< Previous10 JULY 2018HIGH PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYbooks. The company was small but nimble and Jim focused on treating customers like family. He built a repu-tation for quality service.In those early days, this plumbing business was all in the new construc-tion sector with some work in residen-tial service and remodeling. Then, in the mid-198os, new construction be-gan its decline, so Wheat dropped it and to focus on residential service and remodeling.HEATING AND AIR CONDITIONING WORKEarly into the 1980s, Wheat began dabbling in the heating and air conditioning business. That was due to a good friend who worked for the government and needed help with in-stallations and per-mit pulling. So, gas-fired heating and air conditioning became a small part of what Wheat’s company did.According to Jeff Wheat, his father went to Syracuse, NY and took classes from Carrier Corp. Those initial classes lead to a culture of learning and train-ing that persists today.Today James A. Wheat & Sons is in the plumbing, heating, and air condi-tioning business. They do around $1.75 million in plumbing and $3.25 million in HVAC – all in the residential service and remodel marketplace.MORE FAMILY IN THE FAMILY BUSINESSHis oldest son, Michael, grew up in the business, graduated high school, and opted to go to college. He earned a degree in business, and after gradua-tion, joined his father’s company man-aging the office.Jeff Wheat also spent many of his early years helping out at the compa-ny. He jokingly says he started work-ing when he was six-years-old. When he finished high school, he opted out of college and became part of his father’s full-time team working in the field and earning certifications in the technical aspects of installing, repairing, and re-placing plumbing and HVAC systems.“In between all that, I also attend-ed a trade school,” he says. “But that was just one day a week. In 1992 I was in a truck and have been working full-time managing the technical side of the business ever since.”According to Jeff Wheat, he and his brother bought out their parents in 2008. That was the year that China host-ed their very first Olympic games and Michael Phelps won a record-breaking eight gold medals. It was the year the world’s economy nose-dived in what was dubbed the worst financial crises since the Great Depression.It was a time of hunkering down and taking care of business. Jeff ran all the jobs, made sure the service and instal-In 1977 the world was much dif-ferent than it is today. It was the year of the infamous New York City Blackout which lasted 25 hours. It’s also the year that Elvis died, Jimmy Carter was elected President of the United States, the Alaskan Pipeline was completed, and NASA launched its first test flight of the Space Shuttle.And in the city of Gaithersburg, MD people were lining up to see the very first Star Wars movie hit the big screen and Jim Wheat was opening the doors to his new venture, a plumbing com-pany that would eventually become a powerhouse in the local HVAC world.In the beginning, the company was a one-man shop with Jim Wheat do-ing all the physical work and his wife working part-time helping with the CONTRACTOR SPOTLIGHTBy Mike WeilJames A. Wheat & Sons: Focused on ComfortJeff Wheat says, “There is nothing like seeing one of our well-equipped vehicles coming down the street.”JULY 2018 11HVACTODAY.COMhelp. He says he makes these callbacks teaching moments for the technicians.“I want them to learn what they missed or how I came up with the solution. It’s all on-the-job training.“I am trying to get a stronger training program going where I do a class once a week on a topic. I haven’t been able to get that off the ground because of time restraints, but that is something I’m shooting for,” Jeff Wheat adds.ON THE PERFORMANCE PATHOver the years Wheat and Sons has developed a reputation in the markets they serve for taking a static pressure reading on every job. Ever since tak-ing the NCI training and earning cer-tifications in residential air balanc-ing and combustion performance/CO safety, Jeff requires his team “plot airflows, take temperature measure-ments at the equipment and registers, and check for carbon monoxide on ev-ery single job.”He adds that his salespeople also conduct those tests and measurements.“Their conversations with custom-ers always revolve around comfort: what areas of the house are too hot, ity where I’d rather hire a young, inex-perienced person with a great attitude to work in the field. Then I can train that person on all the technical stuff. I am very big on that,” Wheat says.TRAINING IS KEYToday James A. Wheat & Sons is very big on the training front. As a Carrier Factory Authorized Dealer, he has access to great training opportu-nities for the mechanical equipment his company sells and installs. Many of his technicians carry NATE certifi-cations as well as NCI certifications. The goal is to deliver installations and service well beyond code and custom-er expectations.