I had a dream, (or was it a nightmare?), that I spent my next 30 years advertising budget on a 30 second Super Bowl commercial. It was so obvious; our company name seen by millions and millions of people and us associated with the biggest annual sporting event. I couldn’t wait to get to the office on Monday to hear the phones ringing off the hook. Needless to say, nothing really happened at the office on Monday except that the employees were impressed they saw our name for 30 seconds right between the Clydesdales and Dorito chips. Fortunately, right then I woke up. As I awakened, I remembered that I had spent the previous day working on my advertising budget for this year. The irony of the Super Bowl ad hit me. In my dream I hadn’t bothered to determine who really is my audience.

The point is that with the start of a new year, it is time to take a complete look at your entire advertising strategy. The idea of advertising is to get your message to your potential buyers. The same things that worked a few years ago, or maybe even last year, may not work right now. The reason is that people are not receiving messages the same ways that they did years, or even months ago. The new social media items like Facebook and Twitter are so new, no one really yet knows their impact. So how do you, as a contractor, sort through all of the possibilities.

The first step is to analyze who it is that you want to reach. This requires an internal analysis of your customers and their demographics. It’s important to take the time to put down in writing the important factors that identify your customers. This includes age, general income level, male or female, geographic location, and anything else you know that helps identify and segment those that make up your existing and potential customer base. The more you can pinpoint the type of individuals you want to reach, the better value you will be able to obtain from your advertising dollars. This requires accepting the fact that the entire population out there is not your potential market. The acceptance of this fact was a step I obviously had not taken in my dream when placing my Super Bowl ad. I was paying to reach millions and millions of people who were not potential customers. You can be very successful serving a relatively small portion of the entire population.

Another important reason to analyze your current customers is to determine how you might best stay in touch with them. Most experts in our industry say you will get more return on money spent by keeping in touch with your own customer base. Direct mail is probably the best way to target your own customers.  Unfortunately, because it can be targeted, many industries use direct mail and your message can easily be lost in the clutter. Many companies must find direct mail to be a successful approach because so many use it extensively. Direct mail is one good way to encourage referrals by including in your direct mail piece an incentive for someone to make a referral. Speaking of referrals, since a high percentage of our leads come from our own customers and referrals from those customers, I am questioned by our employees as to whether or not we really need to advertise at all. My response is that, if I am looking to purchase something, and a friend refers me to a company, if I am familiar with the company name, have heard it advertised, or seen their trucks, I am a lot more likely to follow up and contact that company. If I have never heard of the company referred, I am less likely to call that company. For that reason, I feel it is important that we keep our name out there in front of our potential customers.

Thus, as you plan your advertising program, your first step is to analyze your current customer base. This will give you the information as to where to best spend your advertising dollars to reach potential new customers. It will also help you determine the best ways to get reach your existing customers. With that background information regarding the type of individual around whom you want to target your advertising dollars, it is now time to determine how to best go about reaching that audience. In our next column, we will look at the pros and cons of the many advertising options available.

Welsch is the owner of Welsch Heating & Cooling, St. Louis, and can be reached at welsch1@primary.net.

Are you “in the game” or just watching from the sidelines?

There are changes taking place in our industry that are unprecedented. The changes in efficiency were to be expected, along with working through the phase-out/phase-in of refrigerants. Add into the equation the changes in our overall economy, and the results are more than many can keep up with. But like the old saying goes, “the more things change, the more they remain the same.” A variation is “the more things change, the more they remain … insane.”

I like this second version better because it describes this particular time in our industry. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. I believe this is a good description of how a lot of us are choosing to deal with the changes in our industry, as well as day-to-day business.

Human nature reflects our tendency to sit back and let someone else initiate a change; a change for the better we hope. Rather than “take the bull by the horns” and initiate the change ourselves, we are content to conduct “business as usual” expecting different results.

The times in which we currently live require, if not demand, that we do business differently. You hear all the talk about our political representatives and that they should not be doing business as usual because the business environment is NOT as it was and may never be again. In fact, today, you have to work harder, longer, AND smarter in order to achieve the same level of success as before. But even with this being the case, many of us are content to “watch from the sidelines” and wait for someone else to initiate a change that will yield positive results for us.

These same times in which we currently live also demand we view our customers in a different light. Even if you have provided exemplary service in the past, you need to do an even better job. Following up with customers, requesting referrals, doing that “little something extra and unexpected” is more important today than it ever has been. “Under-promise and over-deliver” is a great motto. Today we are forced to embrace what we should have been doing all along, simply because times are tough. Call it a silver lining. We are doing things today, to promote our service and product, that during more affluent times we would have never thought of doing.

Think about what you do today in order to meet your customer’s needs that weren’t even part of your program say 7 or 10 years ago. How many of you are really, I mean really, doing anything different, or are you doing the same things expecting different results? 

Don’t be spectators; be a participant. Take time to think and be innovative in how you meet your customer’s needs. Get in the game!

John Lloyd of Prudential Heating and Air Conditioning Inc. has been involved first-hand in the HVAC industry in a variety of roles for over 30 years.

That was a close one.

