< Previous10 AUGUST 2018HIGH PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYBUILDING A SOLID REPUTATIONWith a strong work ethic, a servant-lead-er mindset inherited from his father, and a mission, Lynn made Holt Plumb-ing and Heating into a full-time business. Today the company is located in West Des Moines and and services Des Moines Metro as well as surrounding areas, in-cluding Winterset, Adel, and Creston.Because his focus was always on the customer first, Lynn was a strong pro-ponent of learning about better ways to make them happy. From customer ser-vice to new ways of repairing and replac-ing HVAC equipment and plumbing sys-tems, he was on the lookout to improve and grow. He wanted to be professional. And, he wanted to be profitable.That lead him to join membership orga-nizations like Contractors Success Group (CSG), where he learned the basic tenets of managing a small business. CSG, even-tually through a series of acquisitions and mergers, became part of National Com-fort Institute in 2008. Throughout these changes, Lynn main-tained membership and trained his troops — both technically and in the art of having great people skills. He officially joined NCI back in 2008 and the compa-ny remains an active member to this day.HOLT PLUMBING AND HEATING TODAYToday Lynn and his wife Dixie remain active in the business, but son-in-law Josh Potter is the general manager who runs Seventy-one years ago, the Unit-ed States was a very different country than it is today. The Sec-ond World War had just ended — the peace treaties were signed in Feb-ruary, 1947 — and the country was work-ing, under Harry Truman, to get its footing back together.The Great Depression was over and the economy was on the threshold of a tremendous growth spurt. But the av-erage American still struggled to make ends meet.In Afton, Iowa — a very small rural town in the southwestern part of the state, John Holt decided he needed to develop more income than his farm was providing for his family. He began help-ing his neighbors by fixing plumbing and furnace problems in their homes. It really was just a sideline. Back then Afton’s population was under 1,000 (and it still is), so helping neighbors was just the right thing to do. And Holt was always about doing the right thing.In those days he had no intention to go beyond that — supplementing his income. As more people asked for his help, he wound up having to hire a helper here and there. Over the ensu-ing years, he needed to hire a full-time worker to handle the workload. Even-tually his son, Lynn, got involved in the business. Lynn saw the potential of this plumb-ing and heating sideline and decided to grow it. He began reaching out to bigger communities for more jobs. CONTRACTOR SPOTLIGHTBy Mike WeilHolt Plumbing and Heating: Performance is A Customer ServiceAUGUST 2018 11HVACTODAY.COMportance of measuring. We have made performing HeatMaxx™ and CoolMaxx™ a part of our membership maintenance pro-gram for our customers.,” Potter explains. “We do them on every maintenance call.”He cites this data collection as a key dif-ferentiator over his competition. “We do a good job of collecting data and storing it, so we have it for future use for customers. The data provides us with a baseline. When we start to see things trending negatively, we can pull the his-tory and show the customer that trend. Then we make recommendations on what needs to be done, and let them decide.”RESULTS FOR THE CUSTOMERHe also says they have the ability to ex-plain the results of those tests in a way that the customers can really relate to. “It’s not just a tech talking techie to them. We have data to back it up. And we com-pare that data to the readings doctors use when they take blood pressure, tempera-ture, and so on. It gives customers more confidence that we are not just guessing.”It’s all about the performance of Holt’s technicans in the field as well as the per-formance of their customers’ comfort sys-tems. As Potter says, fixing customers is just as important as fixing the technical things.PERFORMANCE-BASED SALESPotter uses the NCI HeatMaxx and CoolMaxx reports to collect and pres-pect us to be professionals. They aren’t in-terested in incompetency. “The only way I can get new techni-cians up to speed is to pair them up with other technicians. I have new techs go through several months working with our experienced and trained technicians before they start doing their own jobs.”Potter adds that they also take advan-tage of their NCI membership by bring-ing in trainers like Jim Davis to teach his team the ins and outs of combustion and carbon monoxide safety.