by Jim Hinshaw
Just completed a trip to the Daikin factory, and listened to a group of our coaches share stories on how the business was going. We hear of many companies who have had a hard time getting equipment, not all sizes and efficiencies but just random combinations are not always available. So I always ask, how is the inventory today, are you getting what you need. The answers vary, but on this trip I was surprised with a couple of companies who said they have not had a problem in the last couple of years. Both of them shared the same story, in fact, an identical story. These are companies that have been around for a decade or more, one is 4 million, the other was even larger. Not in the same market, but both do residential service and replacement. Here is what they had in common.
They both have a system for budgeting growth, they do it without fail. They look at history, see how many calls they ran in a certain time frame, what sort of weather patterns were at that same time. That gives them an idea of what to expect, a base line if you will. Then they look at growth, and in some cases it was significant. 25% in a given month, averages out that in the year. On the other hand, one of these was moving from $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 in one year. Now they know what they have to produce in sales in a month, week, even a day. They know their average ticket and average sale, close rate, all the KPIs. That lets them know how many additional calls they need per day. They use several different types of lead generation, but they are not as concerned about the way they are going to produce those leads, but the results are what is key.
They call, send texts, email, direct mail, social media, every type of marketing and lead generation was used. One company had a “emergency marketing plan” for when they did not get the numbers needed for the month. That involved calling past customers, asking for business. The quickest way and surest way to put some dollars on the board. By the way, Low Hobaica says he touches each customer every month with some sort of marketing message. Every month, 12 times per year. Some automated, many are put in motion buy the office. Yes, you heard me right, 12 times. I speak in front of many groups, the overwhelming majority, when I ask if they reach out to their customers, is yes, twice a year. Any more and we will run them off. Please don’t tell Lou that, he may stop doing 12 times a year.
Back to my example. What really made the difference was these companies went to their distributor and shared their business plan for growth, which included selling that distributors’ products. They asked how many did that sort of growth projections. Answer was, not many. Actually, in one case, no one. The benefit was that the distributor saw them as a partner, not a transaction. They had a relationship. Which helped them get equipment when others cannot, it makes good business sense on so many levels.
Now, on another concept completely, I had the distinction of being auctioned off at our International Roundtable recently held in Nashville, Tn. Sorta like a bachelor auction. Only the proceeds went to the Joseph Groh Foundation, a charity we support. Joe Groh was a Lennox rep who was riding his mountain bike on father’s day a few years ago, hit a rock, went over the handle bars, broke his back, not able to move below the neck. Instead of giving himself a pity party, he decided to give back to the industry that had been good to him. He founded the Joseph Groh foundation to benefit people in the trades who have suffered life-changing injuries.
One of the goals for the Foundation was to help members from coast to coast, they have helped people in both the West coast and East coast, totaling $1 million dollars to date. It was good to be involved with the Foundation and working with Jerry Kelly Air Conditioning at the same time. We had fun, 15 techs, some office staff, a great team. They have about a 30% market share, trending to $20 million this year. All in a small town of St. Charles just outside of St. Louis, Mo. (70,000 population in 2021).
So why would they want to spend a day in the office, working on sales concepts, when they already have 30% market share? And in May, when it was in the 80s while I was there, the season has started. Turns out they spend $250,000 per year on training. That breaks down to $5000/week, $1000/day, about $100/hour! Every hour of every day, all year long. To say they are believers in training is an understatement, they own it.
We did sales and service training, how to approach the customer, handle the typical objections, it got interesting, but no one left the room crying. One interesting side note is that Jerry Kelly has the color purple as their official color; vans, shirts, goodie bags are all purple. Why? That is the official Alzheimer’s charity color. They support that charity, and $1 from each service ticket goes to help fight that illness. What is your “why”, why do you do what you do?
My question to you is this: when did you last do a training project with your team? Could be a 1 hour session, or partial day, or some sessions last days at a time. If you cannot say for sure, get some dates on the calendar. Yes, even now, the summer is already here, but a small time spent working with the team can pay huge dividends. Thanks for listening, we’ll talk later.