A client of ours recently called because their boiler wasn’t working. We arrived shortly after 10 that morning to check things out, and boy were we in for a surprise. The boiler had literally cratered internally. Unfortunately, the burners continued to fire. Instead of venting properly, the flue gasses were spilling into the mechanical room. From there they made their way into the duct system through return air leaks, finally coming to rest in the living area of the house. Uh oh. I guess that explains why both the Mr. and Mrs. woke up with headaches that morning (and no they didn’t have too much to drink the night before).

The levels of carbon monoxide they were experiencing were high enough to make them sick, yet low enough to go undetected by their UL listed CO detector. Now we have been selling low-level CO detectors for years, and we had been doing work in this home for years. Yet we had never talked to them about purchasing a high quality, low-level CO detector. Why not? Did we think they were too expensive? These people live in a 17,000-square-foot house — I think they can afford a few low level CO detectors. Did we not believe the low-level CO detectors were a good product? If you ask my technicians what the best accessory we offer is, most will tell you it’s the NSI3000 Low Level CO monitor. Did we not offer it because we were lazy? Probably. It’s embarrassing to say, but many times we miss out on sales simply because we’re too lazy to bring it up.

Our clients got lucky on this one — they woke up with a headache instead of not waking up at all. What could happen to your clients if you fail to offer them add-ons?

Michael Atchley is president of Oren Atchley Air Conditioning and Heating.

There is no doubt that a heating and air-conditioning company can live and breathe through their service and maintenance department (the heart and lungs of your company).  I was taught many years ago that you can successfully “recession-proof” your company by building up your service contracts.  Having service and maintenance technicians provide precision tune-ups to contracted customers’ heating and cooling systems will build a customer base and provide steady cash flow for your company. 

There is one piece of this business survival system that often gets overlooked — the dispatch procedure.  Every business has service technicians that are natural lead generators.  These technicians are great because they’ve bought into the philosophy that lead generating benefits everyone (the customer, the company and the technician).  Yet, I often wonder why businesses don’t dispatch their great technicians to customer homes as a sales strategy.

Many companies dispatch based on geography versus opportunity.  Instead of sending the technician to the next maintenance or service call because it’s close to him, why not send him because there’s a 17-year-old piece of equipment that you know he can turn into a lead for your sales department?  The same idea applies for younger pieces of equipment and technicians that are not your natural lead-generators. 

The primary goal for every call should be to make sure the customer gets taken care of properly.  Using strategy during the dispatch process, you can increase your sales revenue and profitability at the same time.  The same approach should apply to emergency service calls where possible.  If your customer service representatives are asking approximate ages of furnace or air-conditioning systems, a decision can be made on which technician goes on which call.  Dispatching for dollars and not geography will make you more money while satisfying the customer.

Read more sales and business strategies on Michael O’Grady’s sales and business resource, http://www.sales-psychology.com and sign up to receive the free sales guide, “7 Strategies to Take Action on Your Greatest Sales and Business Goals”.

Don’t you love it when the local sports league or school club calls requesting a sponsorship for the upcoming season? For $50, you get a business card size ad — that nobody pays attention to — in the program, which gets quickly filed away in a scrapbook (if you’re lucky) or the trash can. I’ll be honest. I usually categorize these as donations rather than advertising. Until last month.

The Shining Stars dance studio held its end of year dance recital in May. For a mere $15, I chose to place an ad in the program. “Chose” might not be the best word. My wife paid for the ad and told me after the fact that I owed her $15. I digress.

Fast forward to August. A new customer called because their unit wasn’t cooling. We arrive to find the unit low on Freon with large leaks in the indoor coil, and the furnace blower bearings a little loose. The Day & Night furnace and coil had served them well, but it was time for some new equipment. Two days, and several thousand dollars in sales later, we installed a new furnace and coil. When asked why they chose Oren Atchley Company, they said “We weren’t sure who to call, but we remembered seeing the ad at the dance recital.” Wow.

So was this a onetime thing or should I start viewing these ads a little differently? What are your thoughts?

Michael Atchley is president of Oren Atchley Air Conditioning and Heating.

The building commissioning industry must change. The industry just doesn't commission a building at the proper time, in my opinion.

Through my 25-plus years of energy management and building automation experience, the designers, architects, and consulting engineers all do a great job in selecting the proper building envelope — as well as all of the appropriate mechanical and electrical systems — to provide the desired operation and comfort in a building.

I have found that most problems begin with the commissioning of each system and the automation system that control these processes. These systems are typically tested before the building is released to the owner for occupancy. The specifications call for the TAB engineer to verify that each piece of equipment functions as designed as integrated into the building. What most contractors and engineers fail to realize is that a building is a living, breathing entity and is never occupied and functioning at the same level at any one time. The "final" commissioning of a building should not be stamped until the mechanical systems are functioning during full occupancy and through multiple seasons.

I know, no one wants to return to a project once occupied. We all want that final payment on the day the architect declares the job "done"! In reality, most contractors are required to return for warranty issues or punch list items anyway. So why not put the funds aside, up front, for a six to nine month schedule for commissioning during live occupation? During this time, many complaints will filter down to the facility manager's office, work orders will be issued and building technicians will scramble to "satisfy" the hot/cold complaints with any means available to close out the work order. Here is where the problems begin.

