hvactoday.comDECEMBER 2021 HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY TM If You Don’t Measure, You’re Just Guessing! ™ YOU ARE THE BRAND Your brand is what your customers see. So what does your brand say about you? ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Solve Small Hydronic Balancing Problems Increase High-Performance Sales With Financing Contractor Spotlight: JN Electrical Temperature ControlDECEMBER 2021 3HVACTODAY.COM DECEMBER 2021 VOLUME 5 NUMBER 12 HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY TM COVER STORY: Through the Customers’ Eyes: The Importance of Your Brand Whether you plan your brand or not, what the customer sees is the brand you portray. Good or bad. 10 SALES: Financing Helps Increase Your Sales Closing Rate Contractor Gary Katz explains how offering consumer financing helps his team successfully close more High-Performance HVAC sales and grow the company. 16 DEPARTMENTS Today’s Word .........................................................................................4 High-Performance Products .............................................................5 Contractor Spotlight: JN Electrical Temperature Control ....6 NCI Update .........................................................................................19 HVAC Smart Mart ...............................................................................20 Ad Index ................................................................................................21 One More Thing ................................................................................22 14 TECHNICAL: A Procedure to Solve Small Hydronic System Balancing Issues Many hydronic systems are not designed or built for balancing. NCI’s Rob Falke explains what you, the service or balancing tech, can do in these situations. Your BRAND4 DECEMBER 2021HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY TODAY’S WORD By Mike Weil wings of the Internet Cloud to make doing business with them easier and more convenient. For these and so many other reasons, it became more apparent to everyone in this country the im- portance and Influence High-Performance HVAC contractors wield. By testing, measur- ing, diagnosing, and solving customer comfort and efficiency issues, during 2021, you made homes safer than ever. Yes, in 2021, comfort became more im- portant than ever. Not only for consumers and contractors, but for everyone in the supply chain as they worked together to make sure equipment, components, tools, and more were as readily avail- able as possible. Together the industry charted a course toward mutually assured success and set the stage for 2022. LOOKING FORWARD According to ancient Roman legend, the god, Ja- nus wore two faces -- one to look forward and one to look back. Janus presided over the beginning and ending of conflict. The past year was certainly rife with conflict. Yet, according to ITR Economics, the U.S. Gross Domestic Product has fully recovered from the COVID-19 recession. That is good news. But lead- ing indicators show a slow down of growth in 2022 which means we need to continue focusing on cre- ative solutions to the issues facing us. We will have full market forecasts from ITR in February and in March, 2022. In 2021 we’ve seen how this industry can and will evolve to meet the needs of our customers. We must continue to do so. With that in mind, from the team here at the magazine and at NCI, we close 2021 wishing you all a very happy holiday season, and a productive, profitable, and safe New Year. A s 2021 winds down, it’s time to take a look back at what happened and a look forward to what could be in store. This year began with silver linings brightening the end of a dark 2020. The pandemic did hurt business all across the HVAC Industry supply chain, but it also gave us time to pause, reflect, and regroup. Once again, as an industry, we found creative ways in 2021 to regain some lost ground through use of technology, and out-of-the-box-thinking to improve processes, increase sales, and fight the good high-performance HVAC fight. But 2021 certainly posed challenges. We won- dered back in February whether the hits would keep coming. Retail businesses were closing left and right. The pandemic kept getting worse. Yet, the need for HVAC service grew as more people than ever in the history of this country were working from home. The key was to em- brace change, to adapt to the conditions at hand, and find ways to provide for customers’ comfort and safety while they sheltered in place. Re-purposing gave purpose to communities as abandoned buildings were converted into food kitchens, vaccine locations, and more. Then one of the worst snowstorms swept the nation, and the importance of keeping your techs winterized, and safe from the cold, became more important than ever. RETHINKING OUR APPROACH To help keep their people busy, many contrac- tors began to re-examine their marketing and took the time to promote their COVID-19 safe- ty practices to their customers. Some began to stand out and write articles for the trade and consumer media to get the word out. Others began looking into how to soar on the From the Viewpoint of Janus: Taking A Look Back and A Look Forward Mike Weil is editor- in-chief and director of communications and publications at National Comfort Institute, Inc. Contact him at ncilink. com/ContactMe.DECEMBER 2021 5HVACTODAY.COM Cut the Right Corners – There’s noth- ing wrong with cutting corners as long as it’s the right corners. The corner that Air- Maxx™ Lite allows the technicians to cut is time. Testing math and diagnosing can take 15 to 20 minutes. With AirMaxx™ Lite, you enter the measurement, and then the report shows the