“This is a must,” he says. “Our people and our customers’ safety and well being are at stake.”He further highlights the importance of people skills. “We not only fix custom-ers’ mechanical problems, we also must be able to fix customer issues — comfort, energy concerns, safety, whatever. It’s also about communications. Our people MUST be able to communicate in a way that customers can easily understand and that answers their questions, their con-cerns. That is the only way I know how to not only fix systems, but people too.”PERFORMANCE-BASED CONTRACTING IS THE HOLT WAYPotter says his experience in working with NCI and being trained to look at much more than just mechanical equip-ment really helped lead the company down the high-performance path. “Thanks to NCI, we understand the im-the operations at their side. Potter explains that it was under Lynn’s tutelage that he has been able to be successful. “I joined Holt in 2013 as the company’s general manager and Lynn provided me the training — both classroom and on-the-job — I needed to be successful,” Potter says.“It is through his vision and dedication to a customer-first approach to business that this company became and remains successful. My job is to keep that up and take it to the next level.”Today Holt Plumbing fields 23 service and installation vehicles split between HVAC and plumbing. The company em-ploys 36 people including two who work in a relatively new “division” called the Home Service Division.Potter says this business unit started out originally as a way to provide better cus-tomer service. “As a plumbing organization, we often must cut holes in walls to gain access to an area,” Potter explains. “We used to rec-ommend local drywallers that do great work to repair those holes. But there was an issue: these drywall contractors were so booked up that they couldn’t make it to our jobs in a timely manner. “So, we hired our own drywaller. We started off with one and just recently hired another. This service turned into doing a lot of really basic home repairs. For exam-ple, we just finished hanging 30 framed photographs for a customer. The Home Services group does that as well as com-plete kitchen and bathroom remodeling.”Potter adds that the Home Services divi-sion creates great leads for the HVAC and plumbing business and vice versa.TRAINING IS A MUSTLike his father-in-law, Josh Potter believes in continuous education and training. He says, “When a customer hires us, they ex-Holt Plumbing and Heating, Inc. fields 23 service and installation vehicles. Team members are highly trained so they can bring Performance-Based Contracting to their community.12 AUGUST 2018HIGH PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYCONTRACTOR SPOTLIGHTent data to the customers.“To me, it is about how we make a pre-sentation in the home,” he explains. “I do the Manual J load calculations with a pen-cil. Why? Because as I sit there calculating the load, they start to ask questions. That lets me start to build a conversation. “For me, I want that personal touch. I want to help them understand what we are doing in the home, so they fully understand how much I care, how much effort I put into their estimate.”He adds that going over the manual calculation takes about 20-30 minutes with the custom-er — something that few if any of his competitors do. And that sets Holt Plumbing and Heating apart.“The load is just part of the equation. We figure out what size of equipment they need. We look at their current ductwork and talk about ways to add additional returns, supplys, or how to modi-fy it to help with their comfort.“That process starts to unrav-el the idea that I am just trying to sell a box. I am here to look at ev-erything that impacts comfort. “I typically bring the customer with me down into the basement to help mea-sure things. And we talk the entire time. Again, it all goes towards me building a custom package to really get their sys-tem to perform the way it was designed.”THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCEJosh Potter says he has always been a numbers guy. As such he knows that to do all the things necessary to pro-vide high-performance services, he has to price his work properly. This is key to Holt’s duration and success. He jokingly says, “We are definitely not known to be the Cheap Charley in town for sure.”To successfully sell duct renovations and air upgrades, which typically carry more intensive labor hours, he feels the customer absolutely must under-stand what they are buying and why that is important. He says that when he goes through the measurement and data collection process — sometimes even having the customer help him do it — they are much more willing to spend more money.“If what we do makes sense to them, if they see the true value of our ser-vices, not only are they willing to spend the money, they aren’t interested in any cheap Charlies,” he says.