Once set points are changed, VAV boxes modified or controls disconnected, all of the LEED design in the world will not bring back one dekatherm or kWH back to the owner.

The building techs need to work side-by-side with the commissioning agent or TAB engineer to learn how and why a system process functions. The techs will be able to inform the agent or engineer where the problem areas appear to be. Working together the systems can be tuned to realize both comfort and LEED satisfaction.

There is much more to it than the few words on this page. If anyone is really interested in solving our dilemma, please contact me. I beg for an audience of architects, engineers and facility managers to listen to those of us who are called upon to "fix" a building when an owner or manager becomes frustrated dealing with upset tenants or employees.

John Castoro is the owner of Innovative Logical Controls. He can be reached at info@innovativelogicalcontrols.com.

Before I offend anyone who’s built their business around the art of cold calling, I will say that cold calling is a valuable part of selling and should never be overlooked. With that said, the question remains, “As a sales manager, how much time do you encourage your sales force to spend in this area?”

The other day I picked up an old e-mail someone had originally printed for a technician in the field. Somehow it was placed on one of the numerous piles of paper scattered atop my desk. It had the name and phone number of a key decision maker for whom we did a little service work last year. We had tried to up sell the guy on a preventive maintenance plan — since their emergency repair was a direct result of no maintenance — but it wasn’t in their budget. Enough time had passed since then though and I decided it was time for me to ask for the sale again.

Happily greeted by the decision maker Terry on the other end of the phone, a 20-minute conversation ensued as he took it upon himself to counter sell me on what his company had to offer. Touché’ to my fellow sales person as I let him know I was more than happy to listen to his pitch and loved his technique for turning the call. When all was said and done, he agreed to meet me for lunch so that he could introduce me to the new decision maker, as Terry had changed from facilities to sales and promotions.

Now I know that wasn’t exactly a cold call; but what spurred this blog was that during the course of our conversation we had discussed his new role as a sales person and which sales methods he was using. During that discussion we both agreed that cold calling is still a necessary tool in our arsenals but with the change in today’s technology — and the use of voicemail, e-mail, and text messaging — it was easy for people to avoid cold calls.

So with that background information, I’d like to get more people involved in the conversation. How much cold calling are you doing and what other sales methods are working best for you? Don’t be shy. Take this opportunity to connect with people like you and voice your opinions and experiences. Iron sharpens Iron!

One of the advantages of being in the business for a number of years is learning from your mistakes. Hopefully, this self-evaluation of a contractor will help encourage others of you to not make the same mistake repeatedly as I seem to have done. There is some wording to the effect that if we do the same things and in the same way and expect to get different results we are only kidding ourselves. Write that down somewhere and look at it frequently.

About 25 years ago we had a service manager who I had hired as a service technician. He had been a service manager at another firm and when the need arose I made him our service manager. In a fairly short period of time, I started getting the feeling that he wasn’t handling things just right. Instead of making a potential service customer feel that we were happy they called us, he gave them the impression that we were doing them a favor by coming out to service their unit. I remember I used to hate hot weather then because I knew I would get a call or two from a friend saying they needed service and I would have to search for someone to make the call and then beg to get it done. I knew in my gut right then that a change needed to be made. But I tried talking to him and tried to make him into something he wasn’t. And I lived with this bad situation for 3 or 4 years.

We were fortunate to need to hire a new replacement salesman. He was actually a former service manager. He worked as our replacement salesman for about two months and said that there was no way he could accomplish the goals we had set with our current service manager. The service manager was turning off our customers so much that we had no chance to make replacement sales. The new salesman agreed to also take over the role of service manager so I finally let the service manager go. What a relief, immediately the response of the service techs was that of “thank you.” A positive new attitude was very noticeable and I obviously had made the right decision — just 3 years later than I should have.

Now fast forward 15 years, to about 5 years ago, and our Service/Replacement Department has grown significantly and we have become very successful in that business. But then I am beginning to get that feeling again that something is not right. Yes, we are taking care of the customers but we have stopped growing at a time in which we should be achieving significant growth. I start talking to our service manager about the issues and get really in-depth reasons (excuses). When things didn’t improve in a year or two maximum, I should have made what was a very difficult decision. But instead, I put it off and tried to work it out. Finally, due to all of the things that occurred and also the economy, I finally made the decision that the change needed to be made and the service manager had to be let go. It was one of my most difficult decisions ever, but has been one of the best. In retrospect it is one I should have made at least a year or two earlier. As I think back, I knew it, but just couldn’t get myself to do it.

Also as I think back, there have been other times when we had an individual who was good — but not performing up to our expectations. Those, too, were times I tried to work the individual through the issues. Although a few times that work was successful, most of the times we ended up wasting a great deal of effort when we should have separated ourselves from the problem much earlier.

My message is to encourage you to not make the mistakes that I have made. When you have an employee that is not performing at the proper level, make an attempt to have that employee correct the problem and if they don’t, make a change now, sooner, rather than later. You will save yourself a great number of headaches and probably a lot of money in the process.