“To get there, I also do a lot of train-ing with my tech people myself. I get in the truck and I go out with them.”In addition to managing the tech-nical side of the business, Jeff is also the lead technician who is on call for whenever his field team runs into dif-ficulties. He explains that he is the first person they call when there is a situation they cannot figure out. He’ll try to talk them through it, but if that doesn’t work, he goes to the job site to lation technicians did the work prop-erly, and helped them do that by pro-viding the right tools, instruments, and trucks.Michael ran the business. Jeff says, “If it wasn’t for my brother, we’d own every tool and toy in the world. And we would be broke. So, it is a pretty good balance.”That is not to say that Michael isn’t technical. Jeff says they both worked in the field and Michael understands what needs to be done in that area as well. But his focus is on managing the business and Jeff handles all the tech-nical aspects of the company.THE NCI CONNECTIONThe onslaught of the 2008 recession didn’t stop the brothers from a mis-sion of growth and continuing educa-tion. Jeff says it was in the late 1990s, early 2000s that he attended his very first National Comfort Institute certi-fication class.“My mother and brother had attend-ed NCI classes prior to that, but after I took my first air balancing class, I came home and asked why we weren’t looking at the ductwork?”He says that prior to taking that class, all duct work was subbed out.“After that class, I realized that do-ing duct work was not that hard. A light bulb went off and we began doing load calculations and Manual D-sizing so we could do our own ductwork. And we do it to NCI standards.“This firmed it up in my head how important training is. It led to a mental-The eagle has been part of the Wheat identity since the company’s beginning.Jeff Wheat and his technical team celebrate with Comfort Consultant Manager Sara Morris, who was named the Company Employee of the Month for May 2018.12 JULY 2018HIGH PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYsay they don’t because of pushback by customers who don’t understand why the cost is so high and other contrac-tors don’t even mention this stuff.But the team at Wheat & Sons has been doing so for years.“Our customers mostly don’t push back,” he explains. “They do ask why nobody else tell them about this kind of stuff. We explain it by telling our story. We also didn’t look at it for a long time. “Only after we learned how im-portant it was and what it can do to the efficiency of the equipment. That is when we decided to learn more, get trained, and start address-ing this. We find when we explain it this way we set ourselves apart from everybody else.”STILL NAVIGATING THE PATH“Are we a full Performance-Based Contracting™ company the way NCI teaches it? Not yet. We have a long way to go,” Wheat says. “The process doesn’t come through every time. We talk about it in-house more than we used to. Our good competitors, who share the same markets with us, often tell me they wish they could get their field teams to take static pressure and other diagnostic measurements the way we do. That is a big step for us. We are working on following the pro-cess on every sale, but we aren’t there yet. One step at a time.”But Jeff is very positive about the ramifications of Performance-Based Contracting on his business. He says the training and certifications from too cold, and so on,” he says. “They explain that no house is supposed to have different temperatures through each level. The design is not supposed to be like that. And we can fix that.“We got into home performance pretty heavily. Our team not only looks at making sure each room has the right number of grills and regis-ters, but also we’re concerned about losing air into the attic space and that air coming into the house. “We talk a lot about humidity. It is amazing to me how many of our com-petitors don’t talk about humidity. But here on the eastern shore, humidity is really what we need to control to make people comfortable.”This is stuff most HVAC contractors don’t talk to customers about. Many CONTRACTOR SPOTLIGHTJULY 2018 13HVACTODAY.COM“My plumbers check CO on ev-ery job too. There is no other plumber around here that is doing anything like that.“The bottom line, our affiliation with NCI sets us apart from our com-petitors and makes us a much better company.”MESSAGE TO THE INDUSTRYJeff Wheat says that doing things right the first time isn’t easy. He says it takes commitment, enthusiasm, train-ing, and having the right attitude to be successful.