< Previous10 OCTOBER 2020HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY duct leakage – it might be variations in your readings. WHERE TO DRAW THE LINE? How do you know how far to take air- flow testing? Most Performance-Based Contractors typically draw the line be- tween fan airflow and delivered air- flow testing. Or they consider just measuring supply airflow in the most uncomfort- able room. It’s important to establish a rule that you don’t turn your testing into a science project. Each test must have a reason and an intended out- come for taking them. By the way, full airflow diagnostics demand an additional fee due to the time and specialized skills involved in the procedures. Your job is to look be- yond the equipment at the entire duct system and determine how well it per- forms from an airflow standpoint. To keep it simple, many companies limit airflow measurement to fan air- flow for the following job titles: ● Installers doing a first-time system startup ● Service technicians running emergency calls ● Maintenance technicians on maintenance agreements, and ● Salespeople on sales calls. Companies usually reserve delivered airflow for more specialized testing and diagnostics. These include: ▼ Duct system renovation and installation verification If you know your required room air- flow values, you can compare the de- sign airflow to measured airflow – what it truly delivered. If measured airflow isn’t within ±10% of design, you have some work to do. After you measure all supply regis- ters, add all their airflow together to de- termine total delivered supply airflow into the living space. It should be with- in ±10% of the required and measured fan airflow. You can follow the same process for return grille measurements. It’s common to notice a slight differ- ence in fan airflow and total delivered airflow. The variance is because of dif- ferent measurement methods and test instruments. Don’t assume a discrep- ancy in airflow readings is because of REMEMBER, AIRFLOW IS THE MOST IMPORTANT BUT MISUNDERSTOOD ASPECT OF THE HVAC INDUSTRY. TECHNICALOCTOBER 2020 11HVACTODAY.COM persistence to stick with airside per- formance. OUR NEXT STOP Temperature is the next stop on the performance path. When you add tem- perature to airflow, you see the HVAC system in a new light. You understand how it performs in a way that very few HVAC profession- als can. Before you look at tempera- ture, be sure you’ve got a good handle on airflow . Look at airflow as a fork in the path. You may stick with the fan airflow pathway, or you may venture down the delivered airflow path. Both will improve your installations and opportunities, however only one can take you to the highest level of air- side performance. If you take advantage of fan airflow, you will see a significant improve- ment in reducing callbacks, warranty costs, and customer complaints. Add in delivered airflow and outside air to round out your offerings and your ser- vices will be unmatched. ▼ Customer education and discovery on a sales call ▼ Airflow diagnostics for comfort troubleshooting, and ▼ Air balancing. OBSTACLES IN THE PATH As you continue down the Perfor- mance PATH, you will meet airflow obstacles just like you did with static pressure. For some, these are too great to overcome, and they quit before they reach the gold at the end of the path. Two common obstacles are: ● Plotted fan airflow that makes little sense. ● Air balancing hood readings that don’t add up. Both situations are learning oppor- tunities in disguise if you have the David Richardson serves the HVAC industry as a curriculum developer and trainer for National Comfort Institute, Inc. (NCI). If you’re an HVAC contractor or technician interested in learning more about airside performance, contact David at ncilink.com/ ContactMe or call him at 800-633-7058. NCI’s website www.nationalcomfortinstitute.com is full of free technical articles and downloads to help you improve your professionalism and strengthen your company.OCTOBER 2020 13HVACTODAY.COM F or many, the idea behind branding your business is a mystery. Or at least it’s intim- idating. The fact is you create a brand every single day you are in business, whether you realize it or not. It is a state-of-mind, a visual cue of what you and your company represent, and it’s largely part of what I call your ‘self-fulfilling prophesy.’ There are a lot of variables here and this is what can be overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be. Simply stated, the brand is everything customers see, hear, and feel about your company. That includes your marketing, how your peo- ple answer and talk on the phones, how the ser- vice techs look when they visit customer homes, and how the installers look and act when doing their jobs. It includes how your team leaves a cus- tomer’s house when the job is done to how they come into the house beforehand. All of that is your brand. At Jerry Kelly Heating and Air Conditioning, we choose to consciously direct how that brand looks, sounds, and feels. We’ve been in business for 43 years and the own- ers have been intentional about our branding since day one. Over the years we just got a little more sophisticated in our approach and our marketing. Much of that is because of our membership in and participation with organizations like Nation- al Comfort Institute, Service Roundtable, and trade associations like Air Conditioning Contrac- tors of America (ACCA). It also comes from our attending and partici- pating in industry events, including