hvactoday.comDECEMBER 2022 HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY TM If You Don’t Measure, You’re Just Guessing! ™ Your Culture, YourYour Culture, Your ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: • New Technicians: Why Proper On-boarding and Training Are So Important • Benefits of Doing Computerized Load CalculationsDECEMBER 2022 3HVACTODAY.COM NOVEMBER 2022 VOLUME 6 NUMBER 12 HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY TM LEADERSHIP: The Branding Importance of Technician On-Boarding & Training When bringing on new technicians, Getzschman Heating’s focus is training and teaching them how they fit into the company culture. TECHNICAL: The Benefits of Doing Computerized Load Calculations There are still a lot of contractors out there who resist properly sizing HVAC systems. Bill Smith explains why this is such a bad idea. 14 DEPARTMENTS Today’s Word .........................................................................................4 High-Performance Product Review ...............................................5 NCI Update .........................................................................................19 HVAC Smart Mart ...............................................................................20 Ad Index ................................................................................................21 One More Thing ................................................................................22 6 MARKETING: The Performance Approach: Your Culture, Your Brand Contractor John Boylan shares how his high-performance approach is both his company’s culture and its brand. 104 DECEMBER 2022HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY part of your company’s culture. Many marketing experts will tell you that “culture in the brand- ing landscape is the fundamental structure of the company.” That is the brand culture. BRAND CULTURE AND MILLENNIAL VALUES Did you know that today, members of the Mil- lennial Generation are considered the largest buying group in the U.S.? According to a study done by an organization called 5WPR, 83% of millennials want to do business with companies that align with their values. You can check out their report here: ncilink.com/CultureRpt. If your brand culture is built on positive values, people will want to be associated with it. By the way, what is a more positive value than a high-per- formance approach to HVAC contracting? MAKE PERFORMANCE YOUR DNA Our cover story focuses on how John Boylan of Lakeside Service has created a brand culture both inside and outside the business. Read about how Lakeside’s “DNA” revolves around providing 100% customer satisfaction through high-per- formance HVAC testing, measuring, diagnosing, and solving comfort challenges. Now think about this: If a growing percent- age of their customers are made up of millenni- als, then a brand culture of performance would be attractive. For such a culture to thrive, Boylan says he believes employees must fully understand and implement it into their daily routines. Again, training is the key. So as we move into 2023, make perfor- mance part of your DNA. From the team here at High-Performance HVAC Today to you and your team, season’s greetings and have great suc- cess in the coming year. O ver the years, contractors who use the High-Performance HVAC contracting method have heard us talk about how performance as a brand should be brought into your company culture. We discuss things like implementation, consis- tency, testing, and measuring, then using that data to explain to customers what is needed to make their systems work as they should. We show how a high-performance approach can help to solve comfort problems no one else can even find. PERFORMANCE AS A BRAND CULTURE In marketing circles, what we’ve talked about is called creating a brand culture. Think of your high-performance approach as the DNA that cul- ture evolves from. This DNA includes the promises, expectations, and goals which drives your business. Even if you don’t formalize this DNA, you create it every sin- gle day you are in business, whether you realize it or not. Your brand is reflected in everything — the appearance of your vehicles, how your techni- cians look and act in the field, even how your cus- tomer service representatives answer the phone. You can control your brand, if you conscious- ly create a culture with that brand at the cen- ter. How? It begins with the company owner and management team’s vision and mission. THE ROLE OF TRAINING As more contractors choose to embrace the con- cepts behind High-Performance HVAC, they need to understand that it requires investments in train- ing — not just your techs in the field on how to test, measure, diagnose, and solve customer comfort is- sues, but also training on the behind-the-scenes processes that support those techs and the perfor- mance mission. Those processes become a major High-Performance HVAC Contracting As A Brand Culture TODAY’S WORD By Mike Weil Mike Weil is editor- in-chief and director of communications and publications at National Comfort Institute, Inc. Contact him at ncilink. com/ContactMe.DECEMBER 2022 5HVACTODAY.COM Barometric damper controls – like the Field Controls Type MG1 – are also known as draft regulators. They replace the draft hood on traditional natural draft equipment. It controls how much dilution air mixes with the flue and con- trols combustion air to the burners. It is a simple but very effective way to provide safety and efficiency to the end user. This control is designed to be dou- ble-acting for natural gas and propane systems and single-acting for oil. Baro- metric dampers can be ordered in sizes from 4 to 32-in. By installing a damper such as the Type MG1, heat transfer can improve by slowing down the flue gases produced by the appliance. You can provide max- imum safety using an additional thermal spill switch attached to the baromet- ric. If flue gas leaks from the barometric damper