“It is a great industry when you learn the basics, understanding it, and ap-ply it. The skills we have can be applied anywhere in the world. We need to ex-plain this to young people and get them NCI have benefitted his customers as well as his business, practically from the very first training class he attend-ed. Especially when it comes to CO.“I don’t feel comfortable checking a gas appliance without a CO analyzer nowadays,” he explains. “I don’t know how guys are out here doing it without them. To this day, there are only two or three other HVAC companies in our area that have CO analyzers on every truck. It is really disturbing.Even his plumbers carry the ana-lyzers. He says that really takes the plumbing business to a different level.James A. Wheat & Sons partnered with Thomas Edison High School in 2017 to help educate future HVAC technicians.excited about joining this industry.“We need them to understand they will always have a job, even if they de-cide to leave the U.S. They can work doing HVAC anywhere in the word. Everybody has to deal with tempera-tures and comfort in homes and build-ings. It is a no-brainer.“And you can make a great living at it. But the key is education. Not only from trade schools, but through training, by reading HVAC equipment manuals, trade magazines, joining forces with organizations like NCI. It will make you a much better techni-cian, manager, and contractor.”Congratulations to Jeff Wheat and the team at James A. Wheat & Sons for being the July 2018 Contractor Spotlight. 14 JULY 2018HIGH PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYage or poor insulation, the system will fail to oper-ate as designed.The buildings your customers live and work in are impacted the same way. When airflow and tempera-ture constantly change throughout the building, it’s hard to maintain comfortable conditions. Two fac-tors that influence this include building air leakage and insulation. Just as Delta T is a factor of HVAC system per-formance, it also influences buildings. Instead of looking at air temperatures from the HVAC sys-tem, building Delta T compares surface tempera-tures and indoor ambient temperatures. The larger the Delta T between building surface temperatures and indoor ambient temperature, the harder it is to maintain comfort.AIR LEAKAGE INFLUENCESAir leakage in a building increases the Delta T be-tween building surface temperatures and the in-door ambient temperature. When air moves from unconditioned to conditioned areas, heat transfers. As a result, building surface temperatures increase in summer and decrease in winter leading to in-creased customer discomfort.Please note: this can occur even when insulation is installed correctly. If the building isn’t properly sealed, air will “bypass” insulation like it isn’t there. If you see fiberglass insulation that is dirty, it’s a sign air is moving through it, reducing its R-value. Remember this next time you consider recom-mending additional insulation. Other repairs might be needed first.INSULATION INFLUENCESWhen insulation is poorly installed, or insuffi-cient, building Delta T also increases. As it increas-es, so do discomfort levels. This occurs regardless of thermostat settings.Glass areas purposely have no insulation. Yet, win-Performance-based contractors pride them-selves on making sure their customers are comfortable. However, situations happen where you’ve done everything by the book, yet your customer is still uncomfortable. These can be the most frustrating and defeating situations you encounter. You gave it your best shot and it appears you came up short.You designed and installed your best HVAC system. The equipment is operating according to manufactur-er specifications and sized according to industry best practices. Your duct system is awesome. It’s installed correctly, no duct leakage, insulated with the highest R-value insulation you can find, and delivering prop-er airflow to each room. How could a customer be un-comfortable with an HVAC system like this? Room temperature on the thermostat display is one of the main measurements your customers use to gauge their comfort. If it is within an acceptable temperature range, they should be comfortable, right? Not always. Let’s look at a couple of factors external to your system that influence comfort and how you might be overlooking them. AIR TEMPERATURE LIMITATIONSAir temperature is one measurement used to ver-ify proper HVAC system Btu delivery. When the dif-ference in two air temperatures are compared it is called Delta T (ΔT). If Delta T is within acceptable lim-its, and airflow is correct, odds are pretty good your HVAC system is operating as designed. One factor affecting comfort beyond system perfor-mance is the influence of the building. When every-thing looks right with the HVAC system, change your focus to the building itself to find potential answers.LOOK AT THE BUILDING For an HVAC system to function properly, airflow and