Home
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
ENERGY
anting home
performance
energy
oEPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
HOME
PERFORMANCE
WITH
ENERGYSTAR
HOME
PERFORMANCE
CONTRACTOR'S
Business Development Guide
MARKETING I SELLING I BUSINESS OPERATIONS I GROWING A BUSINESS
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Business Development Guide
PREFACE
American Prosperity is
Linked to Energy Efficiency
The home performance
contracting opportunity
is here and now.
by Ed Pollock and Patricia Plympton
Residential buildings represent 22% of overall U.S. energy
use (2008 Buildings Energy Databook). Many states are
planning to use the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act (ARRA) to improve residential energy efficiency. ARRA will
stimulate a variety of unprecedented activities across the country
that will support home performance contracting and encourage
consumer demand for home energy improvements. Now is an
ideal time to get into the home performance contracting /energy
efficiency home improvement business.
California, Kentucky, and Florida are examples of states
planning to implement or support a residential retrofit program
such as Home Performance with Energy Star (HPwES) using
ARRA resources. These and other programs include:
• launching a statewide program such as HPwES or support-
ing utility-sponsored HPwES and similar programs;
• developing solicitations for proposals from local govern-
ments which support energy improvements;
Good contractor
improve homes.
Great ones improve
the earth.
By participating in Home Performance
with ENERGY STAR1, more and more
home improvement contractors are
delivering comprehensive, cost-effective
solutions that make homes more
energy efficient, lower utility bills, and
increase comfort—all while helping
to protect the environment. Learn more
about how you can join them at
www.energystar.gov/homeperformance
ENERGY STAR*, sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
and the U.S. Department of Energy, helps us all save money and protect
our environment through energy-efficient products and practices.
• providing combinations of incentives such as rebates and
loan programs; and
• implementing educational outreach to homeowners and
contractor training programs.
"When it comes to saving money and
growing our economy, energy efficiency
isn't just low hanging fruit; it is fruit lying
on the ground. The most prosperous,
competitive economies of the 21st century
will be those that use energy efficiently.
It's time for America to lead the way."
—Secretary Steven Chu, U.S. Department of Energy, June 29, 2009
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE's) Building Technolo-
gies Program (BTP) has released solicitations seeking innova-
tive solutions to increase the number of home energy retrofits in
U.S. communities and accelerate BTP's research goals towards
achieving net-zero energy homes. (See more information below
on the DOE BTP Funding Opportunity Announcement).
The Home Performance Contractor's Business Development
Guide offers extensive insight, revealing why now is a terrific time
to consider adding home performance contracting to your busi-
ness. This Business Develop-
ment Guide shows the value
of adding home performance
contracting to your business ARRA activities that support energy retro-
model and there is no better fits-www.energy.gov/recoveryorwwwl.
time to capture that business eere.energy.gov/recovery
than now & State Energy Pr°grarns - www.energy.
ca.gov, www.energy.ky.gov, myfloridacli-
mate.com
U.S. DOE's Building Technologies Program
- http://www.energy.gov/energyefficien-
cy/buildings.htm
FedConnect, https://www.fedconnect.
net/FedConnect/ Funding Opportunity
Announcement (No. DE-FOA-0000099,
Recovery Act: Building America Energy
Efficient Housing Partnerships).
For more information:
HOME
PERFORMANCE
WITH
Ed Pollock is the leader
of the Residential Team in
the Building Technologies
Program at the DOE. Patricia
Plympton is an associate di-
rector at Navigant Consulting,
Incorporated, and provides
support to the DOE Building
Technologies Program.
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
SI
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contents
Home
energy
INTRODUCTION
S4 Where the Mastic
Meets the Sheet Metal
by Chandler von Schrader
Building consumer demand for energy
retrofits requires education, ease of
delivery, and "wow!" incentives.
S6 Don't Forget the
Business Basics
by Michael Rogers
There has never been a better time for
home performance as a business-
it you treat it as a business.
Home Performance Contractor's
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
Sponsored by
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
ENERGY
-&EPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
HOME
PERFORMANCE
WITH
A GreenHomes America technician discusses a blower
door test with a client.
S14 Pathways to Scalability
by Matt Golden
For the home performance industry to
thrive, we need dedicated people, hard
work, and a focus on never cutting
corners. There is no silver bullet.
* MARKETING
S18 Marketing Home
Performance: Tactics of
Successful Contractors
by Ed Thomas
Marketing complex home performance
concepts is more challenging than selling
furnace replacements. A survey of top
home performance contractors reveals
innovative, low-cost marketing tactics
that work.
S22 Green Marketing and
Leveraging the Internet
by David Lupberger
Internet searches to find local businesses
and products grew 58% in the last year.
Figuring out an online marketing strategy
for your home performance business is
no longer an option.
f SELLING
S26 Selling High-
Performance Audits
by Gord Cooke
We only need to recall our own shopping
experiences to remind ourselves of the
importance of listening. When we listen
to our clients, they learn to trust us.
S30 How to Win the Job
by Mike Gorman
Your salesperson should spend the most
time working on sales with the easiest-
to-close, most promising leads. Screen-
ing to find those leads is the first part of
an effective sales system.
Tamasin Sterner offers in-field mentoring to home
performance professionals.
*> BUSINESS OPERATIONS
S38 Home Performance with
Energy Star Roundtable
by Steve Mann
A panel of successful Home Performance
with Energy Star contractors gives candid
answers to questions about auditing
homes and correcting problems in ways
that make customers happy and their
businesses thrive.
S46 Consulting Approach to
Home Performance Contracting
by Mark Furst
After attending a building science seminar
put on by Wisconsin's Focus on Energy
program, Mark Furst's eyes were opened
to the importance of energy efficiency, and
his career as a home inspector took a
radical turn.
FRONT COVER DESIGN: Kate Henke. Photographer Lou Dematteis
82 Home Energy www.homeenergy.org
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Home
energy
2124 Kittredge Street, PMB 95, Berkeley, CA 94704
510-524-5405contact@homeenergy.org
www.homeenergy.org
S50 Pricing for Profit
by Mike Gorman
After paying for the costs to run your business and the sticks,
bricks, and labor to complete your jobs, you better have some
money left over for profit—over and above your salary.
S52 On-the-Job Mentoring
by Tamasin Sterner
A theoretical understanding is not enough, and the kind of
one-one-one mentoring your workers get in the field—working
on real houses with real problems—often can't happen in a
classroom or online.
S55 Improving Your Home
Performance Contracting Business
Through Quality Management
by David Abrey
Quality Managements means satisfied customers; high-per-
formance homes; compliance with BPI standards and program
requirements; and jobs completed professionally, on time, and
with no worker injuries.
"5" GROWING A BUSINESS
S58 Grow Your Performance
Contracting Revenues
by Joe Kuonen
With a well-trained, properly outfitted, and certified home per-
formance contracting company, you can set your self head and
shoulders above the competition and have access to new revenue
streams.
S60 Keeping Educated in a
Rapidly Changing Environment
by Casey Murphy
Failure to keep abreast of recent developments such as changes
in building codes, new regulations, new building materials, new
software, and new business models and marketing tools can
blindside a successful business—be in the know to stay in busi-
ness and gain a competitive edge.
SENIOR EXECUTIVE EDITOR
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
MANAGING EDITOR
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
TECHNICAL EDITORS
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
COPYEDITOR
Alan Meier
lain Walker
Jim Gunshtnan
Leslie Jackson
Steve Greenberg
Nance Matson
Steve Mann
Irene Elmer
WRITERS THIS ISSUE
David Abrey, Gord Cooke, Mark Furst. Matt Golden, Mike Gorman, Joe Kuonen,
David Lupberger, Casey Murphy, Michael Rogers, Chandler von Schrader,
Tamasin Sterner, Ed Thomas
PUBLISHER Tom White
ADVERTISING & MARKETING MANAGER Carol A. Markell
DESIGN & PRODUCTION MANAGER Kate Henke
CONTROLLER Jan Elkington
OFFICE MANAGER Maggie Forti
FULFILLMENT MANAGER Alana Shindler
ADVERTISING
Home Energy requires all advertisers to provide documentation to support any
claims of product efficiency and performance contained in ads. We welcome
companies involved in residential conservation to join this select group. It
includes manufacturers of conservation materials, tools, instrumentation,
computer software, and efficient appliances, and providers of technical
services, training, and labor. For advertising rates, contact: Carol A. Markell,
Home Energy, PMB 95, 2124 Kittredge Street, Berkeley, CA 94704. Tel:
(510)524-5405, e-mail CAMarkell@homeenergy.org.
Home Energy is published by Energy Auditor & Retrofitter, Inc.
President, lain Walker
Executive Director, Tom White
BOARD
Karen Butterfield
Robert Knight
Duane Larson
Mark S. Martinez
Alan Meier
William Parlapiano
Ted Pope
Michael Rogers
John B. Smith
lain Walker
OF DIRECTORS
SunPower Corporation
Bevilacqua-Knight, Incorporated
Pacific Gas & Electric
Southern California Edison
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Greencollaredu.net
Energy Solutions
GreenHomes America
Johns Manville
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
EDITORIAL ADVISORS
Steve Baden RESNET
Michael Blasnik M. Blasnik & Associates
Scott Clay Pacific Gas & Electric
Chris Dorsi Saturn Resource Management, Inc.
Doug Garrett Building Performance & Comfort, Inc.
Rick Karg ft. 1. Karg Associates
Courtney Moriarta Steven Winter Associates, Inc.
Greg Thomas Performance Systems Development
Linda Wigington ACI
Edward Wyatt Scientific Certification Systems
Larry Zarker Building Performance Institute
Allen Zimmerman The Ohio State University, Wooster Campus
Home Energy (ISSN 0896-9442) is a bimonthly publication of Energy Auditor and
Retrofitter, Incorporated, 7 San Mateo Road, Berkeley, CA 94707. EA&R is a
nonprofit organization dedicated to the dissemination of objective information on
residential energy conservation. Yearly subscription rate: $75 for six issues. Canada
and other foreign U.S.$90, payable by U.S. money order only. Subscribe on our Web
site at www.homeenergy.org. Periodical postage paid at Berkeley, California, and
additional mailing office.
© Copyright 2009, Energy Auditor and Retrofitter, Incorporated. Energy Auditor and
Retrofitter, Incorporated grants authorization to photocopy material from Home Energy for
internal or personal use under circumstances that do not violate the fair use provisions of
the copyright act. For permission to reprint, write the above address.
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
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Business Development Guide
INTRODUCTION
Where the Mastic Meets the Sheet Metal
It's All in the HP Contractor's Hands
by Chandler von Schrader
" ome Performance with Energy Star
(HPwES) is nothing without the fine
. work of home performance contrac-
tors. Program administrators at the federal,
state, and utility levels recognize that "mastic
happens" only at the hands of contractors-
computers don't make it happen. Our job as
administrators is to reduce barriers so our
participating contractors can succeed by sell-
ing and installing home performance services
in as many homes as possible. To do this, we
need trained contractors, clear standards,
smart marketing, easy financing, easy-to-use
savings tools, incentives that reward the right
improvements, and meaningful quality assur-
ance that contractors seek to embrace—not
run from. In short, HPwES must work for our
contractors first.
This special edition of Home Energy is
dedicated to improving the bottom line for
home performance contractors who are par-
ticipating in HPwES programs. This is a follow-
up to Home Energy's 2006 special HPwES
issue "Profiting from Home Performance
Contracting." In my introduction in that issue,
I noted that our home performance industry
was then in the crawling stage—really, just
getting out of the gates. Today I believe we are
running a steeplechase—fast and with many
hurdles (what happened to that warm-up
walking stage?) Our pace is more challenging
than ever, and with the new administration,
home performance is becoming the industry
of tomorrow. Like it or not, we are in an all-out
sprint to save the world.
We at EPA and DOE are very encouraged
that HPwES is considered the premier existing
residential ef-
For more information: ficiency pro-
gram in the
country. With
the stimulus,
we have too
much money,
For more on the Home
Performance with Energy Star
Program, go to www.energystar.
gov/homeperformance.
too little time to plan, enormous goals, and an
emerging infrastructure to build from. Think I
was kidding about saving the world? The cur-
rent administration wants to see one million
homes retrofitted each year, starting in 2011!
Time's a-wasting, and collaboration at high
speeds is challenging. Yet to get this done,
we must understand one thing very clearly:
It's the contractors, stupid!
And therein lies our biggest challenge.
How to simultaneously recruit, train, and pro-
vide a ready market for thousands of home
performance contractors to retrofit a million
homes per year. Once homeowners clearly
understand the incentives, demand for home
performance contracting will soar. Meeting
this demand will require tapping into the
mature markets of the HVAC and remodeling
industries. Today and every day of the week,
the HVAC industry is installing over 8,000
new heating and/or cooling systems. Add to
that the huge $126 billion per year remodeling
industry, and one might argue that a machine
to retrofit a million homes is already in place.
Leveraging this existing service industry is
key to meeting our national goals.
Many of the best HVAC and remodeling
companies are already truly comfort (read
home performance) contractors. They are
stepping away from standard delivery and
taking ownership of the envelope and the
distribution systems; they are working with
homeowners to broaden work scopes to
provide comprehensive solutions. Creating
this alignment of home performance to the
mature HVAC and remodeling industries will
require retraining, national standards, and a
long-term commitment to building demand
for these extended services. Contractors
will follow the opportunity, and if we build
sustainable programs that create demand,
contractors will come. Again: It's the con-
tractors, stupid!
We believe that addressing homes in a
comprehensive manner, using credentialed
contractors with a promise of quality assur-
ance, is the way to serve our existing housing
stock and maximize energy efficiency, not to
mention environmental gains. These are the
basic tenets of HPwES, and we have an estab-
lished national HPwES program. Now we need
to build supply and demand in unison—and
the supply is there. (Contractors just need to
hear the demand for their services is worth
their investment in response.)
Building consumer demand requires edu-
cation, ease of delivery and "wow!" incentives.
For the next two years, homeowners will have
an opportunity to claim tax credits of 30%—up
to $1,500—for a wide range of energy retro-
fits. HPwES contractors are weaving this into
their sales delivery, but so are all the tin-man
contractors selling just one solution. We need
to build separation from these business-as-
usual companies (or better yet, enroll them in
home performance) by piggybacking federal
tax credits with program incentives (often
another $1,500 or more) that are applicable
only to contractors who have gone through
the training rigors of home performance. This
advantage for home performance contractors
will accelerate the adoption of home perfor-
mance by the existing contracting base.
This special edition is intended to provide
you, our existing home performance contrac-
tors, with business tips and strategies so that
you can run faster without having to jump
over quite so many hurdles. I applaud you
for getting into the track meet early, and for
helping this industry get to where it is today.
Take advantage of your early lead, but don't
slacken your pace—'cause we are building it,
and they are coming! fi
Chandler von Schrader is the manager for
the Home Performance with Energy Star
Program at the EPA.
S4 Home Energy
www homeenergy.org
-------
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2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE S5
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Business Development Guide
INTRODUCTION
Don't Forget the Business Basics
"EIGHTY PERCENT OF
SUCCESS IS SHOWING UP"
- Woody Allen
Showing up on time, listening to and responding
to your customers' needs, and not trashing their
homes will get you the rest of the way there.
by Michael Rogers
There has never been a better time to
focus attention and invite action on
home energy efficiency. The Obama
administration and the current Congress are
moving quickly to put in place widespread
energy efficiency targets, programs, and
resources. Another likely development is the
^^^^^ proliferation of proper-
^^| ty-assessed financing
tools. These financing
tools, such as AB811 in
California, attach long-
term loans for energy
efficiency, and the re-
sulting loan payments,
to the property rather
than to the homeowner.
This provides lower in-
terest rates and makes it less expensive for
homeowners to retrofit their houses.
Home Performance with Energy Star is ac-
tive in 27 states, and it is receiving increased
support from residential contractors. Utilities
facing both state level efficiency mandates
and constraints on regional generation capac-
ity are also recognizing the need to increase
the energy efficiency of existing homes.
At GreenHomes America, we believe this
is a great time to be in the home performance
business. The consumer drivers are in place.
Policymakers are beginning to recognize that
we need deep savings in huge numbers of
existing homes, and they're setting up pro-
grams to make that happen. It's important
to remember, though, that good ideas and
good intentions don't automatically lead to
sustainable success. At its core, home per-
formance is still a business, and to succeed,
you must not ignore the critical elements of
running a business.
This special issue of Home Energy looks
at the business of home performance con-
tracting from a variety of angles. Rather than
zero in on a particular area, however, I am go-
ing to touch on several areas in which most
residential contractors could improve—areas
that experience has shown can have a real
impact on profitability and success.
Figure Out What Business You're In
Let's say you've got a chance to deliver a big
insulation job where you'd make nice mar-
gins. Should you pursue it? What if the local
community college asked you to spend one
day a week teaching two home performance
courses. Should you accept? Should you try
to get the home energy rating on the new 200-
home development that's going up in your
community (if new construction ever ramps
back up)? Are you a rater, an A/C installer, a
PV company? What business are you in?
GreenHomes has answered these ques-
tions for itself. We focus almost exclusively
on existing homes, delivering comprehensive
assessments and a full suite of in-house in-
stallations, including insulation and air seal-
ing, HVAC, windows and doors, and solar
applications. These answers make sense
for us. But you need to figure out for yourself
what makes sense for you. You need to evalu-
ate the demand, what you're good at, your
competitive advantages, and your financial
situation. For example, if you buy a spray
foam rig, you've got to pay for it. So you need
to look at your business and determine if the
monthly revenue and margin will allow you to
pay for the rig not just on one job or for one
month, but for the next ten years. Can you
sell more foam? How will focusing on selling
foam affect the rest of your business? If you're
going to expand for a project, how will you
train the new staff—and what will you do with
them when the project is over, and you can't
find enough work to keep them busy?
The way to approach these questions is
to map out a business plan and the financial
models that go along with it. You don't need
a team of MBAs and CPAs to do this. Many
state and local small business agencies can
help, often at low or no cost. Take the time
to develop a plan. This never prevents you
from taking advantage of a great opportunity
when one comes along. But by looking ahead
and planning, you can avoid investing your
life savings going down the wrong path and
focus your energy and resources on your
real objectives. Sometimes you'll get it right
and sometimes you'll get it wrong. But even
when you get it wrong, you can learn and
help yourself do better next time.
Make It Easy for Your Customers
Once you've figured out what business you're
in, you'll spend much of your energy trying
to win customers. And again, from the com-
mon sense department, we learn that the
easier we can make it for our customers,
the more likely they are to do business with
us. People want their problems solved, they
appreciate responsiveness, and they don't
like hassles.
So I'll take a moment to state the obvious.
When people call, answer the phone. Return
calls when you say you will. Show up on time,
in clean clothes, and protect your customer's
home and property. This means don't leak oil
in the driveway, don't track dirt on the car-
pet, and don't let the dog out. Do keep your
customer informed and make sure you clean
6
Home Energy
www.homeenergy.org
-------
up after yourself. It's not al-
ways easy. But it is always
important.
Beyond the obvious,
though, there are many
things you can do to make
the diagnosis, sales, and in-
stallation process easier.
First, and too often ig-
nored by contractors and
programs alike, is financing.
Home performance jobs
are complex; often they
include multiple measures
and some combination
of insulation, air sealing,
heating, cooling, windows,
doors, lighting, and even
appliances. It is not uncom-
mon to see work scopes
exceeding $10,000 or even
$20,000. Most customers'
can't—or don't want to—
pay cash for big-ticket jobs.
If you don't help them, you'll either lose them
altogether or wind up with a smaller and less
complete job. At the minimum, you need to
be able to steer customers to financing. Even
better, you should facilitate the process and
directly connect the customer to the program
or lender. (See "Growing Your Performance
Contracting Revenue," p. S58.)
With financing, more attractive rates do
help. But they don't have to be 0%. We feel
the sweet spot is in the range of 4%. At least
as important as the rate, though, is ease of
access. The simpler, faster, and more hassle-
free the financing, the more likely you are to
get the job.
Money is important. But so is time. A pro-
cess that requires multiple visits to the home
is a recipe for failure. Bringing in the HVAC
guy one day, the air sealing crew another,
the insulation crew yet another means the
homeowner has to take off work or otherwise
adjust his or her schedule to meet yours. The
harder you make it, the less work you'll have.
Contractors who can offer one-stop shop-
ping will have a very distinct advantage. We
take care of the whole project—with our own
crews—for our customers. A related element
is the ability to fully spec and price a project
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At GreenHomes America, we believe this is a great time to be in the home performance
business. The consumer drivers are in place.
on the first visit. To do this, you really need
to equip your salesperson with an automated
system that can provide the estimate on the
spot. A customer who is ready to proceed
today doesn't want to have to spend time
another day going over the project.
Other ways to simplify things for the cus-
tomer include facilitating program paperwork
and incentives, and providing tax credit in-
formation and documentation. We go so far
as to help customers fill in forms; provide
copiers for IDs, tax forms, and so on; and
even drive to the county clerk's office to pick
up a copy of property tax information if that's
what it takes.
Get the Right People on the Bus
While determining whether someone is the
right person for a job—or the right person
to reinvent a job—is difficult, some screen-
ing is pretty straightforward. GreenHomes
uses preemployment screening that includes
background checks, drug testing, driver's
license checks, and employment eligibility
documentation. And we look hard for people
who don't just have the technical skills but
also embody our culture and core values.
This works. Three
years after acquiring
our Syracuse loca-
tion, we actually have
fewer staff delivering
higher revenue and
higher margins than we
had when we started.
