And then I think, you know, are there other options for us to pursue? Absolutely. And so we’re always looking at those options. None of those options are things that, you know, we need to pursue right now, but they’re always options that we’re thinking about pursuing if necessary. But the number one focus of the company is really run the business well. You know, generate cash and put ourselves in a position where we’re self-sufficient with cash generation.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith: And actually, Peter, to that point, just talking about the running the business well, I mean, the OpEx reductions and just streamlining the variable versus fixed, how much of this is a geographic repositioning versus a platform repositioning? And how do you think about that impacting sales? Because at the same time you put less dollars into the funnel, presumably that decelerates something on the other side. I mean, and again, I get that isn’t necessarily linear at times, but how do you think about that kind of translating here? Again, whether that’s geographic or through different sales channels? And then maybe just related to that, if I can help accentuate one more point, how much of an instance per watt or in your terms EBITDA per customer, how do you think about the trend that you’re seeing today on manufacturing and COGS reductions as you trend through the quarter into 2024?
It seems like that’s pretty substantive here. I’m curious if you can try to quantify some of that and help provide some context on ‘24 COGS reductions?
Peter Faricy: Sure. So on the first set of questions around how do you think about marketing investment, how do you think about the regionality part of this? Number one thing is we’re still committed to run this business with a long-term focus. So we haven’t done the things you sometimes hear about other companies doing, like just pulling down marketing spend to try to hit a number. We’re not running the business that way. So we’re still investing appropriately in marketing and sales, and it’s important in this business, frankly, to do it so that you build the backlogs that we have and that you have a base of business to be able to run your business on going forward. So we don’t believe in taking shortcuts like cutting marketing and sales.
I think those are really fool’s gold, if you will, and I think it’s important for us to continue to run the business thoughtfully and with a long-term investment in mind. Now, having said that, you’re right to point out that on a regional basis, particularly this year, it’s been volatile, and we don’t have to have the same strategy regionally as we go forward. We can really evaluate what are the best options to serve consumers. And in our case, we really have an advantage, because we have a strong direct business, SunPower direct in our SPRI operations. We have a strong subsidiary with Blue Raven. We’ve got a great dealer network. We’ve got great installing partners that are partners of ours that are not part of any of those ecosystems. And so the process that we’re constantly going through and we’ll be making changes throughout the fourth quarter to prepare ourselves for ‘24 is, you know, how do you anticipate how much demand you’ll see?
Really, it’s not even state-by-state. It’s kind of utility-by-utility across the U.S. And then in our case, what’s the best go-to-market strategy that makes the most sense economically? I think, again, the volatility of this year, if there’s a big lesson coming out of it is, you know, you have to build a model that’s more flexible and more resilient. And going into next year, our mindset is, be prepared for the minus $20 million and be prepared for the positive $20 million and put ourselves in a position where we could be equally effective. But that’s how we think about that as we go forward. And then I think your last question was around COGS reduction. We’ve made great progress this year on OpEx reduction and COGS reduction. I think certainly from a materials cost point of view, we anticipate materials costs coming down year-over-year between ‘24 and ‘23.
So that’ll be a positive for us. We should also recognize that prices are down year-over-year. Consumers are looking for more value. Dealers are looking for more value. So that benefit in material costs will split between consumers, dealers, and we’ll have the potential to keep some of that for ourselves. And then really I think it’s around the other areas of COGS. How do you think about your infrastructure, your overhead, your regional operations, and how do you go through the process I just described to optimize those next year. And I think we feel like we’re in a position that by the time we finish Q4, we’ll be in a strong position to be ready for 2024.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Okay, Excellent. Thank you, guys. Good luck with earnings.
Peter Faricy: Thanks to everybody for your participation. We look forward to, we hope, a strong close for 2023 and talking to all of you early next year about our expectations for 2024. Thank you very much.
Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
