Articles Tagged with ''My Two Cents''

If a contractor cheats, who does he cheat? His customer? His employees? The government? Frankly, it is unlikely that any contractor cheats customers, employees, or the government … for long, that is.

As an HVAC technician, I had a C+ level of technical skills, but with Dale Carnegie’s help, I became an A+ people guy. Sales and opportunity soon followed.

Balance sheets are the unsung heroes of our industry’s accounting management tools. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re vital to your business, and learning to read them correctly will supply you with information that can keep your company out of financial trouble, as well as show you some important growth opportunities.

There are few truths in an uncertain world, but here is one of them: Without leads, your business will go under. No exceptions.

Over and over, I see contractors paying someone to tell them which numbers to watch. But it’s simple, really.

There are two possible solutions I believe the industry needs to consider in order to change the landscape for our future workforce.

Increasing the profitability of HVAC companies is not something that is achieved overnight. Instead, it is a result of creating a detailed plan, collaborating with the team, marketing execution and adjustments, and tracking analytics and results, among others. If you want to succeed and improve your bottom line, implement these strategies.

In the 1990s, consolidation swept across the HVAC industry. Contractors were rolled up into large publicly traded companies like American Residential Services, Group Maintenance America Corp., Service Experts, and the utility-owned Blue Dot.

Is it possible that buildings of the future will be a strategic asset — that they will operate in an intelligent way to be productive facility managers and monetizable for real estate owners? Is it possible that the traditionally conservative and risk-averse building and construction industry would leverage the latest technologies, such as the IoT, big data, cloud computing, data analytics, deep learning, and artificial intelligence, for the benefits of saving energy, reducing operational expenditures, increasing occupancy comfort, and — most importantly — meeting increasingly stringent global regulations and sustainability standards?

The HVAC industry, and in particular the replacement sector, is attractive to private equity investors because of its exposure to a large base of installed equipment that requires regular service and, ultimately, replacement. The critical nature of HVAC equipment for ensuring comfort means that customers tend to place the most emphasis on service responsiveness and equipment quality, in addition to price and other considerations.