In this episode, we dug deep into the mind of an industry veteran, Jim Fultz. With his 35+ years of HVAC experience, we shared an insightful discussion on the intricacies of business management and technical innovation within the HVAC sector.
Here are 3 Key Takeaways:
Listen now to gain industry insights that could transform your HVAC business approach and be sure to share the podcast with a colleague or friend!
#HVACRevealed #BusinessManagement #TechnicalInnovation #HVAC #Podcasts #IndustryExperts #ContinuousLearning
Find Jim:
On The Web: https://www.copeland.com/en-us
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimdfultz/
Join Our Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed
Presented By On Purpose Media: https://www.onpurposemedia.ca/
For HVAC Internet Marketing reach out to us at info@onpurposemedia.ca or 888-428-0662
Sponsored By:
Chiirp: https://chiirp.com/hssr
Elite Call: https://elitecall.net
Coach2Close: https://coach-2-close.com/
In this episode, we dug deep into the mind of an industry veteran, Jim Fultz. With his 35+ years of HVAC experience, we shared an insightful discussion on the intricacies of business management and technical innovation within the HVAC sector.
Here are 3 Key Takeaways:
Listen now to gain industry insights that could transform your HVAC business approach and be sure to share the podcast with a colleague or friend!
#HVACRevealed #BusinessManagement #TechnicalInnovation #HVAC #Podcasts #IndustryExperts #ContinuousLearning
Find Jim:
On The Web: https://www.copeland.com/en-us
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimdfultz/
Join Our Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed
Presented By On Purpose Media: https://www.onpurposemedia.ca/
For HVAC Internet Marketing reach out to us at info@onpurposemedia.ca or 888-428-0662
Sponsored By:
Chiirp: https://chiirp.com/hssr
Elite Call: https://elitecall.net
Coach2Close: https://coach-2-close.com/
Hey, welcome back to another episode of HVAC Revealed with Thaddeus and Evan. Okay. In one of the other intros and full disclosure, I didn't say HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. I missed out the revealed. So this time I just call it HVAC Revealed. So anyways, this is us. This is where we're at. We're tired. It's been a great expo at the AHR but. second to last podcast that we had on is Jim Fultz from Copeland and man, that guy can talk in a good way, in a good way. It was a fascinating conversation. Evan, what was your favorite part?
Evan Hoffman:Diving into the recession, looking at what is potentially ahead. And whether it's now or a year from now or five years from now. The fact is, is downturns in the market happen, but what is it that you're going to do about it? How is it that you're going to show up for your team? All of that is important and we dove into all of that.
Thaddeus Tondu:And the other part that I liked was the, touching on the emotions of failure and having to lay people off or fire people and it's a real thing, but we also talked about a few things that we can do in our day to day business and our day to day lives to help overcome that burden, to be able to lessen it on ourselves. Super important piece and then also in there profits. Talking about that too.
Evan Hoffman:Very important.
Thaddeus Tondu:But we want to hear from you leave a comment down below on what your favorite part of today's episode was. But first, a word from our sponsors. Chiirp, Elite Call and On Purpose Media. Let's go ahead and start with Elite Call and hey, look, they're a us based call center for the home services. They've actually been around for 20 years and been outbounding client databases, filling dispatch boards with service and sales opportunities, boosting memberships like no other they don't make just calls either. They actually directly integrate right into the business, integrate your CRM, giving you a seamless experience. So let Elite Call connect with your customers first, visit them today at elitecall.net.
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Thaddeus Tondu:Perfect! And if you want more opportunities, we'll hit us up onpurposemedia.ca, is where you want to go for that.
Evan Hoffman:But we definitely want to hear from you too. Let us know what you liked and enjoy the show.
INTRO:Welcome to HVAC Success Secrets Revealed, a show where we interview industry leaders and disruptors, revealing the success secrets to create and unleash the ultimate HVAC business. Now your hosts, Thaddeus and Evan.
Thaddeus Tondu:Hey, welcome back to another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed with Thaddeus and Evan. Where we have good conversations with good people and any good conversation bevvies. But a little too early. Evan's actually started, so there you go. He had a long walk hug lugging all of his suitcase. I didn't. I laughed. I got a good funny video of him. We're live at the 2024 AHR Expo in lovely Chicago and we have on Jim Fultz from, you guessed it, Copeland on in the background. He is the technical training specialist. You've been in the industry for 35 years ran two businesses sold two businesses as well. Moved across the country for a female. Welcome to the show, Jim.
