< PreviousRegister today at GoToSummit.com or call 800.633.7058MONDAY, APRIL 15 9:00 am - 4:00 pm Goodman Business Planning Bootcamp 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm Summit Orientation Meeting - All Welcome! 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Welcome Reception Sponsored by GoodmanTUESDAY, APRIL 16 7:00 am - 9:00 am Breakfast and Interactive Opening Session 9:15 am - 10:45 am Breakout Session 1 - Workshops 11:00 am - 12:30 pm Breakout Session 2 - Workshops 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm Luncheon and General Session 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm Breakout Session 3 - Workshops 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm Idea Meetings: Lead Generation and Sales 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm NEW! Ask the Coaches 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm NCI Partners Trade Show and Reception WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17 7:30 am - 8:15 am Breakfast & General Session 8:15 am - 9:00 am State of The High-Performance Industry with NCI CEO, Dominick Guarino 9:00 am - 9:45 am Keynote Speaker: Jennifer Bagley, CI Web Group Sponsored by Goodman 10:00 am - 11:30 am Breakout Session 4 - Workshops 11:30 am - 1:30 pm NCI Partners Tradeshow and Luncheon 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm Breakout Session 5 - Workshops 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm General Session: Idea Session Winners and Partner Prize Drawing 4:30 pm - 5:00 pm Closing Remarks with NCI President, Rob Falke 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm Sponsor Appreciation Cocktail Reception 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm Awards Banquet and Presentation CeremonyTHURSDAY, APRIL 18: Post-Conference Training 8:00 am - 5:00 pm Advanced Combustion Recertification 8:00 am - 5:00 pm Airflow Testing and Diagnostics (Qualifies for air recertification) 8:00 am - 5:00 pm EGIA Class: Breakthrough Business LeadershipHVAC SUMMIT 2019HIGH-PERFORMANCEEVENT & LODGINGWyndham Orlando Resort International Drive8001 International Drive, Orlando, FL 328191 (407) 351-2420SUMMIT WEEK 2019 Schedule of EventsReserve your room now to get the best rate! Go to https://ncilink.com/wyndMARCH 2019 31HVACTODAY.COMmake us different than everybody else. Our busi-ness, at the time, was mostly commercial. We were just getting into the residential plumbing and air conditioning markets. And we found that in our community, everything was driven on price and everyone was pretty much selling the same thing.During that meeting I learned not only how air-flow and the duct system could change my uni-verse, but I learned we could actually prove what we installed was not only installed correctly, but was delivering the comfort and efficiency we al-ways talk about. That simply blew me away. Then I realized an-other mind-blowing thing: Pippin Brothers had been installing equipment improperly. We knew we had a lot of duct systems in customers’ homes that weren’t working right, and it gave me a very bad feeling. The good news was we could now fix it and then prove to the customer that it was right. None of our competitors would even know what we were talking about. I became a Performance-Based Contractor™ that day, in my mind at least. I needed now to get my team on board and begin practic-ing what I was about to preach. The hardest part was explaining to my employees what we were planning to do and how important their role was in it.A NEW APPROACHOur focus changed to teaching our field teams about convers-ing to the customers. This per-formance approach is about be-ing fair to the customer. We began sending our key people to residen-Like many contractors, I always thought I was in the business of selling HVAC equip-ment. At Pippin Brothers we began as a commercial plumbing and HVAC compa-ny. We were really good at that. We still are. We eventually decided to get into the service business to take care of the warranties on our com-mercial jobs. Meanwhile, many of our customers began asking us to take care of their homes as well. So we decided to get into the residential repair market. And we were pretty good at that as well. However, it wasn’t until I sat in on a class being taught by Dominick Guarino, called “Tool Time,” that I learned how HVAC systems aren’t perform-ing properly all across the country. He said it was because most contractors thought only about the equipment and didn’t understand that we are not in the product business, but in the comfort busi-ness. He was talking about the ductwork and air-flow. A light bulb went off in my head. Comfort – that was something that could totally A Contractor’s Secrets to Duct Renovation SalesBy Mark PippinSALESEvery day Pippin technicians encounter a wide array of poorly installed ducts that negatively impact customer comfort, energy efficiency, safety, and health. Renovation is often the best solution to such problems.32 MARCH 2019HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYwhat? That is when it was so much easier to show them.In that kind of heat, after taking the four static pressure and temperature readings, they could see how we were getting anywhere from 10-20°F ris-es from return air grille to the unit. And sometimes the return air would be just two feet away from the unit and we have a 20°F rise. So, as it got hotter, it got easier to get the buy-in. They realized how terrible the situa-tion was because now they could see and feel it due to the huge