restrictions in the sys- tem. It does all the math for you. Think for Yourself – There’s a lot of en- tities working very hard to get technicians to follow their words instead of allowing the techs to think for themselves. Air- Maxx™ Lite allows each tech to make the discovery themselves. It’s not about tell- ing them exactly what to do and fix. Think of AirMaxx™ Lite as a training tool. On a side note, not too many techni- cians like to sell. AirMaxx™ Lite puts to- gether simple explanations for the cus- tomer to understand what’s causing the issues within their home, helps reduce the technicians’ technical jargon, and maintains simplicity. If you are interested in learning more about AirMaxx™ Lite Mobile, go to https://airmaxxlite.com . — Casey Contreras, NCI Field Coach, and Instructor AirMaxx™ Lite Mobile App My parents raised me to do things right, keep things simple, cut the right corners, and think for myself. That’s what the AirMaxx™ Lite mobile app does for field technicians. Let me show you how. Do it Right – Measuring static pressure is always the correct approach to truly fig- uring out how a system operates without you just guessing or using rules of thumb. Keep it Simple – Once you enter a stat- ic pressure profile, the app helps techni- cians figure out where restrictions are. Un- like other software, AirMaxx™ Lite doesn’t tell techs how to fix the problem: it shows them where the problem is, and they can develop their own solution. HIGH-PERFORMANCE PRODUCT Written by HVAC Professionals for HVAC ProfessionalsHe credits his father for instilling in him the need to grow a company that delivers the best possible product and serves its customers well … and to be honest. His dad’s principles have nev- er let him down. CHANGE IN THE PAST 13 YEARS Since that article was published in the former Member Update email newsletter, Nikkel says he doubled down on his promise to invest and develop team members and cites this commitment as the most significant change over the last 13 years. “That investment is in the form of helping them set goals, to training them in developing their soft skills, dealing with different customer per- sonalities, and even people in their non-work life, he says. “I started by making changes to my- self and then realized the importance of it and how it can help everybody. Around the same time, I began to work on transitioning JN Electrical into a process-driven company. That is a work in progress -- we’re not there yet. “Still, we are much further down that road than we were in 2008,” he says. “This includes transitioning high-per- formance contracting, which I’ve been practicing at some level since 2004, into a process beyond just me driv- ing the actions of our team. Hopefully, now we’re driving a process more than just individual actions.” He describes that these processes include how to “score” the operation of HVAC equipment, for pricing jobs, and for better operation of many dif- ferent business areas. “By this, I mean we have a process for everything from how we run a service call, install sys- tems, and the way we commis- sion a system,” Nikkel adds. HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC CONTRACTING TODAY When it comes to deliver- ing high-performance HVAC services to customers, Nik- kel says they are leaps and bounds ahead of where they were in 2008. It’s just part of their daily routine to professionally commission systems based on three things: zCustomer lifestyle z Type of building the system is in- stalled within z Customer desires to have remote B owersville, GA, is a rural community of just 465 peo- ple (according to the 2010 U.S. Census) located near the Georgia-South Carolina border. It’s in Hart County, GA, and is the home of 24-year-old JN Electrical Tempera- ture Control, Inc. Though its name implies that their focus is electrical contracting, that is not the case. Owner Jason Nikkel says they are an HVAC company first and foremost. In fact, he explains that 91% of their 2021 revenues ($1.6 million) were from HVAC work. For Jason, working in a small com- munity means they need to be better informed, better equipped, and better prepared than the competition to be suc- cessful, which means his focus has always been on craftsmanship. And that requires train- ing and education. Training is precisely what Jason Nik- kel did for himself and his team from very early on in the company’s history. Back in 2008, National Comfort Institute (NCI) did a profile on the company in which Jason is quoted as saying how training is a constant activity. “We hold classes in the office and on job sites,” Nikkel said in that inter- view. “Training is for learning and also for gaining a greater conviction of why we do what we do.” 6 DECEMBER 2021HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY CONTRACTOR SPOTLIGHT By Michael Weil A Process-Driven Approach to High-Performance Contractingwhere we get much better leads and lead turnovers. Again, it’s a process that’s worth continuing to work on.” He adds that regardless of their pro- cesses, as the field techs from JN Elec- trical talk to customers and make rec- ommendations on duct repairs, they almost always face some initial resis- tance based on what other contractors have told the customers. He says that if he goes too quickly trying to justify the company’s pricing without show- ing documentation first, he sees more resistance. “If I spend more time listening to their problems, then testing and mea- suring and sharing results, I earn their trust. I am all about earning their trust, so they have confidence in our company. “When I do that successfully, those customers may still say no one ever told them about static pressure, but they believe