Question: Regarding ride-alongs with a comfort advisor, can you give us some ways to explain the additional person to the homeowner? We have done this in the past and found it to be a bit awkward.

Weldon Long, New York Times Bestselling Author:

That’s actually a really good question, and not one that I’ve gotten a lot. I’ve done a lot like Drew and, I don’t know if Gary has done as many ride-alongs because he’s more general business consulting and operations consulting and stuff like that. But I know Drew’s done a ton and, in fact, Drew did one with me, about 15 years ago.

What I can tell you is that I’ve only had one problem ever going on a ride-along. It was actually about six months ago, and the comfort consultant and I got to the front door, the guy comes out and he steps out on the doorstep and starts talking and says, “Well, you guys can figure out which one of you is coming in, but you’re not both coming in.” We thought he was joking, so we talked a few more minutes about whatever, and then the comfort consultant said, “Well, if we can come in we can get started,” and the guy says, “I told you, you guys can decide which one’s coming in, but you’re not both coming in.”

So he looked at me and I told him to just go in and take care of it. After the call, the comfort consultant called me, and the homeowner had actually apologized. But the reason he apologized is because he thought I was the closer and he had two sales guys coming in the house. That’s the only time I’ve ever had a problem.

Typically what I do, is I always tell comfort consultants or the service technician that I don’t want them to introduce me as a trainee, but I don’t want them to introduce me as the manager or boss. We don’t want the homeowner looking to me for questions, right, and thinking I’m the boss. But there are also going to be times when I jump in the conversation, so I need to have some credibility. So I’ve had it done a couple ways.

One way is I have the comfort consultant say this is Wally, he works with our company doing some customer service training or quality control, something like that.

Other times I’ve just had them say, “This is Wally, he’s going to be hanging out with me today.” I had one guy one time say, “This is Wally, he’s thinking about maybe coming to work for our company, transferring from Colorado.” Which I don’t’ exactly like because it’s not exactly true, I guess it’s kind of a shade of gray, so I wasn’t really comfortable with that.

As long as it’s accurate and true I’m comfortable with it, I just prefer not to be introduced as a trainee or a manager because I’m neither. The reality is I’m there essentially for customer service training, to make sure they’re dealing with their customers properly, having the right conversations. I find that’s a pretty effective way. And again I’ve only ever had one time when it’s been an issue.

I had a time once when I was training two guys in my company and I took them on a lead with me and I took both of them with. In that situation we actually called the homeowner ahead of time and asked if they would be OK with it. We did refer to them as trainees on that call, because they were trainees. But typically when I go, just typically “customer service representative,” or “he’s here to make sure I’m doing a good job today,” something like that. When we do it that way, I haven’t had many problems.

Drew, I can’t even imagine how many hundreds of these you’ve done over the last 20 years, kind of curious of your experience on that.

This is the weekly Ask the Experts free excerpt. To listen to all of this week’s call, or to see the schedule and register for future calls, click here.

The new year is here. What do you want in the next year — in terms of your business’s progress, your personal results, your income and beyond.

In the latest “clip of the week” from Cracking the Code, Weldon Long discusses the idea of goal-setting and ongoing training to ensure you get exactly what you want over the next twelve months.

Watch the clip below, and visit EGIA.org/Show to watch the full show, before it goes in the members-only archive on January 7.

The EGIA Foundation Scholarship Program, established to recognize the excellent and deserving students seeking careers in HVAC, is now accepting applications for its annual scholarship program, which provides $2,500 individual awards to students nationwide.
“We’re proud to announce that applications for this year’s EGIA Foundation Scholarship Program are now being accepted,” said Bruce Matulich, EGIA Foundation Board Chairman and CEO. “Although 91% of high school students plan to pursue a post-secondary education, 10% plan to enroll in a vocational program; even less will take an HVAC or construction related path,” Matulich continues. “The EGIA Foundation Scholarship Program hopes to bring publicity to the vast opportunities and lucrative starting salaries available, in addition to helping 20 students get a leg up on their career by supporting their education.”

EGIA Foundation Scholarship Press Release

Question: How should we compensate our managers?

Drew Cameron; President, HVAC Sellutions & Energy Design Systems, Inc.:

Interesting question. It’s a little generic, so I’m not really sure which department we’re talking about per se. But I guess whenever I talk about compensation, I always answer the same way: Compensation depends on the objectives that you’re trying to obtain, I would venture to say.

It’s going to vary by company and it’s going to be based on company objectives for position. So if you have a service manager or a sales manager or a CSR manager or an office manager or an installation manager, it’s going to vary based on that position. So it’s really hard to say based on the generality of that question – that it didn’t specify a specific manager.

But typically we’re going to recommend, in the EGIA world anyway, that we tie compensation to the objectives of the department and base it off of some level of performance based on departmental key performance indicators (KPI’s). That’s obviously going to include some level of salary, and then some level of performance-based components. And if you go into the EGIA Best Practices platform, there’s a video there that actually talks about pay plans. If you go in there and just search under the keywords “pay plan,” there’s about a 40-some-minute video that Gary has put together on this very topic.

But without having any more detail, that’d probably be the best answer I can give, which is, again: Salary, plus some level of performance-based components. And that would be tied to whatever key performance indicators for whichever department you’re trying to drive. And again, I wouldn’t make it an all-or-nothing proposition. If the departmental manager makes 80-85% of a stretch goal that you’ve set for the key performance indicator, then I would basically say, OK, there’s some level of reward, and then it ratchets up obviously based on the level of incremental increase above and beyond that 80-85% mark. And then if you go over 100% certainly that’s going to get you the highest level of bonus available there, and you can tie that bonus directly to the salary – maybe a percentage of the salary for each metric, or set it at a flat level for hitting each metric or each tier, if you will.

Without much more detail it’d be hard for me to say much more, but I’ll throw it over to Gary as well, because I know he’s something of an expert in this area.

This is the weekly Ask the Experts free excerpt. To listen to all of this week’s call, or to see the schedule and register for future calls, click here.

To effectively sell, you need to have faith. But how do you develop faith in yourself, your products and your services?

In the latest episode of Contractor Coffee Club, Mark Matteson lays out strategies for boosting the belief in what you’re doing, along with three other habits that are proven to boost your business. Plus, a discussion on the latest contractor survey results on how to choose equipment brands that yields a few valuable best practices.