Jim Fultz:Thank you. I appreciate it. You show, or you say how old I am within the industry and my favorite story, and some people have probably already heard this, is in 1992. I went to an RSCS class held in it was Montgomery County Joint Vocational Center at the time. It's MTC now, I believe. And they had a class on proper refrigerant usage that, that me and my mentor went to. Took the class. It was like an all day class. Took the test. Passed the test. Got a letter from RSCS that says, Congratulations on successfully passing the RSES refrigerant usage class. Although no guidelines currently exist, we feel confident that you will be grandfathered in should the EPA regulate refrigerants and so I like to tell people, I've been in the industry longer then refrigerants have been restricted.
Evan Hoffman:Here's a claim to fame.
Thaddeus Tondu:Oh, that is a good claim to fame.
Jim Fultz:Yeah, it makes me old.
Thaddeus Tondu:So walk us through a little, a brief history. I know we're talking before the show, but I want to hear from you, your brief history, in the industry.
Jim Fultz:So the industry was and I relatable thing to a lot in the industry. A lot of us have ADHD and in my era of time, it was not diagnosed and it's kind of interesting because I was at the ACCA Fall conference here in Indianapolis this last fall. Sitting in the back of the room with a couple of gentlemen that's older than me and the speaker's talking about how we're hands on people. We like to work with our hands and he says, and a lot of that can come with people that are ADHD and I turn to the guy beside me and I say, I found out when my son was diagnosed and he looks at me and says, me too and the old guy on the other side of him looks at us and says, me too and the reality is, we like working with our hands sitting at a desk, just, it's hard. We like being outside, we like being able to go in and out and that's where I found myself at graduation of high school and was excited to be able to go directly into trade school and learn a trade heating and Air was the trade that I picked at the time and I've never looked back. I had a mentor there in Eaton, Ohio where I grew up Dick Ashman was his name and wealth of information. I learned so much through my early years from him about the trade. And he's been that inspiration a little bit of where I've passed through in the 30 for 35 years here now of starting after the trade school, working for a company for a couple years, starting my own company there, running that seven years, selling it because of the now wife in California and being out there starting a second one and running with it and getting to the point going through what I call the Great Recession and I don't know if you have other stories that deal with people working through that or not.
Thaddeus Tondu:It depends on how long a business has been really around for and have they went through the great recession in 2009, and what happened there with everything in 2008 and that, and it's. It's a powerful thing because we're coming up to another recession. Yeah. It's a dirty word for a lot of people and some people right here, it's potentials right here and some people say well, okay, there is no recession. It's the first recession is between your ears, but there's other realities that it does happen and you mentioned some interesting statistics to me about what you went through and what you learned. So walk us through. I'm curious more on what happened during that time to you, to the business, and what you needed to pivot and adjust.
Jim Fultz:So here's the kicker of running a business on a high school education. It's a real challenge because a lot of techs say, hey, I know everything there is to know about this trade. I can work for myself and if I go out and make a hundred bucks today, I'm golden. It's covering today's bills and not understanding the business side of things. Not realizing that 30% of that job needs just simply to cover overhead and 30% needs to cover labor, 30% is your material cost, that's 90 and if you are over on any of those, then the 10% profit doesn't exist you're either breaking even or going backwards and understanding the business side of things is really a challenge of doing that. Some of the tips that I would say in, in running a business is get involved with flat rate pricing. Have your pricing up front. Get somebody that can get you a book together on, on what your pricing is.
Thaddeus Tondu:Shout out the new flat rate. Danielle Putnam.
Jim Fultz:There you go and because that is so beneficial and, your customers will love the fact that they're not guessing about how much that bill's going to be. They know before you start and so doing things like that, having that flat rate pricing, being able to pour time and investment into your technicians and some of that time is training in the shop. Some of that is field training and there's times that as a technician you can be out there and you put in a brand new board, turn the power on, and smoke comes out of that one too and it's I gotta go tell the boss I just smoked a board and a good boss is gonna look at that, and he's gonna look at that technician and say, Did you learn something? And if the technician can honestly say, yeah, I learned. The boss should be able to say it was worth it. You know what to do next time. Quote that I came up with years ago, that's the only personal quote I would put to my name, is simply this the only difference between professionals and do it yourselfers is do it yourselfers say oops out loud. It's okay to make the mistake, correct it, own it, be responsible and ethical with it, and move on and the challenge is with that, of how do you get through that, and how do you understand all of these numbers and everything going through a recession? For me, it was going back to college and actually getting an associate degree in business management and at that point, for anybody that's running a business right now, and it's oh, that, that would be huge for me. Here's the fun fact about it. You'll be in there with a whole bunch of teenagers, and you'll be pulling straight A's, and they'll be like, how does he do it? Is he studying? It's no, because I've experienced everything that the professor is teaching, and light bulbs are going off every day. It's ah that's what I should be doing there and you've already can relate in real life to what is being taught. Now you got the correct answers, the correct keys to go out and make it successful.
