Training has Evolved
Wallace says he uses all NCI’s tools: air upgrade, AirMaxx Lite app, and high-performance selling techniques.
“NCI has been a great help to us. Plus, we are all about hands-on training, too. We recently finished building a new training facility and had NCI do an onsite meeting there in December of 2023 on high-performance duct work renovations,” he explains.
“We had 10 or 11 of our technicians attend, and then we brought in eight more from other contractors. Training guys from other contractors won’t hurt me. A rising tide raises all ships. The idea is that we all make more money together.”
Air, and Plumbing’s culture. Owner Greg Wallace says it’s training
that put his team onto the High-Performance HVAC path.
He adds that doing so much training makes them stand out from all competitors, and they do 80% of their air upgrade work on new equipment installations.
“If you’re going to do the job correctly, you’ll have to upgrade something anyway. I’m not saying 80% of our jobs include ductwork, but 80% of our duct repairs and modifications usually involve installing new equipment. From a different perspective, 20% of our projects are duct changeouts with no equipment installation. We’ll turn the whole duct system out and redo it.”
“Back in 2017, that wasn’t the case. We were still testing the waters. But I knew it was the right path and focused on getting us there.”
The Progressive Brand
Wallace says that Progressive’s reputation and brand revolve around solving seemingly unsolvable customer comfort and efficiency problems. They often are called into a job where someone else has installed brand-new equipment, and the client is still uncomfortable in their home.
“We come in and test everything, discover the problem (usually in the ductwork), and can generally close that repair sale at decent margins.
“It’s important to note that I don’t push brands other than my own.”
Wallace and his team bought another company before the start of the Summer 2023 season. A lot of that company’s installations didn’t include any duct upgrades. Wallace says that the company had 300 maintenance customers, so Progressive did all that work.
“As we do the maintenance, we are finding many airflow issues, so the number of duct renovation projects has increased. We’re not touching the equipment because it is perfectly fine,” he says.
“Our brand is based on correcting airflow and filtration issues, which are usually the biggest problems we find. By testing and measuring, we see that the return statics are too high, the house has bad returns, and so on. Often, we just tear out the entire duct system and start over.
“So buying that company was a bigger blessing than we originally thought.”
Closing More Sales
Since 2018, when we last spotlighted Progressive, it has seen solid business growth with more sales and much better closing ratios. Wallace says he learned a long time ago that not every customer is the same, and he can be pickier about who his company does business with.
“For any contractor, especially for High-Performance HVAC contractors, it is essential to properly price your products and services. Progressive is not cheap. Some customers don’t like that. They don’t want to pay for that. So, they aren’t my customers anymore,” he explains.
“Other customers are unsure. In my opinion, their uncertainty is our fault. If we didn’t explain it well enough, then it’s a training issue. We have scripts to help teach our guys how to explain things. If those scripts aren’t working, we need to revisit that. Or if the tech isn’t using them, we have to revisit that too.”
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