“It is an education process for cus-tomers. People are a lot smarter than many contractors give them credit for. Once they understand, you almost have them as customers for life. Again, it’s about providing a unique service, great experience, and a terrific result. That is what Holt Plumbing and Heat-ing is all about.”THE TECHNICIAN EXPERIENCEBeyond fixing customers, Josh Potter says that the Performance-Based ap-proach really impacts his technicians as well. “They find it more interactive than just showing up at a customer’s door with a bucket of tools and a fix-it mentality. They love using their minds, running tests, in-terpreting the measurement data, and basing their recommendations on that,” says Potter. He also says that they seem to appreciate a work environ-ment where everyone looks to improve. In fact, he says the techs often feed off each other when it comes to solving tough problems. For the technicians who work for Holt Plumbing and Heating, the Performance-Based ap-proach stokes their curiosity. Josh Potter says we all should take a lesson from that.On the customer side, Potter sees that comfort sells. “If I can collect the data I need, make changes that need to be made, and deliver comfort like they’ve never experienced before, they will pay for that.”CURIOSITY IS THE KEY“I think HVAC contractor owners al-ways must be curious in all aspects of their business. If there is something that you don’t know or understand you need resources you can turn to.“Participating in an organization like NCI is also important. That is how you build a network of your peers.”Congratulations to Holt Plumbing and Heating for being the August 2018 Con-tractor Spotlight. Holt technicians record their test measurements for diagnostic evalu-ation so they can make the best recommendations to customers.14 AUGUST 2018HIGH PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYQ: Rodney Koop from The New Flat Rate, Dalton, GA asks, “How often do you, as an owner or manager, get in the truck and ride with your techs to go through the process and reinforce it, to make it easier and friendlier for them?”A: Jose Montes: I have been toying with the idea of doing just that, Rodney. With one difference. It would be more for me to bet-ter learn how the guys actually operate in the field. Right now we have no ride-alongs. But we do follow up and visit homes after service and instal-lation calls. On installations, we’ll do an inspec-tion, talk to the customer, and see how the job was done. We come back with that feedback and talk to the troops about what we found out.There is no customer who doesn’t love it when the owner or manager comes out to their home to inspect the job. It’s just a win-win situation. Today, our service manager goes out after every installation is completed.Paul Wieboldt: Every contractor has two companies: the one we really have, and the one we THINK we have. Training helps us move toward that ‘imaginary’ one.Our training originally was on-the-job focused. In fact, as we began walking down the perfor-mance path, we branched out into two business-es. One was the service/installation business. The other was a department that does our third-party testing in-house.So there was an expectation that on every job someone would be there to oversee, follow-up, and make adjustments. The intent was to be sure we fulfilled our promises to the customer. I found the more I showed up in the field, the more my ‘imaginary’ company became the company I always dreamed of.Last month we brought you part one of a two-part series on how professional Perfor-mance-Based Contractors™ implemented high performance practices into their com-panies. Six contractors sat on a panel that was held during National Comfort Institute’s (NCI) 2018 Summit in Austin, TX. Facilitated by NCI CEO and Chairman Dominick Guarino, panelists interacted with the attendee au-dience to create a dynamic program of sharing on not only how to overcome the hurdles to imple-menting performance, but their success stories as well.The comments and discussion have been divid-ed into eight sections (not necessarily in the order they were delivered) to organize this in a more useful way for our readers. In Part 1 we covered: NGetting Started in Performance NMoving Forward NProcesses NTechnology ConcernsIn this second part, we cover the following: NTraining NRecruitment NKeeping Score NPromotion and Marketing (view this section only on the website at ncilink.com/PandM). 