All Lina Dahi wanted was a lobster roll from her favorite Santa Clarita sushi restaurant. But the 30-year-old stay-at-home mom, who immigrated here from Thailand five years ago, couldn’t bring herself to ask her husband for $20.
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“He’s done everything for our family; he makes all the money, buys all the food, and pays the rent,” Dahi said of her husband, who owns a construction company. “I clean the house and do the cooking and help raise our daughter, but I make nothing. I felt guilty asking him for 20 dollars.”
But once her daughter started preschool in the spring, Dahi decided it was time to make her own money. She had sold wedding packages for a hotel in Thailand, so she began searching for sales positions on job websites. She knew nothing about the solar industry, but sales openings with Solar Energy Partners kept popping up.
Dahi applied several times and didn’t stop until she landed an interview last April with SEP, one of the fastest-growing solar companies in California, a state where solar energy has grown from 10,000 houses with rooftop solar to over 1.2 million in the last 20 years. Over the last decade, California has paved the way for a domestic solar revolution, with almost half the solar systems in the U.S. installed here.
Once SEP executives met Dahi, they sensed she would be a perfect fit for a job as an independent contractor with the company.
“Not everyone is as hungry or as driven as she is,” said Trent Edmond, an assistant district manager for SEP’s Los Angeles region. “There are a lot of people that come into the solar industry with ideas of easy money, but no desire to work–you see them come in and out in two weeks. Lina was driven to succeed from the moment we started working together.”
There were some early struggles as she found her way in a new industry, but Edmond said Dahi was not discouraged by a few rejections.
“For Lina, the entire sales process was like riding a skateboard,” he said. “A ‘no’ from a customer wasn’t the end of the world. It was like, you attempt to ride the skateboard, you fall off, you dust yourself off and move on to attempting again. Just like anything in life, persistence is one of the paramount qualities of a successful person, and it’s certainly not a trait Lina is lacking.”
Nine months after her solar career began, Dahi has become one of SEP’s biggest success stories. She’s closed nearly 30 solar deals, becoming one of the top sales earners for a company that employs over 1,000 sales consultants. Dahi’s English skills are still somewhat limited, so she created her own sales network by selling solar nationally to Chinese, Vietnamese, Philippine, and Thai immigrants through Facebook groups. She even advertises rooftop solar on a local Thai television station and Thai newspaper.
“The solar industry and Solar Energy Partners have changed my life,” Dahi said. “Selling solar is all about being sincere and looking toward the future. The state is going to be powered by renewable energy in 25 years, so why not start saving money and saving the environment now?”
And now that she’s earning a six-figure salary, the Santa Clarita resident can buy all the lobster rolls she wants.
“I ate so many lobster rolls I actually got tired of them,” Dahi said with a chuckle. “Now I’m trying other kinds of sushi.”
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