People are happy—
and those who had
been with the original
company a long time
report it's the best en-
vironment in the last 27
years. People tend to
stick around, and not
just because we pay
better than our com-
petitors and offer good
benefits—which, by the
way, we're happy to do
to have the right people
stay with us.
On the other side,
not only do bad apples not contribute—they
hold everyone else back. As a result, they de-
crease morale and profits, too. This doesn't
mean you should instantly fire anyone who
doesn't meet expectations. It's important to
make sure people know what's expected,
and to give them a chance to succeed. But
be honest with yourself, too. When you know
you've got the wrong person, don't procras-
tinate. Move on.
To attract and retain good people, match
people to the company and the job. Check
on their goals and their long-term plans and
make sure it's a good fit. Of course, paying
well and offering good benefits helps. But
making work fun and rewarding is impor-
tant, too.
Reward What You Want to See
If you want to see efficient, high-quality
work done in a way that is consistent with
your values, that is what you should reward.
If you pay workers by the hour to air seal an
attic, the longer they take, the more they
make. And if they do a poor job and have to
go back and fix it, they make even more! The
same applies whether we're talking about
installing a furnace or replacing windows.
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE 57
-------
Business Development Guide
INTRODUCTION
Rewarding slow, inefficient, poor-quality work
isn't good business—either you lose money
or you frustrate your customers. Neither is a
good way to stay in business.
But what if you paid only for work that is
done according to your quality standards,
and that satisfies your customers? Some
high-performing HVAC companies use pay
for performance with great success. This
does mean, though, that you need good stan-
dards for installation, quality, and customer
service, and you need to be able to measure
performance and enforce these standards.
(See "Improving Your Home Performance
Contracting Business Through Quality
Management," p. S55.)
At GreenHomes, we try to reward almost
everyone in the company based on his or
her contribution, whether through pure pay
for performance or a combination of salary
and performance-based incentives. When
an employee does a great job, the company
earns more and the employee earns more—
we all win together.
It really is true, though, that money isn't
everything. There are a variety of ways to
provide nonmonetary rewards and incen-
tives. Praise is an easy and often forgotten
reward. Make it a point to catch somebody
doing something good every day, and let him
or her know about it! Regularly call out per-
formance that aligns with company values in
a company meeting or when you notice it on
the job site or in the hallway. Introduce a bit
of friendly competition (but only in a way that
doesn't harm the collaborative effort). Ask for
ideas—and implement the good ones.
Market Effectively
With local and federal incentives on the rise,
home performance contracting makes more
sense than ever. Demand will certainly be
increasing. But if you want leads, if you want
business, you have to market yourself. Despite
program level campaigns, you shouldn't—and
can't—rely on any program to do it all for you.
And even if you could, you wouldn't want to,
because programs change overtime and are
subject to outside funding decisions that have
nothing to do with your business.
Marketing doesn't mean you have to do a
lot of mass media advertising. In fact, for many
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GHA METRICS
Leads Generated
Appointments
1st Visits
2nd Visits
Total Assessments Completed
SoM
Close Rale
Sales & Production
Total Sales
Processed for Production
Production Revenue
Backlog & Forecast Management
Current Backlog
Weeks
Pipeline Backlog
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S337,392|| 921,600 | $930,641|
Goal
Variance
$165,600 $192,772 $27,172
2.3 2.7 Weeks
5298,000 $360,212 $62,212
Receivables
Accouni
DSO
You want to be able to look at all aspects of your business, see what's on track and what isn't,
and make adjustments in as close to real time as possible.
smaller contractors, mass marketing won't
make sense. There are several good articles
about marketing in this issue (see "Marketing
Home Performance: Tactics of Successful
Contractors," p. S18; and "Green Marketing
and Leveraging the Internet," p. S22).
I want to make one point about the market-
ing message. If you're reading Home Energy,
it's probably because you and your business
are concerned with energy efficiency. And
rightly so. But energy efficiency isn't the
driver for most customers. People call us for
comfort problems, like rooms that are too hot
or too cold, or both. They call us for home
safety issues like indoor air quality (IAQ), and
for replacing or improving windows, HVAC
systems, insulation, and so on. And they call
us to address moisture problems, such as
leaks, ice damming, or window condensation.
Notice I haven't mention energy efficiency or
high utility bills yet. Sure, we do get calls on
that. And the calls spike when energy prices
spike. But most of the time, that's not why
people call. It's not what is driving them. And
you need to remember that in your marketing
messages. Energy efficiency is not front and
center for most people most of the time. Find
the drivers for your market and tailor your
message accordingly.
The second critical point is to make sure
you ask your customers how they found you.
You should try to capture this every single
time. This allows you to keep tabs on what
channels and what messages are working.
Regardless of your budget, you can then
spend your marketing dollars most effectively.
Be careful here, though. This is only telling
you how well the things you are doing right
now work—they won't tell you how well the
things that you are not doing could work! It's
important to continually test new messages
and different vehicles to adapt to a changing
market, changing competitors, and changing
conditions. Is some vendor approaching you
about a new Web advertising scheme? Try it
out for a while—and track and measure how
it's working. If it works, do more of it!
To help capture what's working you want
to record information somewhere. A napkin
by the phone in the kitchen probably isn't
the best tool for this. Very few contractors
use a lead form (see p. S36). All contrac-
tors should. The lead form allows you to do
several things. First, its help you collect all
the important customer contact information.
Second, it provides a series of prompts for
that initial phone conversation to make sure
you or whoever answers your phone col-
lects important information—including the
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Business Development Guide INTRODUCTION
way the customer learned about you and
what prompted them to call. We call this
the "lead source". The prompts can also
help you gather details about the customer's
concerns so you're better able to respond
to them when you get to their home. And a
well-crafted lead form can include scripting
and prompts to help prepare your customer
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for the home visit and the sales process. (By
participating in the Home Performance with
Energy Star program, contractors have ac-
cess to helpful marketing tools, such as a lead
form.) The lead form can be electronic, and
that certainly makes analysis easier, but even
a paper-based system can be very useful in
a smaller business.
Track, Measure, Evaluate, and Adjust
It's very important to track information so
you can measure how well you're doing and
where you need to make adjustments. This is
important with respect to marketing; you want
to know whether your new TV commercial is
working, if your new direct- mail piece brought
in any jobs, and how much business you're
writing from the Yellow Pages, for example.
But the importance of tracking is not limited
to marketing. You want to be able to look at
all aspects of your business, see what's on
track and what isn't, and make adjustments
in as close to real time as possible. Here are
some examples of the questions you should
be asking:
• How many leads do you need today to
meet your production targets the week
of May 25?
• Are sales on target for April?
• What margin did we make on the Rogers
job? If it was high or low, why? Any pric-
ing or production adjustments needed?
• What is our expected profit for April?
• Should we be hiring, adding trucks, or
digging in?
Having an integrated customer relation-
ship management (CRM) and accounting
system makes this easier (see p. S8). There
are a variety of off-the-shelf products that
target residential contractors. But a smaller
company can use simple spreadsheets or
a simple database to automate much of its
business. What is important is that you col-
lect the data, that you organize the data in
such a way that key trends are apparent, that
you look at the data frequently to make sure
things stay on track, and that you adjust your
activities as needed.
But even if you have the data, how do
you know you're on track? For that, you
have to measure yourself against something.
You'll need to set key performance indicators
(KPIs, benchmarks that you measure yourself
against) and targets against which to com-
pare your actual performance. To do so, you
must first deconstruct your business, so you
understand how it runs. To get started, it's
often helpful to think in reverse order. Given
the size of your business (whether actual or
with targeted growth), you determine how
much revenue, margin, and profit you need
to sustain yourself. This should translate to
annual, monthly, weekly, and daily produc-
tion targets.
Of course, to hit production targets, you
first need sales. Remembering that some
percentage of sales never make it to produc-
tion because the client couldn't get financ-
ing or cancelled the order, adjust your sales
targets accordingly. Now to get a certain
dollar volume of sales, you'll need X number
of sales based on an average of Y dollars
per sale. Number of sales and size of sales
become two more KPIs to measure yourself
against. Going back one more step, you
know you need to run a certain number of
appointments and close a certain percent-
age of these appointments. This gives you
two more KPIs.
Next, to run appointments, you need
leads. And so on. Now the calculation gets
more complicated, since you generally want
to maintain steady (and steadily increasing)
production throughout the year, so you'll
need to build in adjustments if you experi-
ence seasonally in your marketplace. You'll
need increased sales during busy months to
carry you through the slower months. This
balancing act can get complex, but even a
simple analysis and structure will help you to
understand where you're at, and help you to
decide how to market your services, whether
your crews should be working overtime, and
whether you should buy new equipment to
rush through production or save your cur-
rent production backlog for several weeks
down the road.
While we capture and store our data in a
structured query language (SQL) database,
we use a series of Excel spreadsheets that
read the data in real time, so our dashboards
and KPIs always display up-to-the-minute
results. The beauty of this is that we can
often ask ad hoc questions and tease out
S10 Home Energy j www.homeenergy.org
-------
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Business Development Guide
INTRODUCTION
VALUE PRICING
Total Total
= direct + indirect
costs costs
Value
price
Sales, general,
and administration
(SGA)
Enough profit so you can eat,
invest in your business, and fix
more homes
Figure 1. So how do you determine a fair price? Is it the typical price: materials plus 10% plus labor? Not unless you don't have to market, sell,
or assume any responsibility for your work. Not unless your tools and equipment don't wear, and you don't care whether you make any profit.
information with simple calculations right
in our reports. A smaller business can build
similar reports right from its spreadsheet
or database. The key is to summarize your
various reports and metrics into a single view
or dashboard, so you can see at a glance
whether you are above, below, or on target.
Price to Stay in Business
Too much of the residential contracting in-
dustry is a low-bid race to the bottom, hurt-
ing both quality and the ability to profit and
scale. If you want to stay in business and help
more people fix more homes, I encourage you
to choose another way. Charge a fair price
for your work. And by "fair," I mean a price
the delivers good value to the customer and
allows you a profit for the risk you take in a
business and to fuel growth in your business.
This generally means delivering more than
your competitors, and charging more for it,
too. Don't be ashamed to charge more—be
proud that you're providing a better value and
results that the customer can rely on. Let's
look at an example.
Which costs you more to install—swapping
in a new furnace much like the old one, or
ensuring that the duct system is designed
properly, that it is balanced and sealed,
and that it delivers proper air flow before
you accurately size and then install a new
high-efficiency furnace? Obviously, the bet-
ter solution costs more. And unless you've
got a large trust fund to draw down against,
you've got to charge more to deliver the bet-
ter solution. But if you can show customers
that they'll be more com-
fortable throughout their
home, that the leaking
ductwork won't reduce
IAQ, and that they'll save
energy and money in the
long run, they'll very often
be willing to pay more.
For more information:
To learn about Home Performance
with Energy Star, go to: www.energys-
tar.gov/homeperformance.
For more on GreenHomes America, go
to www.greenhomesamerica.com.
Now take it a step further and add in whole-
house diagnostics; combustion safety; and
comprehensive projects, such as air seal-
ing, insulation, and lighting, on top of that
furnace, and clearly you're talking about
wildly different price points. The prices work
in the market, if you educate the homeowner
and build value. (For more on pricing, see
"Pricing for Profit," p. S50.) So how do you
determine a fair price? Is it the typical price:
materials plus 10% plus labor? Not unless
you don't have to market, sell, or assume
any responsibility for your work. Not unless
your tools and equipment don't wear, and
you don't care whether you make any profit
to reinvest and grow your business. Value
pricing allows you to charge a fair price that
recognizes all your costs, and rewards you
with a fair profit (see Figure 1).
You'll need a good understanding of your
costs—all of your costs—so you should start
gathering and tracking these now, applying
them to individual jobs wherever possible and
getting a good handle on your ongoing indirect
and overhead costs. You will also need as
part of your marketing and sales process to
build value for your products and/or services.
And this isn't a recommendation for a naive
cost-based approach to pricing. You need to
explore and understand what the market will
bear (which is itself in part a function of how
well you build value). Remember what I said
above under Market Effectively, and do not
limit the customer value part of the discussion
to energy efficiency.
Here are two important related thoughts.
One: If you don't offer
folks more, most folks
won't ask for more. Most
of them won't ever think
to ask for more com-
prehensive and more
expensive projects. But
many homeowners will
be happy to take on these bigger, more ex-
pensive projects if you've done a good job of
explaining the benefits. And two: Sometimes
you will be surprised by how much they
ask for. Some people will want to go much
deeper than you're used to. If this is what
they want, you don't have to talk them out
of it. And you don't have to talk them out of
larger projects that are less cost-effective
from an energy perspective. People buy sofas
and granite countertops without calculating'
cost-effectiveness. I bought a hybrid car even
though the payback period may be longer
than I'll own the car. As long as you're up
front and honest about the benefits, includ-
ing the relative cost-effectiveness, feel free
to offer the costliest package that people
choose. Your customers will get what they
want, we'll all benefit from the energy sav-
ings, and you'll make enough money to live
another day and fix another home. (For more
on growing your business, see "Growing Your
Performance Contracting Revenues," p. 58,
and "Keeping Educated in a Rapidly Changing
Environment," p. 60.)
Home performance contracting is vital to
America's energy future. Permanently fixing
the structural and construction-related de-
ficiencies in a home provides the foundation
for far more long-term energy savings than
simply replacing an old, inefficient air condi-
tioner with a high-efficiency unit of the same
size. There's never been a better opportunity
for home performance as a business. If you
treat it as a business, you're likely to succeed,
and we'll all win that way. £
Michael Rogers is a senior vice president at
GreenHomes America, a nationally expand'
ing home performance company. GHA is
a HPwES Century Club Contractor, having
performed over 100 energy-efficient instal-
lations in the last year.
S12
Home Energy
/. homeenergy.org
-------
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-------
Business Development Guide
INTRODUCTION
Pathways to Scalability
Is Home Performance contracting
scalable? How will home retrofitters
keep pace with explosive demand?
By Matt Golden
DOE is calling for American homes to be retrofitted for
energy efficiency and reduced greenhouse gas emissions
at a rate of 10 million per year by 2020. Right now, in
2009, we are starting from an annual total of roughly 250,000
residential retrofits nationwide. Clearly the home performance
retrofitting industry has a long way to go.
To keep pace with this unprecedented spike
in demand, industry leaders will have to identify
and pursue effective business practices that, in
combination with appropriate public oversight
and incentives, will allow us to scale our activi-
ties in short order.
The road ahead is sure to challenge old
ways of doing business. Creativity, ingenuity,
and thinking outside the box will be key. But we also must stay
connected to the lessons we have learned from years in the field
dealing with real houses and real customers. No matter how you
slice it, this job demands dedicated people, hard work, and a fo-
cus on never cutting corners.
The bottom line: There is no silver bullet.
PAST PERFORMANCE, FUTURE RESULTS
Looking at the state of the home performance industry today,
nobody can argue that we've been a screaming success. Nor have
we proven that the integrated whole-house model for which I am
an advocate can scale. On the other hand, we have never been
faced with the pressing issues and rapidly evolving regulatory
environment that are now driving us forward.
For years we have been asked to compete based on quality
in a market that is defined by the lowest bid. The major factors
that are reshaping the market—climate change, economic re-
covery, and dependence on foreign oil—have never been explic-
itly linked to our customers' value proposition. But with global
economic, political, and environmental concerns looming large,
any business model that cannot produce significant widespread
reductions in fossil fuel consumption is doomed to fail.
Various scenarios have been proposed to address the scalabil-
ity problem, many coming from people with little or no actual
field experience, or from people experienced in weatherization
and other sectors that do not translate directly to the broader
home performance market. While I wholeheartedly embrace
the need for change, I am acutely aware of the dangers inher-
ent in fundamentally reinventing our industry overnight. The
stakes are high, folks, so let's approach each new business model
with a healthy dose of caution.
WEIGHING THE OPTIONS
Success in our industry is tied to four simple metrics. Any busi-
ness model we pursue must be capable of delivering high marks
in all four of the following areas:
• Service: Are we solving real problems for our customers?
• Public good: Are we saving energy and reducing residential
carbon emissions?
• SllStainability: Are we making a profit while conducting
quality work?
• Scalability: Can we grow our business and the industry to
meet future demand?
With these questions in mind, let's examine five of the most
prominent business models that have been floated both within
the industry and in public policy circles.
Third-party rater. In this model, homeowners hire an indepen-
dent rater to analyze their home and draw up a set of recom-
mendations. Homeowners then have the option of managing
the remediation work themselves, or hiring a specialized home
performance contractor to complete the job.
The goal here is to isolate the diagnostic role from the im-
plementation phase, so homeowners can feel confident that the
rater's recommendations have not been influenced by the con-
tractor's profit motive. Using third-party raters can also bring
prices down by allowing homeowners to seek competitive bids
from multiple contractors.
While this approach appears to offer obvious benefits for
consumers, the model delivers low customer adoption rates and
provides little accountability for results. Here's why:
First, certified raters are generally not qualified to provide ac-
curate cost estimates or make specific recommendations about
equipment and feasibility. In many cases, the contractor must
perform a second audit to develop an actionable work scope and
a realistic cost estimate—and the final scope can differ signifi-
cantly from the independent rater's original recommendations.
Due to the resulting confusion and long sales cycle, homeowners
have been shown to undertake retrofitting work at significantly
lower rates than can be achieved with more integrated models.
In addition, when homeowners seek low bids from different
specialty contractors for individual improvements recommended
by the third-party rater, there is no one in place to oversee the
S14
Home Energy
.homeenergy.org
-------
quality of every installation, and separately implemented up-
grades are less likely to deliver maximum efficiency. All too often,
this translates into retrofits that fall short of expected results.
Neighborhood blitz. This model targets whole neighborhoods
with homes of similar age and type. Contractors design standard
remediation packages, and retrofits are implemented without
the need for individual audits.
The benefits are obvious: Homeowners don't have to schedule
an audit or make difficult decisions about their retrofit, while
contractors save time and money through job standardization.
The trouble with this cookie cutter approach is that inconsisten-
cies from job site to job site make standardized pricing unreal-
istic in most cases. Even if we have a 50% incentive and easy fi-
nancing, the contractor still has to sell the project to each client,
and homeowners will expect the contractor to understand and
address their particular technical and financial concerns before
signing on the dotted line.
Theoretically, bulk pricing could make sense in a fully sub-
sidized program where clients pay nothing out of pocket and
the contractor can average costs over a large number of homes.
But in the real world, homeowners who need relatively minor
improvements will balk at paying the same price as a neighbor
whose house requires significantly more work.
Test and fix. This model combines a home performance audit
with some basic remediation in a single contractor visit. The idea
is that while workers are testing a home, they can seal air leaks,
install insulation, and implement other easy fixes that can be
completed on the spot.
One of the reasons I got into this business was to promote
the benefits of addressing a home's most glaring inefficiencies
before investing in higher-cost improvements like solar energy
or high-efficiency HVAC systems. Fixing simple problems as you
find them might seem like a fast and affordable way to upgrade
a home, but does it really make sense to reach for low-hanging
fruit before taking stock of the whole tree?
In a market-based environment, the test-and-fix model re-
quires homeowners to make a financial commitment before the
contractor can assess the scope of the work or estimate what the
final cost will be. This puts contractors in the difficult position
of going in blind and selling the service up front at a rate that
covers a day of construction and testing, and does not create a
situation where time and budget constraints get in the way of
generating real, measurable results.
There are logistical concerns as well. Anything more compli-
cated than swapping incandescent bulbs with CFLs will require
the contractor to set up the house for dirt and dust control, locate
electrical and gas cutoffs, pay attention to combustion safety and
other issues, and carry an extensive inventory of materials and
tools to every job site. These factors will lead to high overhead
and labor costs for relatively modest returns, making it difficult
for the contractor to turn a profit.
Program-run audits. In this model, a govern-
ment program or public utility performs all home
audits and hands the results off to private con-
tractors for remediation. In some cases, the audit
reports include cost estimates that stipulate how
much a contractor can charge for each task.
One obvious red flag here is the assumption
that program auditors will have adequate train-
ing and expertise not only to assess the house,
but also to prepare a reasonable work scope with
no serious omissions for the contractor to un-
cover in the course of the retrofit. If the official
audit report turns out to be flawed or incomplete,
or if the third-party estimates don't reflect the
true cost of implementation, the contractor will
have a hard time making changes or getting ad-
equately compensated for the job.
Remember: It is the retrofitter, not the pro-
gram or the independent auditor, who signs a
contract and is held accountable for the results.
And because this approach effectively turns con-
tractors into a commodity, the most profitable
businesses will be those that cut corners and
slash costs while providing the bare minimum of
service required by the program. Adoption rates
in such programs are shown to be extremely low,
and the private sector has no incentive to invest
in building a sustainable business or improving
the quality of service.
Home performance. The last model places testing, analysis, im-
plementation, and verification in the hands of dedicated home
performance contractors who are qualified to manage all phases
of the home energy retrofit. The process begins with systematic
testing and analysis of the home, and a walk-through with the
homeowner to discuss specific concerns. Based on this infor-
mation, the contractor develops a customized solution that will
deliver measurable results in terms of comfort, energy efficien-
cy, and indoor air quality. A specialized retrofitting crew then
implements the plan to exacting installation standards, with fol-
low-up testing to ensure that the installation meets the targeted
goals. A percentage of jobs are then retested by a third party to
ensure that quality and standards are maintained.
Using the lessons of applied building science, we can be cer-
tain that our work solves real problems and achieves real energy
savings in every home we touch. The net result: quality solutions
and happy customers.
THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR THE JOB
While experience has shown that the home performance ap-
proach is a reliable way to generate measurable energy savings
for consumers and fair profits for contractors, the question of
scalability remains unanswered. Modifications and refinements
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE S15
-------
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Business Development Guide
INTRODUCTION
will be necessary as we move forward, but the basic model is not
broken. Before we scrap it and place our bets on new and un-
tested strategies, we must first give our current model the tools
it needs to grow, and give the market a chance to step up.
Specifically, the home performance industry will require
three additional components to succeed on a large scale:
Incentives. First, we must launch a performance-based incen-
tive system with enough bite to trigger rapid transformation of
the nation's residential construction industry. Targeted finan-
cial incentives are the best way to promote widespread adop-
tion of building science-based home retrofit methods among
mainstream contractors who currently take a less systematic
approach to home energy improvements.
Financing. In today's tight credit markets, many homeowners
are not able to get financing for home performance upgrades even
when paybacks are clear. Dedicat-
ed financing programs for cost-ef-
fective energy efficiency improve-
ments will jump-start consumer
demand for our services.
Standards. Finally, contractors
and consumers alike can benefit
from regulatory policies designed
to ensure quality and propagate
widespread adoption of industry
For more information:
To learn more about Sustainable
Spaces, go to www.sustain-
ablespaces.com.
For information about BPI, go to
www.bpi.org.
To learn about RESNET, go to www.
natresnet.org.
best practices. We should leverage the federal Home Perfor-
mance with Energy Star program as a standard model, including
third-party verification, and equip DOE and EPA with adequate
resources to prescribe, promote, and implement a viable mar-
ket for home performance retrofitting. In addition, we should
mandate national contractor and auditor certification through
the Building Performance Institute (BPI) or other independent
accreditation agencies for contractors and diagnostic energy
auditors, and through the Residential Energy Services Network
(RESNET) for raters.
A regulated, performance-based market for home retrofit-
ting, with incentives and financing to encourage adoption, is the
only economically sustainable solution that will deliver real re-
sults and can scale to meet the enormous problem we face.
There is no silver bullet, but given hard work and the right set
of market-based tools, our industry will meet the challenge. £
Matt Golden is the cofounder and president of Sustainable
Spaces. Founded in 2004, the company acts as a full-service re-
source for homeowners to improve the comfort, health, and effi-
ciency of their home. Prior to founding the company, Matt worked
as an energy consultant developing solar power systems for hom-
eowners and businesses. Sustainable Spaces is a HPwES Century
Club Contractor, having performed over 100 energy-efficient in-
stallations in the last year.
S16 Home Energy www.homeenergy.org
-------
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Business Development Guide ^ MARKETING
Marketing Home Performance
TACTICS OF SUCCESSFUL CONTRACTORS
By Ed Thomas
Marketing complex home performance concepts in ways
that sell whole-house solutions—solutions that address
energy savings, comfort, health, and safety—is more
challenging than selling furnace replacements. When successful
home performance contractors were asked "how do you simplify
the home performance marketing message?"
during a presentation at the national ACI
conference in Kansas City, their unanimous
answer was "When we make it simple, we
decrease our sales close rate." While market-
ing home performance is complex, it doesn't
necessarily require a lot of money.
My survey of 14 of the nation's leading
home performance contractors revealed a
mix of low-cost, innovative guerilla mar-
keting tactics, as well as strategic use of
paid advertising and direct mail. This ar-
ticle presents the results of that survey, and
offers advice that you can immediately put
to use. Applying these proven marketing tactics can set your
company apart from your competition, set you apart from tradi-
tional contractors, and will enable you to increase your profits.
Contractors around the country who used to be HVAC, insu-
lation, or solar installation companies are successfully reposi-
tioning themselves to become leading-edge home performance
contractors. There is no category for Home Performance in the
phone book, yet these "invisible" nontraditional home perfor-
mance contractors are closing larger installation jobs with in-
creased profit margins.
Getting Across the Home
Performance Message
Fishermen go where the fish are, and
home performance contractors go
where the homeowners with perceived
problems are. Few people wake up one
day and decide that they need a com-
prehensive home performance analy-
sis. But lots of people wake up to broken
furnaces and air conditioners or decide
that they've lived long enough with
their drafty, out-of-date windows.
For this reason, successful home performance contractors
respond to what customers think they need and thus are look-
ing for (that is, a new furnace or new windows) with a home
performance message grounded in building science but directly
responsive to the customer's stated needs. Mike Rogers of Green-
Homes America tells the story of a GreenHomes home energy
advisor (they don't call them auditors) who arrived at the home
of a prospect who wanted new windows, and explained that be-
fore he could give the man a quote, he would need to conduct a
combustion safety test on his furnace. The homeowner said that
the other windows salesmen didn't pretest to see if replacing the
windows might make the home too tight. That, my friends, is the
"aha!" moment in home performance selling—when you learn
whether your prospect values (and is willing to pay for) your
comprehensive whole-house solution or is simply price shop-
ping for a commodity service.
Successful home performance contractors have a focused
strategy (they pre- and posttest all installations—even "simple"
window installs—as outlined in Building Performance Institute
accreditation standards), and they exert the discipline to plan
their work and work their plan. Consistently, successful con-
tractors insist that you must have a written marketing and busi-
ness plan—one that incorporates procedures, forms, and ongo-
ing training for your staff and crew. And they stick to the plan.
For example, Matt Golden of Sustainable Spaces says that his
company won't go to a home where it knows that another con-
tractor has already submitted a bid, because its extensive sales
lead tracking shows that it rarely wins those bidding wars. But
he admits that not every com-
pany can afford to turn down a
sales opportunity just to stick to
a plan.
Home Performance
Marketing Tactics from
Across the United States
In Pennsylvania, Sean Crane
of HomeTown Green, a service
provider in the state's home en-
ergy program, lists his three best
marketing tactics as networking;
optimizing his Web site to be
Winners of Anaheim home Energy Makeover Contest meet with
Bruce Matulich of EGIA (left) and author Ed Thomas (right) at
workshop for all contest entrants.
18 Home Energy
www. homeenergy.org
-------
Consistently, successful contractors insist that you must have a written
marketing and business plan—one that incorporates procedures, forms, and
ongoing training for your staff and crew. And they stick to the plan.
"found" by local homeowners who use search engines to
look for home improvement contractors; and maintain-
ing Energy Star affiliation. Sean holds free workshops
on "Efficient and Healthy Homes" and "Carbon Foot-
print" for the public, and estimates that three of these
free workshops have yielded $46,500 in gross sales.
In California, Matt Golden of Sustainable Spaces, has
three rules for his staff and crew. They are (1) Treat ev-
ery home as if it were your own; (2) Sell the truth; and
(3) Don't install anything that doesn't solve the problem.
Matt takes the celebrity audit to new heights, having
performed one for Ellen DeGeneres on her syndicated
television talk show. Matt is committed to happy cus-
tomers. If he installed it, he fixes it.
In Texas, Larry Taylor of AirRite is not involved with
an Energy Star-sponsored program, but he is committed
to providing whole-house services, and he is a founding
member of Texas Home Energy Rating Organization, a
not-for-profit professional organization that promotes the
benefits of energy conservation initiatives and monetary
incentives to homeowners, homebuilders, and businesses.
Larry emphasizes trust and solutions; he provides ongo-
ing service agreements and a guarantee that makes cus-
tomers comfortable to ask him back for additional work.
He utilizes tried-and-true marketing techniques, includ-
ing talking yard signs, flowers or chocolates delivered to
the customer's workplace when the job is complete, and
prizes (free housecleaning) to customers who provide at
least ten referrals.
Become Your Community's
Home Performance Expert
A key success strategy, according to the contractors I in-
terviewed, is to become a home performance expert in
your community. Position yourself as
• a local or regional subject matter expert on energy,
comfort, health, safety, and whole-house improve-
ment;
• an efficiency expert on ways to save money, energy,
and time;
• a green or hybrid homes expert; or
• any combination of the first three.
Look for nontraditional, free opportunities to mar-
ket yourself in the media. These might include writing
newspaper or magazine articles, appearing on radio or
Makeover Contest entrants meet with trade allies who made improvements to the
winner's home in local library.
Larry Taylor at AirRite uses this puzzle to help their customers understand how
a house works as a system. Doing a portion of the work will leave a hole in their
home!
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
S19
-------
Business Development Guide
MARKETING
A key success strategy, according to the contractors I interviewed,
is to become a home performance expert in your community.
Makeover contest entrants listen to author Ed Thomas explain the before and after conditions
of contest winner's home. Emphasis is on energy savings as well as non energy benefits.
TV talk shows, and hosting workshops and seminars for hom-
eowners. Workshops can range in time and scope. Start small,
with 20-to-45-minute lunchtime presentations on topics such as
Ten Tips to Save Money, Be More Comfortable, and Make Your
Home More Earth-Friendly. More-demanding and broader-
based seminars could be held in conjunction with other events,
such as trade shows. These seminars might run for one or two
hours and be held on such topics as Whole-House Improve-
ments: How to Do It Yourself and/or Manage Your Contractors.
For the truly ambitious, or those who are affiliated with utility
efficiency programs, a full-day Home Energy Makeover Work-
shop with 15-minute presentations on energy efficiency edu-
cates consumers and connects them to the contractors who can
best help them.
The following organizations may sponsor your workshop in
one of their weekly or monthly meetings: the local Rotary Club
and other civic organizations; home shows; homeowners asso-
ciations; chambers of commerce;
For more information: adult learning centers; realtor,
mend RSVPs and/or charge a modest registration
fee to demonstrate value. Script your presentation
with plenty of customer stories. Gather attendee
information through sign-up sheets, evaluation
forms, and door prizes. (You can use these later
as leads!)
Free media coverage is better and more believ-
able than ads, and it's easy to get. Provide reporters
and show producers with stories that sell. People
stories and analyses on celebrities' homes, hom-
eowner testimonials, slice-of-life ride alongs on in-
teresting jobs and today's local events—immediacy
and proximity make it news.
High-cost marketing tactics to avoid include news-
paper and magazine ads that don't include a direct cus-
tomer testimonial or a "call to action," and telephone
directory ads. The Yellow Pages are the last bastion of
companies that rely on fresh-meat customers, rather
than on testimonials from past customers.
Traditional marketing tactics have their place.
Home shows are a prime showcase, if you prepare
customer testimonials and article reprints; a clipboard with
lead sheets; video clips of you working and interviews with sat-
isfied customers; and clips of live radio interviews. Don't forget
to bring your appointment book! Team up with the contractors
you use as subs to maximize cross-telling and cross-selling (So-
lar? Home Performance is the First Step.) Bring your Home Page
up on your laptop for people to browse. A well-designed Web
site educates the consumer, and highly visible digitally printed
vehicle wrap or "car skins" give brand recognition.
In the midst of the meltdown on Wall Street, you wouldn't
expect the winners of a home energy makeover contest to make
headlines in Southern California. But the Anaheim Public Utili-
ties program got coverage on all major television channels with
the story of homeowners who won an efficiency contest spon-
sored by the Electric & Gas Industries Association. The young
couple had bought a starter home, planning to keep it a few
years and then move up. Thanks to the energy makeover, they
are now so comfortable that they plan to retire there. a
See the TV news clip about the
Southern California homeowners
who won the efficiency contest at
www.egia.com/homeownercenter/
Video_Channel2NewsClip.htm.
code official, and other business
and trade groups.
Organize a seminar by first
drafting a brief description and
flyer for the group to use to pro-
mote your appearance. Recom-
Ed Thomas has over twenty years of energy utility industry
experience in sales and marketing management in many seg-
ments of the energy services industry. Ed authored an industry
report on Home Energy Audits, coauthored a report on Load
Management Programs, and published reports on Home Energy
Loans and Geo Heat Pumps.
520
Home Energy
www. homeenergy.org
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MARKETI NG
Green Marketing & Leveraging
the Internet
Homeowners are going to the Internet in
ever-increasing numbers to find assistance
for their home improvement projects.
by David Lupberger
Successful builders and remodelers are
making green in building green. Even in
this challenging economy, companies
marketing and selling green products and
services are succeeding by offering affluent
consumers environmental choices that fit their
personal philosophy and lifestyle.
ServiceMagic.com, an online lead genera-
tion company with over 60,000 contractor
members, created a series of green articles
aimed at homeowners who wanted to know
more about greening a variety of home im-
provement projects, including kitchen, bath,
and basement renovations. Forty-six percent
of homeowners who submitted requests for
home improvement projects indicated an in-
terest in making the project green. Consumer
interest in building green projects is increas-
ing every day, and successful building con-
tractors are taking advantage of this trend.
Building Your Business
Through the Internet
Homeowners are going to the Internet in ever-
increasing numbers to find assistance for
their home improvement projects. The stats
are staggering. A recent study conducted by
comScore, Incorporated, a leading Web be-
havior research firm, found that online search-
es to find local businesses and products grew
58% in the last year alone. That means that
figuring out an online marketing strategy is
no longer an option but a mandatory part of
doing business in today's world.
Another key fact from the comScore study
is that out of the top keyword searches from
online directories, a whopping 75% did not
include brand-specific terms. What that
means is that the vast majority of consum-
ers do not have a preference for a specific
company or product brand when they begin
their search. So how your business is pre-
sented online—your online business profile
or brochure—is of the utmost importance. A
simple plan of attack on building an effective
profile can enable you to establish a competi-
tive advantage online.
Social Network Marketing
The Internet is creating virtual communities
that didn't exist before. Internet sites where
users are able to offer a public comment or
review of your work are becoming increasingly
popular. This trend creates a great opportu-
nity for your business but can pose some
potential risks—the good news is that you
are in much more control of how these public
reviews affect your business than you might
think. Make the most out of this opportunity
and avoid common pitfalls by following these
simple suggestions:
Provide great service to your customers,
and then ask them to write a review of
their experience. Your best customers are
your best advocates; this has always been
true. Help your customers be advocates
for you by asking them to write a review
for you on a specific Web site—ideally the
site on which they found you. Ask them to
mention you by name in the review—the
best reviews show the high level of service
you personally deliver.
Visit popular sites regularly and read what
customers are saying about your business
and your competitors. Listen carefully to
what they are saying. This is often one of
the best ways to learn what you can do
to make your customers exceptionally
pleased with your work.
When you see something negative (and at
some point you will), do your best to ask
rather than argue. Follow up with the cus-
tomer personally. Ask the customer what
you can do to make the situation better.
If you can remedy the problem, try to do
so, and then ask the customer to update
his or her review. If the customer is not
responsive, many sites will enable you
to post a response to a customer review.
Post a response clarifying any points that
may have been confusing or incorrect in
the customer's original post and publicly
ask the customer what you can do to help
make the situation better for him. This will
go a long way toward helping potential fu-
ture customers understand that you want
to provide great service. Whatever you do,
don't argue with the customer publicly on
the site. You may be right, but being ar-
gumentative is not the image you want to
present to potential future customers.
22 Home Energy
h o m e e n e r g y o i q
-------
Figuring out an online marketing strategy is no longer an option
but a mandatory part of doing business in today's world.
Social network marketing will allow you to
cultivate customer evangelists by creating a
community on your Web site. At the same
time, by joining and participating in social
network communities, you have opportuni-
ties to interact with potential customers, and
can create an avenue for customer feedback
and experience. Customer interviews and
online discussions are a valuable
way to collect customers' opin-
ions to improve your service and
product. You can also contend
with those consumer vigilantes
promptly—showing the entire
community that you are commit-
ted to transparency in handling
the customers' experience.
the services you provide. Think of it as the
21st century version of word of mouth.
• Marketing is a numbers game. Successful
contractors build a sales pipeline of tar-
geted leads and measure their return on
investment.
More than ever, it's becoming impera-
tive to develop a good marketing pipeline. A
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Generating Online Leads
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When beginning to work with
Internet-based customer leads
and referrals, it's important to
learn how the Internet shopper
thinks. Understanding how to
work effectively with Internet-
based referrals is key, if you
want to convert these shoppers
into buyers. Here are some tips to be more
effective when responding to Internet-based
referrals:
• Internet shoppers have specific expecta-
tions, and you must meet those expecta-
tions for professionalism in order to get
their business.
• How do you effectively communicate your
professionalism? There are several com-
ponents to an online business profile that
will actually win you business. Things like
project photos of your past work, profes-
sional credentials, license and insurance
information, and customer ratings and re-
views are important elements to include in
your profile. Customer ratings and reviews
are referrals that will be seen by tens of
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pipeline is simply a list of homeowners who
have inquired about your services at some
point in the past. In order to build up this
pipeline and ensure it doesn't dry up, you
need a consistent and predictable source of
prospective customer leads that are relevant
to the services you provide. Brevan Adams, a
successful design build contractor in Denver,
Colorado, says "working with online leads is
kind of like going fishing. You don't always
catch a fish, but if you catch a couple of fish
in 20 or 30 casts, that's a pretty good day."
• Using an online lead generation service
can be a very effective method to target
the leads you receive. You can target leads
by the type of service or job and also by
geographic area, often down to a specific
list of zip codes.
To know whether an online lead ser-
vice is working for your business, set up
a spreadsheet or similar tool to capture
the cost of the leads and the total income
generated from these leads. Keep track on
a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. In
fact, this tool is helpful for any advertising
source and allows you to compare different
advertising methods.
• Top contractors understand
that there are different selling
cycles for different projects,
and that homeowners are likely
to be at various stages of the
decision-making process.
Just because homeowners
aren't ready to start a project right
away, or are still in the planning
and budgeting phase, doesn't
necessarily mean that they are
tire kickers. Provide homeowners
with a reason to use your busi-
ness when they are ready to start
their project.
Turning Prospects into
Customers
Because you will encounter ho-
meowners in these same situations as you
begin an online lead program, the next three
tips are proven methods for creating a follow-
up system to turn prospects into valuable
customers. It can be very beneficial to cap-
ture a consistent flow of homeowners who
are in the planning and research phase of a
project, if you have the tools to convert these
prospects into future clients.
1. Capture homeowner information
into a contact database.
One of the first steps in managing leads is
to create a list of homeowner contacts on the
computer. Whether you use a spreadsheet or
a database program, collect all of the informa-
tion you receive about a homeowner, includ-
ing name, address, phone, e-mail, and project
notes, so you can follow up regularly.
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE S23
-------
Business Development Guide
MARKETING
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2. Immediately respond to leads, and
follow up consistently with those
homeowners, even if you don't talk
to the homeowner initially.
With Internet leads, one cliche rings true: The
early bird gets the worm.
You can never tell what is going on in the
lives of homeowners at the moment you are
trying to speak with them. Consistently follow-
ing up is a necessary component of working
with Internet leads.
3. Build value by providing tools home-
owners can use.
Become a resource for prospective cus-
tomers as a way to develop a long-term
relationship. I have heard great examples
of things professionals have done to show
homeowners that they care about them and
their project. For instance:
• Send a project checklist to help hom-
eowners understand the different steps
involved in their remodel, including what
material and product choices they need
to make.
• Does your project require a dumpster on-
site? Send a note to the neighbors inviting
them to use the dumpster. This is a great
way to generate additional referrals.
• Send a limited-time special offer or pro-
motion to your prospective customer list
to create a sense of urgency.
• Create a quarterly newsletter with tips
and advice and send it to your prospects
and past customers as a way to pick up
additional referral business.
You will decide what works best for
your business, but these simple things can
help you gain the added credibility of be-
ing a trusted expert who cares about your
customers.
Use the Internet!
To recap, here are the steps you can take to
find success with leveraging the Internet for
online lead generation:
• Understand that working with online leads
is a process. Don't be discouraged if the
first few leads don't pan out. Learn how
the system works and create a plan that
works for your business.
• Develop a strong online profile. Your pro-
file should include license and insurance
details, along with photos of past projects
and homeowner reviews.
• Respond immediately to online leads
when they come in. You can choose to
receive leads to your cell phone, e-mail,
or both.
• Collect ratings from your customers.
These ratings and reviews are one of the
most important considerations prospec-
tive customers look through when decid-
ing which professional to hire.
• Create a plan to follow up consistently with
leads you receive. This will generate more
sales from homeowners who are in the
earlier stages of beginning a project.
• Measure your return on investment for
online leads. Keep track of how much the
leads have cost, and compare that cost
to the total income you have been able to
generate from those leads.
• Develop tips and tools you can send to
homeowners who may not be ready to
start their project right away. You'll posi-
tion yourself as a trusted expert and will
increase the chances that those hom-
eowners will reach out to you when they
are ready to begin.
The tips included here are valuable in-
sights, but they are not really rocket science.
The number of homeowners using the Internet
to find local products and services is grow-
ing, and by following this advice, you can be
successful finding work by leveraging the
Internet. Good luck! A
David Lupberger draws on more than two
decades of experience in the residential
remodeling field, working with remodel-
ers developing proven business systems.
Through his work in the remodeling industry,
he hopes to redefine the way the remodeling
industry operates so that the trust between
quality remodelers, their customers, suppli-
ers, and trade contractors can be leveraged
and improved.
His experience in managing customer
expectations led him to write a book called,
Managing the Emotional Homeowner,
which has become one of the bibles of the
remodeling industry and helped hundreds of
remodelers improve the level of service they
provide clients. He has spent nearly 4 years
writing the Remodelers Turnkey Program.
This series of manuals is a basic how-to
text on running a remodeling company.
From his base in Colorado, he now con-
sults with both remodelers and industry
companies such as General Electric and
American Express to maximize customer
service relationships between all the industry
partners. He travels extensively, speaking to
thousands of remodelers across the country
and is a regular on the seminar series at na-
tional trade shows.
For more information:
For David Lupberger's book and
manuals, go to www.turnkeyprogram.
com.