Thaddeus Tondu:And it's funny that you say that because I went, like I have a bachelor of management degree and a lot of what I learned in school, I Don't actually really apply in my business, but I imagine because of the experience, right? Because you go to experience and now you're going to now you're learning the principles. That's why people like executive MBAs, for example, after you've been in the workforce for such a long time that you go back and now you want to send a theory behind a lot of it, not just the application of it, which is smart. I'm curious, The New Flat Rate and Flat Rate Pricing and obviously I'm referencing The New Flat Rate themselves and so, yeah, and like just the things that they're doing over there, but The New Flat Rate versus Menu Pricing in how much of a difference menu pricing can make versus just straight flat rate pricing,
Jim Fultz:Give me a little definition of what you're talking about.
Thaddeus Tondu:Okay, so good, better, best
Jim Fultz:Good, better, best was always an option for me on installs. times that I would go out with a good, better, best, and the good, better, best was sometimes equipment, sometimes accessories and I actually did a quote once customer got three prices, their air conditioner was still working, but they knew it was going to be going out here in another year or two. They wanted to be ahead of the game with it. They got three prices. They called me up and they said all three prices were within like five hundred dollars of each other But they were all five thousand more than what we expected. So we're gonna wait a little bit longer But by the way, you gave an upgrade option of zoning and we sleep upstairs and are miserable every summer Is it possible to do that upgrade option as a standalone item? And I said well, it's we would be doing things during the install that would be labor that would go towards that so there would be additional labor from what that cost is there but we absolutely can take what you have and do it and turned around got the job. Just simply for the good better best the additional Upgrade option not necessarily nicer equipment, but the option to zone homeowner calls us two months later and said and this is several years ago, so utilities were We're still there, but not quite as bad. They said our summer month went from 400 last month to 100 the same month, this year, a year ago to this year, 400 to 100, they said, it's going to pay for itself. It's usually zoning on two, two levels where the second story is going to be 10 degrees warmer than the first story. It's five less than ten years that upgrade option for zoning pays for itself if you only have one system to do two stories and so those options are always there. There's options as far as upgrade options. There's contractors that I've talked to in recent years that, that they like to use the turbo capacitor because it's a more expensive capacitor, but it has a longer warranty and so they say, would you like to upgrade your capacitor with this one that has a longer warranty? And it's an up sale to the homeowner. They're making more off of the capacitor. They always have it on their truck because it's universal. And they're giving all their technicians a little spiff for every time they up sell something. And he was sharing that with me because I was sharing our universal Sure. Switch contactor, which is a multi volt contactor. The coil voltage is twenty four, a hundred twenty two 40 volt on the voltage. You can use any three on it, but it's got contacts in it that they have a eye sensor, a little light sensor, and every time the contacts open. If there's a spark, it will adjust itself on the sine wave. We have, let's go back to, trade school training here of AC signal where we have positive 120, negative 120. We're fluctuating across 0, 60 hertz, 60 times a seconds. And this sure switch contactor has the ability to adjust itself 1 60th of a second on that sine wave. And for the first 5, 6 times when the contacts open and it. Words that zero point where it's crossed and zero and so the end result is we've created a contactor that lasts five times Long as anything out there in the market as well as a contactor that's a completely sealed contactor and a contactor that has a five year warranty so this owner was like hey, let's put that on our premium upgrade for a contactor have it as an upsell and offer that five year warranty with it. Yep so up sales are good, better, best, absolutely. Homeowners need to be able to have those choices, whether it's a repair or a full blown system replacement. I'm all in for it.
Evan Hoffman:The old adage, right? People love to buy, but they hate to be sold to. When you present the options, just lay it out for them and say, hey, what do you want to do? What do you think? And you've led them along the way, asked them the right questions, found out that they were uncomfortable upstairs, so the zoning system makes sense, right? Now you can have those conversations, you can lay that out for them.
Jim Fultz:Absolutely and It's interesting because a lot of people have ideas of whether they want the best of something or they want to save the most money And you as a technician or a contractor in front of that person have no idea where they fall on that spectrum So to give them the option of something less expensive and something that's a premium They're like this guy's down my alley. I can pick and I can feel good because I save money or I can pick this because because I'm helping the environment with this energy, green energy heat pump.