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.TRAININGYou really can’t create a performance-based environment without understanding what that means. That requires a plan, commitment, and equally important, it requires training.HIGH PERFORMANCE CONTRACTING:Summit 2018 Panel Discussion on Implementation [ PART 2]By Mike WeilMANAGEMENTNCI Chairman and CEO Dominick Guarino facilitated the panel discussion at High Performance HVAC Summit 2018.AUGUST 2018 15HVACTODAY.COMTom Johnson,T.M. Johnson Co.Nancy McKeraghan,CANCO ClimateCareJose Montes,Kennihan Plumbing, Heating, & ACKevin Walsh,Schaafsma Heating and CoolingPaul Wieboldt,Tradesman Heating & Air ConditioningJim Ball,Ball Heating & ACIn addition to training, whether on the job or through classes, we also try to have inspirational staff meetings every Monday morning. This isn’t cheerleading -- it’s to find out how everyone is do-ing. We talk about what are we missing and what could make things better. I find out if any of the techs need me to go into the field with them to see what they’re dealing with.Q:Dominick: When it comes to dealing with customer reactions to the different offerings you have based on measured performance, how do you prepare your field teams?A: Kevin Walsh: We often find that our cus-tomers wonder what we’re doing and why we need to do it. After we explain the process and why it’s important, they start to get it. Armed with third-party information, we can show customers exactly what and why we do what we do. They are a bit surprised. Then they start wondering why other companies don’t operate in the same way.We train our team to explain that we believe in doing things the proper way. Our technicians ex-plain that we follow a lot of industry standards and these are the things that are supposed to be done. If other companies aren’t doing it, shame on them for skipping steps necessary for making sure the customer’s system is operating in a safe, healthy, and efficient manner. Paul Wieboldt: We try to educate our cus-tomers. I use my website to tell a story about what is going on in the HVAC community with messages to the consumer. I talk about the proper way to do things and what contractors shouldn’t do. I find many people comment that they know just what I’m talking about – they see contractors using rules of thumb. They say that many con-tractors don’t connect to the fact that as consum-ers they want energy efficient homes.Telling a story on our website has been a real advantage. We set up how we do business as an alternative to the mainstream and I find people really like that. It leads to people knocking on our door looking for solutions. Q:Rick Young, Absolute Comfort, Houston: How exactly are you training your service techs to answer those questions from customers?A: Tom Johnson: We do a lot of practicing in-house when we have our weekly staff meet-ings. We talk a lot about the new training and new technology offered by NCI and other groups. We try to proactively tell customers as we come into the job about what we will be doing and why we may find something that others don’t even look for. It’s built into the technician’s rapport with the customer. Techs have to be comfortable with that in my training room before they can go out on a call. If they aren’t comfortable with it, they wind up telling the customer all kinds of bizarre stuff which is unacceptable.My guys hate role-playing. But they love talking to each other. So we just set up the con-versations. It IS role-playing, but we don’t call it that. Having those conversations in a safe en-vironment in the office and in training meet-ings, really helps techs answer those questions by customers. It becomes an automatic response that is very honest and open. Wieboldt: A very important part of our training is teaching technicians never to bad-mouth the company that originally installed the equipment. Because it was probably us. In our efforts to be honest, we explain that we ‘messed up.’ We didn’t have the knowledge or tools we have today that allows us to see into an HVAC system. It’s like the time before medical MRIs when all doctors had were X-Ray machines. The difference between what they could see then and now is night and day. The same is true for HVAC measuring technology.That means things we did wrong in the past, we have to fix. It also means we have the opportuni-ty to implement improvements. We need to not place blame. We need to tread lightly.Nancy McKeraghan: Technicians need to understand why they are doing performance measuring and testing. Then they can legitimate-ly say to customers, ‘I’ve had training just recent-ly and now have new knowledge and new tools Meet the Panelists:16 AUGUST 2018MANAGEMENTWe’ve always been big on training. For us, it was just a matter of getting them incorporated into our culture and letting them spend time with our veteran technicians. We knew their coming up to speed wouldn’t happen overnight. It was an investment in our future and right now we are very com-fortable that we have the right team.KEEPING SCOREImplementing Performance into a business culture also requires measurement and diagnostics. In this section, the panel addresses how they kept score and held their team accountable.Q: Dominick: I think everyone here knows that NCI’s motto is, ‘If You Don’t Measure, You’re Just Guessing.’ Of course, we’re talking about the technical measurement. But we’re also talking about more than that. How do you keep score? Do you have goal boards or other methods for keeping your team informed about their progress?A: Ball: We put up goal boards. We started with a coaching pro-gram that used goal boards to show how we were doing. We experimented with how they looked, then looked at sales. We originally started with dol-lar amounts, but that became over-whelming. So we went to using units. That worked better. We meet weekly on Wednesday mornings. Making commitments to those kinds of institutions is very beneficial. The employees we’ve hired through those programs have turned out to be very wonderful.Jim Ball: We do the same thing through our local college. We hire from the college and start them in our maintenance department. We then train them for two or three years be-fore they can run a service call.Q: Dominick: Do any of you hire from outside the industry who have mechanical aptitude from a dif-ferent career? A: Wieboldt: We’ve hired sever-al veterans – especially Airforce pilots. We find their pilot training, en-gineering background, and motivation to be wonderful. It feels good to pro-vide them jobs after they served the U.S. We have been successful in this and so have they. I am surprised more of us aren’t do-ing this. There is a growing pool of veterans being reintroduced into the workforce and they are looking for something to do.Montes: We had to let go of the idea of hiring only people with expe-rience. Why? Because we couldn’t find many who fit into our culture. When we moved past that we hired a tech-nician who’s background was aviation mechanic. We’ve also brought in a coal miner as well as some young men with just a tech school education and no experience at all.to better assess what your situation is. Perhaps the other companies haven’t had this training.’RECRUITMENTOne of the biggest issues facing the HVAC Industry today is the shortage of capable service and installation technicians. This can definately be a problem in the Performance-Based Contracting arena because of the necessary technical requirements for measuring and diagnosing system defects.Q: Mike Greany, All Pro Heating and Air, Ontario, CA: We cur-rently try to attract experienced tech-nicians into our company through our distributor, R.E. Michel, and NCI’s TIPP program, but are not getting that many qualified applicants. What do you do to recruit from outside the world of Performance for qualified technicians?A: McKeraghan: We sit on the board of a college and have ac-cess to their students. We are also in-volved in Skills Ontario – a compe-tition held for high school students and another for post-secondary students.Students go through an interview and then take a theoretical and practical exam. Because we are on that commit-tee, we get to see who we might want to hire. We prefer to hire young people. We hire for attitude because we can teach them everything else they need to be successful. If you don’t have the proper attitude, I want nothing to do with you, even if you are a wonderful mechanic.We also have co-op students at both the high school and college lev-el. We have our pick of those young people who participate.AUGUST 2018 17HVACTODAY.COMers like how well they take care of their truck, how they show up to work each day, and so on. These are within each tech level. This helps determine their pay at that level.CONCLUSIONAll the panelists agreed on one final thought — and that is the importance of association membership. They de-scribe this as a peer-to-peer network where you can learn from others who have traveled the road before you.Jim Ball said, “I know it can be diffi-cult to participate in an association at first. But the truth is, what you get out of your membership is equal to what you put in. “As Stephen Covey says,” Jim con-tinues, “You must continuously sharp-en your saw. When you go back to work after an association conference ends, your saw will get dull. You’ll keep try-ing to cut through the grind of the daily existence. So you have to keep coming back to those programs and meetings to sharpen the blade again. “If you don’t, you simply won’t grow. Here at this Summit meeting, there is no one who can say they’ve attend-ed every event and haven’t grown as a leader, as a company, and as a pro-fessional who can work with both their employees and their customers.”So take a chance. Participation is important. It is