tempera-ture swings.CONVINCING CUSTOMERSThe next hard part was approach-ing existing customers, explaining how updated training had taught us new things, and that we needed to test their systems. It wasn’t a free service. We charged for our testing and diag-nosis. We were met with mixed emo-tions. Some customers didn’t want to pay again after we’d already installed their new system. To meet their objections, we had to explain how our training taught us things we never knew before. We had a much deeper understanding of how the entire system, not just the equipment, works to deliver comfort and efficiency. We also explained that the dollars they already paid us were for simply chang-ing out the equipment, not for making it function to its highest capability.Not everyone was convinced. For those who agreed, the difference we were able to make was like night and day. Testing and diagnosing airflow through the duct systems went way beyond worrying about the refrigerant charge and making things look pretty.The other obstacle we faced, and still face today, is that we were the only HVAC company doing this. Our com-petitors were telling customers that what we were doing was not necessary and that we were just looking for ways to make more money. But job after job that we completed using airflow diag-nostics proved that we were delivering much more than just new equipment and that actually started catching on with our customers.Pippin Brothers is by far more ex-pensive than most of the competition, but we can and do prove that we deliv-er what we promise.ONGOING TRAINING IS A MUST!Though it took more than a year to get all our field teams on board, I knew it wasn’t enough. Everything I learned said that ongoing training was the ONLY way to make Performance-Based Contracting work. So I brought in NCI trainers to train our entire office. It was amazing, but it was also like drinking from a fire hose! Today this training is broken down into steps – first static pressure, then air flow. This is a much smarter way because it doesn’t overwhelm our guys and they retain more of what they learn.I was motivated by the fact that we tial system performance training and getting them certified. We went as far as bringing NCI into our company to train our entire team about static pres-sure testing and measurement. And we made this testing part of our over-all service and maintenance plans.Was it easy? Not by a long shot. I found that many technicians think once they’ve earned their air condi-tioning license they know everything there is to know. It is hard to get them to do something in addition to what they think they know.But I stuck with it. Was persistent. They fought me at first. It took months before they bought in and began tak-ing static pressure and temperature readings on every call.One thing we did to force the issue was to require static pressure testing on every service call. Every invoice had to be stamped that this testing was done. I inspected every single in-voice, and if that stamp wasn’t there, the tech had to explain to me why. I had to keep going over it, again and again. Eventually, they started catch-ing on. We did the training in the win-ter. When summer came, it got very hot here – the high 90s – and the at-tics became unbearably hot. Guess Understanding airflow and the duct system can change your world. Even better, when properly trained, you can actually prove that what you installed is delivering the comfort and efficiency the HVAC Industry always talks about. SALESMARCH 2019 33HVACTODAY.COMstill fair profit.To know these numbers means un-derstanding your cash flow, being able to read your financial reports, and do-ing so often enough that you can make decisions and changes to keep your company moving forward. It really is business basics.For those of you reading this who are new to the idea of Performance-Based Contracting™ or are in the middle of implementing it in your company, the best advice I have is for you to find a cheerleader – someone who understands it, gets the ‘WOW’ factor, and wants to get the rest of the team on-board. They need to understand that without a per-formance approach, your company is actually cheating customers.It requires commitment, patience, and an investment in tools and time.If you do these things, it creates a true win-win-win for your customers, your company, and your team. tomer says they want.Each salesperson only does two or three sales calls per day. If we had them do more, we’d begin to see them cutting corners to get done faster, and then we’d miss opportunities.Many of our sales leads come from the technicians doing maintenance and service work in customers’ homes. The techs see the potential issues and hand off those leads to the salesper-son. Then the salesperson does more investigating.Using this process, we sell an aver-age of 15 to 20 duct renovation or air upgrade jobs each month at an average cost to the consumer between $3,000 and $5,000. That includes NO equip-ment. Just the ductwork.BUSINESS BASICS COUNTSLike anything you do in your busi-ness, you need to understand your numbers. When it comes to costing jobs, you need to know your break-even point and you need to have profit margins built into what you charge. For Pippin Brothers, we use the same per-hour billable rate on duct renovations as we do on equipment changeouts.Plus, ALL our overhead is figured into our hourly rate, as is our profit margins. So, it doesn’t matter if we are doing duct renovations or change outs, we are recouping what we need per