it based on the numbers. We then can address their pain points, which sets JN Electrical Temperature Control apart from all the others who came in before us. “And then they (the customer) want to get the work done.” BIGGEST CHANGE SINCE 2008 There is no doubt that the most sig- nificant change to JN Electrical Tem- perature Control is from the COVID-19 pandemic. It impacted Nikkel’s compa- ny in every way. Yet, he says that the company is at 180% of its pre-pandem- ic revenues despite many challenges. He found that the key to that success was teaching his team to focus on cus- tomers’ needs and respect their wish- es. That meant making some changes to daily service/maintenance calls. “But we did not stop in-person sales calls unless the customer in- sisted,” he ex- plains. “We still go into custom- ers’ homes. All our techs car- ry masks and try to maintain the six-foot dis- tance rule, but attitudes in the rural marketplace are different from else- where. We approach life differently than do people in the big cities. “When we knock on a customer’s door, we ask their preference regard- ing masking and distancing. It’s their home, and we’re a guest. If they ask us to mask up, we do. But that’s not the norm.” The pandemic also made it hard- er for JN Electrical Temperature Con- trol to have products and parts readily available for customers to buy. Nikkel says that in his 24 years in business, he’s never seen lag times like the ones he sees today. “To counter equipment and part shortages,” he says, “We wind up in- ventorying as much as we can get our hands-on. In other words, we have be- come mini distributors ourselves, in- vesting three to five times more money and effort just to find product. I hate that, and I am not good at it. And it is expensive for us to do from a tax standpoint.” Some of the equipment sold and in- stalled by Nikkel’s company has six to eight week lag times. From a part standpoint, such lag times can be around 12 to 16 weeks. He adds that his distributors do the best they can, but they also have issues finding available products. capabilities of thermostatic controls and filtration needs they’ll need in the future. Nikkel says today, his team takes customer desires into account and then thinks about how such chang- es will affect that equipment over the next year to 10 years. Furthermore, static pressure testing has been a way of life for JN Electrical since 2004, but it’s evolved into a consistent process. “Today,” Nikkel explains, “We live, breathe, and operate the company by testing, measuring, and diagnosing com- plete systems – including the ductwork. My techs know not to call me with a question unless they followed our process, documented everything, and had the measurement readings on hand so we can start talking about what is going on with the system.” AIR UPGRADES AND DUCT SYSTEM RENOVATIONS For JN Electrical, Nikkel says around 98% of their system change- outs have some form of air upgrade or duct renovation involved. Howev- er, he points out that they aren’t as far down the high-performance path on service and maintenance work yet. “One thing impacting us is that as we work with our existing custom- er base (nearly 10,000 of them), we find ourselves replacing equipment we installed back in the 90s. Because we’ve always done duct upgrades and replacements on new installations, we find that we aren’t doing as many among this group. Some systems re- quire further upgrades, but not as many as you’d think. “Plus, today we’re running around 6,600 hours of maintenance visits,” Nikkel says. “We are finally at a point DECEMBER 2021 7HVACTODAY.COM Jason Nikkel8 DECEMBER 2021HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY bers, then averaged them out,” Nikkel explains. “Over the years and over the many systems that we’ve installed, it just calculated to be more than I could imagine because it’s happening be- hind the scenes every day. Plus, I be- lieve that number is even more signif- icant if you tally up savings from all of NCI’s trained members and others. “It’s what we all practice every day. The NCI approach helps us save lives and save energy like no other program out there.” For these and so many other rea- sons, High-Performance HVAC Today has shined our contractor spotlight on JN Electrical and Temperature Control. Congratu- lations to the entire team. CONTRACTOR SPOTLIGHT tem. That is very exciting to me. “In my ignorance, I knew we did a great job. I just didn’t know how poor that great job was,” Nikkel said. Nikkel adds that once they could find out what was happening in a sys- tem and quantify that, it brought every- thing back into focus. Interesting fact: he says that testing, measuring, and di- agnosing airflow and other issues has saved his customers more than $5 mil- lion in combined energy costs. How? He says he calculated this number by listening to and capturing what customers said their upgrades saved them in energy costs. “Often, our customers call to say that our work helped them save $150 per month in energy costs. I kept track of that and just totaled those num- Nikkel says, “Today, I have more inventory than I’ve ever had, which hurts on several levels, especially the inventory tax standpoint.” THE IMPACT OF NCI Jason Nikkel says this about the training and guidance he gets from his membership in NCI: “The high-per- formance approach that NCI teaches and preaches is a journey, an enlight- ening journey. “For me, it put the light back in the business. Once upon a time, I grew bored with what was going on. NCI put meaning back into the HVAC contracting business for me. The high-performance approach puts numbers to everything and lets me see what is happening with an HVAC sys-Next >