tradeshows. This is where we began learning how to sharpen our branding and marketing skills and bring a dif- ferent consistency to our marketing and branding process. HOW TO GET STARTED From the very beginning, we determined how our field technicians had to look. They had to be clean-shaven and wear sharp uniforms with our logo prominently displayed, for example. We cre- ated methods and scripts so that our office per- sonnel had the tools and training to answer the phone differently and hopefully, more profes- sionally than competitors. Consciously Promote Your Own By Steve Miles MARKETING Branding and marketing go hand-in-hand. The key is making sure that the brand and marketing are sending the same message14 OCTOBER 2020HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY component (the HVAC equipment) to something someone else sells (the house). That is not retail. That is wholesale. WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN - SERIOUSLY Our marketing guidelines are writ- ten down and dictates how our truck wraps must look, what our color schemes are, how and where we use our logo, and so on. That is key to the psychology to help people remember who you are. What I’ve found is that in HVAC it’s really hard to drive de- mand. Especially when the weather can impact how people feel. What can anyone say to a consumer to compel them to have an HVAC per- son interrupt their life? The answer is, ‘Not much.’ So, you must find ways to become Top-of- Mind when consumers need you. It also means finding ways to drive phone calls during the off season - like offering discounted maintenance. You need to provide enticements that help get your people inside the house. In other words, marketing is about finding ways to get inside the house and make additional sales. Branding is where the consumer remembers you and keeps your company top-of- mind. SELLING UNIQUE SERVICES VERSUS SELLING EQUIPMENT Think about this: If you compare almost any piece of manufactured equipment to any other (no matter who manufactures them) by stripping off their sheet metal wrappers and lay- ing out their components on the floor side-by-side, you almost wouldn’t know which piece of equipment those components came from. Why? Almost all equipment have components from the same component manufacturers – Copeland compressors, White Rog- ers circuit boards, Honeywell circuit boards, and so on. Sure, there may be some differences in how those components are assem- bled within the equipment, but the true difference comes from the con- tracting firm installing it. Each con- tractor is a unique entity that brings its brand, skillset, and ability to re- solve customer pain-points through how they design, install, and service the entire HVAC system (not just the equipment). At Jerry Kelly, we want our unique- ness to be consistently applied and “branded” so not only our customers, but our employees as well, understand who we are and how we work. That means having written processes and procedures to make sure the equip- ment is consistently installed and is operating correctly. I like to think about it this way: Besides our physical presentation, we purposefully market our brand as well. Branding and marketing go hand-in-hand. The key is making sure that the brand and marketing are sending the same message. You abso- lutely don’t want to be contradictory because that just confuses the custom- er and frankly, turns them off. They aren’t sure who you are. In other words, whatever you ‘say’ about your company in your market- ing, must match how your company looks, sounds, and behaves in the eyes of the customer. The first step is deciding who you are. For Jerry Kelly, we are 100% res- idential repair and replacement. As such, we are in-home retailers. We have a retail mentality and that means we sell inside the home. If you look at any good retailers – clothing stores, brew pubs, restau- rants, and so on – branding and mar- keting is everything. By comparison, contractors in the new construction market provide a MARKETINGOCTOBER 2020 15HVACTODAY.COM Emerald Heating and Air Condition- ing brand equipment. We promote our unique abilities to resolve custom- er comfort issues. We back up every- thing we do. And all of that is part of our brand identity. MANAGING THE BRAND Managing your brand is a three-step process. First, you must define what your brand is. Start with your brand statement. How do you want your team to look or not? Either way, you are defining the brand. Then you have to implement it, roll it out. Teach ev- eryone inside the company what you want and how you want it done. And finally, you have to hold people ac- countable to it. Accountability is important. If you don’t hold your team accountable to the brand, then your brand will not be what you envision. We sometimes do field checks where salespeople, when not busy, drop in on our techs to check and see if they are following our branding standards. And they might Manufacturers are marketing compa- nies that promote products and equip- ment. Contractors should be market- ing companies that promote systems and services. At Jerry Kelly, we pri- vate-label our equipment. We sell the Jerry Kelly’s brand is readily recognized by the unique color scheme of their truck wraps and logo. At night, the green and white logo glows in the dark.16 OCTOBER 2020HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY ment through the Internet. Net Pro- moter Score (NPS®) is one of the most common customer experience metrics used by companies around