man hour to make a solid and could make more money and deliver comfort like no one ever had before.That is why we try to always be training our guys. Whether we do it in-house or bring professionals in, train-ing is an ongoing process.In addition to technical training, I needed to rethink some of our busi-ness processes here in the office. The old way of doing things just didn’t work with the high-performance ap-proach. We needed training in cre-ating the right processes to back up our field work. So I brought in consul-tants like Drew Cameron to work with our salespeople as well as our support teams.As a result, our sales team now is re-quired to do airflow measurements ei-ther with or in front of the customer. This is usually necessary to get cus-tomer buy-in because they can actual-ly see what is happening in each room. Prior to using flow hoods, we couldn’t prove to them that airflow issues were real. Now we can.SELLING PERFORMANCEOur salespeople are professionals. We hire people who know how to sell and teach them about HVAC technol-ogy. They already understand the im-portance of building rapport and re-lationships with customers. Add in the time necessary to do static pres-sure and airflow tests, and our average sales call takes over 2 hours.They talk to the customers, asking lots of questions about what rooms are comfortable and which ones ar-en’t. How high are their utility bills? What works and what doesn’t. In es-sence, they ask the customers what they want to buy and then their job is to package something up that the cus-Mark Pippin is president of Pippin Brothers, Inc., a mechanical contracting firm that specializes in HVAC and plumbing services. The company began in 1978 in Lawton, OK. Mark holds a Master Plumbing license and actually grew up in the plumbiing business with his father. He first began learning about airflow after hearing a presentation conducted by the National Comfort Institute and realized the “secret sauce” in HVAC is airflow. He jumped in head first and has never looked back.Sales people need to be professionals and that requires training. A lot of it. They need to be comfortable teaming up with customers – not just selling them something.34 MARCH 2019HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYThere is special pricing for members, who can also apply their NCI bucks to-ward the cost. Registration will open very soon. In the meantime, if you have any questions, be sure to call the NCI Customer Care Line at 1-800-633-7058.NCI Intros 2019-2020 High-Performance Trailblazer Coaching Designed and tested by HVAC con-tractors who participated in the inau-gural program launched last year, Trail-blazer Coaching 2019-2020 will launch after the conclusion of the High-Perfor-mance HVAC Summit Week (gotosum-mit.com) in Orlando. For as little as $25 per month, you can participate in 12 monthly High- Performance Trailblazer Coaching ses-sions with fellow HVAC contractors from across the country!HERE’S HOW IT WORKS:Trailblazing Coaching sessions will be held the first Friday of every month at 9 AM Eastern time. Each session is a highly interactive 45-minute web meeting, led by NCI coaches. Your first session includes a 30,000-foot overview of the entire coaching plan where you can ask questions and provide input on the areas you might need the most help with. In each of the next 10 sessions your coaches will lead the group in a discus-sion on two of the steps on the Trailblaz-er Roadmap. During the final session, just before Summit 2020, you will review where you’ve been, discuss successes and fail-ures along the way, and map out your game plan for the next 12 months.The map shown in Figure 1 illustrates the 20 areas that will be covered in the online coaching sessions. Each area is a key element to successful implementa-tion of High-Performance Contracting. Breaking the process down into these bi-tesize steps will help ensure your success without overwhelming you and your team. NCI MEMBER UPDATEFigure 1. The Trailblazer Roadmap covers the 20 areas addressed in the online coaching sessions. Go to ncilink.com/TBMap for a PDF version of this map.Introducing a New Way to Connect with NCIDo you know about all the training options available from NCI? Do you know about the many benefits you get as an NCI member? Have you ever wondered about the difference between various static pressure techniques? Let your dedicated NCI Customer Care Representative help out! Not sure who your rep is? Go to http://ncilink.com/CCMap for a map of territories, then go to the link below or click the graphic to the right to book time with your NCI Customer Care rep. They can help answer your NCI-related questions:http://ncilink.com/NickGhttp://ncilink.com/MikePhttp://ncilink.com/AndyWOr call our Customer Care Hotline at 800-633-7058 to ask for help at any time during business hours.MARCH 2019 35HVACTODAY.COMPHOTO OF THE MONTH“Doesn’t Exhaust Right? Wonder Why!”