Thaddeus Tondu:And they feel It's their choice. That's the other part. It's their choice to be able to do it. They don't feel pressured into making the decision.
Evan Hoffman:Before we get to the recession part, can we talk about failures quick?
Thaddeus Tondu:Yeah, sure.
Evan Hoffman:Sweet. You talked about the technician who burned the board, right?
Jim Fultz:Yes.
Evan Hoffman:Do you have a culture of celebrating failures at the company, right? Being able to celebrate and acknowledge that as the way of learning, like you pointed out, but is that a part of your culture in your business where you can then bring that technician into the room in front of all the other team members and have them tell what it is that they did and what they learned? Because there's two ways you learn from your own mistakes and from other people's mistakes.
Jim Fultz:And one of my favorite contractors I visited since I've, transitioned from being a contractor to helping other technicians and contractors is the one that in their office they have the wall of shame
Evan Hoffman:What did I do?
Jim Fultz:There you go your tip of the day for contracting business here put a wall of shame up and brag about it and make it so that We learned from that. It wasn't shame on you. It was we learned from that.
Evan Hoffman:Correct one and I was only up there once.
Jim Fultz:There you go.
Evan Hoffman:Yeah. That's the thing. I learned my lesson and it never happened again.
Jim Fultz:Yeah. Remember that guy? Yeah. The one that filled that half of the board. Yeah.
Thaddeus Tondu:But here's the other part about that too. It's not just the failures they have within there, but also the idea failures, right? A lot of times. It's when you're gathering intel from the field and gathering ideas in your techs and your CSRs and your dispatchers and everybody in the business is also creating a culture of bringing ideas. Not every idea that's going to get brought forward is going to be a good idea. Google X labs, good example. They want, they actually celebrate when ideas and projects that they start get canceled or fail because they want more ideas from it. I mean, You take a hundred ideas and 90 of them are going to be dog shit. You're going to try 10 of them and one to two of them are going to stick, but if you only have 10 ideas, you have less things that you're going to implement in your business. And so that's the other part is encouraging that culture of ideas from every part of it
Jim Fultz:Of being willing to make it work and the challenge as a company owner, how do you implement that? Because the reality is a quote from my father in law who runs a 50 plus employee garage door business in Northern California. If it's your idea, it'll work and so the key is to take this idea that you have as a company owner, plant the seed in those technicians, in those employees, and wait for them to come back to you and say, Hey boss, what do you think about this? And it's great idea.
Evan Hoffman:That's a great idea.
Jim Fultz:Why don't you try that?
Thaddeus Tondu:And even if the idea is 80 percent of what you would want, their plan, their execution on their plan at 80 percent of what your idea and your plan is, it's going to be way better than you giving them the idea and executing on it. And that's Jocko Willink, Leadership Strategies and Taxes, great book, he talked a lot about that. Now, if it's 50%, okay. More questions for them to come up with the ideas for the solutions themselves. So that plan to get it to an 80 percent and now they execute on it. They're going to be way more bought in than you just telling them what to do.
Jim Fultz:Absolutely. If it's your idea, it'll work.
Thaddeus Tondu:Yeah. A hundred percent. So in transitioning back to that to that recession part of things coming up to what we're talking about and I think you'd mentioned the flat rate pricing is one of the big things that a person can put in place. What is something that, one thing or two things that you did in 2009 that would be still applicable today? I think a lot of contractors already moved to the new flout rate and they just now to get to that menu of good, better, best and so looking at something that might be timeless that happened then that is still applicable today that they can learn from.
Jim Fultz:Absolutely and part of that is continuing education. We are here in the trades. To learn our entire, I'm still learning. Just continue going to classes, going to training, take the time to go to events, sit in sessions. I'm here helping with a booth. I've been over in the sessions myself, learning more of how to do my job better and that's, that ongoing learning is something. I got a wall in my home office full of all these certificates from, and half of them would be from distributors. That I went in for a half a day or a day class and actually got a certificate for being able to go in and learn something more and so that learning never stops and continuing as a company owner, embrace that culture of learning. Be willing to invest the time into your technicians. So that they can go and get some more, education and that's really a challenge. But it starts with you as a company owner. And if you're out there as a company owner, and you're doing it on a high school education, invest in yourself. Because one of the hardest things of the recession was that I got these people that are family, and I gotta tell them, sorry, I don't have work for you. And it's hard and if you don't understand the books, you don't understand the numbers, what was happening was, I was trying to keep them as long as I could, and I was keeping them on the payroll, but the billable hours weren't there and the financial stress that was put on me as a business owner, trying to keep these guys feeling responsible for keeping food on their table. was robbing food off of my own because I didn't have my own knowledge of how to run a business, how to be a business manager. So the first investment technician turned into a company, take the time, get that education, learn what the numbers need to be so that you can be successful in your company. Biggest lesson I learned out of the Great Recession was that. Was that you always want to be Mr. Nice Guy, and there's a place for that. But at the same point in time, it's a business, and you gotta run it as a business not as a family feeding trough.
