HVAC contractors are blessed with the amount and type of training made available to them from every link in the industry’s value chain ‘ manufacturers, distributors, associations, franchise organizations, and independent consultants.

The amount of training is almost overwhelming, however. There isn’t a single source where contractors can go to set up training their personnel. One manufacturer is making a significant investment in doing this very thing.

Goodman Manufacturing Company, L.P. set out on this path in 2017 with its Goodman Business Toolbox? and Amana Brand Business Academy? programs. Under the direction of National Sales Training Manager Ben Middleton, the company began to build a business resource that would be available to the entire HVAC Industry.

Today both the Toolbox and Academy platforms are open and available to the industry. This includes HVAC contractors, distributors, and their employees across the industry regardless of brand affiliation.

Middleton says, ‘We strongly encourage HVAC contractors, no matter what brand of equipment they sell, to attend the Goodman and/or Amana training sessions. There are no user names or passwords. We have free learning videos that they can access in our libraries. Anyone can see our entire training calendar, all the upcoming training sessions.

‘If they see a workshop they like, they can register for it and participate. It doesn’t matter if they sell Goodman or Amana brand equipment or not.’

Some History

Before 2017, Goodman offered high-efficiency sales training for their contractor customers. According to Middleton, that training was offered through a third-party company.

The company also had existing technical training. When Middleton joined the team, his mission was to take training to the next level.

‘Part of that was to provide some additional tools for our dealers to use ‘ a toolbox if you will ‘ which put more resources at the contractor’s fingertips,’ he says. ‘The idea was to expand our business horizons. So, we created this training toolbox working with various industry experts and trainers from all over the country.

‘We work with organizations like National Comfort Institute (NCI); independent business consultants; coaches like Tom Wittman, Dennis Mondul, and Tom Piscitelli; and other industry partners like CI Web Group, EGIA Finance Clearinghouse, and
so on.’

Middleton says that back in 2017 he got together with four experts to hash out upgrades to the Goodman high-efficiency sales class. Part of this upgrade was the inclusion of a new sales tool Goodman had just launched that was called Perfect Pitch? (ncilink.com/perfectpitch).

‘Perfect Pitch is a sales process developed in partnership with Wrightsoft. We built an entire curriculum around this in-home selling system to help contractors sell more high-efficiency equipment,’ he explains.

The following year a group of nearly 30 people conferenced together and developed 15 more workshops. Middleton says during that session the team brainstormed and networked to make sure all the training they developed complemented each other and wasn’t just a ‘hodge-podge’ of different workshops and classes.

‘We wanted contractors to be able to take each of the different workshops and see how they all tie together through the entire HVAC business cycle, which we also introduced that year.’

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