control, the thermal switch will sense the increase in temperature and shut the unit down. Learn more about the Field Controls Type MG1 barometric dampe r control here: ncilink.com/MG1 -- by Casey Contreras, instructor, Nation- al Comfort Institute FIELD CONTROLS BAROMETRIC DAMPER CONTROLS Anyone who has encountered a gas- fired appliance in the field is familiar with a draft hood. Draft hoods have been linked to many health and safety issues within a dwell- ing, from people developing minor flu- like symptoms to more extremes includ- ing death. For a gas-fired unit to operate correct- ly, dilution air is a necessity. Air from the room must go through the draft hood and mix with the flue gas. The problem with draft hoods is they can’t control how much air goes in – there is a point where too much enters the draft hood and prevents the flue gas from exhausting the unit, creating CO. HIGH-PERFORMANCE PRODUCT REVIEW Written by HVAC Professionals for HVAC ProfessionalsThis approach goes beyond carrying a combus- tion analyzer if you want to check for carbon di- oxide. It requires knowledge of how HVAC sys- tems work. That’s what home performance is all about. When my team knocks on customers’ doors, they have the knowledge to properly use tools and instruments like the manometer, combus- tion analyzer, and airflow hood. They also under- stand what those readings mean and how they can use that information to solve customer prob- lems and deliver on that 100% satisfaction guarantee. A CULTURE OF TRAINING For Lakeside to do these things, we continually invest in training our technical team so we can provide custom- ers with a higher level of val- ue. Then we implement that training into our daily rou- tines on every sales call, in- stallation project, service, and maintenance job. We started doing this a long time ago, and though it was hard, it’s been super successful in the long run. It eventually BECAME our culture. We’ve been producing a better prod- uct since we implemented system performance. Measuring and testing static pressures, tem- peratures, airflow, and more on every call is just how we do business. It is now the norm. zOur guys can’t perform maintenance and fill out their checklist without doing performance testing and diagnosis zOur team can’t do a sales call without measur- ing ductwork. This is our standard. D id you know that you have a company culture, even if you don’t consciously create one? At the same time, you have a company brand, even if you never developed one on purpose. It doesn’t mean it’s good or bad; it just is. In the High-Performance HVAC contracting world, we focus on testing, measuring, and de- livering HVAC system performance to our cus- tomers. Our friends at National Comfort Institute will tell you that you must create and build a per- formance culture within your company to deliver the com- fort and energy efficiency that customers expect and deserve. In the marketing universe, this is having a brand cul- ture. The term refers to the promises, expectations, and goals which drive your com- pany. Your brand culture is your ethical compass as a business, the way you orga- nize your priorities, and even how you deliver meaning- ful experiences to employees and customers. At Lakeside Service, our brand revolves around providing 100% customer satisfaction every time. That relates to a performance contract inside our culture that says we must deliver that satisfaction and do it well. We’re always looking for better ways to do ev- erything from installing a furnace, designing ductwork, and performing maintenance to view- ing service problems from a holistic standpoint. That means we look at things like static pressure, airflow, and actual combustion numbers. 6 DECEMBER 2022HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY The Performance Approach: Your Culture, Your Brand ... By John Boylan MARKETING A Brand Culture refers to the promises, expectations, and goals which drive your company. Lakeside Service’s brand is 100% Customer Satisfaction. Our culture is High-Performance HVAC Contracting.DECEMBER 2022 7HVACTODAY.COM because of that.’ They do the numbers because people buy based on trusted testimony. For Lakeside, we promote our brand by sharing trusted testimony. ‘Your neighbors did this, and it worked. It’s up to you, but it’s worth doing.’ BRANDING USING THIRD-PARTY ENDORSEMENTS This portfolio approach is becoming part of our marketing. We also discuss our brand culture using third-par- ty endorsements and materials from organizations like National Comfort Institute. We use a lot of their collat- eral material to help raise consum- er awareness by finding ways to get them to ask about High-Performance HVAC before our team arrives at their house. This collateral includes facts like 80% of duct systems are sized improp- erly. Again, third-party experts make a case for us. We’re currently working on an email promotion for high-performance sales and installations. Anytime a custom- er sets an appointment for new equip- ment, we will send an email explaining how long the installation will take and why. We’ll present load calculations, recommendations from the Depart- ment of Energy, and so on. The email positions our sales- man to have a conversation with the homeowner. This is where the port- folio approach I am working on will come into play. In the meantime, part of that con- versation includes what makes Lake- side different. We go beyond showing our numbers and history. Our third-party partnerships also help set us apart in our marketplace. These endorsements show how our brand culture benefits the consum- er. For example, Lakeside Service partners with Pearl Certification. Pearl is an organization that makes high-performance home value visi- ble to help homeowners, contractors, builders, energy raters, and real estate professionals. It’s a tool for homeown- ers who want to understand how their homes perform, showing them how to improve that performance. Why do