S24
Home Energy
j. homeenergy.org
-------
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Business Development Guide
SELLING
Selling High-Performance Audits
Effective listening is arguably the most
important skill needed in any sales effort.
by Gord Cooke
Many of us who have been in the energy efficiency field,
or the high-performance home contracting business
for some time think that this should be the time when
homeowners would be beating down our doors looking for our
professional advice. Indeed, the compelling and encouraging trends
toward green products and buildings, the historically high energy
bills and historically low interest rates, the stimulus incentives at
many levels of government, and the ever more stringent building
codes do make this a great time to be an energy advisor/rater/
high-performance/Energy Star contractor. However, in spite of
all these positive indicators, it is still unlikely that your services
and products will sell themselves.
Countering these positive indicators are the current eco-
nomic uncertainty, the fluc-
tuations in energy prices,
and the culmination of the
normal stresses in our cli-
ents' daily lives. Making de-
cisions about purchasing the
services and products our in-
dustry offers—services and
products that are being sold
by you personally as an au^
ditor or contractor—adds to
our clients' stress levels,
At this point, consumers
are predisposed to react in
one of two ways. One, they
may choose to do nothing, think about it longer, or put off mak-
ing the decision until later. Or two, they may decide to pay the
lowest or near-lowest price as a hedge against the risk of not
finding the best value. For us to take best advantage of the op-
portunities offered by today's positive market conditions, while
ensuring that we help clients to make the best energy choices
in the face of market uncertainties, we need to focus on sales
fundamentals.
In this short article I would like to highlight one of these
fundamentals—effective listening. Effective listening is argu-
ably the most important skill needed in any sales effort.
FIRST BUILD TRUST
We need only recall our own shopping experiences to remind
ourselves why a salesperson who listens is so valuable. We all
For a salesperson, the best way
to get buyers to trust you and
subsequently buy from you has
less to do with what you say and
more" to do with what you hear the
customer say. The more they talk,
the more they trust you.
have enough personal buying experience to put ourselves in the
place of a typical homeowner as he or she considers remodeling
his or her home. While all homeowners know intuitively that
they should carefully plan ahead, do research, get at least three
quotes, and evaluate each quote against their planned goals,
most of them don't have the time, interest, or patience to do so.
Nor do they have the basic knowledge required to research and
assess all the important information available in order to make
a truly informed decision. Paradoxically, the ever-growing data-
base of readily available (often contradictory) information, and
the wide array of choices and energy-saving options that in the-
ory should make it easier for homeowners to make an informed
buying decision actually create more stress and indecision.
When surveyed before un-
dertaking remodeling projects,
consumers vow they are going
to assess the quality and over-
all value of the contractors and
their products. However, when
surveyed after they make their
decision, they give reasons for
their choices using words like
"trust," "reputation," and "refer-
rals." They have substituted trust
in the salesperson for quality
and value to lessen their stress.
Moreover, the more they are able
to trust a contractor, the more
willing they are willing to pay a premium for services and prod-
ucts rendered.
This is an important finding for our sales efforts, for fun-
damentally, the task is to get consumers to trust us. Of course,
this is easier said than done. We all have enough life experi-
ence to recognize that putting trust in any salesperson is quite
a leap of faith on the part of any buyer. The trust-building pro-
cess is built into all aspects of your marketing—signage, lit-
erature, company name, reputation, service record, telephone
messaging, brand alliances, and so on. In the sales process spe-
cifically, trust building begins with the first phone call to book
an appointment, and it strengthens up to the time of closing,
when we ask homeowners to dip into that well of trust to sign
the deal. Interestingly enough, unlike in marketing, where
it is useful to talk up the company's history and reputation,
S26 Home Energy
www.homeenergy.org
-------
in sales the more you talk about how trustworthy the
company is, the less buyers are inclined to trust you.
For a salesperson, the best way to get buyers to trust
you and subsequently buy from you has less to do with
what you say and more to do with what you hear the
customer say. The more they talk, the more they trust
you. All professional salespeople have heard about the
power of listening, yet it remains an underused tool.
This is often especially true in the high-performance
contracting business, where we are all so enthusiastic
and passionate about the products and technologies
that will save the world; we feel the need to talk about
them—a lot.
THE PHONE CALL
Let's apply this fundamental principle of encouraging
our prospective clients to talk to three parts of the sales
process, starting with that first phone call to book an appoint-
ment. Marketing gets the phone to ring; sales converts that initial
expression of interest ultimately into a buying decision.
You have advertised Energy Star audit services in a local pa-
per. A prospective client calls and asks, "What do you charge
for testing the energy efficiency of my home?" or "How much
money can I get back for upgrading the insulation in my home?"
You could give a direct answer as to the cost or savings and then
tell the client how great your services are and ask if he or she
would like an appointment. Or you could make the first attempt
at building trust by asking a few questions. For example:
"Thanks for calling, and that is a great question. In order to
make sure we find the most cost-effective approach for you, do you
mind if I ask you a few questions? What prompted your interest in
an energy audit? What are your plans for the home? In your re-
search so far, what things have you heard that sound interesting?"
The answers to these questions become your reason for
charging what you do, and the reason why you are the best en-
ergy advisor for this specific client. For example, a client tells you
that he is thinking of replacing all the windows in a 100-year-old
home and has heard conflicting ideas on how best to proceed.
You could first take the opportunity to empathize with the con-
fusion that the client must be feeling, and then talk briefly about
your specific experience in an older home, recount the extra level
of incentives a similar client was able to realize with your ser-
vices as professional energy advisor, and then respectfully ask
for the new client's business. This can all be done in just a few
extra minutes on the phone.
The same commitment to asking helpful, encouraging ques-
tions extends to any in-home visit. Proper questioning builds
trust and saves both you and the client significant time, as it
allows you to shorten presentations to match only what the in-
dividual client needs or wants. That said, it is important to ask
permission to ask questions near the beginning of your visit. You
might say something like this:
"Thank you for the opportunity to visit your home and quote
on our services and our products. In order to save you a little
time and to find the most cost-effective approach, would it be
okay if I asked you a few questions?"
This simple approach allows you to take gentle control of the
visit and gives you leeway to ask between six and eight helpful,
effective questions. Be sure to design questions that are easy to
answer, encourage long answers, and are of genuine interest to
your client. For example, rather than asking:
• "Would you be interested in products and services that save
energy?"
Ask questions that encourage longer, more thoughtful responses:
m "What has been your experience with your energy bills?"
Or:
• "What technologies have you researched or heard about that
save energy?"
Train yourself to use these powerful phrases when question-
ing clients, to show genuine interest in what they have to say
about their needs and interests:
• Tell me about...
• Can you elaborate on ...
• What has been your experience been with ...
• In your research so far ...
*i What have you heard ...
After allowing your clients to talk and express their emo-
tions, you can go ahead and present, with passion and enthusi-
asm, the aspects of your product and services that most closely
match what the clients have told you that they need.
TALK ABOUT PRICE
One final—and critical—application of building trust through
active listening occurs when clients raise questions or objec-
tions—usually, of course, about price. As passionate and knowl-
edgeable advocates of energy-saving technologies, we are often
taken aback when clients don't share our commitment. While it
may seem like second nature to us to bring energy savings into
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
S27
-------
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Business Development Guide I „>£/ SELLING
our homes and daily lives, remember that our clients are not
just weighing the facts; they are also trying to decide if they can
trust us to help them make the right decision. When clients raise
questions or objections, the thing to do is, once again, simply to
encourage them to talk, by asking questions—and to listen to
the answers. For example, when a client asks why our price is
higher than that of a competitor, we often feel compelled to start
fiercely defending our price. A bet-
ter approach is first to allow the cli-
ent to talk about the difference in
price, and then describe what your
company is offering.
The client says: "It seems like
your price is quite a bit higher than
the price another contractor quoted us." You say: "Thanks for
letting me know that. Can you please clarify for me what the
other contractor told you?"
In at least 60% of cases, the client will answer his own ques-
tion for you. For example, the client may say:
• "Well, it was just a price over the phone, and they never of-
fered to come to the house."
For more information:
To learn more about Gord Cooke's
work, go to www.gordcooke.com.
Or:
• "Their price was lower, but I don't think it included complet-
ing all the paperwork for the incentives program."
In cases where clients don't answer their own question, at
least they have given you the time and information to prepare
the best possible response.
These are a few examples of how enthusiastic, helpful, sin-
cere questions can be used to help homeowners trust us more,
so that we can help them make more cost-effective and timely
decisions. We should resolve to be as knowledgeable and profes-
sional about the science of selling as we are about the science of
building. Use your knowledge of building science to create com-
pelling presentations—but first have the confidence to listen to
the emotions and desires of your clients, so as to empower them
to trust you. A
Gord Cooke has been a professional engineer, trainer, author,
and home building industry consultant for the last 25 years. He is
dedicated to helping the building industry and trade contractors
build, renovate, and sell more efficient, comfortable, healthier,
and more durable homes.
S28 Home Energy | www.homeenergy.org
-------
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2009 Home Performance Contractor's .BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE S29
-------
Business Development Guide
SELLING
How to Win the Job
HOMEOWNERS WILL UNDERSTAND THE COSTS AND BENEFITS
OF A HIGHER-QUALITY JOB IF WE EDUCATE THEM.
by Mike Gorman
Marketing, sales, and estimating are the three most
important components of our building performance
business for generating cash flow, but they are often
the components most ignored by home performance contrac-
tors. The words "marketing" and "sales" are not synonymous.
Marketing is what gets the phone to ring; sales are what happens
next. An estimating system for determining price and generating
specifications either streamlines the path to the sale or creates a
bottleneck. When these three systems perform well, we are still
often faced with the challenge of managing a steady flow of prof-
itable business. When these systems don't perform well, we may
get stuck with jobs that suck all of our energy away and leave us
with no time and no money.
NO MARKETING = NO SALES
Marketing should be an ongoing system, continuously putting
your name in front of the prospect. A marketing system doesn't
function well when it is controlled by an on-off switch. Like an
air conditioning system that can maintain comfort when the
thermostat is not being fiddled with continuously, but takes
time to reach the comfort level when the system has been shut
down for a while, most marketing systems don't have a rapid or
predictable response time. For home performance contractors,
the following marketing strategies seem to deliver the biggest
bang for the buck:
1. Make job signs and truck signs eye-catching; locate them
artfully.
2. Ask for referrals. Trust is usually contagious.
3. Give it away to get it. Freebies to the right people garner at-
tention.
4. Mine past customer lists. Repeat customers bring a higher
level of trust than new customers will. Include a two-year
service contract with every contract the customer signs.
Leave your name and contact info on everything you install
in the home.
5. Write letters. Write to contractors, home inspectors, Real-
tors, and others who deal with homeowners and follow up
within a couple of days.
6. Write press releases. They cost nothing, other than a little
time and effort to type and mail, and they will make your
company look much larger than it is.
SCREENING SAVES TIME
A salesperson should spend the most time working on sales
with the easiest-to-close, most promising leads. When there are
need, ability, and trust, the more likely a signature will seem-
ingly drop from the ceiling onto your contract. Screening leads
for these qualities is the first part of a sales system—a process
that will guide you most efficiently to your objective: the sale.
Only after you have screened the leads do you proceed to set-
ting the appointment, enhancing trust, educating the prospect,
defining and refining the way to meet the prospect's needs, and
finally presenting the proposal in exchange for a signature and
a check.
If you are among those who are swamped with calls from
prospective customers, realize that you are in the driver's seat
and must be choosy about how you spend your time. Contractors
are not required to provide more than the courtesy of a return
phone call unless there is some reason to believe that the caller
is truly a prospect who is likely to pay off. The lead capture form
is an invaluable script of carefully crafted questions designed to
stimulate a conversation that may lead to a sale (see p. S36).
EFFICIENT ESTIMATING
A quick and accurate system of estimating avoids the bottleneck.
No matter how efficient the marketing system is at producing
good leads, and no matter how well the sales system works, an
inefficient estimating system can cancel out all of the advantages
provided by either. A realistic goal is to estimate and create the
specifications of many jobs while you are in the customer's living
room, making the one-call close possible. If there are unknowns
in the equation (such as the proper size of equipment) that can
only be determined after more-detailed study, price the worst-case
scenario and explain to homeowners that they will save money if
the hardware can be downsized.
STREAMLINE THE ESTIMATING PROCESS
Just as you know how much time it takes to complete a blower
door test because you have done it repeatedly, so you need to
know how much time it takes to estimate accurately. That ques-
tion may be tougher to answer unless you have an estimating
system in place. The secret is in the system. For any system to
be useful,
continued on p. 35
S30
Home Energy
www.homeenergy.org
-------
business
The network of Building Performance Institute (BPI) Affiliate
training organizations is expected to at least double in 2009.
That means you get easier access to our nationally recognized
certification programs.
And that helps you build your business.
How? BPI Certified Professionals are in demand now more
than ever before. A growing number of Federal, State and local
homeowner incentive and weatherization programs either
encourage or require the work to be performed by individuals
certified by BPI. And with the economic stimulus package
dollars currently available, that makes your involvement with
BPI an even smarter business decision.
Are you ready to go to the next level?
Contact the BPI Affiliate near you.
www.bpi.org/certification
www.bpi.org
info@bpi.org
-------
Existing BPI Affiliate Organizations ^^^^B
USA
CAN
AK
AR
AZ
CA
CO
CT
GA
IL
KS
MA
MD
ME
Ml
MO
NC
NJ
NY
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
Comfort Institute
Saturn Resource Management, Inc.
GrEEnCollar.edu.net
ZERODRAFT2 of Canada
Alaska Housing Finance Corp.
Wisdom Associates
CLEAResult Consulting, Inc.
Foundation for Senior Living
CA Building Performance Contractors Assn.
Conservation Services Group
CACTUS
Energy Logic
Invisible Energy
Steven Winter Associates
Southface Institute
Performance Exteriors
Tri-County Construction Labor-Mgmt.
Kansas Building Science Institute
Conservation Services Group
BG&E Home Products & Services
ICF International
Maryland Energy Conservation
Sentech, Inc.
Evergreen Home Performance, LLC
Performance Systems Development
Building Science Academy, LLC
N. Michigan Community College
GoColumbiaMo (Columbia Water & Light)
Linn State Technical College
Metropolitan Energy Center
MO Botanical Garden's Earth Ways Center
Apple Blossom, Inc.
BTK Building Inspections & Analysis, LLC
Building Performance Engineering
CLEAResult Consulting, Inc.
Conservation Services Group
EAM Associates
PROCEED, Inc.
Refresh Homes
Association for Energy Affordability
Broome Community College*
Bronx Community College*
Conservation Services Group
Erie Community College Workforce
Development*
Fulton-Montgomery Community College*
Hudson Valley Community College*
N.Y. State Weatherization Directors Assn.*
OCM BOCES*
Steven Winter Associates
SUNY Canton
55
.
c
g
,
10
1
y
51
52
OH 53
54
OR 55
PA 56
57
58
59
60
TN 61
62
TX 63
64
65
VA 66
67
68
69
VT 70
WA 71
72
Wl 73
WY 74
WA
MT
OR
ID
WY
NV
UT
CO
AZ
Thomas Shortman Training
Scholarship and Safety Fund V
Westchester Community College*
Corporation for Ohio Appalachian
Development
ICF International
Conservation Services Group
EAM Associates
Energy Coordinating Agency
Performance Systems Development
Weatherization Training Center at
Pennsylvania College of Technology
Pure Energy
Indiana Community Action Association
Sherlock Homes Inspection Services, Inc.
Austin Energy
Green Energy Audit Certification
ICF International
Community Housing Partners
ICF International
SENCON
SENTECH, Inc.
Vermont Energy Investment Corp.
Building Performance Center
South Seattle Community College
Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corp.
Wyoming Energy Council, Inc.
NM
'
AK
-------
ME
ND
SD
NE
KS
Wl
MN
IA
IL
27
.
Ml
OH
IN
KY
W. VA
OK
MO
AR
TN
NC
SC
MS
AL
GA
TX
LA
FL
1 Denotes a learning center participating in the consortium
led by Hudson Valley Community College's Center for
Energy Efficiency and Building Science
www.bpi.org
info@bpi.org
-------
Fill the gaps.
Shape the future.
Join the fast-growing network of
BPI Affiliate training organizations.
Teach the fundamentals
of home performance from
a house-as-a-system approach.
Help make America's existing homes safe,
energy efficient and sustainable.
www.bpi.org/future
Training.
Accreditation.
Quality Assurance.
-------
continued from p. 30
m you need to be able to duplicate it,
• the results must be measurable, and
• the process must be simple to perform.
The accuracy of the estimate is the measure of the results.
However, the best estimating systems will provide a cost figure
that is either equal to or higher than actual costs in order to en-
sure profitability. The simpler the process, the less time it takes
to perform.
ORGANIZING THE ESTIMATE
Whether the estimate is done by the technician in the home
or by a specialist in the office, use the unit cost method of
estimating. This method removes the emotion from the estimating
process by substituting verifiable unit costs for each item of labor,
materials, and trade contract work included in the estimate. It
allows you to view each project as a set of components, each with
its own fixed cost. A simple remediation project may involve many
skills and lots of different products. However, if each activity is
viewed individually, it is simple to assign a predetermined value
for materials and labor per unit
of measurement.
Computer systems simplify
the estimating process by iden-
tifying each construction cost
by a unit of measurement—
linear foot, square foot, pair,
each, and so on. These comput-
er systems are easy to use. They
are available at conventions,
trade shows, and seminars; or
you can learn to use them by conferring with competitors and
reading trade publications. You may choose a system developed
and monitored constantly by professionals whose job is to keep
you in business by providing correct cost figures. Currently, I
prefer a database put together by RemodelMax. When you com-
bine this database with an estimating system called ClearEsti-
mates, you have a quick and easy way to generate the costs for
the project, as well as specifications (with product images if you
like) and contract language. See a demo of these tools at www.
mikedelivers.com.
If you choose a system created and managed by others, the
database should be specific to the type of business that you en-
gage in. Building performance contractors should, however, be
able to modify and customize the system they use by adding
more items that are unique to their operations.
A well-built list of tasks arranged in the order in which they oc-
cur enables the estimator to build the job mentally as he or she is
preparing the estimate. Once the job begins, it becomes the check-
list, helping the contractor to minimize errors and omissions.
The words "marketing" and
"sales" are not synonymous.
Marketing is what gets the
phone to ring; sales are what
happens next.
DETERMINE A FAIR PRICE
Instead of lower prices, try to establish fair prices. Fair prices are
based on the true cost of doing business. Start by taking a look
at how much it costs to operate your business, and be realistic.
The remodeling side of home performance contracting Is truly
one of the most inefficient businesses, because almost every job
is unique.
Understand that to estimate costs accurately, you must know
what portion of every dollar generated by sales is needed to pay
the cost of operating your business, and what portion and how
much is left over for the sticks, bricks, and labor to build the job.
You should also allow for some profit, over and above your daily
salary. The cost of operating your business is known as over-
head. To determine your overhead, look back over the last twelve
months and identify how each dollar was spent during that time.
This exercise is not as overwhelming as you might think. Get out
your Big Chief tablet and your #2 pencil and organize two col-
umns, one headed Overhead and the other Job Cost. Every check
you wrote last year goes in one column or the other. If there's
a balance remaining that can't be allocated to either column,
it might be profit. Is this is a balance remaining from the total
of checks you wrote? If so, why
might it be profit? Now divide
the total in the overhead column
by your total sales income for the
period that you analyzed. The re-
sult is the percentage of your total
income necessary to support your
overhead for that period. For ex-
ample:
$30,000 in overhead divided
by $100,000 in sales gives an over-
head percentage of 30% (30,000/100,000 = .30 or 30%). For more
on pricing see my article "Pricing for Profit," p. S50.
WHERE TO START
The starting point of any estimate should be the cost of the plans
and permits required to build the project. To apply the concept
of unit cost to this part of the estimate, we'll look at some cost
items, starting with the plans and the proposal.
Time is money. This means that you should get paid for es-
timating and creating proposals. Therefore, you need to include
the cost of preparing the proposal in the estimate. This also ap-
plies to the cost of the audit (or inspection), a key issue for home
performance contractors. Charging for audits is part of screen-
ing; if the audit cost is too low, you will get too many unqualified
audits. Or you can use other screening. Or both. The key is get-
ting enough of the audits to turn into jobs. You can reduce your
audit cost by putting part of the audit cost into the job, but be
careful to reflect that you will not turn all your audits into jobs.
A related issue is the use of the report. Too big a report and you
make audits more expensive. Too small a report and you lose
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE S35
-------
Business Development Guide
SELLING
LEAD FORM
Taken by:
Voice mail: D Y D N Time:
Date:
Name:
Address:
Home phone:
Cell phone:
Type of work:
How soon to start work?
Referred by:
Interested in
D yellow pages
D mailing
D cash or
D newspaper
D presentation
D financing ?
Mr.@ work:
Ms.® work:
E-mail address:
How long owned home?
Q TV D radio D telemarketing
D referral D existing customer D other
Best time for appointment?
Have you done any remodeling in the past?
How long have you been considering this?
How long do you see yourself living in this house?
How soon do you want the work done?
Do you have plans or a design in mind?
What research have you done?
D other vendors D media D manufacturer D Internet
Are you considering other improvements to your house?
what?
Is your house all D electric or do you have D gas also? What do you use gas for?
Are your highest fuel bills in the
D summer or
D winter?
Sometimes understanding the other kinds of performance problems you have with your house can help us determine the best whole
house solution to your current problem. Can I review a list of common performance problems with you?
DO YOU HAVE...
BASIC
ADVANCED
Noisy air?
Soot deposits?
High humidity?
Rotting roof?
Frequent dust?
Lingering allergy symptoms?
Cold air drafts?
Respiratory disorders and asthma?
Smoky fireplace?
Lingering odors?