the world. We ask customers what we did right, where we can improve, and we ask if they would recommend us. We also use Google Reviews (ncilink.com/GoogleRev). We ac- tively ask for reviews and we manage those, making sure to answer prob- lems right away. This can be a little tricky. You have to keep in mind that if you are re- sponding to a review, you are writ- ing to the entire audience, not just the person. You want that response to be as even-toned and fair-sounding as pos- sible. Take responsibility for all blame. DO NOT point the finger at the cus- tomer ever. Do everything you can to make sure the customer feels like they were treated fairly. Everyone who reads an answer writ- ten like that will think you are a fair company that stands behind their work. That is gold when it comes to building a top-of-mind reputation. FIVE TIPS FOR MANAGING YOUR BRAND Here are five things I strongly rec- ommend you do to help manage your brand: 1. Keep your website up-to- date. Be sure it not only shows all your service options and highlights even generate a lead while there. They look at how the techs look, whether they are wearing shoe coverings, or if they are using our procedures for in- stalling or servicing the systems. This approach works well for us. NO ONE IS PERFECT Are we perfect? Not by any means. But we work towards continuous im- provement. When things get off track, we hold the team accountable and help them get back on track. The obvious, but very important method for managing the brand is to find out from customers what they think. We use brief surveys called Net Promoter ® Scores (ncilink.com/ NPS) as well as reputation manage- MARKETINGOCTOBER 2020 17HVACTODAY.COM 4. Be unique. For example, Jerry Kelly doesn’t do traditional door hang- ers – we give away recyclable grocery bags with our logo on it. We also usu- ally include at least one “tchotchke” in- side – a service coupon, a jar opener, a pen, whatever. People remember this. 5. Then track everything. With- out the data, you can’t see what works and what doesn’t. In addition, you need to educate yourself. Understand that whether you think so or not, you are a marketing company that hap- pens to be in the HVAC industry. Become proficient at the art of mar- keting. Attend HVAC Industry events to keep yourself up-to-date and take advantage of membership organiza- tions like NCI, Service Roundtable, ACCA, and others. They have great databases full of content that can help you in all aspects of branding, market- ing, and more. Remember: everyone has a brand, whether they are conscious of it or not. Be conscious of it. Nurture it. Get your people on board with it. Then watch good things happen. all your credentials (including train- ing and certifications), but also cur- rent consumer feedback quotes that are updated regularly. 2. Consider writing a blog and keep it current as well. Here is a link to my blog page so you can see the kinds of things I write about: jerrykelly. com/blog. By the way, you can choose to write the blog yourself, OR you can hire someone to do it for you. Here is another link that can help get you start- ed with other Social Media marketing ideas: ncilink.com/OnlineMktg. 3. Become “Google Guaran- teed,” where you offer a money-back guarantee if a customer complains to Google. Learn more at ncilink.com/ GoogleGuarantee. Steve Miles is the vice pres- ident and CEO of Jerry Kelly Heating and Air Conditioning in St. Peters, MO. He has been with the company since 1994. Jerry Kelly is an $11.5 million residential repair and replacement business with 65 employees and an unmistakable brand identity in their marketplace. Contact him at ncilink. com/ContactMe.18 OCTOBER 2020HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE But then, 14 days after attending class, I did that very thing. I had used his training and our company’s tools to identify a boiler spilling CO to the point that the hallways in a two-story hotel were at 40 ppm. Who knows how long this was happening? When cold weather arrived and the boiler ran longer cycles, (probably in the night) would someone be harmed? The point is, before my training I would have used a lighter in the draft hood to prove “the boiler was drafting well” and gone on my way. This was when I realized how training provid- ed the opportunity to identify life-threatening hazards on service calls. If I allowed shortcuts to move me to the next “no heat” call, I may not get another chance to use my ability to prevent some- thing terrible from happening. The truth will set you free! During the next few years, a contractor friend of mine, Tom Johnson, spent a lot of time ex- plaining to me how his company does combus- tion tests on every service call. Today this is more commonplace than not, but I had to visualize how it looked in practice before I could affect a change where there is no differen- tiation between what we do individually as tech- nicians and collectively as a company. WHAT WE DO TODAY Today our company has 28 full-time employ- ees, 19 of whom are field staff, and four are proj- ect/service management staff. We service and install HVAC, hydronics, plumbing, refrigera- tion, and water treatment systems. Our ‘Combustion Safety’ culture is used by everyone on every call. Up until the pandemic struck, each of our field techs held a CO Certifi- cation, including apprentices. We’ll get back to I n 2015, my wife and I were fortunate enough to buy the company where I was employed for five years. From a training and certification stand- point, the