this? Because our competi- tors tell consumers they also do what we do, or some version of it. We’ve successfully used Pearl as a third-par- ty validation body to prove what we say is true. In our market, we’re the only Pearl Pro contractor. That means we get to tell consumers that a third party vali- dates our work and puts it on a registry. The homeowner can then use that to help improve the value of their house. In general, Pearl is raising the lev- el of awareness that not all HVAC jobs are equal. There’s a significant differ- ence between what Lakeside Service does and what other companies do. KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS When it comes to measuring how So, from an internal branding stand- point, we promote high performance through training and daily process. It’s how we do business. Everybody holds each other to that standard here. TAKING OUR BRAND AND CULTURE TO THE CUSTOMER But how do we turn that into some- thing the customer sees value in? We do that by documenting everything by creating something we call a port- folio. This portfolio is a collection of customer measurement data where we can show a percentage of improve- ment. Then we can market that to our team. What better way to explain why we do what we do? ‘Look how we made other custom- ers’ systems work better than if we had just changed out their equipment.’ Next, we plan to use this same in- formation in our external marketing. This will help educate customers on the benefits of our approach. By documenting it, we can show customers the facts. People are smart. If they see the average improvements we’ve made in other people’s homes, that will sell them. We can say, “Here are all our clients who had similar problems to yours, and what our process did to not only correct the problems but truly im- prove comfort and save them energy dollars. Here’s what these customers chose to do and how it improved their systems.” The portfolio also shows potential clients that other people are invest- ing money and fixing these issues with solid results. Think about those television com- mercials that promote numbers: ‘Nine out of 10 dentists recommend this 8 DECEMBER 2022HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY local trade school led to instructors discussing Lakeside as an example where students should want to work. The high-performance approach al- lows service companies to provide su- perior service and attracts employ- ees and customers. What young man or woman doesn’t want to work for an HVAC company that can find and solve customer issues that most oth- er companies can’t figure out? In the end, that’s where the rubber meets the road. All of these things have become part of our brand culture. Put anoth- er way; our internal culture is our brand. If you want to stand out and be the best, developing a high-per- formance culture and approach is among the best ways to do that. ETHICAL COMPASS Once you learn a truth, you can’t unlearn it. Once you know how performance testing works and use that approach successfully, people begin to believe in you and what you do. Our high-performance brand culture is Lakeside’s ethical com- pass and how we provide value to customers AND employees. I feel it’s our job to find ways to implement this, make it affordable, and get it to as many customers as possible. It’s sim- ply the right thing to do. MARKETING another tech will look at your mea- surements and then retest the system, you want to be sure to be accurate. WALKING THE WALK None of this happens overnight. It’s taken us years to learn to walk the high-performance walk. I found the secret was being intentional about it. You must consistently test, measure, diagnose, and repair, and – in our case – guarantee 100% satisfaction. You must deliver on your promises and prove them every time. Today this approach has a positive impact on our business. It improves re- ferrals, increases our team’s pride, and leads to our techs becoming craftsmen. And we promote the idea that their work is an opportunity to put their sig- nature on it like a real artist. Our guys have started to grab onto that. They take pictures of their work on nearly every job. When you walk the walk, the word gets out not only to customers but to potential employees as well. Our reputation and involvement with a successful we are, we track opportu- nities. We track jobs that convert into money: revenue from a sale or instal- lation, a service call, a plumbing call, or whatever. When it comes to system perfor- mance, once we complete our instal- lation and do the startup, we measure the system all over again. Those re- sults are returned to the office, exam- ined, and entered into our computer system. Data is only good if it is used. At Lakeside, somebody is always touch- ing this information. They may not be analyzing it, but it’s re- corded and used. Our number one metric is the callback percent- age. The lower that number, the better. Our Service Titan software tracks this. We also use online reviews as a key performance indicator. At Lakeside, customer feedback is critical. For example, if we sell a job and tell the customer that we will do x-number of things to improve comfort in a particular room by increasing airflow to this level, we then go back and verify it. We make sure it works. If it doesn’t work, we redo the work until it does. That goes back to our 100% satisfaction guarantee. How can we do this? We use checklists on every job to re- cord all the High-Performance HVAC measurements. When you use the same process on every job, your installers and service techs behave differently. They know their information is being record- ed and will be used by the next tech during annual tune-ups. Knowing that John Boylan is the gen- eral manager of Lake- side Service Company in Brighton, MI. The company specializes in designing, engineering, and installing complete comfort systems in new and existing homes. To contact John, go to ncilink.com/Contact Me.Next >