temperature must be controlled inside the duct system. If control of either is lost due to duct leak-Surface Temperatures Can Reveal Elusive Comfort ProblemsBy David RichardsonTECHNICALJULY 2018 15HVACTODAY.COMcomfortable and start looking for ways to cool off. This typically means turn-ing on a fan or turning the tempera-ture down on the thermostat. Uncontrolled building air leakage and insulation affect your comfort due to how your body loses and gains heat. The main way this occurs is through radiant heat transfer. Your body gains heat from any warmer surfaces tand loses heat to any cooler surfaces. Re-member the example of sitting next to a window on a cold winter day.To achieve ideal comfort conditions, building surface temperatures should be very close to the thermostat tempera-ture setting. If surface temperatures and air temperatures are close, Delta T is minimized, and comfortable conditions can exist. If the surface temperatures of the building vary too far from the air temperature, radiant heat transfer be-comes too fast or too slow. This is when it becomes harder for you to maintain comfortable conditions, regardless of how well your HVAC system performs. Mean radiant temperature (MRT) is one measurement used to quantify this interaction. It measures surface temperature effects on living areas. MRT is measured with a special ther-mometer that looks like a black globe and accounts for building surface in-fluences on comfort. Thermal imaging cameras are another valuable test instru-ment for identifying surface temperature issues that affect customer comfort. Using a blower door with a thermal image camera is a great way to show how much air leakage and surface temperatures affect each other. CONTROLLING BUILDING INFLUENCELet’s say you use a thermal imag-ing camera and measure a floor tem-perature of 63F. This will have a huge impact on comfort and could be ac-companied by cold floor complaints. Imagine how much more comfortable it would be if the floor temperature was 73F. No more complaints of cold floors and freezing feet.Comfort requires maintaining build-ing temperatures in a way that keeps customers from either freezing or burn-ing up. Unless you address the HVAC system and the building, you’ll miss op-portunities to truly solve these prob-lems and provide a comfortable envi-ronment.When you understand these vari-ables, you can then create a thorough scope of work that addresses underly-ing issues, not just symptoms. Even if your company doesn’t engage in build-ing air-sealing and insulation work, you can confidently address the prob-lems affecting comfort and recommend next steps for real solutions. dows, doors, and skylights have a tre-mendous effect on customer comfort. You need to understand that effect and deal with it since glass significant-ly contributes to increasing the Delta T between building surface temperatures and indoor ambient air. Think back to the last time you sat next to a window on a cold winter day – consider how you felt. You may have caught yourself shivering and then bundling up. Are you starting to make the connection to comfort?RADIANT HEAT TRANSFERWhen you lose body heat too quickly, you become uncomfortable and start looking for ways to warm up. You’ll of-ten put on additional clothing or turn up the temperature on the thermostat. On the flip side, when you lose body heat too slowly, you also become un-Poorly installed insulation allows heat to easily bypass it.Infrared temperature measurements reveal hidden comfort issues. Cold floors were the result of this problem due to air leakage and a uninsulated concrete slabDavid Richardson serves the HVAC industry as a curricu-lum developer and trainer at National Comfort Institute, Inc. (NCI). NCI specializes in training focused on improving, measuring, and verifying HVAC and Building Performance. If you’re an HVAC contractor or technician interested in learning more about HVAC system statistics, contact David at davidr@ncihvac.com, or call him at 800-633-7058. Comfort issues are often hidden in plain sight.16 JULY 2018HIGH PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY NGetting Started in Performance NMoving Forward NProcesses NTechnology Concerns NTraining NRecruitment NKeeping Score NPromotion and Marketing.So, without further ado, here is the discussion on how these contractors overcame hurdles and achieved success in implementing Perfor-mance-Based Contracting™ into their companies.GETTING STARTED IN PERFORMANCEIt is always difficult to get started. The high performance path is a big one and sometimes the hardest part is taking that first, little step to get started.Q: Jonathan Esquivel from Austin Star Ser-vices, Austin, TX asks, “I am a first-genera-tion owner/operator struggling with doing every-thing to keep my company running. I want to start implementing performance, but just don’t