrator? Is there some do’s and don’ts that you learned? You know, because I would imagine you had to kiss some frogs before you found the right person.

Joy Seitz: Well, I’ll just say this is my experience, is that, again, I’ll just speak as this is WBEC and maybe there’s a lot of women listeners, I had to do a lot of soul searching on belief in myself. The narrative I had in my mind was I need to latch on to somebody who is smarter than me, to be frank. And going through the process of hiring people that were older white men who I have been told my whole life are smarter than me, and then I hired those people, and then I was like, “Oh, no. We’re exactly the same.” I know my stuff. You know your stuff.

Joy Seitz: I really had to come and accept the fact that I am very educated on what I do in my company, that I know how to run my company. Do I want to break down an Excel workbook? No, I don’t. But that does not make me stupid. That just makes me be like, I’m not doing that. And so, once I really accepted that, that was an important piece to the puzzle of just knowing I can, but I don’t want to and I don’t need to.

Joy Seitz: And then, the next thing I just did was I looked internal again. At the time, I didn’t have internal candidates, but somebody internally was really doing a lot of work on themselves and wanting to scale for themselves. And so, now I found an internal candidate to really help me scale that. And so, I also thought, I don’t know, I just had a movie version of how I thought it was going to go, that I was going to find this really smart person that I’ve seen on TV my whole life, and they were going to come in and solve all my problems.

Joy Seitz: And that’s just not the case, and so I just had to kind of come to that realization. And I would say that was kind of the negative thing about EOS is, is it made it feel like it was supposed to be like a prince was going to ride up on a horse and help me. And that ain’t it.

Lee Kantor: Right. Well, a lot of times those frameworks are just frameworks. It’s not a paint by numbers, you know.

Joy Seitz: Right. Right. But you want it to be when you’re so desperately exhausted by sitting in a seat or being in a role that you are tired, and then somebody tells you how to solve it, you want it to be paint by numbers because you just don’t want to be in that role anymore. And that’s where I was, and I had to come to a full grasp on that.

Lee Kantor: Now, did you get to that point just through your own frustration and your own kind of discipline, or was it did you have a mentor, or did you have a coach that helped you kind of get that aha moment of, “Look, you’re fine. Just find the right puzzle piece here.” You can find this person. You are smart enough to be doing this. You are kind of brave enough to be doing this. And you’re the right person for this. They’re not the right person. If they were the right person, they’d be in your seat.

Joy Seitz: No. I wish. It sounds like you, Lee, should have been my coach. No. I do have coaches. I do have an implementer for EOS. All of them are powerhouse women who very rarely give out compliments and attagirls to me. As Brené Brown will say, through the Theodore Roosevelt quote, they made me stay in that stadium. They made me rumble and tumble and get dirty and get beaten up. And they always stood by me, but they never gave me a roadmap. They gave me this support knowing that I could call them. But even if I called them, they would be like, “Oh. I don’t know, what are you going to do?” And I still had to get into the weeds. I still had to do the work.

Joy Seitz: So, I had the faith that they were there, but there was never a time they did what you’d want a mom to do, and just like give you a hug and tell you it’s going to be okay. There was never that moment. I had to do that all for myself. Which hindsight, I guess, that makes us all great people. But, dang, when you’re in it, it just isn’t fun.

Lee Kantor: And it’s hard. And that’s where a lot of people, they say, enough, I’m going to get a job. I’ve had enough. This is too hard.

Joy Seitz: Exactly. That’s when you’re like I’ll just do 9:00 to 5:00 and be an employee and clock out. No, it’s true.

Lee Kantor: So, now it sounds like you found the right person, is there any kind of clues that you have uncovered that looking back, you’re like, “Oh, I need them. When they’re doing things like this, that’s probably a signal that they could probably do this job.” Did you learn some things that you could share that maybe helped kind of make the next person’s path a little smoother?