Thaddeus Tondu:And, there's two things that I want to to touch on there, and one is the numbers part of things, right? And there's a lot of There's free education out there these days and a lot of good individuals and good programs and YouTube that a person can learn. So if you're, they don't necessarily have to go the route that you went and going to college and taking that, that on the side, they can learn those things by a course, find a program somewhere and learn it. It doesn't have to be a university level education or just ask others that have went through it. Ask other business owners. Billy Stevens is a good example. When you look at Sera systems and what he does in Billy Go and if anybody reaches out. He'll either, he'll create the time, help them understand and learn some of those things. But the other part I want to touch on is the individuals and keeping them on payroll longer than you should have. Big lesson, I'm sure, and I know the number that you shared before, you had to lay off staff. What's the It's never easy having to lay off staff or fire individuals. It's probably one of the worst things that I've ever had to do as a business owner myself is fire people, especially when they're good people, but you just, they're not maybe the right fit or they're not cutting it or in this case layoffs. What's the psychology like? How did you go about making sure that you internally were okay with that decision?
Jim Fultz:That was where the lack of education was the whole hiccup was because by the time I was laying them off financially it was affecting me and at that point it was like I don't have the option I have to do this and so the layoff, even though it might have seemed painful to lay them off as a friend, an employee. If I didn't, it was going to be more painful for me and so at that point, it was just the lesser of two evils and so to lay off when you're not in that role, that would be difficult. But at the same point in time, once you have the education of running a business, and you understand those numbers, and understand it's the business, I've sold the company since. My employees have went to various other companies, a good bit of them, I know where they're working today and they're happily employed, very possible the same thing could have happened at that point in time. They would have found other jobs and when I did lay them off, they did. It was just going through that step of feeling that level of responsibility and then recognizing with the education that your role is to run a company and make a profit. Your role is, you are not required to make X amount of people in this country an income.
Thaddeus Tondu:I mean, that's the emotional side, right? And it's so good to understand and tell yourself that thing, right? And I think more people need to hear that message is that, hey, it's okay. Did you ever feel like a failure when you had to do that?
Jim Fultz:It was hard, yeah. It was. It was like, what's going on here? It, there was a lot of frustration through all that because we were in a booming housing market and we had all of these companies that were doing tract homes, which I'll try to refrain from talking about the level of quality that could have showed up there and all of a sudden the track homes are, business is gone and that level of technician that's used to his job going out and running a thermostat wire and going to the next house and that's all he's done. And now he's being thrown at custom homes and people that are used to running duct work with chainsaws are in custom homes that may be an exaggeration a rabbit trail side story was the gentleman, he was a wild Western and actually he hit fifth of the fastest draw in the state of California in gunfighting and we went to replace a window unit that was in the middle of his bedroom wall once and the installers opened up the back of their truck and he's looking there and he says, You don't have the right tools and they're like, yeah, we got everything we need. He says, No. He says, You know how I put that in? Shotgun and chainsaw. Oh, Jesus. And it's no, I'm sorry, Gerald. We're not going to put a shotgun and chainsaw on our truck.
Evan Hoffman:Yeah, that's funny.
Jim Fultz:But that's where the term hacker came in and so that was the level, a different level installation technician. Their work's gone. Now they're coming in and they're taking the work of what used to be what used to be. A premium system that was sold for a premium price and those were drying up for us. There was, we were getting undercut on our bread and butter jobs and there was nothing we could do about it. That was probably the most disheartening thing was when we're working for a general contractor on a custom home and We have all of these different trades that are in there with us and I'm looking at some of these trades that this general willingly brought in from another sector and the homeowner is oh, I'm sure hoping that they'll get some plumbing done We haven't had a shower in two weeks And it's so your plumbing contractor left you without any bathroom at all in your home yeah and that was the level of quality that was shifting in 2009 into the sector that was supposed to be custom homes and custom remodels and that was probably the most disheartening thing was seeing those types of homes getting the lesser quality of customization in them.
