Sales Byte®

Home Performance Contracting Fundamentals

Open any trade journal, attend any convention, talk to your equipment manufacturer and you’ll almost certainly see and hear about Home Performance Contracting. There is a good reason for it, it make business sense, particularly now.

I can remember the first time, perhaps 15 years ago, I saw the clever cartoon of a homeowner standing outside his door with contractors lining up to come in and “bid” a job. I saw it had been created by a company called Comfort Institute so I called and asked permission to use it in my presentations. I learned that they trained contractors to use funky devices to test ductwork and other things. Interesting I thought, and said thanks for permission to use the cartoon.

I also remember an article about Dominick Guarino of NCI preaching to a group about something similar. I met him a year or two later and was impressed with his passion for a properly designed system. Interesting again.

Around then my favorite local contractor called and asked if I’d like to test a new device that sealed ductwork from the inside. Why, I asked. He said since ductwork leaked, particularly in my crawl space, I was wasting energy and he wanted to see if this device worked. I vaguely remembered something I’d heard about duct leakage and said sure. During the pre-test the technician measured four square feet of leakage! That got my attention. I was thrilled to see the device, called Aeroseal®, steadily seal up the return to nearly zero leakage, and was dismayed to see we couldn’t close off what turned about to be a one to two square foot opening somewhere in the house’s hidden chases. Pretty cool experience. And I promptly forgot about it.

Fast-forward to two years ago when I went through BPI certification and I finally understood what all of this meant. I’d preached to thousands, like others have, to always run a load to properly size replacement equipment. Later I had found myself also recommending adding attic insulation before equipment sizing because that would usually provide improved comfort, energy savings and even reduce the replacement equipment size further. I was still “not right”! As we all know now, sizing comes last, and insulating second to last…it isn’t before we test the home, find the leaks, seal the leaks, then insulate…that we run the load and properly size the equipment.

The result of all of this for our customers? Improved Comfort. Improved Health. Quieter Operation. Peace of Mind. Save Money. Yep, this is exactly what we are supposed to be providing and have been doing poorly for decades. This addresses a great need our customers have, one that they will happily pay for when shown the benefits and value of the investment.

The result of this for you? More Sales. Higher Close Rates. Higher…much higher…job selling prices. Higher Margins. Just what we need at a time when we need it the most.

I finally “get it”. I hope you do to.

I’m immediately revising all of my sales training curriculums to include Home Performance sales strategies, processes and tools. This isn’t our future, my friends, this is our now.

More to come on integrating home performance into your business. Stay tuned.

Good Selling.

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