“It certainly is in our best interest to focus on those guys who’ve been properly trained and certified. But as a distributor, we also need to serve other contractors as well. We try to help those contractors understand the importance of training and get them more involved in it. The mission: to try and get them into practicing high-performance HVAC service and installation delivery.”

COVID-19 & the Supply Chain

Joe Kelly, Behler-Young’s senior vice president, says their management team meets regularly to discuss the short and long-term business outlook.

“It’s not like we are prescient,” he says. “But there are indicators that help us decide how to respond to market issues before they happen. With COVID-19, we managed to put ourselves in an inventory position that was significantly better than our peers in Michigan. Our inventory is up 40% year over year. We are fortunate to have been in that position before the pandemic blew up and things locked down. Still, maintaining that size of inventory has been a challenge.

“Tony Pino, as a product manager, is out there acquiring products from our manufacturers. He has two peers that do that as well. Today we are also going to nontraditional resources to find products that our contractor customers need.

“We’re leveraging the strength of our relationship and size with our current manufacturers, and we’re also rethinking our strategy going forward.”

“This means today we need several sources to have some level of security for our contractors and their customers going forward,” Kelly says. “The good news is that other suppliers have stepped in to help fill voids where they can.”

At Comfort Air, Michael Shiveley says they took a slightly different path.

“Management at Comfort Air anticipated supply issues and pre-ordered a large inventory to meet the needs of our contractor customers. We did this through a strong partnership with our manufacturer, and we did not go outside that partnership for equipment.

“With product lead times being what they are, sometimes months, pre-ordering the way we did saved our bacon and helped our customers.”

Kelly says, “With the shortages, we suddenly had many new best friends who want to buy. But we can’t sell to everyone right now.
“We must learn to say no. We must take care of those who brought us to the dance – our existing customers. And that’s probably been one of the most challenging things to manage over the last 18 to 24 months.”

Preparing for Tomorrow

When it comes to the future, the discussion returns to training. At Comfort Air, Shiveley says the importance of a high-performance approach to HVAC comfort delivery is more critical than ever. He says that contractors who are NCI trained and certified are vital to his company’s future.

“They are better organized, focused, and prepared to deliver to customers what they want: Comfort. Peace of Mind. Efficiency. To do that, they must test, diagnose, and resolve issues beyond just the equipment. That leads to more sales.

“High-Performance contractors will usually get more work because they are building amazing reputations in the marketplace.”

But there are challenges. According to Behler-Young’s Tony Pino, training the next generation of contractors is one of the biggest.

He says that means convincing owners to invest the “lost opportunity” time to put techs into classes. It means paying techs more when they reach certification levels, and more.

Kelly adds that partnering with organizations like NCI – “whose courses and the training are among the best in the industry — is the key to tomorrow.

“They bring best practices to contractors, which reinforces and completes the message that we’re trying to send with our internal training and education.”

Simply stated, at least with distribution outfits like Behler-Young and Comfort Air, delivered performance is a big part of tomorrow: from a distributor and contractor standpoint.