Thaddeus Tondu:Yeah. That's the thing that like the boom, right? And you have a boom and then you're having people trying to slap it together to keep up and then everything happens from that. And so and look, everybody goes through in business and if you listen to this right now and you're feeling like this next question is for you because this is going to be a real thing for you potentially coming up in 2024. How did you pull yourself out of it?
Jim Fultz:So it was, rising above it and staying above it and not going down to the level of where it was at and there were jobs that I would go out to a classic example, an older subdivision in our main town there in California that was built in the fifties. They had heat only air conditioning wasn't even put in these homes. So they had a hard pipe underneath the floor, four and five inch round duct to every room and the homeowner is saying, hey, I want to upgrade and add air conditioning and I go down there in Crawl Space and look at that and say, we need to upgrade all your ductwork. It doesn't have the capacity to handle the airflow you need, and your register size is too small for your throw and everything. It all needs to be increased and I'm one of three quotes and the other two quotes say, oh no, your ductwork's fine. We just put the air conditioner in and so I addressed that with the owner. I said, I'm not going to give you air conditioning until I can address that and he said my other quote said they would. But one did say that if the air flow was a little low, that they could increase my return air and it was like good luck and so the emotion with that is, I'm not going to go to that level. I'm going to sleep at night because I know that when I'm done with the job and it's got my name signed on it that the quality is there, and I maintained that clear throughout the history of work.
Thaddeus Tondu:A good thing because you're going to see the, and I have a feeling that people are going to lower some of their prices coming up here just to get jobs, to be able to keep food on the table and so knowing that you need to maintain your quality and your standard, what about the emotional side of laying off individuals and having to recover from that, the feeling like a failure and having to recover from that? What would you tell somebody who feels like that right now?
Jim Fultz:At this point keep doing what's right. Keep doing a good job. it'll come back and you'll get it back. If you're doing the right thing, you get rewarded for it. Sometimes it takes time. Sometimes it's working through things and sometimes it's education to get there. Maybe I needed to learn something more for me, it was going back and getting a degree in business management that allowed me to see that, that allowed me to take a company In 2009 that was actually before that, let's go back to like 2005. And the income I was coming off of with a dozen employees and then going through that recession and then coming out in 2017 with six employees, with half the employees, and making the same net profit in 2017 with six employees that I had with 12 employees in 2005. So it's learning. It's understanding where you need to be and my old mentor in Eaton, Ohio used to say, profit is not a dirty word. We all need it. That's what we're here for, really and so don't be afraid of it. Embrace it, move forward with it and see what you can do with it.
Thaddeus Tondu:Don't be an accidental non profit.
Jim Fultz:Absolutely.
Evan Hoffman:But that's how you can take care of your people. It is. That's the bonuses, the trips, the whatever it is, the parties, gifts, et cetera, that you can do for them. It comes out of that profit. If that profit isn't there, you can't do anything extra to take care of them. So it's incredibly important, which comes back to the beginning, which says, know your financials. Do you know your numbers?
Jim Fultz:Do you know your numbers? Yeah.
Thaddeus Tondu:Technical training specialist, Copeland. What's that involve? What's it do? What's Copeland working on? What's, we're here at AHR, so.
Jim Fultz:So this has been an interesting challenge because technical training specialist at Copeland, I was hired prior to the sale of Copeland last May, when the residential and commercial heating and air division was sold off. It was spun off and we're stand alone at this point and so our stand alone company name is Copeland. However, we have multiple companies underneath that umbrella name. One of them being Copeland, the compressors. Another being White-Rodgers, which is the electronic controls, Sensi Thermostat, White-Rodgers thermostats, gas valves, and cooling products like filter dryers, TXVs we still have a full line of product for a lot primarily residential heating and air and so I actually was hired under the White-Rodgers name in St. Louis, Missouri. When I introduce myself I'm trying to do it. I'm Copeland White-Rodgers. We're tying those two names together so we know what department that I come out of. And, my company was to the point my growth was good. However, I was running ads non stop for a whole year and finding labor was extremely difficult that is and I think there's different people combating that different ways, whether they're trying to bring on people and train them themselves there's a lot of good ideas out there of how to do that. But I decided with the knowledge I had of 30 years experience at the time, I would be better off being able to share my passion, share this experience with other people with a broader audience than just simply the half a dozen employees that I had at the time and so the business was sold and I took on a role of tech support and training for Northern California. Did that for a year when this opportunity to come work for, White-Rodgers was available and interviewed with them and so I counted a privilege to be able to be here and to be able to share what I've learned over the last 35 years in heating and air with anybody in the industry out there that, you got a question, you don't understand how something works I might not have the answer, but there's a lot of things that I have been through in all these years that I can help work through for training and I like to think of myself as somebody that you got a problem, hey, give me a call I'm out there to help. I do training. The nice part is with the Northern California job, I was doing training and tech support was very busy because I was the first line of defense at White-Rodgers. We do have a tech support team. Which I do a lot of the training for them and they take care of a couple levels there and if it gets to the point that it's beyond what they can walk through and help, then it comes to me so I still do tech support. I'm just the last line it's the buck stops here and I get the fun ones. Which I really like because I like the hard challenges. that's part of what I do. I also have that field experience. The engineers I work with, great people and their role is to understand all of the circuits inside of a circuit board. But when you get it in its environment with a gas valve, pressure switch, transformer, all that, it's beyond the scope of what they've created and that's where I can come in and help there at headquarters with function testing of new prototypes, if there's a hiccup of any sort. I get to go in the lab, recreate it, and work the solution out of how to make it so that when we're launching this product, we're launching it as flawless as possible. And fun job.
