How California Efficiency Group Cut Onboarding Time by 40% with Real-Time Coaching

About California Efficiency Group

California Efficiency Group specializes in home energy efficiency upgrades, helping residential customers improve comfort and reduce energy costs. Operating on a door-to-door sales model with 90% of customer interactions conducted face-to-face, the company required constant field management oversight. Before implementing Rilla, the organization lacked effective tools to track KPIs, ensure rep compliance, and coach salespeople at scale. Jamal Hilly, co-founder, recognized that without measurement and accountability systems, productivity improvement would be impossible.

“You can't improve productivity without tracking it. With Rilla, we can coach them from afar and equip them the right way.”

Jamal Hilly

Co-Founder at California Efficiency Group

Turning Data Into Performance: Accelerating Sales Onboarding

Jamal Hilly opens with a fundamental business insight: "I'll ask you one question: how bad do you want to win? If your answer is I really want to win bad, I said within you need Rilla. You can't improve productivity without tracking it." This philosophy drove California Efficiency Group's adoption of Rilla to create accountability in their door-to-door sales operation.

Before Rilla, the company couldn't establish effective KPIs. "Prior to Rilla, it was really hard to set in place KPIs because we didn't know if the reps were actually hitting it. Really, if you're not with them in the field, it's hard to scale up. Having your best sales person go with every single rep is just not possible. But with Rilla, we're able to coach them from afar," Jamal explains.

The breakthrough came when the first new rep closed a $35,000 deal rapidly. "The first time we had Rilla, we had a rep close a deal for $35,000. Naturally, people think his rep was very gifted and very talented. But we noticed it wasn't anything crazy at all. He just studied the pitch and understood the right tonalities behind the pitch as well," Jamal reveals. This insight proved that consistent process and technique could be taught and replicated.

The impact on onboarding was dramatic. "Before Rilla, it took a rep about 30 days to get to their first sale. Now it takes about 18 days, which is huge for us because that means the company is making money faster, reps are making money faster. It's simply because we're able to equip them the right way and make sure they're being compliant and holding them accountable," Jamal notes.

This 40% reduction in time-to-first-sale compounds into significant business impact. Faster onboarding means faster revenue generation, faster rep earnings, and quicker ROI on training investments. The ability to coach from afar—without requiring the best salesperson to be physically present—created a scalable model for growth.

"I would definitely recommend Rilla if you're thinking of increasing your sales and having better productivity from your sales people. Ride-alongs and coaching with Rilla is going to really, really improve your overall productivity and KPIs," Jamal states enthusiastically. The competitive advantage is so valuable that he half-jokes he wouldn't recommend it to competitors.