When I returned to Generac as Senior Business Development Manager for the Caribbean, I was not walking into a mature, well-oiled market. I was walking into a region full of untapped potential, operational gaps, and competitors who had been comfortable for too long.
Within the first year, I had built a multi-million-dollar pipeline, closed a $1M+ infrastructure deal, and established a channel ecosystem that did not exist when I arrived. Here is how I did it — and what I would do differently if I were starting from scratch today.
Start with the gaps, not the opportunities.
Every market has obvious opportunities. The Caribbean energy market has plenty: aging infrastructure, frequent outages, growing demand for backup power, and an accelerating shift toward clean energy. Everyone can see those. The executives who build real pipelines are the ones who find the gaps — the bottlenecks, the blocked SKUs, the broken ordering systems, the dormant distributor relationships — and fix them before anyone else does.
In my first 90 days, I spent more time diagnosing what was broken than pitching what was possible. I found blocked SKUs that were killing sales velocity. I found ordering and payment system issues that were frustrating distributors. I found inventory sitting in the wrong locations. Fixing those problems did not just improve operations — it built trust with the channel partners I needed to execute the bigger strategy.
Build the ecosystem before you build the pipeline.
A pipeline is only as strong as the channel behind it. Before I could close 8-figure deals, I needed distributors who were engaged, dealers who were trained, and service technicians who could support the equipment after the sale. I spent the first months rebuilding relationships with strategic partners who had gone quiet, opening new channels across multiple islands, and designing a dealer activation program that gave our partners a reason to prioritize Generac over the competition.
The pipeline followed the ecosystem. It always does.
Make compliance your competitive advantage.
In Puerto Rico, DACO Law 107-2019 requires generator companies to meet specific warranty, service, and dealer certification standards. Most companies treat compliance as a cost. I treated it as a moat.
By leading Generac's full DACO compliance strategy — ensuring every dealer was certified, every warranty obligation was met, every service standard was documented — I positioned Generac ahead of every competitor in the market. Compliance became a reason customers chose us. It became a barrier that made it harder for new entrants to compete. That is not a cost. That is a strategic investment.
"The executives who build real pipelines are the ones who find the gaps and fix them before anyone else does."
The lesson that applies everywhere.
The Caribbean is a trust-based market. Relationships move faster than contracts. Reputation travels faster than marketing. The executives who win here are the ones who show up consistently, fix problems without being asked, and build systems that work long after the initial deal is closed.
That is not unique to the Caribbean. It is how any market works when you are building something that lasts.