High energy bills in summer?
Mold and mildew?
High energy bills in winter?
Peeling paint?
Hot and cold rooms (bad distribution)?
Intermittent CO alarms?
Other?
Foggy windows?
Stuffy air?
Let me turn this over to one of our representatives who will call you to set up an appointment.
Salesperson:
CUSTOMER EVALUATION SCORE
Ability
1 vague
2 good
3 best
Score:
Urgency
1 none
2 soon
3 ASAP
Score:
Cycle
1 impulse
2 weeks
3 months
Score:
Source
1 yellow pages
2 job sign
3 repeat, referral
Score:
Total score:
536 Home Energy
www.homeenergy.org
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your positioning as a consultant. Since you may not sell to every
qualified prospect, build a cost into every estimate sufficient top
recover the cost of making all of those presentations which did
not result in jobs sold. There should be a charge built into each
proposal estimate for the cost of creating plans and for taking
and arranging digital photos. Each estimate should reflect the
cost of preparing those plans for jobs sold, as well as the cost for
those plans that were rejected by the homeowner.
To use the unit cost concept to figure these charges, you
might establish fees that are applied to each of these activities
and include as well charges based on a percentage of the sell-
ing price. This method would establish a minimum charge for
simple jobs. However this minimum charge would increase as
the cost of the job increases, since a more expensive job neces-
sarily entails a more complicated plan.
There is no activity in home performance contracting so com-
plicated that it cannot be shrunk down into a unit of measure-
ment, such as square foot, cubic foot, linear foot, each, each pair,
each plus per square foot, and so on. You can delegate yourself
right into free time by installing various systems, including es-
timating, to run your business.
HOW DOES THIS FIT TOGETHER?
A lot of homeowners are open to understanding the costs and
benefits of a higher-quality job, but only if we are willing and
able to educate them. Depending on whose research you read, as
few as 10%-15% of consumers use cost as their primary decid-
ing factor. I would like to propose that most people will rely on
price as the deciding factor only when they lack other informa-
tion that would help them to decide which contractor they trust
with their expectations.
If we could educate prospects to understand what goes into
a good furnace or A/C system, a good window or insulation in-
stallation, they would know what to look for should they under-
take the burden of collecting bids. At the same time, they might
be less inclined to do so. How do we do that?
TEN STEPSTO THE DOTTED LINE
To summarize, if you take the following steps, using some of the
techniques described above, your path to the ink on the contract
will be as efficient as your work—and as efficient as you intend
your client's home to be:
1. Return the phone call promptly.
2. Spend some time with the prospect on the phone.
3. Make an appointment, but only after getting a commitment
from the prospect to pay for testing.
4. Keep the appointment to the minute.
5. Build trust and rapport.
6. Spend time educating the prospect about your company.
7. Explore the house with great interest and take copious
notes.
8. Estimate the cost of the project on the spot.
HOW TO USE THE LEAD FORM
Date: Helps you identify good times to call in the future.
Name: Helps to determine who in the household is the decision maker
by who placed the first call. Try to speak with all decision makers in
the home.
Address: Contact information is vital!
Type of Work: Is the caller a good fit for your business? By describ-
ing their needs in response to this question, the caller may give other
useful information as well as need and urgency.
How soon to start work? This open-ended question is designed to
elicit information about need and urgency.
How long owned home? Vital in determining ability to pay. Should
the caller indicate that they don't own the home, the value of the lead
would change drastically.
Referred by: Helps identify common ground. Also it helps analyze the
effort put forth by the caller to find a source to satisfy their needs.
Interested in: cash or financing? This question defines the caller's
ability to pay. Research indicates that customers spend thirty to forty
percent more money when the project is financed.
Best time for appointment? A lot can be gleaned about the deci-
sion makers from this question.
How long have you been considering this? Sheds some light on
where the caller is in the buying cycle, and need and urgency.
What remodeling done before? Does the caller has an idea about
the process involved in remodeling?
9. Present your proposal; deliver the price (or budget).
10. Collect a deposit and cement the sale by assuring the cus-
tomer that he or she has made some wise choices.
NOW IMAGINE THE OUTCOME
In order to generate the names and phone numbers, and to sepa-
rate the tire kickers from the repeat customers, you need a well-
planned and executed marketing program—and that program
must be in continuous operation. You won't sell to every pros-
pect, but at the very least, the contractor who properly educates
the prospect raises the performance bar for the next contractor
who delivers a proposal. 6
Mike Gorman is the author of If I Sell You, I Have a
Job. If I Serve You I Create a Career1. (Lakeland, Florida,
TechKnowledge, 1997). He delivers seminars and provides tele-
phone and on-site coaching regarding sales, marketing, and esti-
mating, as well as systematizing the business. His background as
a remodeler provides his platform. E-mail Mike at mgbok@aol.
com; phone him at (800)218-5149; or visit his Web site at www.
techknowledgeonline.net.
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE S37
-------
Business Development Guide
BUSINESS OPERATIONS
Home Performance with Energy Star
ROUNDTABLE
For this special issue of Home Energy, contributing editor Steve Mann contacted
a panel of successful Home Performance with Energy Star contractors to get
their answers to some basic questions about auditing and correcting homes. Not
surprisingly, each company has a different take on the process, the market, and
the best way to solve customer problems.
THE INITIAL AUDIT
Home Energy: What is the scope of a typi-
cal home energy audit and how long does
it take?
Steve Byers: Our typical home audit in-
cludes a homeowner survey/interview, visual
inspections, blower door testing, infrared (IR)
thermography, combustion safety testing,
and reporting. This takes between two and
four hours typically.
Matt Golden: Our comprehensive assess-
ment typically takes around four hours and
includes the diagnostics listed below. We
start by interviewing the homeowner to un-
derstand their concerns and priorities and
then conduct a walk-through. Next we cover
some basic building science principles with
the homeowner. After that our specialists
get to work gathering data and analyzing
the home. A review session and estimate
for construction work is typically presented
three to five days after the test.
Chris Strand: We note any window that
receives more than one hour of summer
sun; the condition of the air distribution sys-
tem; the condition, age, and efficiency of
the HVAG system; the condition of the attic
insulation; and the significant air leakage
points. Our audit takes one-half hour to two
hours, depending on the size and condition
of the house.
Larry Taylor: Our visual clipboard audits
take about one hour and provide minimum
information without testing. A comprehen-
sive audit takes two to four hours. We then
provide a comprehensive report of findings
and costs to repair findings and a priori-
tized list of repairs to be made.
HE: What diagnostics/tests/evaluations do
you typically include? How do your price
your audits? Are they profitable? Can you
do an effective home energy audit in three
hours?
SB: We do blower door testing, IR ther-
mography, combustion safety testing, duct
testing as necessary. Our prices are $300
base price for a home of 1,500 square feet
or less; $30 additional for every 500 square
feet above 1,500 square feet; and we charge
for mileage.
These audits are profitable. Other audits
performed in the context of a variety of pro-
gram sponsors have different service levels
and come very close to being not profitable.
When EnergyLogic is able to submit a proposal
to the homeowner for home performance con-
tracting along with the audit, the profitability
of the audit becomes less critical.
We can do the audit in under three hours,
if we follow our process! As soon as the
process is sacrificed, often for good rea-
sons, it's generally not possible to finish in
three hours.
MG: We do blower door tests, IR camera in-
spections, room-by-room load calculations,
combustion safety tests, HVAC equipment in-
spections, visual duct inspections, insulation
inspections, exhaust fan flow tests, analysis
of historical electrical and gas consumption,
lighting audits, and appliance audits. Audit
prices start at $595 and increase incremen-
tally depending on the house square footage.
The audit side of our business breaks even.
We typically deploy two specialists/tes-
ters for a home. In homes of less than 3,000
square feet, three hours is usuajly enough
time to do the audit, Larger homes, or custom
homes with unique floor plans, may require
a little extra time.
CS: Our audit is strictly visual. There is no
testing. All of our audits are free and in-
clude an estimate for the needed upgrades.
The audit takes one-half hour to two hours,
depending on the size and condition of the
house.
We do test after installation. This includes
a duct leakage test, an aJr infiltration test,
air balancing, system static pressures, and
worst-case-scenario backdraft testing.
LT: Our comprehensive audit includes testing
duct leakage, load calculation information,
air flow from HVAC system measurements,
IR camera inspection, CO testing, backdraft
testing, and so on. Our charge for a visual
audit is around $85 with a comprehensive
audit starting at $345. Visual audits are not
profitable, and comprehensive audits break
even with the profits made on repair sales.
The time it takes for us to do an audit de-
pends on the size of the house and the level
of testing being performed.
HE: Are there any tools, equipment, ex-
hibits, or demonstrations that help you sell
Home Performance?
SB: IR certainly helps. We need to develop
better tools for our auditors to sell the job.
MG: During the final walk-through of the
home, we utilize the blower door test to show
homeowners major areas of leakage and con-
cern. The IR camera is also an effective tool to
show homeowners uninsulated areas that are
of concern for heat loss. The data collected
from flow hood tests is also an excellent tool
S38 Home Energy
www.homeenergy.org
-------
for showcasing the benefits of duct balancing
to maintain an evenly heated home.
CS: Yes, cameras are very effective to docu-
ment attic, HVAC, and ductwork issues.
When customers complain about rooms that
are too hot or too cold, we will bring out our
flow hoods.
LT: Yes, we use a lot of Energy Star bro-
chures. We also have a puzzle of the house
for showing the customer how items all work
together to make a system.
HE: Does your company do the audit, the
improvements, and the test-out? If you
don't do the improvements, how do you
find qualified partners for referrals to do
the work?
SB: Yes, when we get the improvement work
we also do test-out. When we don't do the
improvements, since we have a long history in
the area we have a short list of recommended
companies that we refer to.
MG: Yes, we do all three. After testing numer-
ous business models, doing the work our-
selves is the only way to effectively achieve
the performance metrics necessary to main-
tain a healthy, comfortable, and energy-
efficient home.
CS: Yes, we do audits and improvements, and
we test out. The only aspect we contract out
is solar-screen installation. Finding qualified
partners is a trial-and-error process.
LT: We want to maintain total control of
the process. We find you have to educate
and then train subs to the level of work you
expect.
MAKING RECOMMENDATIONS
HE: Do you talk to clients about upgrades
or retrofits during the audit or as a separate
activity? How long does that typically take?
What methods or techniques do you find
most effective in convincing customers to
make improvements to their home?
SB: Our process involves computer analysis,
so it's best that recommendations be made
at the end of the audit. However, if the hom-
eowner accompanies the auditor during the
audit, recommendations can be made to the
homeowner as the audit is conducted. The
challenge, of course, is to keep the audit
moving.
Pointing out losses and obvious problems
is effective in convincing customers to make
the improvements. Homeowners know things
are wrong, they just aren't sure where. The IR
camera is also effective. Finding at least some
things that are low cost is also helpful in the
current environment, since people just need
to start moving in many cases but don't have
the money for the bigger improvements.
MG: Both. We'll take the opportunity when
we're at the client's home to speak to specific
concerns, point out problem areas, and dis-
cuss potential solutions very generally. About
three to five days after the test, we conduct
a one-hour review session (either online or in
person) covering the specific findings from
the audit; discuss the impact of these findings
relative to the homeowner's concerns; and
review the recommended solutions to achieve
the homeowner's desired goals.
What's most effective in selling a job de-
pends on the reason the homeowner con-
tacted us. If the home is always cold, we
can help the homeowner to be warmer. If the
concern is health, we can fix the problems
that bring unhealthy air into the conditioned
space of a home. We're not so much in a
position of convincing homeowners to make
improvements; rather, we're providing hom-
eowners with a solution to their problem. We
educate them as to why the problem exists,
and explain why our approach to solving the
problem is the right one.
CS: After our visual inspection, we fill out
our investment agreement at the kitchen
table with the homeowner, noting the recom-
mended improvements, their cost, incentives
available, total cost, and total incentives.
Consumers' time is extremely valuable, and
they want a one-stop estimate.
Honestly, what sells a job for us is a thor-
ough analysis, a one-stop estimate, the incen-
tives available, and our reputation. Customers
only buy from people they like and trust. The
majority of our leads are from previous cus-
tomers and referrals.
LT: Most of the time we do not discuss repairs
at the time of the audit. We use a separate
auditor for the testing and reports. Then we
hand the reports off to the sales team mem-
ber for presentation and delivery of findings
and repair cost to the customer.
What is effective for us in selling improve-
ments is educating our customers about what
is happening, and how it affects their health,
safety, comfort, and energy consumption.
i
Steve Byers Principal
EnergyLogic, Incorporated
^ Berthoud, Colorado
www.nrglogic.com
\ EnergyLogic is a diversified energy ser-
J vices company with several interlocking
business units. These include Builder
Services, Homeowner Services, Rater Services, and
Commercial Services. Each of these units both gives and
takes from the others while contributing to EnergyLogic's
overall strategy of learning and distributing information
to our partners through our educational efforts and soft-
ware applications in particular. EnergyLogic was named
Energy Star Partner of the Year by the EPA in 2009. The
company has had a role in improving more than 10,000
homes in Colorado.
Matt Golden President, Founder, and
Chief Building Scientist
Sustainable Spaces, Incorporated
San Francisco, California
www.sustainablespaces.com
Sustainable Spaces is a Bay Area provider
of home performance services. Founded
in 2004 with the mission of providing homeowners with a
resource for finding and fixing the root causes of wasted
energy in their homes, Sustainable Spaces is dedicated
to offering whole-system solutions. A licensed general,
solar, HVAC, and insulation contractor, the company fields
an integrated team of HERS-certified Home Performance
specialists, environmental engineers, and specially trained
Home Performance retrofitters. Sustainable Spaces com-
bines customer service with building science innovations
and engineering solutions to transform each home into a
model of healthy energy efficiency.
Chris Strand owner
Strand Brothers
Austin, Texas
www.strandbrothers.com
Strand Brothers specializes in heating and
A/C repair, maintenance, and installation;
plumbing repair, maintenance, and installation; energy ef-
ficiency products and services; indoor air quality products
and services; and building performance testing and con-
sulting. The company is a member of the Better Business
Bureau and the ACCA. Most of our technical workforce
is licensed and certified by North American Technical
Excellence (NATE).
Larry Taylor President
AirRite Air Conditioning Company,
Incorporated
Fort Worth, Texas
www.airrite.com
AirRite was founded as a HVAC company
in 1955 and started offering Whole House as a System
services in 1991. The company provides a full range of
residential and commercial HVAC services, and indoor
air quality, electrical, and attic insulation and ventilation
services.
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE S39
-------
Business Development Guide
•BUSINESS OPERATIONS
HE: What are your customers' primary
concerns—comfort, safety, utility costs,
health, sustainability, or something else?
Are utility bills (and a disaggregation) an
effective way to talk to clients about up-
grading their homes?
SB: Our customers are concerned with com-
fort, followed by cost, followed by sustain-
ability. Utility bills are only of interest to a
technically savvy client.
MG: All of the above. Every home is unique,
and every homeowner is
unique as well. For home-
owners concerned about
the cost of their utility bills,
it's very effective to provide
a frame of reference for the
energy savings they may
achieve. Our main goal is
to explain the efficiency im-
provements that we'll achieve
in the home, with energy sav-
ings many times a by-prod-
uct of the efficiency improvements.
CS: Our customers think about comfort, utility
costs, home maintenance, and sustainability.
Health is just icing on the cake. Yes, utility
bills definitely help us talk to our customers
about upgrades.
LT: Our customers are concerned about all
the things you mentioned. We determine their
concerns by doing a complete interview with
the customers about their expectations.
It's not always the utility bills that concern
our customers. Too many times you are trying
to convert something into payback, and your
health, safety, and comfort are not always
tied to direct energy savings. Most of the time
the improvements relate to energy savings,
but I don't try to sell on that alone.
HE: Do you try to estimate utility savings
when making recommendations about
the home? Do you ever evaluate the util-
ity bill savings some time after a retrofit is
finished?
SB: Our computer analysis makes this quick
and quite accurate. We use a new tool called
OptiMiser that is currently in beta testing
and will be commercialized by June 2009.
It is a very accurate, very easy-to-use tool
that allows full disaggregation, produces
benefit-cost information, and makes report
generation on site a simple process, includ-
ing bid generation.
We rarely evaluate utility bills after a ret*
rofit, though we should more often!
MG: We give approximations of how much
we'll be able to reduce their loads/bills and
set measurable goals for ourselves to aim
toward when performing the retrofit. We
meet and often exceed the goals that were
set. We know from several years of experi-
ence that fundamental work (for example,
insulation and air sealing) typically reduces
bills by 30%-50%.
Typically, contractors and installers
work to fulfill a job. We set
performance metrics for every home
we work on. We don't leave the home
until we achieve the performance
improvements we've committed to.
We don't perform postretrofit evaluations,
but we often hear from satisfied customers
about the energy savings they've achieved
as a result of our work.
CS: Usually our upgrades involve replacing
HVAC equipment, so estimating utility savings
is extremely simple. If we take out an old unit
with an 8-SEER rating, and replace it with a
smaller 16-SEER unit, we know the cooling
savings are going to be at a minimum of 50%.
If we just do building performance, we give
a very rough estimate. Customers are not
as concerned with the exact utility savings,
but are more concerned: about getting their
home to contemporary energy efficiency
upgrade standards.
We seldom need to evaluate our improve-
ments after the retrofit—maybe once every
two years. Our customers provide the best
quality control any home energy contractor
could have. If they do not save, they will defi-
nitely give me a call. What I typically find is
that their baseload is so high that the cooling
savings are not as easily discernable. We of-
ten get calls a year or two later telling us that
their savings were more than expected.
LT: On some items you may be able to proj*
ect some energy savings; on others that are
related to comfort and humidity, for example,
there is not a direct energy projection.
We don't do a formal postretrofit evalua-
tion, but customer feedback surveys indicate
that;e>ur customers are achieving significant
savings. Happy customers provide me with
better information than kWh reports.
HE: When making recommendations, how
do you handle pricing or estimating?
SB: .We handle insulation, air sealing, crawl-
space retrofit, and other miscellaneous im-
provements in house. Thus, that pricing is
quite accurate. For other items, we use de-
fault assumptions that we check frequently
with our trusted pool of trades.
MG: In addition to being high-
ly trained in building science,
our in-home teams have also
worked for at least a month
with our construction crews to
gain an im-depth knowledge
of the projects they're pro-
posing: The field teams also
meet with our engineers and
construction leads to ensure
they're proposing the right
solutions at the right price.
CS: Cookbook and the skill of the analysts.
All of our analysts have a minimum of 15
years experience.
LT: After years of experience and job costing,
we Fiave established a lot of items into cook-
book pricing. On others we simply add to-
gether the list of tasks to arrive at the cost.
IN THE FIELD
HE: What is the minimum set of equipment
you recommend?
SB: Blower door, good visual inspection aids,
IR camera (to be competitive), good combus-
tion1 safety-testing equipment.
MG: Blower door, to test the building envelope
for leakage; low-flow balometer, to test the ajf
flow, out of each duct supply; hygrometer, to
measure temperature and relative humidity;
prot'iijieter, to measure the moisture content
of pertain materials; combustion gas analyzer;
to detect gas leaks; CO monitor, to determine
levels of harmful CO gas;'low-e detector, to
detect low-e film on windows; respirator, to
protect our workers in crawlspaces and attics;
horoscope, to inspect wall/floor cavites;
CS: :Duct Blaster, blower door, digital ma-
nometer, flow hood, insulation blower, and
IR camera. HVAC personnel have additional
recommended equipment.
LT: Blower door, Duct Blaster, flow hood, CO
detector, and temperature measurements.
S40
Home Energy
www.homeeTiergy.org
-------
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2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
S41
-------
Business Development Guide
*..* BUSINESS OPERATIONS
HE: Do you have any equipment tricks of
the trade that other Home Performance
contractors might find useful?
SB: Primarily, be organized. Disorganized
equipment makes for very inefficient au-
diting. Keep equipment clean and in good
working order and have backup equipment
when possible.
MG: Most are hard to explain. You actu-
ally need to see the "trick." Using theatri-
cal fog with a Duct Blaster can help detect
leaks without using smoke or other chemical
agents that could be harmful (or set off the
fire alarms).
CS: We have 8 to 13 very experienced
crews, and I am sure that they have all
kinds of tricks.
LT: Most Home Performance contractors have
all attended the same conferences and share
the tricks. Our advice is to stay involved in the
industry events, read information in trade pub-
lications, and stay aware.
HE: Do you use any special software for
auditing, reporting, modeling, or other
purposes? Do you do any energy modeling
or provide your clients with ratings such as
a HERS index?
SB: We use our own software, OptiMiser, that
should be available in June 2009. We don't
typically calculate a HERS index.
MG: We have our own proprietary software.
We do energy modeling, but we don't cur-
rently provide HERS ratings.
CS: We use a simple, internally developed,
paper-based checklist that closely matches
the requirements of our local incentive pro-
grams in Austin. We look strictly at HVAC and
envelope issues. That doesn't really require
any special software. Doing a full complete
audit would be so expensive as to exclude
80% of the potential market.
We don't do modeling or HERS ratings
because it would price the audit out of reach
of most customers. Also, the customer
doesn't care.
LT: We are a Comfort Institute member and
use their Infiltrometer 9.0 software for infiltra-
tion reporting and SEER/AFUE degradation
ratings. Other than that, we use ACCA Manual
J 8 from WrightSoft for loads and export the
information to REM:Rate for the ratings and
cost calculations. Once all these data are
gathered, we use Word to import photos and
other information and generate the final report
with comments and recommendations.
