Taking care of clients through building relationships
Nolan Petersen joins SiteCapture as our first Account Executive in the SFR space. Working remotely from San Diego, Nolan brings his experience from the solar industry and related operations to our software. He is passionate about working closely with current and prospective clients to ensure positive and long-term relationships. Native to the San Francisco Bay Area, his hobbies include surfing, playing guitar, and watching the Golden State Warriors.
IMN Conference
Nolan kickstarted his tenure with SiteCapture at the 10th Annual Information Management Network (IMN) Single Family Rental Forum (East), in Miami, Florida.
He attended the IMN SFR (East) alongside SiteCapture CEO and Founder Kamal Shah and VP of Solutions & Customer Success Robin Droppa, who was a featured speaker at the event.
“As a new employee to SiteCapture and as our first account executive, it was key for me to learn about the industry we serve by diving in and experiencing it first hand. I was not only able to learn about the history and future of the SFR space, but I was also able to connect with some friends of SiteCapture (new and old) who are truly moving the industry forward.”
After time spent collaborating online during the pandemic, he was excited at the opportunity for an in-person gathering.
“It was such a pleasure to break out of the virtual work thing and start meeting some people both internally and externally in person.”
Starting in Solar
While attending Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Petersen began doing field marketing with a company called Rooftop Solar. Once he graduated, the company tasked him with building their new commercial sales division.
“We built that from the ground up from $0 to $2 million a year in sales,” he remembers. “That was great. We installed around 20 commercial solar projects for businesses all around Arizona.”
Petersen credits much of his team’s success to the efforts they put into improving the customer experience: identifying their ideal customer, developing campaigns to attract that customer, treating prospects well, and forming strong relationships with existing customers.
“I gained a lot of experience in B2B [business-to-business] sales and forming relationships in that setting,” he reflects.
Once the pandemic hit, he started to see more value in the residential side of solar. Fewer business owners were using their commercial buildings; on the other hand, more employees were working from home. Petersen decided to focus on direct sales for residential solar.
From Solar to SFR
Then, after his move to Pacific Beach in the San Diego area, Nolan began looking into shifting from solar to software sales.
“The SFR space has incredible growth potential, and my background in solar involved working frequently with Property Managers, General Contractors, and other vendors so it has been a great fit. Plus, I am a huge fan of remote software sales and the lifestyle that it provides.”
“Solar and SFR have a number of things in common,” he remarks. “I’m still relatively new to SFR, but I’m already realizing there are processes that need to be documented on forms, and they need to be tracked and communicated efficiently with management. Having been involved with that side of the construction/project management process before, I see a lot of value in SiteCapture, and I’m excited to share that with our clients.”
Building a New Role
In Nolan’s new position as Account Executive, he will be assuming some job responsibilities previously handled by Robin Droppa and Lauren Kane, Manager of Solutions and Customer Success.
“On one hand, I’ll be enabling our business to expand and bring on more clientele.” he says “On the other hand it will free up a lot of their time to do more managerial tasks.”
In his new role, Petersen will also devote much of his time to managing existing accounts to ensure clients are getting the most out of SiteCapture.
“I’ve already found it’s a highly personalized process. In the relatively new SFR space, there are so many moving parts and different types of businesses, so for a customer to scale through SiteCapture the key is to take a collaborative approach.