Thaddeus Tondu:It sounds neat because you're gathering the data set from all different places, right? And we were chatting beforehand that you're gathering the data from the field. You're gathering the data from the lab. You're gathering the data from the tech support and you're pooling it all together and you're making the connection between the three point, The three points to be able to make the product better.
Jim Fultz:So a plug for me here. If you got a White-Rodgers or a Sensi thermostat gas valve electronic control and there's something that it doesn't seem like it's doing quite right or something you wish it did that it's not doing. Shout out to me, reach out to me you can get me through White-Rodgers. You can get me on LinkedIn and, share what you'd like to see or what you want, because as a former contractor, it was like man, I wish I had an inroad into that manufacturer where I could say, Hey, why aren't you thinking about doing this? Why don't you have this included in that product? I'm the man I got the wonderful privilege of being the guy that will take those solutions and be able to give that feedback back to the designers, the product managers, and make that product better and anything we can do to make the product better, easier one of the things these new terms that, I didn't have out as a technician. What's the pain points of that job? What are you trying to solve for? And if I can identify pain points and it's something that's solvable, we'll put it in the product. Classic example, the, our latest integrated furnace control board. The full IFC that does the blower, the as well as the burner operations. We created it without harnesses so that any manufacturer of the 550 SKUs that it crosses over, can plug directly into the board. It will auto configure itself to identify what furnace it's in so you don't even have to do any programming for that. The only programming you get to do either on board or through an NFC app is to tell it that it's a PSC or an ECMX or X13 blower motor and then what the heat off delay settings are because your heat off delay settings on every board whether it's OEM or universal is typically What, 180, you gotta pick how long you want it to run before it shuts off. You still have to put that into this board but the really cool feature about this board is, and I'll back up one more step, for quite a few boards we've actually put pins on our universal boards where you can take a DC voltmeter, touch the pins, and it's one volt DC converts to one microamp. You could read your microamp reading of your flame current without ever taking the flame current sensor circuit apart. This new board not only has those pins, but it also, in the microchip, converts it to what the reading is and displays it on the display of the board. Without even pulling a meter out, as soon as you've got live fire, you look at the display on the board and it flashes between HT for heat and C, number dot number. You've got the flame current reading right there while it's live fire without a meter and that's, to me, that's a pain point that we solved. We solved the ability of something that's It's hard to understand, hard to do. How do you get that reading? What is that reading? Where should that reading be?
Thaddeus Tondu:That's a lot of questions, sorry.
Jim Fultz:But and to answer that last one, where should it be? We like to see it, I like to see it between one and a half to four or five. That's a good range. Can it be less than one? Yes, it can. 0. 5, but if you're. Below one, you should be looking at that sensor and looking at cleaning it and doing something with it.
Thaddeus Tondu:But it gives somebody the data that's right in front of them.
Jim Fultz:It is.
Thaddeus Tondu:They don't, it, simplifies things.
Jim Fultz:It does.
Thaddeus Tondu:It makes it easier so you can spend more time on the more important parts.
Jim Fultz:Absolutely. Yep. Absolutely and with that board, you also get the ability for it to read error codes and give you numbers to match up on a legend on the front of the control so that when your technician's going out, and it's oh, it's quit working. What is it? And you look at the control says E 18. It's what is that? Oh, high limit out and you already have the circuit where the issue is known from the board and you're that much closer to a accurate diagnosis rather than starting to go, is it this, is it, guess, trying to guess where it's at the benefit of being able to do that on those controls is things that we have done everything we can to alleviate those pain points.