HE: What types of things can stop a job
cold (for example, asbestos, or knob-and-
tube wiring)? Do you have any entertaining
or cautionary stories of unusual situations
that stopped a job in progress?
SB: We'll test with asbestos as long as it
hasn't become friable. Knob-and- tube wir-
ing will stop insulation work, of course, but
it becomes a recommendation/requirement
prior to insulating on our report. Vermiculite
is a stopper for the blower door test, but the
rest of the audit can proceed.
Nothing has stopped a job cold, but some
things have certainly made it unpleasant!
We once had an auditor encounter a large,
chained-up Rottweiler in a basement that put
a few gray hairs on his head. We also had a
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2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
543
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Business Development Guide
BUSINESS OPERATIONS
student tell us that he had encountered a
mountain lion in a crawlspace.
WIG: There are few things that really limit or
could possibly halt an inspection, the most
significant being dangerous levels of CO
or combustion gases in the home. Others
include faulty construction, such as open
walls, unfinished areas of the home, or open
cavities. One of our specialists was trapped
in a crawlspace by a family of skunks. It's
good to know if there are any pest problems
beforehand.
CS: Any hazardous condition besides what
is noted above, such as open wiring, sting-
ing insect infestation, vermin, and mold, can
stop a job. It is never entertaining to stop a
job in progress.
LT: When we run across something that will
change the scope of the project, we stop
the process and leave it in a safe condi-
tion. Then we get all parties together and
discuss the options. Once a new plan has
been established, then we proceed. Do not
try to make the decision for the customer.
You will lose.
There is not enough room in this article
for the number of stories out there. From a
cautionary side, we find chemical-sensitive
people more often than you might think, so
make sure you ask if anyone has this issue.
HE: How do you reduce your risk and make
sure that customers and other trades per-
ceive your company as a high-quality
company?
SB: Primarily by being very honest and never
violating our integrity. Honesty and integrity
serve us well!
WIG: We constantly seek customer feedback
after every energy audit and retrofit project,
and we are obsessed with customer satis-
faction. We reduce our risk by providing
the highest quality of workmanship, using
only the highest-quality materials. The best
testaments to the quality of our work are the
referrals we receive iron) satisfied customers.
We deliver what we promise.
CS: How the installation looks and thorough-
ness matter, and I believe we are one of the
few companies in the nation that have inter-
nal quality control inspectors who get with
the homeowner a few days after every job
is completed.
If we take care of the customer, the cus-
tomer will take care of us. We immediately
respond to any customer complaint, and
all of our work has a 100% satisfaction
guarantee.
LT: We use a lot of forms and waivers to
make sure the customer knows exactly what
is going to happen. We then make sure our
field crews know the scope of work to be per-
formed. If you can make the job go smoothly,
then you have increased the perception
and validation that you are a high- quality-
performing contractor.
Educate the customer and do what you
say. If a problem does come up, solve it
quickly. Giving a complete job refund is a
lot less expensive than legal work, plus it
doesn't produce negative conversations
from the customer.
HE: What type of insurance coverage do
you recommend?
SB: General liability, but I sleep better know-
ing we also carry errors and omissions
insurance.
WIG: General liability, employment practices
.liability, directors' and officers' insurance,
workers' comp, property, additional property,
and inland marine.
CS: Workers' compensation, general liability,
completed operations, and auto liability.
LT: Beyond the minimums required by law
in our marketplace, we look at the value of
the market we are serving and make sure
we have coverage to cover that exposure.
For instance, if you are working on $2 million
homes, you better have 50% more coverage,
so you would want $3 million minimum.
EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT
HE: What qualifications do you recommend
for your auditors and other employees?
SB: Our auditors must be RESNET certified,
and we also like to have them be BPI building
analysts as well.
WIG: HERS certification, BPI accreditation,
good people skills.
CS: Extensive field experience. Certifications
include NATE, state mechanical license, and
air balancing.
LT: We like for our auditors to be more skilled
on the technical side and also have some
customer relationship skills. We don't ask
them to be sales personalities, but they need
to communicate well. The installers need to
understand the building science side as well
as how to plan, test, and evaluate the work
site. They also need to be able to make a
decision as to when to stop work or call for
additional information without taking it per-
sonally. We like to have as many certifications
and accreditations as possible. It gives the
customer a feeling of comfort with our team
members.
HE: Is on-the-job mentoring a good way to
train employees?
SB: Absolutely. That's the way we do it.
WIG: Field training is the only way to reinforce
the concepts that we try to teaefh in a class-
room or office setting. The concepts we'!re
employing are really best learned through
active participation.
CS: Yes.
LT; It depends on the lead person doing
the training. Just because they can do the
job does not mean they can teach the job.
Classroom education along with in-field ti$in*
ing and performance is best.
HE: How do you make sure the work is being
done properly and to a high quality level?
SB: We check in with homeowners, follow up
on work, and have our lead auditor go along
on a random basis on audits.
WIG: We test in, and we test out. Typically,
contractors and installers work to fulfill a job.
We set performance metrics for every homt
we work on. We don't leave the home until we
achieve the performance improvements we've'
committed to. It's the only way to provide the
high-quality solutions our customers have
come to expect from Sustainable Spaces.
CS: We have outstanding HVAC and building
performance field managers. Those manag-
ers have weekly meetings with their staff. The
sales manager has weekly meetings with the
advisors and the field managers. We believe
in a continuous-improvement philosophy. As
noted above, we do a quality control check
on every job.
LT: We do a test-out and compare the results
to the test-in results. We also use a three-
part no-carbon form. Part one is by the field
team, part two is by the salesperson, and
the final part is random by a supervisor or
manager. £
Steve Mann ;'s a HERS rater, Green Point
rater, LEED AP, Certified Energy Analyst,
serial remodeler, and long-time software
engineer.
544 Home Energy
www.homeenergy.org
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2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
S45
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Business Development Guide
t? BUSINESS OPERATIONS
Consulting Approach to Home
Performance Contracting
by Mark Furst
After starting my own home inspection business in 2001,
I began to realize just how important energy efficiency
was to the average homeowner. I also became increas-
ingly focused on coupling my home inspection career with energy
evaluation. But while I had the ambition to take risks and learn
more about efficiency, I wasn't confident enough to enter the field
just yet. It was all well and good to realize that efficiency was im-
portant to both home inspector and homeowner, but I was at a
loss as to how to proceed.
It seemed fated, then, that I happened to come across Focus
on Energy at the 2005 Better Buildings, Better Business confer-
ence in Wisconsin Dells. I was there
to further my knowledge of buildings
and construction, but I did not have
a clear goal. That changed after I at-
tended a building science seminar led
by Dave Kinyon of Focus on Energy.
My eyes were opened to aspects of
houses and their systems that I had
been aware of before, but not well
versed in. Immediately after the sem-
inar, I inquired as to how to involve
myself in the program. Mr. Kinyon
informed me that training was held
annually, and I readily volunteered
my information to guarantee me a
position at the next training session.
It was several months until Focus got
back to me, and nearly another year
until I attended the consultant train-
ing, but the wait was well worth it.
For four weeks, three days a week,
12 of us were trained on the basics of
building science-based home perfor-
mance evaluation: blower doors, combustion safety testing, in-
frared (IR) camera use, and the REM:Rate software and paper-
work that we would be using to report our findings (also known
as the fun part). We received hands-on training in the form of
two test houses (provided by local customers) where we could
apply our new skills. Of course there was a final test to study for
in order to become a qualified home performance rater, but the
training was quite comprehensive, as might be expected from a
four-week program. The only weakness was the lack of informa-
Mark Furst records data from an energy audit.
It seemed fated that I come across
Focus on Energy at the 2005 Better
Buildings, Better Business conference.
tion detailing exactly how the Focus program is administered.
After some rigorous searching, I found the answers.
FOCUS ON ENERGY
Focus on Energy was created in June 2001, thanks to Wiscon-
sin's 1999 state budget bill, which recognized the ridiculousness
of Wisconsin's 100% energy importation (nearly $20 billion per
year). Justifying its existence by the cumulative savings of its cli-
ents, this public/private agency focuses on "helping eligible Wis-
consin residents to install cost-effective energy efficiency and
renewable energy projects." Other goals of Focus are to prove
the reliability of energy sources, to
help individuals and businesses save
money by using less energy, and to
assist in the development of efficient
and environmentally safe renewable
energy sources.
The program is promoted as a
one-stop shop for efficiency infor-
mation, and is divided into three
sections: residential programs (for
homes, apartments, and condos);
business programs (for nonresi-
dential buildings); and the renew-
able energy program. I work in the
residential section, which is divided
into two further sections: the Wis-
consin Energy Star Homes program
and the Home Performance with
Energy Star program, of which I am
an active part.
Focus is now under the oversight
of the Public Service Commission of
Wisconsin. Previously, utility com-
panies had been responsible for developing and administering
their own energy efficiency programs for their customers, if they
even chose to do so.
As a result of the 1999 legislation, all investor-owned utili-
ties in Wisconsin are now required to participate in Focus on
Energy. Smaller rural co-ops can also participate on a voluntary
basis. Current Wisconsin law dictates that each electric and
natural gas utility has to spend at least 1.2% of its annual gross
operating revenue on energy efficiency and renewable resource
S46 Home Energy
www. homeenergy.org
-------
programs. The payments that Focus sends out as rewards come
from a fund that the utilities pay into. Prior to this development,
most utilities were offering their own versions of efficiency pro-
grams, as I explained above. These programs were generally un-
sophisticated. For the most part, they were clipboard audits, in
which the auditor (an employee of the utility company) would
visually assess the home
for the client, usually for
no charge. Because it was a
purely superficial inspec-
tion, it was not as useful to
the homeowner as it could
have been. Also, there was
no incentive for the utilities
to make recommendations
that, if carried out, would mean that they would sell less of their
product. Now the fact that the programs are run by Focus has
ensured that the training of consultants is consistent, and the
use of testing provides homeowners with specific and useful
information—the ultimate result being energy savings.
A PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP
So what kind of assessment am I responsible for as a Focus on
Energy consultant? A basic evaluation consists of the blower
door test, IR scanning, combustion safety testing, and visual
inspections of the accessible areas of the home. I also speak at
length with the homeowner to glean insight into how the home
is performing. This can help me to hone in on where to look for
issues. After completing the on-site evaluation, I take the infor-
mation back to my office and put together a detailed report. I
send a copy of this report to the homeowner, and another copy
to the contractor, if the homeowner has chosen one.
After any work is completed, I return to the home and perform
the blower door test again as well as the combustion safety test
if there is a natural draft water heater or furnace still in place. If
the house has been tightened significantly through effective air
sealing work, backdrafting is more likely to occur so this second
combustion safety test is critical. Persistent backdrafting can
best be "repaired" by replacing the offending unit with a sealed
combustion unit. Spill alarms and carbon monoxide alarms are
acceptable solutions for appliances that only backdraft under
the worst-case pressure conditions that rarely occur.
Unlike the utility companies, I charge for my services. The
client can, however, get money back from the state for complet-
ing specific recommended measures (that is, $100 for installing
attic insulation to R-50, $75 for increasing building tightness by
400 CFM, and so on). This is where involvement in the program
really aids me in my business. The money that clients receive
from the state does not cover the cost of completing the mea-
sures, but more often than not, it covers my charge to them. In
effect, they are receiving my professional expertise and a de-
tailed report at no charge. After the inspection, the client gets
On average, Wisconsin homeowners
who participate in the program and
have proper energy upgrades are
seeing energy savings of 15%-20%.
the customized report and I send Focus the forms it needs to
tabulate what measures are being installed by residents state-
wide. Contractors also receive a reward for increasing airtight-
ness to meet state requirements, as well as a reward for referring
clients to the program in the first place.
Focus also helps consultants with promotion and cooperative
advertising. The program
is promoted locally and
statewide on radio, TV,
and the Internet. For con-
sultants and qualified con-
tractors, Focus will .also
match costs for advertis-
ing that includes the Focus
and Energy Star logos and
taglines. These payments increase with the number of completed
jobs submitted.
The opportunity to involve myself in such a rewarding and
valuable program is invigorating to me. By following a passion
of mine, I am able to help people save some of their hard-earned
income, reduce the amount of energy being consumed, and help
maintain Wisconsin's lead (along with California, New York,
and Colorado) in the development of the nation's premier energy
efficiency programs.
THE HOUSES FOCUS FIXES
On average, Wisconsin homeowners who participate in the
program and have proper energy upgrades are seeing en-
ergy savings of 15%-20%. Most homes I see have some sort of
insulation, are somewhat "weather tight" and have fairly modern
mechanicals but will have one or two obvious areas that need
work. The work done mostly consists of air sealing and increas-
ing insulation above levels that were the norm in years past. We
generally tweak the homes rather than massively change them.
Most of the homes in the program are simple-shaped ranch homes
from the 1950s to the 1990s. There are many examples of this
type of home in thjs region and they usually will test out quite
well due to their simple wall layouts and roof designs. (I often tell
the homeowner that it is because there is less opportunity for the
builders to screw up!).
Newer homes often incorporate complicated floor and roof-
lines, cantilevered floors, bonus rooms, vaulted ceilings, re-
cessed lights, and hollow chimney chases among other desirable
architectural features—all potential energy leakers. Newer does
not always mean better! Limited access makes fixing the energy
leaks very challenging.
At the other end of the spectrum are the 80- to 150-year-old
farmhouses and townhouses, of which there are many in this
region. There is a growing movement among homeowners to re-
store older homes. Owners see the value in recycling these ven-
erable structures. Of course, finances will ultimately determine
the extent of each renovation, but I go to great lengths to explain
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE S47
-------
Business Development Guide
BUSINESS OPERATIONS
I purchased a rolling suitcase that was large enough for
most of the small tools.
to a homeowner how incredibly cost
effective modern air sealing and in-
sulating work is, encouraging them
to do this work ahead of the more
fun cosmetic projects.
In a project I was involved in
a couple of years ago, the house,
a simply shaped large Victorian
structure, had severe problems
with ice damming and very high
heating bills. There was no insula-
tion in the walls and a dusting in
the attic. There was a 40-year-old,
65% efficient furnace in the base-
ment. The homeowner opted for a
full air-sealing package, wall cavity dense-pack insulation,-and
R-50 attic insulation. The week after the work was completed, a
severe snowstorm came through and the difference in the house
from previous winters was immediately obvious. There were no
ice dams where there had once been 2-story prizewinners. A
year after the retrofit, the client let us know that her heating bill
was reduced by 60%, and that was without an upgraded furnace!
An unanticipated, but obvious (in hindsight), side benefit was
that the house was now much more soundproof due to the wall
insulation. The homeowner was very happy with the outcome.
STAYING EFFICIENT
Due to the involvement of the government, a Focus consultant
has to fill out a copious amount of paperwork, so it makes
good business sense to be as efficient as possible. Making the
best use of time on the job means being able to carry in the all
the tools you'll need in the minimum of trips from your vehicle.
Many of the tools used in the business come in their own cases,
but I quickly found that carrying them around in those cases
takes up a lot of space, and that it's easy to forget something. (I
left my IR camera behind the first time I used it!)
Here are a few things that have made my life easier:
Keep your blower doorframe together. Making the frame as
small as possible for transport, but without taking the corners
apart, really saves time. I drive a pickup, so it is easy to put the
frame in the back; this may not work so well in a car. Setting
up is much quicker than it would be if you had taken the frame
apart, and you can carry the frame over your shoulder while
carrying two other items in your hands.
Combine the smaller tools. I purchased a
rolling suitcase that looked to be large enough
for most of the small tools. I then subdivided
it with a truck desk from the Duluth Trading
Company that fit nicely inside it. This truck
desk comes with movable dividers that I set to
approximately fit the instruments. Then I filled
in the open spaces with foam to keep
the tools in place. This suitcase has
proven to hold the small tools nicely.
With it, I can bring into the home in
one container what used to take five
bags or cases. Thanks to my wife for
talking me into buying the highest-
quality (and most expensive) "Swiss
Army" case in the store. Very nice
quality that seems to be holding up
well.
Make a case for your dirty work.
Using my original Energy Conserva-
tory bag, I put together a kit to use
for going into attics or crawlspaces. It
contains a drop cloth, a Tyvek suit, a dust mask, a hat or do-rag,
kneepads, and a headlamp. I also put my 2-inch hole saw, cord-
less drill, and hole plugs in the side pocket of the EC bag. I use
the hole saw and drill for looking into wall cavities. Veteran Mil-
waukee consultant Keith Williams showed me the value of hav-
ing a large Ziploc bag containing a wet rag for catching the dust
and debris while drilling. That really saves time on cleanup.
Wear a small tool belt. I have a lightweight belt that holds a
small rechargeable flashlight, a chemical smoke puffer, a multi-
screwdriver, a couple of pens and pencils, a camera (I take lots of
pictures), and spare batteries in an Altoids tin. This last item has
probably saved me more time than anything else; I've had the
camera juice go south at the far end of an attic more than once.
Compress paperwork. Right now I'm working on reducing the
time I'm taking to do the actual paperwork. I've purchased a
Motion Computing LE1600 Tablet PC and am intending to port
all the forms over to tillable PDF or Word/Excel documents. The
nice thing about this particular model is that it has a view any-
where screen for use outdoors. So far it is working well, and now
that I have added an external battery, life away from the A/C can
last up to six hours.
We'll see. Focus is quite supportive of the move to paperless,
so that has made me more motivated to try it. £
For more information:
For more on the Wisconsin Focus
on Energy program, go to: www.
focusonenergy.org.
Mark Furst has been involved in the construction industry in
some capacity for 30 years, beginning as a designer and contrac-
tor of structures at Renaissance Festivals all around the country
and then moving into more conventional remodeling practice.
While nursing an aching back some years ago, he discovered
that there was a living to be made looking at and writing about
buildings, rather than having to actually build
them! In 2000, Grading Spaces was born, at
first offering "regular" home inspections (for
real estate purchases) but then moving into
energy efficiency and home performance test-
ing, which now occupies the bulk of Grading
Spaces' business.
548
Home Energy www.homeenergy.org
-------
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2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
S49
-------
Business Development Guide
*ft* BUSINESS OPERATIONS
Pricing for Profit THE COMPONENTS
. O •/ J (~\C AM CO-TIN /I ATC
OF AN ESTIMATE
by Mike Gorman
Ritnodelers generally quote a firm price
or their work, unless they work on a
ime-and-materials or cost-plus ba-
sis. The culmination of the estimating process
is determining the price that we present to
the customer in the hope of persuading him
or her to buy our products and services. In
order to arrive at a price, savvy remodelers
realize that they must know more than the
cost of the sticks and bricks, labor and sub-
contractors, that go to make up the project.
To determine the proper price at which to
The second factor, overhead, is the sum
total of the ongoing costs associated with be-
ing in business. These costs are not directly
related to any particular job. Overhead could
include such items as the phone bill, rent,
advertising, tools and trucks, or other items
of equipment that are used in the production
of a number of different jobs.
The overhead calculation is not the result
of an estimate. Overhead is calculated by
compiling historical information obtained
from last year's checkbook. This holds true
propose the job to the client, remodelers
must be able to identify two types of cost-
job cost and overhead—associated with their
particular business and with the particular
project. To these two costs they add a third
factor, known as profit.
Job Cost + Overhead + Profit = Price
The first factor, job cost, is the sticks and
bricks that go to make up a project. Job cost
is the sum total of five broad categories of
expenses—materials, labor, subcontractors,
plans and permits, and cleanup—that are
directly related to each individual project.
Job costs are bills, employee time cards
or subcontractor invoices that include a
job address.
except in the case of the remodeler who is
just starting out or who is experiencing a
rapid change in volume. In either of these
cases, the overhead is forecast based on
the best available information and moni-
tored closely for confirmation on at least a
monthly basis.
Before we present our proposal to the
customer, we must add the third factor, profit,
to arrive at the price that we will quote for
our work. Profit is the just reward for the
effort and risk the remodeler undertakes to
produce the job. We must calculate all three
factors—job cost, overhead, and profit—and
total them up to arrive at a price. Only then is
the evolution of our estimate complete.
The ability to estimate job cost accurately
is one indicator of a remodeler's level of pro-
fessionalism. Another indicator is the amount
of time it takes him or her to produce the
estimate. The best estimators are those who
can estimate quickly and accurately in the
home, streamlining the entire buying process
for the client and saving the remodeler count-
less hours that are best invested elsewhere.
Identifying Job Cost
Job cost is the sum total of five broad cat-
egories of expenses that are directly related
to each individual project.
Labor. The cost of labor is the contractor's
cost for compensating hourly employees. It
includes both the hourly wage of each em-
ployee and additional costs known as labor
burden. Included in the labor burden are
payroll taxes that the employer is required by
law to contribute on behalf of hourly employ-
ees, as well as any optional benefits that the
employer may provide for employees.
Materials. Cost of materials includes bills
from suppliers. It includes not only the cost
of the materials themselves, but also such
items as sales tax and delivery charges.
These bills include a job address where the
materials were used.
Subcontractor. Subcontractor cost includes
the cost of both labor and materials provided
by nonemployees.
Plans, permits, and fees. This category
includes costs associated with the act of
obtaining a building permit. It includes the
cost of physically delivering the building
permit application and 'walking it through'
the building, zoning, and other departments
required in the approval process.
Cleanup. The cost of cleanup includes dump-
ing fees and costs associated with hazard-
S50 Home Energy
/.homeenergy.org
-------
ous waste containment and disposal, the
transportation of waste, and so forth.
Identifying Overhead
Overhead is the sum total of the expenses,
other than job cost, that are required to
operate a business.