fundamental to your growth and success. to achieve. The key was not to assume what they want to do. Truly having a heart-to-heart dis-cussion on where they saw themselves now and into the future is the key. It tells them and us what’s important, and what needs to change. For some, it has nothing to do with money. It’s about time off, or what cer-tifications they want to pursue, or the jobs they want to work on. The raises are secondary.For others, it IS all about the mon-ey. The only way to understand where they are is to sit down with them and discuss it candidly.This was a huge turning point for our company.Walsh: We have tech levels and each one has it’s own set criteria that our technicians must achieve to ad-vance. There are very specific guide-lines they have to meet. This includes certain NATE certifications, NCI cer-tifications, specific skills for specific equipment, and so on. As they accom-plish these criteria, they can move from one level to the next.Within each level, there are metrics to show how they are doing with re-gard to company policy. Are they do-ing check-ins? Are they generating good reviews? Are they meeting rev-enue goals? How are they doing on their billing efficiency? Are they bill-ing out their time appropriately? We look at all these things and oth-For more than a year, I get a report at the end of the day and I text the entire team with information based on the daily numbers. Then on Wednesday morning, we discuss what the numbers should be and how to get there.Walsh: We use different boards. For example, we track what was sold each day, including how many man-hours they sold. This lets our installation de-partment know what to expect. That really comes into play during the ear-ly spring when things are a bit sketchy.The service manager tracks things like lead generation, average ticket dollar amount, callback, full revenue, and so on. So we use boards for tracking and planning throughout the company.Q: Everett Williamson, Brem-ac, Inc., Mechanicsville, VA: As far as your service technicians go, how do you evaluate them? I know in his class Kevin Walsh says he has steps or levels he uses for such evaluations. How do you know the tech has gotten to the next level? I know you can send them to classes, but are they actually using the NCI performance methods?A: Tom Johnson: We used to do the old-school 1-10 scorecard system where one of my managers or I would sit down with them and discuss their grade. This past year, we changed that a bit. We do the interview first and have them tell us where they want to go. We didn’t always understand their goals. Once that understanding is on the table, together we chart the path to get them there.This was a very enlightening pro-cess. The result is that together we create very specific goals written down to help them achieve what they want Summit 2019: Save the DateIf you found this article useful, imagine how much you could learn if you attend-ed Summit live! Well you can. Summit 2019 is scheduled for April 16-17 in Orlan-do, FL. Be sure to save the date. We will be bringing you announcements of the sessions and special events later this summer.In fact, in 2019 Summit will have additional meetings on either end of the actual event. Additional training will be provided by Goodman before the Summit and by EGIA after the Summit. This entire program is Summit Week and will run from April 15 – 18. More details to follow soon.Don’t forget to mark your calendars for Summit 2019. We look forward to seeing you there.HVAC SUMMIT 2019HIGH PERFORMANCE18 AUGUST 2018HIGH PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYIf you read Part One of this series (ncilink.com/ICYMI0718a) in the July issue, maybe this concept of High-Performance Contracting sounds interesting. “But what’s in it for me?” should be the next question on your mind. Maybe you already run a pretty good busi-ness. You’re making a living and your customers seem fairly happy – at least you’re not getting too many complaints. So why change? Why should you make such a radical and possibly disruptive change in your business?There are many reasons to become Perfor-mance-Based, one being that most businesses strive to differentiate themselves from their com-petition. Let’s look at some of the reasons to make the leap:ARE YOU HAPPY WITH YOUR NET PROFITS?For decades, the average net profit for HVAC contractors hovered around 2-3%. Most busi-ness consultants and coaches say that to finance your business into the next year you need to re-invest 5% of your revenues into things like ve-hicles, tools, computers, etc. If your net profit is 2%, where will that additional 3% come from? Will you borrow it, putting your company deep-er into debt, hoping that eventually you’ll get caught up?To