have the time. How can I get people who can help me move into that next step of running a business – working on it, not actually in it.”A: Jim Ball: Even though I am the second generation doesn’t mean I wasn’t around to see the struggles the first generation went through. My dad started the business in 1964 and I was born in 1969. During the 1970s Dad was on the phone every night when he got home from work. He’d be on that phone all night long talking to builders, trying to collect money, and more. Finally, in the 1980s, we realized that new con-struction wasn’t going to cut it for us. He made a decision and committed fully to going into the Nothing worth doing is ever easy. That may be a cliché, but it is so very true. Becoming a Performance-Based Con-tracting™ company is NOT an easy thing to do. If it was, everyone would be doing it, right? And yet there are many HVAC contrac-tors who have successfully implemented the per-formance concepts into their business cultures, their service mindset, and the work they provide customers.During the 2018 National Comfort Institute (NCI) Summit in Austin, TX, we gathered togeth-er a panel of six of these contractors to share their struggles with implementing performance into their companies and how they overcame them. Facilitated by NCI CEO and Chairman Dominick Guarino, panelists interacted with the attendee audience to create a dynamic program of shar-ing on not only how to overcome the hurdles to implementing performance, but their success stories as well.The panelists included the following Perfor-mance-Based contractors: NJim Ball, Ball Heating & Air, Biloxi, MS NTom Johnson, TM Johnson Bros, Cambridge MN NNancy McKeraghan, Canco Climatecare, New Market, ON NJose Montes, Kennihan Plumbing, Heating & AC, Valencia PA NKevin Walsh, Schaafsma Heating and Cooling, Grand Rapids, MI NPaul Wieboldt, Tradewinds, AP, Waco, TX.The comments and discussion have been divided into eight sections (not necessarily in the order they were delivered) to organize this in a more useful way for our readers. The sec-tions are as follows:HIGH PERFORMANCE CONTRACTING:Summit 2018 Panel Discussion on Implementation [ PART 1]By Mike WeilMANAGEMENTJULY 2018 17HVACTODAY.COMresidential replacement and service busi-ness at a time when we were almost out of money and out of business.You have to make your mind up and do everything you can to remain commit-ted to the result you want. Not only about what markets you serve, but how you serve them. It won’t be easy. We have the opportunity to change peo-ple’s lives every day. It’s a privilege that’s been bestowed upon us and we often take it for granted. Not only in terms of cus-tomers but also with regard to those who work with us. It’s our job to help move those people forward. Let them see what our goals are. To do this requires effective communica-tion of those goals every day.Mike Greany, All Pro Plumbing, Heat-ing, Air, & Electrical, Ontario, CA: I gree with what Jim says. I started my business by myself as an owner/operator and its only technician. I ran it successfully for 10 years. Part of that was because I belonged to as-sociations with similar business interests and that had people there to help me. At the end of the day, I sold that business for a profit and took a bigger path with the com-pany I work for today. In my opinion, the best thing you can do is join an association like THIS association. NCI members have already faced the strug-gles you’re facing. You can call anyone in this group for advice and help. MOVING FORWARDOnce you begin down the performance path, it becomes a matter of doing what it takes to keep heading in the right direc-tion. Which is what lead to this question.Q: Dominick Guarino: Please share with us how have you moved for-ward in your implementation process Meet the PanelistsJim Ball is the general manager of Ball Heating & Air, a second-generation business with 30 employees that focuses only on the residential service and replace-ment market. His technicians average two to three hours per call. He has been a member of NCI since 2002-2003.Tom Johnson is the general manager of T.M. John-son Co. The firm has 14 employees and does around $2.4 million in sales. They do both HVAC and plumb-ing work, focusing on the residential service-remod-el-retrofit marketplace. Carbon monoxide and com-bustion analysis is core to what they do. They started with NCI in 2008 and Tom says, “NCI has revolution-ized how we go to market and deliver quality prod-ucts to our customers.”Nancy McKeraghan and her husband launched their company in 1984. They are considered unusual in their marketplace because they focus on providing solutions to customer comfort problems while com-petitors install boxes. She says that “customers who have experienced our installations and processes ap-preciate the things we do. I thank NCI