In the newly established or smaller com-
pany, it is not unusual for the owner/remodeler
to wear many hats. At some point, he or she
may want to hire someone else to do some
of these jobs. In order to find out what this
will cost, and whether it will be profitable, the
owner must compensate himself for every
job he performs. For example, if the owner
is acting as production manager, salesman,
and part-time carpenter, he or she must be
compensated at replacement cost for each
of those jobs. When the time comes to hire
a salesperson, for example, the owner can
tell whether it will be feasible to pay a new
person at the same rate of compensation. If
this can be done, there will be no increase in
overhead. The costs associated with adding
a new person will simply be shifted from the
owner to the new hire, leaving the owner free
to devote his energy to the other two jobs.
Established remodelers identify and cat-
egorize overhead simply by studying the his-
tory of their company, as written in the check-
book. The established remodeler reviews his
checkbook for the previous period—monthly,
quarterly, semiannually, or annually—and as-
signs each check that is not a job cost item to
one of the several overhead categories, such
as rent or lease, advertising, communication,
transportation, and so on.
Remodelers calculate total overhead and
then figure it as a percentage of gross sales.
They add this percentage to the job cost. In
this way, they arrive at a sales price that will
cover both the job cost and the overhead.
Identifying Profit
Profit is the just reward for the effort and risk
the remodeler undertakes to produce the job
and operate the business.
The risk-reward ratio dictates that the
greater the risk, the greater the reward must
be to compensate for that risk. This means
that the remodeler must receive a greater re-
ward than the restaurant owner, for example
in light of-the fact that he assumes more risk
in his business.
The remodeling business is one of the
toughest businesses in which to succeed.
According to a study of Maryland-based
home improvement contractors the failure
rate in the first five years is 90%. In order
to succeed, the remodeler must eliminate
as many uncertainties as possible. One of
the keys to success is to have a quick and
accurate system of estimating, based on
scientifically determined, verifiable numbers
that identify your job cost, overhead and
profit. These numbers can be used over and
over, so that it is possible to generate pro-
posals with as short a response time to the
customer as possible. The job cost system
of estimating provides that key to success.
How to Determine Fair Pricing
The equation we work from to determine
the proper price that we will present to our
prospect is: Job Cost + Overhead + Profit
= Price.
Get out a piece of paper and organize
three columns headed Overhead, Job Cost,
and Income. Looking back through your
checkbook, identify which checks belong
in the overhead column and which in the
job cost column. Income is easy to spot;
the deposits in your checkbook go in the
income column.
Now total the items in each column. As
an example, we'll say that your totals for last
year looked like this:
Income Overhead Job Costs
$400,000 $156,736 $231,264
These numbers indicate that your yearly
efforts to produce $400,000 worth of remod-
eling income generated an annual profit (be-
fore taxes) of $12,000 ($400,000 - $156,736
- $231,264 = $12,000) or 3% ($12,000 /
$400,000 = .03 = 3%).
If you wanted to generate a 10% net profit
annually, this would come to $40,000 for ev-
ery $400,000 of income. To generate $40,000
profit per year, you need to determine the
markup necessary to increase your job costs
($231,264) by enough to pay your overhead
($156,736) and leave $40,000 over. In other
words, you need to increase your annual job
cost by the sum of your overhead of $156,736
plus the desired profit of $40,000.
Remember the equation above:
Job Costs + Overhead + Profit = Price
$231,264 + $156,736 + $40,000 = $ 428,000
Now you need a mathematical shortcut to
determine by what factor you need to multiply
job costs in order to create a proposed sales
price (income). In the following set of equa-
tions, X represents the unknown factor.
1. $231,264 xX = $428,000
2. X = $428,0007 $231,264
3. X = 1.85069 (Round this number to two
decimal places = 1.85.)
4. $231,264 x 1.85 = $427,838 (Because
you rounded down, your answer is a little
smaller than your target of $428,000.)
5. In this example, you need to markup your
job costs by a factor of 1.85 to determine
a fair price that will cover your overhead
and leave 10% net profit before taxes.
It is at this point that we consider our num-
bers to be a proposal to the customer. In its
final form the price has evolved far from an
estimate, having been enhanced by all of the
factors that allow us to propose a solid dollar
figure for which we will provide the services
and products required of the project. £)
Mike Gorman is a Certified Remodeler
(CR) with the National Association of the
Remodeling Industry (NARI), and has held
local, regional, and national offices with NARI.
He delivers seminars and provides telephone
and on-site coaching with clients ranging
from Fortune 500 companies to individual
contractors regarding sales, marketing, es-
timating, and systematizing the business.
His recent book, If I Sell You I Have a Job,
If I Serve You I Create a Career! has filled
a void in sales training for remodelers and
custom home builders.
For more information:
TechKnowledge
1543 U.S. Hwy. 98, Ste. 209
Lakeland, FL 33801
Tel: (1-800)218-5149
Fax: (413)845-2169
E-mail: mgbok@aol.com
Web: www.techknowledgonline.net
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE S51
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Business Development Guide
'.' BUSINESS OPERATIONS
On-the-Job Mentoring
What is missing from the online
courses, and from most classroom
training, is in-field training or mentoring.
by Tamasin Sterner
Since 1980, I've worked as a contractor, primarily with elec-
tric utility weatherization and conservation programs. At
first, I thought I could get by without learning how to do
combustion appliance testing. I did get by until a few years ago,
when it became important for my staff and me at Pure Energy
to learn how to assess combustion appliances. It wasn't easy
for me. I struggled to learn the proper test procedures, but I fi-
nally got it, and the procedures and protocol are fully integrated.
The time I spent struggling
proved to be time well spent.
I can understand why others
struggle with topics such as
combustion testing, and teach-
ing them how to perform the
tests is now easy.
However, it is just about
impossible to teach others
how to perform complex di-
agnostics unless one is in the
field with typical systems to
test. Therefore, we are huge
fans of on-the-job teaching
and mentoring. And teaching
a technician who is being paid
to learn takes some stress off a
potentially stressful situation.
We are big fans of Sat-
urn Online's Energy Auditor
course. Several of our own
staff have taken that training.
What is missing from the on-
line courses, and from most classroom training, is in-field train-
ing or mentoring. Many technicians don't really digest the infor-
mation they have been taught until they get to set up the blower
door in a real house and play with the manometer and hoses, a
thermal imager, and a combustion analyzer. Therefore, most of
the training sessions Pure Energy offers, as a DPI Affiliate, start
with an in-field audit rather than classroom training.
We believe these are some of the benefits of on-the-job train-
ing and mentoring:
• Peers who honestly share lessons and experiences in a real-
life situation seem to appreciate the training more, and ap-
pear to learn more easily.
Pure Energy provides in-field quality assurance observation sessions
for field technicians.
The challenges that occur in real houses on real jobs cannot
be ignored when the training occurs in the field. They must
be dealt with. There is no sugar coating.
The trainer can observe communication between the cus-
tomer and the trainee. The trainer can then evaluate the ef-
fectiveness of the communication.
Classroom training is cost-effective, useful, and necessary.
In-field training is essential. We like to introduce a topic in
the classroom and get into the
field as soon as possible! We
then like to return to the class-
room for review and sharing.
In-House Training
I have been very fortunate to find
excellent human beings to work
for Pure Energy. When choos-
ing employees and independent
contractors for our fieldwork,
I've focused on choosing people
with high ethics and strong
people skills. The technical
parts of the jobs can be taught,
but the soft skills and heart-
centered skills must be part of
the person. The success of the
work we do as energy auditors,
quality assurance inspectors,
and trainers or teachers relies
on effective communication.
We can do things to a house or
an appliance or a light fixture—but if we don't explain why we
are doing what we are doing, and get the customer to agree that
what we are doing is the best thing for them, our efforts to con-
serve energy will fail.
Once I find a good person who likes people, communicates
well, passes a background check, and wants to be an energy
auditor or a quality assurance inspector, I arrange for that per-
son to observe me in the field. Then he or she shadows another
Pure Energy field technician or two. After that, he or she will
spend two to four weeks being mentored by a seasoned techni-
cian. During these weeks, the trainee is receiving lessons, either
through a course such as the Saturn Online training, or through
552 Home Energy
/.homeenergy.org
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ADVERTISER
PAGE ADVERTISER
PAGE
The Energy
Conservatory IFC
Monroe Infrared IBC
Zerodraft BC
Johns Manville S5
Retrotec Energy Innovations, Ltd. S9
GreenHomes America Sll
Fluke Corporation S13
WxWare Diagnostics S 16
The Propane Council S17
AM Conservation S21
The Snell Group S25
HVACR Education.net S28
RCD Corporation S29
J&R Products, Inc S29
BPI Centerfold (S31-S34)
Intec Corporation S41
The Energy
Conservatory S41, S62
CleanEdison S43
Performance Systems
Development, Inc S43
Window Quilt S45
AirCycler S45
Saturn Resource
Management S45
EFI S49
The Chimney Balloon S49
R.E. Williams Contractor S53
United Infrared, Inc S53
ACI S54
ESS Energy Products, Inc S59
Kansas Building
Science Institute S63
Architectural Energy Corp S64
TruTech Tools... .. S64
lesson plans I've written. After the mentoring, an experienced
person will observe the trainee working alone on an as-needed
basis, depending on scope of work changes, home performance
field developments, new tools and equipment, and so forth.
Training for Other Companies
Pure Energy provides in-field quality assurance observation
sessions for field technicians such as energy auditors, home
performance contractors, and installers while they perform ser-
vices for utility conservation and efficiency and weatherization
programs. We watch the field worker as he or she audits a home,
educates the homeowners, and installs efficiency measures in
utility customers' homes. We are the eyes and ears in the field on
behalf of the utility.
On these observation visits, we assess the skills of the field
technicians and determine what, if any, additional training they
need. We can mentor these field technicians on-site at the end of
the observation period and follow up with particular documents,
tools, or resources that the technician needs. Most field techni-
cians say they appreciate the one-on-one attention and focused
learning, even though the experience can be a little tense. The
technicians appreciate being mentored by people who perform
the same services. We've walked in their shoes, so to speak.
But No Free Advice
Another service we offer is something relatively new to us. In the
last year or so, we've been inundated with calls from individuals
who want to start a home performance or energy auditing busi-
Maximize and expand your
business with infrared
United Infrared Offers:
• Discounts on IR Cameras, Blower Doors and CO Analyzers
• Business Training from Experienced Proven Professionals
• Marketing Tools including Leads from our National
Marketing Campaign, Brochure and Report Templates
"As an Energy Rater, signing up with United
Infrared has enabled me to expand the services I
offer and has allowed my company year round
business opportunities. The cost of my United
Infrared Membership was more than covered by
the discounts I received on my infrared camera
and training. The business training I've received
has enabled me to expand my service and increase revenue. United
Infrared offered my business the complete solution to expanding into the
Infrared market."
Keith Dibley - Fort Worth, TX
HERS Rater ,
United Infrared Member
contractors a
For more information,
visit www.unitedinfrarL
orcal!888-SCAN-4-IR
R.E. WILLIAMS INC.
Your Low Cost Source for Energy Efficient
PANASONIC BATH EXHAUST FANS!
Whisper Quiet Whole House Fans
Take a look at the Superfan!
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Toll Free: 888-845-6597
ness. They are not shy about asking for advice on how to start and
how to become successful. At first, we gave advice freely. Then we
got to thinking about how we were
essentially offering free advice to in-
dividuals who planned to compete
against us for business. We began to
tell callers that we charge for busi-
ness advice and mentoring, and that
they can have an appointment if
they want us to tell them how to start a business. The information
on our Web site gets truly interested individuals started. There
they can find other trainers and resources. £
For more information:
For more on Pure Energy, go to
www.pureenergyaudits.com.
Tamasin Sterner is the founder of Pure Energy, in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania.
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
S53
-------
Mark your
CALENDAR
Five days of workshops
and networking, plus a
two-day trade show!
Plan to attend the
National Home Performance with
ENERGY STAR® Symposium
held annually at this conference.
Visit www.affordablecomfort.org for
details as they become available.
April 19-23
Renaissance Austin Hotel
Join more than 1,200 attendees who will benefit from tried and true principles for high performance
homes in Austin, Texas next April. The ACI Home Performance Conference spotlights the latest techniques for
homes - new construction, energy efficient retrofits, and essential building science know-how you need to
lower energy bills, reduce maintenance, and increase comfort and health.
• Deepen your expertise and improve the skills you need to
advance or even re-invent your career while our nation's policy
focus is on energy efficiency in homes and green workforce
development. Meet leaders in the emerging home perform-
ance industry, and learn from outstanding presenters.
• The ACI conference has long been a networking destination,
where a diverse group of participants can meet and be influ-
enced and inspired by each other. Connect with colleagues,
thought leaders, and vendors on a personal level.
• ACI brings you all the latest thinking and emerging trends,
including hot and controversial topics, white papers, best
practices, key products and services, and hands-on training.
Who Should Attend
Single & multifamily builders
Remodelers
Weatherization & sustainable energy teams
and supervisors
Energy raters, home inspectors, utilities staff
HVAC professionals
Architects & designers
Program administrators & consultants
Product manufacturers & suppliers
Policy makers, local, state, & national
government officials
ACI
Advancing Home Performance
www.affordablecomfort.org
Join the ACI Community
Find us on
facebook
ACI (Affordable Comfort, Inc.)
Connect early with fellow attendees and presenters
on the ACI Facebook page, and get the discussion
started! Follow the latest up-to-the-minute posts
and conference news. Network now to make the
most of your future conference experience!
Follow ACI on Twitter before the conference for
timely news, during the conference for immediate
information, and after the conference for follow-up
news shorts.
-------
Business Development Guide *tf BUSINESS OPERATIONS
Improving Your Home Performance
Contracting Business Through
Quality Management
By David Abrey
In the business of home performance contracting, unforeseen
problems can develop every day. These problems have the
potential to stop a job, erase profitability, and even cripple a
company. Problems can quickly reduce revenue, increase costs,
disrupt schedules, harm employees, and frustrate customers.
Quality Management can prevent or mitigate many of these
problems before they hurt your business's bottom line. In home
performance contracting, Quality Management can make the
difference between a profitable business and a failed business.
FOUR KEY INDICATORS OF QUALITY WORK
Quality Management manifests itself in the form of quality
work that is completed on or ahead of schedule. At GreenHomes
America, we utilize many indicators of quality work. Here are
four key indicators that we use every day:
1. customer satisfaction;
2. performance of the home;
3. compliance with BPI standards and program requirements; and
4. work completed professionally, on time, and with no worker
injuries.
All four indicators are critical measures of quality work. If
only one or two of these key indicators shows positive results
on any project, the project does not meet the quality standards
of GreenHomes. For example, customers can be very happy
with the work, but if the project doesn't save the energy that
was projected, or if the house has health and safety problems,
the project fails our internal quality assurance tests. Similarly,
projects can be completed professionally and on time with no
health and safety problems, but if the customer is not happy, the
project does not meet our quality standards. All four key indica-
tors must be met on every project in order for the project to be
deemed successful.
Customer satisfaction. First and foremost is customer sat-
isfaction. This is the most important of the quality indicators.
Simply put, is the customer happy with the work performed?
Since almost 50% of our business comes from customer referrals
or repeat business, customer satisfaction is critical to our bottom
line. Home performance contractors will not be successful for
very long without making sure that customers are happy with
the work performed. Many times, the key to customer satisfac-
tion is getting the small things right. For example, many home
performance contractors forget the importance of showing up at
the customer's home on time, being courteous, keeping a clean
job site, talking to the customer about work to be performed that
day, and answering the customer's questions. It is obviously es-
sential for all contracted work to be completed in a professional
manner, but paying close attention to the small aspects of a job
can have a tremendous impact on how the customer ultimately
feels about the project.
Home performance. The actual performance of the home is the
second key indicator. After the work is complete, does the home
perform as promised in terms of energy efficiency? In terms of
occupant comfort, health, and safety? For work completed in the
Northeast, does the snow stay on the roof instead of melting, or
are ice dams forming as they did in prior years? Is the customer
more comfortable after the project is complete? Are the cus-
tomer's utility bills lower? Home performance contractors must
make sure that their homes perform as promised; the home must
A technician performs air sealing in a home attic.
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
S55
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Business Development Guide
iii BUSINESS OPERATIONS
Green Homes"
Detailed Installation Procedures
GreenHomes America
AMERICA
Procedure '"sulate Floored Attic with Densepack Insulation
Procedure ,.-_ _
Number:
Procedure
Status:
Final - November 7, 2007
Description of Procedure:
Insulating a floored attic with densepack
cellulose insulation.
Installation Procedure Steps:
1. Inspect the ceiling below the
attic. Look for:
a. Damaged plaster or
sheetrock.
b. Dropped or suspended
ceilings (if possible, look
above the suspended ceiling).
c. Recessed lights - note the
location of the lights, if
present
Figure I - Floored Attic
2. Inspect the attic prior to pulling floor boards. Issues to consider include:
a. Are joist ends open to soffits?
1). If they are, decide if they can be used as access to the joist space.
2). If not, block them off with rigid foam blocks, sealed in place with spray foam.
b. Are the homeowner's possessions interfering with access to floor joist spaces?
1). If yes, get permission from owner to move possessions.
c. Is there reason to suspect that partition walls may be balloon framed?
1). If yes, see procedure step 7 below.
d. Are the outside walls balloon framed?
1). If yes, block the tops of the walls with spray foam or rigid foam blocks.
e. If there are recessed lights in ceiling below, remove the floorboards over the
lights and install dams around the recessed lights (See Air Seal Recessed Can
Lights procedure).
however, homes that have significant
health and safety problems pose a
very high risk to a successful business.
Therefore, completing all health and
safety tests before beginning work on
a project (the test-in), and again at the
completion of a project (the test-out)
greatly reduces risk to our business
and verifies that the home was left in a
safe condition. GreenHomes routinely
finds numerous gas leaks, CO in the
ambient air, or poor chimney draft for
atmospherically vented appliances.
The solutions to these health and safe-
ty problems can easily be added to the
project if they are detected early in the
process, during the test-in.
Work completed professionally and
on time. When work meets the qual-
ity assurance criteria listed above,
and when it is completed in a profes-
sional manner, on schedule, and with
no worker injuries, the project meets
the quality standards of GreenHomes
America. Then and only then do we
consider it a successful project.
QUALITY MANAGEMENT
FOR HOME PERFORMANCE
CONTRACTORS
To improve your home performance
contracting business, and to reduce
your company's risk exposure, you
should integrate the following aspects
of a Quality Management system into
your company's daily activities.
meet the customer's expectations in terms of comfort, energy ef-
ficiency, health, and safety. GreenHomes offers many customers
a 25% heating/cooling energy savings guarantee as part of their
project. For these projects, if customers don't save at least 25%,
we pay them double the difference for a year.
Compliance with BPI standards. Third, does the project com-
ply with all BPI health and safety standards? Does the project
meet all of the efficiency standards required by the applicable
Home Performance with Energy Star program? Since Green-
Homes is a BPI-accredited contractor that works extensively in
Home Performance with Energy Star programs, failure to abide
by BPI standards or to meet program requirements could re-
sult in suspension from the program. Much more importantly,
Work procedures. It is important to establish and define work
procedures. These procedures must be easy for workers to un-
derstand. Tasks to be completed should be outlined step-by-step;
procedures should include photographs, details of construction,
and diagrams (see "Detailed Installation Procedures—Insulate
Floored Attic with Densepack Insulation"). Workers should be
aware of the proper installation methods for all work to be com-
pleted, and should understand how quality work is measured.
Start-to-finiSh quality assurance. Home performance con-
tractors should establish a QA process for tracking and evalu-
ating the major aspects of their business. These include test-in
home assessment, work scope development, administration,
project profitability, installation, test-out, punch list, and war-
556 Home Energy
. homeenergy.org
-------
rantee claims). Easy-to-use forms, simple computer systems,
and visible project-tracking systems all help maintain a high
level of quality for all projects from beginning to end. Simple
checklists provide an easy way of verifying that key tasks have
been completed.
Documentation. Home performance contractors should docu-
ment any preexisting defects. They should photograph and care-
fully describe such things as water stains, cracks in walls, holes
in ceilings, damaged siding, knob-and-tube wiring, as well as
any health and safety issues. Documenting defects found in the
home gives home performance contractors an opportunity to
add the repairs to the work scope. You don't want the defects to
become part of a lawsuit later.
Regular training programs. One of the most effective ways to
improve overall quality of work is to conduct regular training
programs for employees. Training programs should focus on
recent problems uncovered in the field, or on questions that
have come up during the installation of recent projects. Train-
ings should always include the building science fundamentals
behind best practices as well as the procedures for the best
practices themselves. In this way, the whys are taught along
with the hows, so workers understand why tasks such as air
sealing are critically important. GreenHomes trainings are
often conducted in 30 minutes or so, using in-house trainers,
manufacturer's reps, or educational resources and are held in
the office or in the field.
Field verifications. It is essential to establish a plan for con-
ducting field verifications. It is important for installers to know
that they are expected to meet standards, and that their work
will be inspected from time to time. Field inspections should be
scheduled, simple, and documented. At GreenHomes America,
verifications must confirm that all measures were installed ac-
cording to the company's install procedures. In conducting field
verifications, the goal should be to improve the skills of the in-
stallers, instead of blaming them for their mistakes.
Feedback loop. When problems occur in the field, or say who
ask questions about installation procedures, the solutions should
be incorporated into the training programs. This feedback loop
between quality assurance and training is critical to improving
the quality of the contractor's business. For example, our install-
ers have insulated exterior walls used as returns for the HVAC
system. This type of mistake quickly erases the profitability of
the job and raises havoc with schedules. The first time an HVAC
return was insulated in the field, it prompted a training session
for everyone on how to identify returns in exterior walls.