maintain a successful HVAC business your minimum net profit goal should be 10% EBIT-DA (Earnings Before Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization). This number should be after you’ve paid yourself and your partners a fair sal-ary. If you rely on net profit to supplement your income, then it’s not real net profit, and you will not be able to build up the financial cushion and assets to help you weather the inevitable ups and downs of business.By Dominick Guarino, PublisherMANAGEMENT The ABCs of High-Performance HVAC Contracting: PART 2The good news is whether your net profit is 2% or 9%, the work created through selling high-performance HVAC can bring your compa-nywide net profits well into the mid double-digit range. How? By adding high margin work with virtually no competition for both installation sales and service/maintenance.MINIMUM EFFICIENCY STANDARDS WILL FURTHER COMMODITIZE OUR INDUSTRYThe ever-increasing minimum equipment efficiency standards are fast reducing our abili-ty to “sell up” using traditional ROI (Return on Investment) arguments, which the industry has hung its hat on over the past two decades. When Is It the Right Fit for Your Company?Have you read Part 1 yet? If not go to: ncilink.com/ABCs-1AUGUST 2018 19HVACTODAY.COMcrease the average ticket price.While there’s nothing wrong with providing accessories and selling up, these things should be part of an ac-tual solution, not just a bunch of add-ons to bring the ticket price up. The same holds true with “warm fuzzies,” like wearing booties and laying drop cloths. These things are now expected, they don’t make you much different than your competitor down the street.So, what can you do to truly differ-entiate yourself? Let’s start with the selling process.PERFORMANCE-BASED SELLINGThis type of sales call barely resem-bles the traditional sales process. It begins with asking comfort questions when setting up the appointment. It involves using diagnostic tools like airflow hoods, manometers to mea-sure static pressures, and digital hy-grometers to measure enthalpies. Most importantly, it involves educat-ing your customer about their home comfort system. You can help them become more knowledgeable than your competition – without making their eyes glaze over with a bunch of technical terms.A Performance-Based salesperson rarely resorts to the traditional “clos-ing” techniques that are widely used in our industry. Instead, he edu-cates customers through the buy-ing process, making his company and solutions the best choice. Peo-ple want to make their own decisions based on their knowledge. The Per-formance-Based selling process pro-vides them that knowledge, backed up with documentation.High-Performance contractors can dismiss most of the competition with this approach. Not only are you very different from your competitors, you have the measured, documented re-sults to back it up. If a customer says, “well no one else said there was a problem with my ducts,” you can show them your reports documenting how their system is working – or not. Then you ask them if anyone else provided them with a similar report. Usually this puts any doubts about you to rest, and it raises serious concerns about the competence of the other guy.RE-ENERGIZE YOUR EMPLOYEESAnother benefit of becoming Perfor-mance-Based is employee growth op-portunities– particularly for field per-sonnel. Most technicians worth their salt strive to stay on top of their game and want to learn the most current di-agnostic and repair techniques. Many companies find themselves in a rut. Often there is little spark left. It’s the same-old, same-old, every day.Performance-Based Contracting can breathe new life into a company. I’ve seen owners, sales people, techni-cians, and installers come to life with you compare the cost difference be-tween a 14-SEER unit and a 20-SEER unit to the annual energy savings, you’ll find very meager results with payback periods of 15 years or more. This won’t exactly excite customers about the money they supposedly save by buying the more efficient unit.The kicker is unless the air distribu-tion system is renovated, and the coil is replaced along with the condens-ing unit, the new 18-SEER unit may only perform at 12 SEER or less! In some cases, your customer will see in-creased utility bills, unless you prop-erly address the whole system. More on this later.DIFFERENTIATIONMost industry consultants stress the importance of differentiation. They say if you’re not different enough, the customer resorts to comparing price. I completely agree. But that is usual-ly where our agreement ends. Why? Many coaches and consultants will tell you the way to differentiate is to sell up to higher efficiency boxes and offer all kinds of accessories to in-Next >