Joy Seitz: Yeah. Again, I’ll take full responsibility around on a scale of 1 to 5, I’m a 5 on visionary, so I run at 80 miles an hour. It is important for me to find somebody who is okay with me running 80 miles an hour. But also at the same time, I really came to be okay with getting one percent better every week. Again, when I found out about EOS, I was like, Game on. Give me that person. Unclick this seat belt. Let’s go.

Joy Seitz: And I just realized that a lot of people don’t function like that, and that’s okay. I can still achieve my goals in a more thoughtful way. If I would have known then what I know now, I would have accepted my advice of be okay with small changes every week. Be patient with that and be appreciative of that and live in gratitude around that.

Joy Seitz: Again, when I read the book, I just thought it was going to be a knight in shining armor, the end. And it just wasn’t. So, now my advice is if you have an internal candidate – I mean, even then when I started this, I had an internal candidate that I could have worked with and partnered with and done coaching with, and I could have gotten them coaching. And I could have been further down the road now if I would have not believed that narrative of a knight in shining armor.

Joy Seitz: So, if you have an internal candidate, definitely partner with them. If there are things that maybe they don’t know, that’s okay. And you don’t have to train them, just go make that investment through a coach for them or through some education for them, because they will get further down the road if they’re committed to you and your vision than anybody you bring in externally.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for you to become part of the WBEC-West community?

Joy Seitz: Thank you. When I took over as CEO, my company and the solar industry were basically failure one and failure two. I mean, we were both on the deathbed of not coming back. So, the solar industry was being targeted by the utilities and fossil fuel, and they wanted to destroy our business model, so I was fighting that battle. At the same time, the leadership before me had all but made my company insolvent. And I had to armor up and use my superpowers and solve all of the problems.

Joy Seitz: Eight years ago, I had becoming a woman-owned business on my roadmap. And because I was in the arena and rumbling with the enemies, I didn’t have any teammates that could even be focused on going through the process. I think everybody who’s gone through the process can say there’s a lot there. You have to do a lot of the work, and you have to have all of your paperwork and ducks in a row to get it done. And so, while I had all the paperwork and I had all the ducks, it takes the time to submit it and answer all the questions and get it done.

Joy Seitz: And so, this was a hope that I wanted, and it’s something that I saw that I wanted for myself eight years ago. And so, to finally get it across the finish line and to know all of the work that I had done to become a woman-owned company and stand in my power of that, it’s like almost like a badge of honor to be a part of this group and to become a woman-owned company. You know, I joke, somebody said did you get it to get more business. And I’m like, no, I just wanted to raise the flag and be proud of it. And getting the business, it’s just sprinkles on top for me.

Joy Seitz: So, it was always on my roadmap. I’m proud that my team and I got it across the finish line. Again, I had a lot of teammates helping me. And now forever, you know, I will want to encourage any woman to get it done and feel proud of the work that they’re doing.

Lee Kantor: So, what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Joy Seitz: I think for me now, and I’ve partnered with some of the folks here in Phoenix, I think now I just need to be trained. It’s a new language, and now I have to go learn that language. I know the language of how to lobby for more solar, now I need to know the language of how do I leverage this. As I’m now finding out, there are businesses who are looking for me, how do I make it that they can find me? And so, I am now going to be reaching out and learning about how I can be seen more so that it’s a win-win.

Lee Kantor: So, if somebody wants to learn more about American Solar and Roofing and maybe connect with you or somebody on the team, is there a website? Is there a best way to connect?

Joy Seitz: Yeah. I’m Joyce Seitz on LinkedIn. I still maintain my own LinkedIn and my own messaging, so anybody who wants to partner with me, give me a LinkedIn there. I love taking conversations with other women owners working to do what I’m doing. And then, just our company website is americansolarandroofing.com and you can get all our contact information there.

Lee Kantor: Well, Joy, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Joy Seitz: Thank you so much for your time.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor, we’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.