Accountability. Once workers have been properly trained, they
should be empowered and challenged to strive for quality work.
Tom Revere of GreenHomes America installs densepack insulation.
Contractors should hold their workers accountable for both suc-
cesses and failures, but should always challenge them to meet
or exceed high quality standards. Workers should also be en-
couraged to suggest innovative ideas that improve installation
procedures. GreenHomes workers have suggested many such
ideas and have been rewarded for doing so. In the business of
home performance contracting, implementing simple steps of
a comprehensive Quality Management system can make the
difference between a profitable business and a failed business.
If all home performance contrac-
tors strove to make sure that proj-
ects were installed professionally
and on time, while meeting all
BPI standards and program re-
quirements, the quality of their
projects would improve dramati-
cally. However, if all home performance contractors strove to
make sure that all projects had satisfied customers and exceed-
ed performance expectations, their business would grow for
years to come. £
David Abrey is the director of quality assurance for GreenHomes
America, LLC. In this role, he assures that home performance
projects meet BPI and industry standards.
For more information:
To learn more about GreenHomes
America, go to www.greenhomesa-
merica.com.
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE- 557
-------
Business Development Guide
GROWING A BUSINESS
Grow Your Performance
Contracting Revenues
Partner with local and regional
programs to take advantage
of new revenue streams.
by Joe Kuonen
Once you become a trained, outfitted,
and certified building performance
contracting company, you can put
yourself in a position to take advantage of
new revenue streams that you probably could
not access before. These include building
retrofits and new-construction projects that
require some-or all of the following:
• higher-quality workmanship than is re-
quired for "average" or "code-compliant"
jobs;
• compliance with program
installation standards re-
quiring attention to detail;
• test-in/test-out docu-
mentation using diagnos-
tic equipment and proto-
cols, such as blower door
tests and duct tightness
testing;
• zonal pressure balancing
and/or air balancing of distribution sys-
tems; and
• combustion appliance safety tests.
How can you take advantage of the de-
mand for these types of service for these
services in your area? First, identify all the
entities in your area that need quality contrac-
tors in order to meet their goals. If you can
deliver performance that meets or exceeds
their standards, they will probably send you
business. At least, you will make their list of
qualified, or program-partnering contractors.
Here are few examples of these entities:
Utility Efficiency Programs
Investor-owned utilities (lOUs), municipals,
and electric'cooperatives all need contrac-
tors who can meet their standards and are
willing to help introduce their programs di-
rectly to the public. Some of these programs
require pre- and post-testing with specialized
tools, such as blower doors. This holds true
especially for Home Performance with Energy
Star programs. Whether your specialty is
insulation, air sealing, heating, A/C, or duct-
work, some of your local utilities may have
efficiency programs that you can participate
in. Many of these programs offer "incentive
coupons" or rebates to their residential or
commercial customers. These rebates en-
courage the customers to buy services from
you by discounting their bottom-line costs.
Some utilities offer attractive loan programs
Investor-owned utilities (lOUs), municipals, and
electric cooperatives all need contractors who
can meet their standards and are willing to help
introduce their programs directly to the public.
or financing plans to motivate the customer to
purchase your services. Some programs offer
free or discounted energy audits, some refer
customers to independent program-approved
energy auditors, and some simply send cus-
tomers to a list of qual'ified contractors.
For a quick example, one insulation con-
tractor in my local utility program continually
beats out his competition merely by calcu-
lating an insulation discount coupon, which
takes him about three minutes. Other insula-
tion contractors are reluctant to get involved1
in the program because of "the hassle"—until
they lose enough work to him. Once they
get into the program, they can't believe how
easy it is, and they immediately increase their
closing rates.
If you are not already aware of programs
offered by local utilities, check out their Web
sites or call: their customer service depart-
ments. Find out which programs you can
participate in, what their processes and
marketing efforts are, and what you need to
learn or acquire in order to particfpate, such
as diagnostic tools, skills, insurance cover-
age, licensing, certifications, and so on.
Stimulus Fund-Driven State
Energy Office Programs
Most state energy offices are clamoring to
spend several million dollars in new funding,
and will need to spend the money within
the next year to two. They are likely to need
as many qualified contrac-
tors as they can find to help
them meet their goals. By
the time you read this, your
state's energy office should
have their programs ap-
proved, so check out their
Web site or give them a call.
Some of these programs
may be new, and some may
be expanded versions of existing programs.
The plans for spending these funds had
to be developed quickly, and some may
be quite innovative, so there will be a wide
range of programs offered, and some may
surprise you.
DDE-Funded State
Weatherization Programs
The states have received substantial budget
increases for traditional low-income weather-
ization; some budgets are up 2,500% or more.
In addition to these overall budget increases,
the average limit that say how much you can
spend per house has more than doubled, and
the qualifying, income levels of those they
can serve have increased substantially as
well. The local Community Action Agencies
will need to increase their infrastructure to
handle the new volume of business, and wilt
need energy auditors and contractors who
can meet their standards. Identify and call
558 Home Energy
www.homeenergy.org
-------
your local Community Action Program (CAP),
Community Action Agency (CAA), or Community
Development Corporation (CDC) to find out about
their needs and requirements. If you're not sure
who they are, contact your state Department
of Health and Human Services, Department
of Economic Development, or Department of
Energy. You may be able to find out from one
of these departments who your local agencies
are; most of them are funded by one or another
department of your state government. Some of
these agencies have crews that do their own
work, and some sub out the work to indepen-
dent contractors. However, with the new level of
volume, even those who have traditionally done
their own work may need to start contracting
some of it out.
Energy Star New-Home Builders
Energy Star home builders have weathered the
slump in the economy better than conventional
builders, as home buyers continue to demand
and seek out verified higher performance and
lower energy bills. In fact, many of these build-
ers have actually expanded their businesses
over the last year. Energy Star builders need
competent subcontractors who can deliver tight
duct systems (< 6 CFM leakage/100 square
feet of floor area), and verified Air-conditioning
and Refrigeration Institute (ARI)-matched sys-
tems. New whole-house ventilation codes and
standards require in-depth knowledge of these
systems. Energy Star homes and tax credit
verification both require ARI-matched systems
that meet minimum energy efficiency ratio (EER)
as well as SEER, and odd as it seems, some
contractors are challenged by that little detail.
Builders hate having the job slow down for any
reason, especially because a sub fails to pass
any kind of requirement. If you have your own
Duct Blaster and can verify compliance before
the HERS rater verification test, this puts you in
a good position to get all of the builder's work.
For more information:
CLEAResult Consulting, Incorporated
Tel: (501)265-0249
Cell: (501)772-1648
Fax: (501)265-0189
E-mail: jkuonen@clearesult.com
Web site: www.clearesult.com.
Builders also need framers and insulators who
can comply with the rigorous demands of the
thermal bypass checklist by properly framing and
backing up chases, offsets, dropped ceilings,
and between-floor connections to unconditioned
space. If you deliver insulation, learn how to rec-
ognize and remedy problems in these areas, and
you can take the business away from ordinary
insulators. Search for Energy Star builders in
your area, or check with a local certified HERS
rater who does verification inspections for the
builders to find out who is active.
Architects or Project Managers
for LEED Projects
Construction projects certified by Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) may
require tighter-than-average ducts, or special-
ized HVAC systems. Check to see what the local
LEED-certified projects are. Talk to the architects
or the project managers, and find out what is
required to deliver the goods.
Tax Credits
Research the energy efficiency program require-
ments for heating, A/C equipment, and other
energy improvements. Use the requirements
for getting a tax credit to help close the deal,
or to upgrade your services to comply. You can
get all the inside scoop at www.energystar.gov/
taxcredits. Be sure to put a link on your Web site
to this address, and learn the credits available
for each service you deliver. Then figure this
into the payback, along with the energy savings.
Every little bit helps!
Once you establish your relationship with
some or all of these partners, build out your
Web site and provide links to their sites. The
more energy-related and quality-related con-
nections you have, the higher your customers
will rate your credibility, your perceived value,
and your reliability. Then start taking advantage
of the skills and services you offer to those who
need them the most. £
Joe Kuonen manages residential and com-
mercial energy conservation programs for util-
ity clients on behalf of CLEAResult Consulting,
Incorporated, in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is a
licensed HVAC contractor and conducts trainings
nationwide in building performance services,
sales, and contracting.
"The Energy
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set a national standard."
Doug Rye, Host,
Home Remedies Radio Show
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Vic Aleshire
President, Comfort Company
Call 1-877-377-4674
or visit www.essnrs.com
Ask about volume discounts
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
S59
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Business Development Guide
GROWING A BUSINESS
Keepin
Chang
Educated in a Rapidly
e Environment
by Casey Murphy
What if I told you that in less than a year, it might be
illegal for your company to perform retrofit services
on the most energy-inefficient homes? When would
you like to have this information? Now? Or when the new rules
go into effect? How does your company capture this type of
market intelligence, and how would you prepare your company
to continue performing work on those homes? Identifying new
opportunities and new threats to your company is a challenge that
all home performance contractors face—trying to keep educated
in a rapidly changing environment.
Home performance contracting addresses a multitude of is-
sues that affect homeowners, including their home's energy use,
moisture movement, indoor air quality (IAQ), comfort, and dura-
bility. It is not sufficient for a contractor to be a jack-of-all-build-
ing-trades. He or she must be a master of most, and must know
where to look when searching for answers to difficult questions.
However, it takes more than an intimate knowledge of build-
ing science to achieve success in home performance contracting.
You must need to know how to run a business as well, and this
It takes more than an intimate knowledge
of building science to achieve success
in home performance contracting.
means that you must excel in many other knowledge areas. Fail-
ure to keep abreast of recent developments can blindside a suc-
cessful business, while exploiting emerging opportunities can
give you a competitive edge. For example, new incentives—from
federal tax credits, utility rebates, low-interest financing, and
property tax bill financing—can determine whether or not a
customer decides to proceed with recommended work. Contrac-
tors who identify all incentive opportunities, package the infor-
mation into an easily digestible format, and tailor that informa-
tion to specific customer segments and to specific improvement
bundles can close the deal more often and realize higher profits
than those who do not.
In addition, home performance contractors need to be aware
of new regulations and changes in building codes. They must
keep abreast of new regulations that will affect virtually all
home performance contractors. They must be familiar with
new building materials and techniques, modeling and reporting
software, evolving customer segments, different business mod-
els, and new marketing tools, such as social networking. Finally,
'HPWES BUSINESS TOOLS
The Home Performance with
Energy Star Web site con-
tains numerous educational
resources —captured knowl-
edge gathered from the HPwES
community and distributed to
participating contractors.
FLOWCHARTS HPwES has posted
sales process flowcharts for compa-
nies employing either the contractor
or the consultant business model.
Business managers can customize
the charts to include their compa-
ny's work flow, while identifying ar-
eas that may have been overlooked
or can be improved.
AIR SEALING PRICING REPORT
To position your services in the
minds of your target customers,
it is critical that you use an ap-
propriate pricing strategy. The Air
Sealing Pricing Report discusses a
variety of strategies that have been
employed by home performance
contractors.
PITCH BOOK In an industry where
some non-home performance
contracting companies promise
70% energy savings by install-
ing a single product (or type of
product), a skeptical customer can
be a friend to home performance
contractors. However, prospective
customers can have a wide range
of questions about building sci-
ence, home performance,
your company's qualifica-
tions, the audit process,
and so on. HPwES has
posted a pitch book tem-
plate that addresses many
of these questions. In a Microsoft
Word format, the pitch book can
be easily customized to help you
to sell your services.
DISAGGREGATION TOOL One of the
first steps in educating homeown-
ers is explaining where their energy
dollars are going. The disaggrega-
tion tool allows a user to enter the
previous year's energy bill data, the
customer's location (to normalize
for the previous year's
actual weather), and
other basic features of
the home. The tool gen-
erates a pie chart report
that can be given to the
homeowner at the beginning of the
assessment.
SAMPLE LEAD CAPTURE FORM
Mike Gorman discusses the im-
portance of capturing lead genera-
tion data and using those data to
improve your business (see "How
to Win the Job," p. S30). HPwES
has posted a sample lead capture
560
Home Energy
www. homeenergy.org
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These house graphics and other useful business tools are available for download on the HPwES Web site. They can help contractors to explain how a
home performs and how problems can be addressed.
they must be quick to take advantage of new human resource
opportunities—for example, by finding recruits who have been
trained through new workforce development programs.
FIND YOUR FILTERS
To keep educated in a rapidly changing environment, you must
know how to make the best use of a variety of sources. The prin-
cipal challenge is not how to find information, it is how to keep
track of, manage, and digest new information that will have a real
impact on your company and your customers. You can spend all
day, every day, learning about new developments in all the dif-
ferent knowledge areas, and never have the time to put what you
learn into practice. What you need is trusted sources of building
science-verified, or peer-reviewed, filtered content. Having these
trusted sources will enable you to identify high-impact or high-
probability risks, industry best practices, and emerging oppor-
tunities. The following sources can serve as trusted filters.
Formal Educational Facilities. Trade schools, technical high
schools, workforce development agencies, and institutions such
as Saturn Online can further your building science education
as well as provide sources for increasing your workforce. Local
facilities may seek to collaborate with home performance busi-
form that can be used when an-
swering the phone to collect critical
information from the caller. This
information can be used to as-
sess the effectiveness of marketing
channels, to close the sale, and to
provide a more seamless customer
experience.
SAMPLE HP DATA COLLECTION
FORMS AND SUMMARY REPORTS
Home performance contractors
need to evaluate, measure, and
record a vast amount of informa-
tion. It is far too easy to leave a
home and remember an hour later
(or when writing a report) that some
key information wasn't recorded.
Learning what types of information
other contractors are collecting
can help your company to follow
industry best practices. The sample
forms provide that help, inviting you
into the minds of the contractors
who have gone before. Sample
summary reports are also provided
to show how information can be
presented to the homeowner.
OTHER BUSINESS TOOLS A variety
of other useful tools are available
on the HPwES Web site. High-
resolution house graphics are avail-
able for download. These can help
contractors to explain how a home
performs and how problems can
be addressed. A pop-up banner
graphic file enables contractors to
create their own high-visibility stand
for use at trade shows, community
talks, and other events. A market-
ing tool kit allows contractors to
create co-branded materials with
the look and feel of the Energy Star
brand. Contractors can use this
tool kit to create direct mailers, fact
sheets, magazine ads, newspaper
ads, Val-Pac inserts, Web buttons,
and ads for the Yellow Pages—all
within minutes, while adding their
company's logo, messaging, and
other customized content. A seven-
minute promotional video explains
the HPwES process from start to
finish. Contractors can host the
video on their Web site or use it to
create their own DVDs. Customers
can quickly learn the HPwES pro-
cess by watching this video, while
associating the contractor's com-
pany with the power and legiti-
macy of the Energy Star brand. A
home energy yardstick can also be
hosted on a contractor's Web site,
allowing homeowners to learn how
their home's energy use compares
with that of other homes. Finally,
sales training is available to par-
ticipating contractors. This training
is scheduled and organized by the
national HPwES program and the
local sponsoring organization.
2009 Home Performance Contractor's BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
561
-------
DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS TO MEASURE BUILDING PERFORMANCE
The Original Duct Blaster®
Duct Airtightness Testing System
The Duct Blaster® from The Energy Conservatory is the leader in duct
airtightness testing systems. The Duct Blaster has proven its ruggedness and
reliability in the field with HVAC technicians for more than 15 years. Versatile,
lightweight, easy to use and accurate, the Duct
Blaster is a must have diagnostic tool.
The Duct Blaster System comes with:
• The 2 channel DG-700 Pressure and Flow Gauge
• Fan with flow rings and speed controller
• Flex duct and hoses
• Carrying case, instructions and video
The Duct Blaster System is the preferred system for Title 24 testing
in California, as well as duct leakage compliance testing in Florida,
Texas and for Energy Star testing throughout the country.
For more information, unparalleled technical support, as well
as pricing and quick delivery, call us at 612-827-1117. To
see and down-load literature, owner's manual and view the
video, visit our website at www.energyconservatory.com.
The ENERGY
CONSERVATORY
DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS TO MEASURE BUILDING PERFORMANCE
Business Development Guide
GROWING A BUSINESS
nesses if this gives them a chance to update their curricula, have
guest speakers, or provide their students with field-mentoring
opportunities. Such collaboration can be a win-win for both
your company and the school. You can position yourself as an
industry expert by offering educational resources for schools,
while they can keep you abreast of new materials, new proce-
dures, and other industry information.
Professional organizations. The Building Performance Insti-
tute (BPI), the Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET),
and ACI are a few of the many professional organizations that
provide filtered content in all knowledge areas. BPI provides
nationally recognized training, certification, and accreditation.
RESNET Notes is a monthly newsletter that summarizes new
developments in residential energy efficiency developments in
the energy efficiency industry. It is free to members, and mem-
bership fees range start at $100 annually. Join on the Web site:
www.resnet.us/membership. A visitor to the ACI Web site can
view slide shows of numerous conferences from years past. The
Home Performance with Energy Star (HPwES) program pro-
vides a quarterly newsletter, sales training, and a secure Web
site with numerous educational resources for participating con-
tractors (see "HPwES Business Tools"). The ACCA and North
American Technician Excellence (NATE) are HVAC-centric or-
ganizations that provide a wealth of opportunities for staying
educated and updated on new developments.
Consultants. A growing number of consulting services are avail-
able from which companies can learn. These services may be
delivered on-site or online. Building Services and Consultant is
a company based in Wisconsin that can provide on-site mentor-
ing opportunities for crews to learn and refine a variety of skills,
such as how to dense-pack wall cavities or use appropriate air
sealing techniques. Utilityexchange.org is an organization that
hosts frequent Webinars, specializing in marketing best prac-
tices, but also providing educational opportunities in a variety
of other knowledge areas.
Conferences. Conferences can be time-consuming and expen-
sive, but they provide invaluable opportunities to network with
market leaders and learn from some of the most experienced
practitioners. The ACI annual conference, the HPwES National
Symposium (usually held the day before and at the same loca-
tion as ACI), and the RESNET conference are must-attends.
Dozens of local conferences offer additional opportunities to
keep abreast of recent developments and best practices.
"Coopetition." Fellow home performance contractors in your
local market are competitors—but competitors with whom you
can form cooperative agreements to achieve common goals.
Learn from large corporations (such as Apple and Google) that
562 Home Energy
/ww. homeenergy.org
-------
• Home Energy Rater Certification
• Designing HVAC Systems with
Manuals J, D, and S
• Weatherization Inspector/Auditor
• Housing Quality Standards (HQS)
Inspector
• Building Performance Institute
Certification
Build on your knowledge!
Learn new skills!
Profit from:
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Dedicated instructors
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What KBSI's participants are saying:
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cared whether we were learning. KBSI provides an
excellent experience and I would recommend to any-
one that they come here for training."
D.S., Denver, CO
"I liked the balance of classroom and lab sessions. The
facility was made to accommodate us with hands-on
areas."
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"The facility is a "living" laboratory with every type of
building component one would encounter in the field."
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"This is the best training I have ever attended. I gained
more knowledge this week than I have ever gained
from other training."
T. W., Asheboro, IMC
KANSAS
BUILDING
SciL\CE
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PO Box 1 264
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877-537-2425 (toll free]
785-537-2440 (fax]
KBSI@cox.net (e-mail]
Detailed descriptions of training, registration
forms, and current schedules of training
opportunities are available at:
-------
VERSION 12.7 AVAILABLE MAY 2009
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Business Development Guide
GROWING A BUSINESS
form alliances to achieve certain business goals, while constantly
learning from each other in order to gain a competitive edge. A
successful community of skilled home performance contractors
can generate more business for everyone, as more homeowners
become aware of the unique value that the home performance
industry offers. Alliances with other (non-home performance)
trades can also provide win-win opportunities. For example,
HVAC contractors who follow ACCA QI specifications may be
ideal partners with home performance contractors who have a
traditional background in shell improvements. The two compa-
nies can learn from each other to offer comprehensive solutions
for their respective customers. Such alliances can address some
of the toughest areas in which to stay educated by ottering men-
toring opportunities for employees of both companies.
These are a few of the sources from which a time-constrained
home performance contractor can obtain filtered knowledge.
Blogs, tweets, daily and weekly newsletters, RSS feeds, bulletin
boards, and other (relatively unfiltered) communication chan-
nels also provide a wealth of
For more information:
To use the tools at the HPwES
Web site, visit www.energystar.gov/
homeperformance.
information—but it can be
difficult not to be inundated
by the sheer volume of that in-
formation. This problem will
be solved when a critical mass
of members within the home performance community develop
and adopt their own social network or online community. Such
a network will be able to" capture the full breadth of knowledge
areas that affect home performance, and to develop the tools to
filter and distribute content in a digestible, and customizable,
format. Until that capability exists, reading Home Energy maga-
zine and availing yourself of these other sources of filtered con-
tent will provide you with the best opportunity to keep educated
in a rapidly changing environment.
And for those of you who want to continue working on the
most energy-inefficient homes (those built prior to 1978), visit
www.epa.gov/lead/pubs/renovation.htm to learn how proposed
rules for dealing with lead paint will affect your business. Early
compliance with these new rules can differentiate your com-
pany and provide more assurance to customers who value IAQ.
Failure to comply could make your company ineligible to work
on the majority of energy-inefficient homes. ft
Casey Murphy is a BPI Building and Shell Analyst, as well as
a HERS rater. After running his own business for the past de-
cade and being a participating contractor in Maryland's Home
Performance with Energy Star program, he now works at ICF
International. He provides support for the national HPwES pro-
gram and EPA's Indoor airPLUS program.
S64 Home Energy
/.homeenergy.org
-------
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