— Dustin Bowling, Provision Environmental Systems and Testing, Surgoinsville, TN The customer just couldn’t understand why the smoke from their kitchen grill wouldn’t exhaust properly.Dustin Bowling’s entry took 33% of the vote in the ‘Bad’ category and won first place in our Photo-of-the-Month contest. He will receive a $50 gift card.You can too – submissions are always welcome. To submit a photo for consideration in our contest, click ncilink.com/ POMSubmit and fill out the information as requested.THE APRIL CONTEST OPENS ON MARCH 11, 2019. That should give you plenty of time to submit something in any of our three categories: The Good , The Bad , WTH (What the heck).36 MARCH 2019HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYHVAC SMART MARTMARCH 2019 37HVACTODAY.COMAdvertiser IndexHIGH-PERFORMANCEHVAC TODAY TMAD INDEXArzel Zoning Technology, Inc. | ArzelZoning.com ....................................................................36Baker Distributing Company | BakerDist.com ..........................................................................35Dwyer Instruments, Inc. | www.dwyer-inst.com .......................................................................2Goodman Manufacturing | www.GoodmanMfg.com .............................................................6Jackson Systems | www.JacksonSystems.com ........................................................................10Lazco Corp. | www.LazcoCorp.com ...............................................................................................21R.E. Michel Company | www.REMichel.com ................................................................................5The New Flat Rate | www.TheNewFlatRate.com .....................................................................36To Your Success | ToYourSuccess.com .........................................................................................36United Refrigeration Inc. | www.uri.com ......................................................................................9To Subscribe to High-Performance HVAC Today:ONLINE: Visit HVACToday.com/subscribe for a FREE digital subscription.PRINT: 1 year/$72; single copy $7. Canada: 1 year/$92; single copy $9. Payable in advance with U.S. funds. Prepaid subscriptions may be sent to: High-Performance HVAC Today, PO Box 147, Avon Lake, OH 44012. Phone: 440-949-1850; toll free 800-633-7058; FAX 440-949-1851, or visit HVACToday.com/subscribe to order online.PublisherDominick GuarinoEditor-in-ChiefMike WeilArt DirectorConnie ConklinOnline Development DirectorBrian RosemanSales ManagerDave KenneyCirculation ManagerAndrea Begany- GarsedEditorial AssistantMarge SmithEmail us at contactus@hvactoday.com with your comments and questions.38 MARCH 2019HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYmarketing. It has become one of the most highly anticipated mainstays of Summit. Come prepared to share your ideas, and absorb new ideas that are working for your fellow contractors. Your idea might just win a cash prize! 6. Explore the latest products and services from our cutting-edge partners with extended exhibit times. In addition to regular tradeshow hours on Tuesday and Wednesday, our partners will be available to you throughout the conference. 7. Celebrate your peers! The highly acclaimed Awards Banquet has become a Summit favorite, as NCI members celebrate their fellow award- winning contractors and partners. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be called up to be recognized. 8. Come early for the Pre-conference Business Planning Bootcamp sponsored by Goodman, and stay for post-Summit recertification classes. 9. Stay for “Breakthrough Business Lead-ership training with Gary Elekes sponsored by EGIA – free to High-Performance HVAC Alli-ance and EGIA members. 10. Keep Summit going year-round. Sign up for our unique Trailblazer Coaching Program with your fellow High-Performance contractors. Each month your coaches will help keep you focused on your goals. Be sure to listen to what this year’s participants have to share about this fantastic program at NCILink.com/ trailblazer. So what are you waiting for? Sign your team up for Summit today at GoToSummit.com, and get your Performance-Based contracting business energized and ready for your most successful and profitable year ever! Whether you’ve already integrat-ed High-Performance testing and solutions into your service and installation business, or you’re just starting out, there’s no better place to take it to the next level than Summit Week this April 15-18.NCI’s High-Performance HVAC Summit is THE event of the year for Performance-Based contrac-tors across North America. Our theme this year is the “High-Performance Sales Cycle.” This impacts every part of your organization, including your technicians, CSRs, comfort advisors, and your installation team. Here are the top 10 reasons to bring your leadership team to Orlando this year: 1. Summit is your High-Performance Re-treat. There is no other event in our industry so focused on every aspect of delivering measured, proven solutions to your customers. Spend sev-eral days with like-minded contractors excited to share their knowledge and learn from each other.2. Get inspired to implement High Perfor-mance. The general sessions, our special key-note speaker, and breakout sessions will inspire you and fill your tank with new knowledge and ways to kick start your 2019 cooling season. 3. Sharpen your saw. Participate in highly interactive and hands-on breakouts where you’ll get the opportunity to walk through the lead generation and sales process using test instru-ments on working systems.4. Get expert advice from top industry coaches. New to Summit: This year we’ve in-vited five top industry coaches for a can’t miss, highly interactive “Ask The Coaches” session. 5. Share and discover great new ideas. NCI’s unique Idea Meeting focuses on sales and Dominick Guarino is publisher of HVAC Today magazine and CEO of National Comfort Institute, Inc. He can be reached at domg@ncihvac.com ONE MORE THING...By Dominick Guarino10 Reasons To Make Summit Week Your Must-Attend Event This SpringNext >