for helping us to be aware of performance-based contracting.”Jose Montes is the office manager for Kennihans Plumbing and Heating. Owner Bill Kennihan start-ed the company in 1969. The company does HVAC, plumbing, geothermal, and hydronic work. They focus on doing Performance-Based Contracting™. Montes says, “We educate ourselves as company managers and as employees. We also educate our customers, so they understand what we are doing while in their homes.”Kevin Walsh is the president of Schaafsma Heating and Cooling. The company began in 1905 and joined NCI in 2003. Schaafsma does just under $5 million in sales, has 35 employees, and focuses on residential ser-vice/replacement. This includes forced air, boilers, geo-thermal, duct sealing, duct renovations, and more. He says they are still working on performance implementa-tion, but consistently test in and test out on jobs. Paul Wieboldt has been in the HVAC business for 25 years. In 1993 he started Tradesman Heating and Air Conditioning. After 10 years, he felt he wasn’t design-ing and installing the best HVAC systems. Paul joined NCI in 2003 and discovered what was missing: Perfor-mance-Based Contracting, measuring, and verifying. The company was so successful doing that, Paul start-ed a separate Testing and Balance company.18 JULY 2018HIGH PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYMANAGEMENTcalls each day because we don’t want to run them ragged. This is a long-term culture shift. It means building a good, strong maintenance base, and doing maintenance right so you don’t have summer or winter breakdowns from that base. Bottom line – you can’t take every call.Q: Dominick: What Tom is say-ing is you have to prioritize. Stat-ic pressure measurements should be part of your standard maintenance call. It is a priority thing. It is a main-tenance thing. And it is not optional. Another obstacle to implementing is getting your salespeople on board. I typically hear contractors from all around the country say things like, ‘My salepeople are doing well, they are selling more than $1 million a year, so why should they change?’ So, what have you found that works to help get over that hurdle with the salesperson?A: McKeraghan: We’ve struggled with this for a long time. One thing that really helps is Rob Falke’s chart that compares static pressure to blood pressure. For the first time, we have something we can take to cus-tomers and share the information we collect from their equipment in terms they can understand. Once salespeople had that tool, it became much easier to not only get them on board, but it helped get the customers on board as well. Up to that point, we were the only compa-ny talking about performance, statics, and air upgrades. Nobody knew what reminds me, and we get back on the trail. And I reciprocate that with him. PROCESSESPerformance-Based Contracting involves using processes – technical ones in the field, management ones in the office. This section revolves around how to get technicians and installers active in doing static pressure testing before and after working on a job as well as some details on very specific service/ maintenance processes.Q: Ed Barrett, Barrett Heating and Cooling, Alton, IL: I am cu-rious how you get your techs to take their time and do the static pressure and other measurements during the height of winter or summer busy seasons? A: Montes: We look at our invoic-es daily. There better be some airflow and combustion numbers in there. Otherwise, we have a conversa-tion. Daily. Until they understand.This isn’t negotiable. It doesn’t matter what time of the year it is. It has to be part of the invoice. McKeraghan: Our technicians get $5 more for every job they do that in-cludes a diagnostic or maintenance. When the tech looks at how much more money they make when they do these things, they can see I’m serious.Tom Johnson: It needs to be a big cultural thing in your company – from the call-taker all the way down. At our company, the technicians are assigned one call at a time. When they finish that one, they get the next one. They don’t know how many calls they have that day or any day. We try not to give them too many since the last Summit you attended?A: Ball: We always do static pres-sure testing after every chan-geout. We have now taken that a step further by doing the reports. Not a big step, but it is helping.Jose Montes: One of our big-gest issues is with staffing. Last year we hired several new people. Perfor-mance training has been continuous for our new crew and all our other co-workers. It’s unfortunate, but when we hire new people, we need to start from ground zero in training them. It doesn’t matter if they have HVAC experience or not – they just don’t know anything about performance. They also know next to nothing about combustion or airflow, so we train them in those disciplines as