Did you ever stop to think of how your customers look at you? Do they think of you as the hero that knows everything there is to know about heating and cooling and will undoubtedly show up and save the day, or rather one of the schmoes from the company that has “emerjency service” painted on the side of their trucks. Does the idea of your presence emit confidence and even awe, or instead induce aggressive vomiting by all involved? Be honest now; remember, Mrs. Shaw the math teacher always said that “by cheating, you’re only cheating yourself”.

I remember a good, but relatively inexperienced service tech named Curt who was good natured, well liked, and honest to a fault. He was very loud and aggressive which was fine, until he came across a piece of equipment that he wasn’t completely familiar with. Now, I’m not talking about a technician used to working on gas furnaces and a/c systems that was suddenly put in front of a complex, geothermal system with a dual-fuel, back-up and co-generation system to boot. No, I mean a furnace that was a different color, or one that had a name that he wasn’t familiar with.

Well, when Curt was presented with an “unusual” furnace or condenser by a customer, his reaction would be something along the lines of “Wow, look at that thing! I never worked on one of these before, but I’ll give it a shot. What’s the worst that could happen, it blows up? Say, you wouldn’t happen to have a book for this thing, would you?” Now I ask you, is that the way a hero speaks?