company, Masterworks Mechanical of Craig, CO had already taken steps with National Comfort Institute (NCI) to certify our field staff in combustion and carbon monoxide safety. As part of those initial steps, I attended my first training class taught by NCI’s Jim Davis in our hometown. At the time I had 20+ years of experience in the HVAC trade. After the first day of class, my wife asked how it was. My answer was “They found the craziest guy in the nation and had him teaching about carbon monoxide (CO)!” The second day, Jim proved all his knowledge to be true! The other side of this is that he proved I had spent 20+ years in the dark. I have since humbly apologized to Jim whenever I see him. On the third day, he showed us how to put the practices he developed into play to provide safety for our customers. His closing statement was that if we used what he had taught, we would be calling him to tell a success story about someone’s life we had saved. I felt like this was a pretty bold statement. Creating a Culture of Carbon Monoxide Safety By Vic Updike MANAGEMENT Not all failures are as easy to identify as this one. This furnace was still running. CO readings were insanely high!OCTOBER 2020 19HVACTODAY.COM ADVANTAGES OF THE NSI 3000 CO MONITOR Here are two examples showing how this monitor helps identify and pre- vent life-threatening hazards like: CO Infiltration from Attached Garages. We replaced a failed fur- nace in a house and was called the next day because their new monitor was alarming. In troubleshooting the issue, we discov- ered car exhaust from the garage was leak- ing directly into the re- turn air to the furnace through holes in the sheetrock ceiling and a poor seal in the return panning. This caused CO symptoms in the family every winter for years. Blockages from Snow. After in- stalling a new tankless water heater, the new monitor we provided alarmed during mid-winter. During trouble- shooting, we discovered that a pileup of snow had created a barrier. This forced the condensing heat- ing boiler to re-circulate combustion products into its combustion air. The boiler was creating 2500 ppm of CO that was spilling into the room. The monitor indicated 35 ppm upstairs. It would have been much higher if this unit did not alarm at early levels. After five years, I have an extensive list of examples just like these. CULTURE CREATION High-Performance testing and diag- nostics policies and procedures pro- vide the scaffolding to build the cul- ture. The heavy lifting is done by your co-workers who commit to consistent- ly performing them. For Masterworks, implementation began with our service crew. When an individual identified a CO-related problem, we spent time at our morn- ing meeting explaining the call, talking about why and how the issue was iden- tified, and how it was corrected. One of our practices is in cases where we “Red Tag” a unit. If we replaced it, we bring the old unit back to the shop. We remove the heat exchanger from the red-tagged furnace and prove to all staff the validity of the tag. This builds confidence in the techs that when their analyzers and tools indicate a problem, the problem usually exists. We spend a lot of time talking about the fact that in a 100-mile radius from our shop, there are nearly no other companies with staff who are trained and certified to do this. Your staff is how you successfully demonstrate your commitment to the community. I would offer a few examples of what a Carbon Monoxide safety culture has provided us: ● One of our newer maintenance techs was able to save a person’s life by listening to staff reports of CO and how we address those issues. This technican was having a conver- sation with our dispatcher at the end of the day and she mentioned she had felt poorly since the weather turned cold. She had just been tested to see if she was anemic. Her headaches inten- sified at night. The tech just had a feeling about what she said and gave her a “loaner” low-level monitor for that night. The next day in the office the dis- this when travel becomes the norm once more. Our success in doing this isn’t from our requiring it. It comes from assuring that everyone gets the chance to hear the stories firsthand from each team- mate who saves the day for another customer. There is no better win, and everyone wants to be part of that. GETTING STARTED Implementation starts with a policy and procedure. I feel this is the easy part. You must first determine your commitment level. Initially, I thought testing every unit we serviced was adequate. In discus- sions with Tom Johnson and the re- sults coming in from the field, I dis- covered that many major safety events were being found in other equipment in the mechanical room besides the unit being repaired. Our policy now is to combustion test every gas-burning appliance in sight. If we change a failed ignitor on a fur- nace, the water heater will be com- bustion and draft-tested as well. Our plumbers test combustion on the wa- ter heaters they replace. Each annual service agreement has a form for our techs to record com- bustion analysis for the customer’s gas-burning appliances. We keep track of these readings for five years. The final thing our installers do af- ter each replacement or installation of a gas-burning unit is install an NSI low-level CO monitor (ncilink.com/ NSI3000). The number of times installing these monitors resulted in calls to identify issues has made this our biggest gold star. The NSI 3000s are our compa- nies’ night watchman.Next >