well. The good news is that our core tech-nicians DO understand it, so they share what they know with the new hires. That means it’s not just management pushing performance. The employees are a great help as well.McKeraghan: One of the things I’ve learned in the past year is that we have two types of customers: internal and external ones. We tend to take ex-cellent care of our external customers. After all, they pay our bills. But we often forget about internal customers – our employees. We tend not to think of them as customers. But they are. They are part of the process. So we needed a cheerleader.When I attend training or events like Summit, I bring my sales man-ager – Will Horner – along with me. That way, he knows what I know, and he gets all fired up. When we get back to the office and find our performance culture wandering off the trail a bit, he JULY 2018 19HVACTODAY.COMto make it right. For us, this approach helped overcome a lot of obstacles.Q: Eddie Lammers, Honey Home Services, Winter Park, FL asked the panel, “I am interested in hear-ing about your process for cleaning condenser coils, indoor evaporators, blower wheels, and your ballpark charge for that.”A: Ball: We started by asking our guys how they would like their systems done in their own homes. Their answers became our procedure. That was 20 years ago. We modify the procedure and regroup on it routinely.We do clean the evaporator and con-denser coils on every visit. We pull the blower and remove the motor from it and clean it. This takes a lot of time. When finished, we wax the unit down and make it look brand new. By the way, we test-in before we start and test out when we are finished to make sure statics are all good. Then we go through everything with the customer. We make sure they are sat-isfied and that we’ve answered their questions.Regarding charges, I find that I need 70% or so to operate that department. That is seen in my pricing and we are pretty expensive. This ends Part One. Next month we will contine the Summit Panel Dis-cussion and will cover the sections on Training, Recruitment, How to Keep Score, as well as How to Promote and Market Your Performance-Based business. divert them to the harder path. Today we are back to a set, straight commission on that. But they are still looking at the ductwork and selling renovations on it because they find it helps to separate Schaafsma from our competitors. That helps them sell more jobs. Paul Wieboldt: I learned from years of trial and error and overcom-ing the mistakes I made. It led to a pol-icy that said we either make money or pay tuition for the work we do. When we made a big mistake be-cause we weren’t sure what to do, I would stop everything and bring to-gether my team – several vans and all our tools – to the house with the prob-lem. We’d spend the day figuring it out. We’d bring in lunch, entertain the customer, show off all the cool tools we had, and solve the problem on the spot that day.We used the opportunity of a mis-take as a teaching moment. To let ev-erybody see what we did wrong and how we fixed it. We then asked those customers to tell the story of how bad-ly we messed up and what we did to make it right.Two things happened. These folks became our cheerleaders. And new customers were both shocked and im-pressed that we’d tell them to call pre-vious customers where we made a huge mistake. They’d learn how those mistakes led to the biggest improve-ments. Plus it showed my staff that I was 100% behind them. That we would always spend whatever it took we were talking about.Another thing that solidifies sales-people doing performance testing is that we get our customers involved in the sales process. Customers will hold the Magnahelics and read the num-bers off and become integral to the overall sales process. Our sales manager did this first. When he became successful at it, the other salespeople wanted to do the same thing.In other words, you need a crusad-er – someone who will take it and run. You also need to provide your sales-people with backup, with the tools they need to take them through the entire process.Also, NCI has this wonderful batch of consumer pamphlets, one of which describes the six-step process which we use all the time and find very use-ful. The others define static pressure and describe what air balancing is and so on. That’s called third-party verifica-tion. It’s not us saying it. It’s a nation-ally recognized third party.These are some of the things that help us be successful getting our sales-people onboard and educating our customers.Kevin Walsh: We did some of the same things Nancy did. In addition, we used an incentive approach where we paid our salespeople a 15% com-mission on every duct renovation job they sold. Our salespeople are a little like air – they choose the path of least resistance. We needed something to Next >