Evan Hoffman:Yep. Makes sense. Yeah. How can we make the tech's life easier? And it's a great example again of coming back to the whole idea of the recession. How can you pivot? What new ideas can you come up with? You're going to try a whole bunch of shit. Some of it's not going to work, and that's okay, keep moving forward. Hopefully it wasn't the one that crippled your company and you were able to pull out early enough. But,
Jim Fultz:I survived it. I survived it and made it through and made it a success one more plug for that, for business owners. The success was the maintenance contracts, right? If you want a sellable product, if you want to look forward to the time that you want to retire out of your business and have a sellable product, a sellable business to sell, the larger volume of annual contracts you can have is the most valuable thing asset that you can add to a company.
Thaddeus Tondu:Yep I would agree with that.
Evan Hoffman:Especially the ones that are eight year units or older.
Jim Fultz:Yes. your Income for the following.
Thaddeus Tondu:Well it having the data on your maintenance agreements to know which ones are eight years and older that's the other that's the other key part.
Jim Fultz:Okay, it is so
Evan Hoffman:So you mentioned LinkedIn. Is there anywhere else where you want people to get in touch with you?
Jim Fultz:Right now that's, that's my main, main spot. I'm working on Instagram. I'm not sure how well that's going.
Evan Hoffman:You're not doing the TikTok dances yet?
Jim Fultz:Not doing TikTok yet.
Thaddeus Tondu:So we're not going to bust out a, bust a song out and you can do one right here? It's okay. I wouldn't do it.
Jim Fultz:Yeah, might embarrass my kids, right? So they are like dad.
Thaddeus Tondu:Jim. So LinkedIn White-Rodgers via the website there. Thank you for taking the time. I know when we chatted Monday night and we're like, got to get you on the podcast and thank you for taking the time. Thank you for making the time to add it to your schedule at AHR. But before we wrap up, we do have one final question here for you.
Jim Fultz:All right.
Evan Hoffman:What is one question that you wished people would ask you more, but they don't?
Jim Fultz:This is supposed to be ongoing conversation. I'm not supposed to stop and think about this. Probably one of the things I already alluded to is the fact that just simply ask the question. If there's something you don't understand about anything technical about a system, it's the refrigeration cycle, whether it's there's things I'm getting ready to teach a couple classes at HVACR Symposium and HVAC Excellence on understanding dual fuel and one of the biggest challenges that I think that's not being addressed yet is understanding what we call refrigerant stacking and that's the simple fact that a condenser condenses vapor to a liquid and we got this big coil outside that can hold all this liquid and if we're not a matched system, the inside coil, it can be half that size and we're supposed to have all this liquid in a condenser. The inside coil turns to the condenser in the heat mode. Where's that refrigerant go? And if it's not a matched system, or if it's a system that's improperly charged, that coil is designed for a specific charge. If you got too much in there, you're going to have higher head pressure, you're going to have a higher electric bill. If you don't have enough in there, it's not going to be creating the heat that it should be, and you're going to be less efficient and understanding that liquid's being stored inside in the wintertime, you gotta have enough storage space, and don't try to be matching things up that don't have an AHRI number on them. Because you're doing your homeowner a big disservice and you're gonna be scratching your head saying, Nah, heat pumps, they don't work.
Thaddeus Tondu:And it starts with three words or four words. I don't understand. I need help with.
Jim Fultz:Yep.
Thaddeus Tondu:And it's okay to say those words. You're, as in the words of Uncle Joe Crisara, your ego is not your amigo.
Jim Fultz:That's right.
Thaddeus Tondu:And check your ego at the door. Just ask those questions, right? When you ask those questions, when you put yourself out there, Now you're gonna, people are gonna, they're gonna help you, right? Because you're willing to seek the help.
Jim Fultz:And so, you know, I just count it a privilege to be a part of a, an organization where I can help nationally. I can get out there and can help start, and I think as time goes on, you will see me more out in different parts of the country doing different classes, being able to help that way and any way that I can help out that's what I'm here for. I, the experience is there, and now it's time to share it with anybody I can.
Thaddeus Tondu:Excellent.
Evan Hoffman:Well, thanks so much, Jim. Appreciate the time.
Thaddeus Tondu:And until next time.
Evan Hoffman:Cheers.
Thaddeus Tondu:Well, that's a wrap on another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. Before you go, two quick things. First off, join our Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed. The other thing, if you took one tiny bit of information out of this show, no matter how big, no matter how small, all we ask is for you to introduce this to one person in your contacts list. That's it. That's all one person. So they too can unleash the ultimate HVAC business. Until next time. Cheers.