Modern Hydronics A different take on marketing
Dan Foley, Foley Mechanical, Inc, Lorton, Va. A
few years ago, I was riding to a job site with my good friend Bill Burton, my current Warmboard rep, who at the time worked for Danfoss. We were
meeting with an engineer to review the mechanical plans for a large residential new construction project for the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. We were also installing the mechanical system in an adjacent 12,000-sq.-ft. private art gallery. Bill commented to me, “Most contractors have one ulti-
mate showcase project that they do in their career. You have three in progress right now. How do you get these jobs?” That got me thinking. How did I get these jobs? To
answer this question, I had to backtrack a bit. A little over a third of my business is large engineered projects. Some have timelines measured in years. It wasn’t by accident. It wasn’t by luck. Allow me to share my story.
When there is dissent about the mechanical system design in front of a client, he loses confidence in all involved. No one wins. When an elegant solution is presented by a common front, the client sees a professional team working together. This is what a client is looking for. It makes price, as well as your competition, secondary issues. You are now in the driver’s seat.
First, let me say that this has worked for my company in
my market. It may not work for your company or in your market. Each company and each market is unique. You may find it useful to evaluate what worked for me, find the nugget that will work for you and apply it to your business. If you were to review my 2010 end of year P&L state-
ment, you would see that I spent a total of $2,289.50 on promotion and advertising. That is about 1/10 of 1% of our $2.5M gross sales. That meager amount was spent on a “Find-A-Contractor” ad and for some display advertising that supported a trade association. Zero was spent in the following areas: yellow pages, newspaper, print, radio, direct mail, TV, Internet, Google or any other traditional media. I can hear the marketing gurus howling already. “You
can’t run a business that way! You are an idiot! You are crazy!” They may be right, but not for that reason. I “spend” plenty on marketing but not the way you think. I spend it with my time. In particular, time spent forging relationships with architects, engineers, manufacturers, reps and wholesalers. This time has paid dividends tenfold.
Page 28/Plumbing Engineer Beware! “Relationship building” is a two-way street.
Case in point, back in the mid ’90s, I was working on a radiant project. Radiant was new and exciting, and I was just getting my feet wet. I had attended several training classes, went to John Barba’s three-day advanced radiant course and immersed myself in the study of all that was radiant. The architect on this project hired a mechanical engineer to design the system. This experienced engineer knew hydronics, but it was soon apparent that he had little experience with radiant floor heat. There were some key mistakes in the piping flow diagram, and the control strat- egy would not work as drawn. Rather than approach this engineer in private and dis-
cuss a solution, I made sure I let everyone involved in this project know how smart I was by pointing out the engi- neer’s mistakes. This included the owner, architect, gener- al contractor and anyone else who would listen. I went out of my way to embarrass this engineer. What I didn’t real- ize then, but am acutely aware of now, is that all I did was make an ass out of myself. We finished this project and installed the radiant system properly. We never did another project for this architect, engineer or GC. The architect is still in business 10+ years later, and I still have not done work for him. To this day, I regret what I did, and I learned from my mistake. My immaturity cost me this client, but I learned from
my mistake and moved forward. I now spend many hours working as a team with architects and engineers. We have design meetings where we hash out design issues, mechan- ical system strategy, duct and piping layouts, controls, etc. in private. We then present a common solution to the owner. When there is dissent about the mechanical system
design in front of a client, he loses confidence in all involved. No one wins. When an elegant solution is pre- sented by a common front, the client sees a professional team working together. This is what a client is looking for. It makes price, as well as your competition, secondary issues. You are now in the driver’s seat. I help architects with the mechanical design. I have sev-
eral key contacts that I work with on a regular basis. I don’t get all of their projects but I get my share. For example, one local jurisdiction will not issue a building permit with- out a mechanical design and load calculation. I help sever- al architects with this mechanical design (for a fee), and it puts me first in line for the mechanical contract. I have found that it is a lot easier to close the deal when you are bidding your own design. I work with two local mechanical engineers as well. I
share my areas of expertise with them, and I learn just as much from them in their areas of expertise. This team approach leads to better design, better solutions, and it gets me to the front of the line when they are referring mechan-
Continued on page 30 October 2011
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76