By Michael Young (Pr. Eng.)
The final stage: Going for victory
The final stage of the squid games is to go for victory and secure constant recurring orders. It’s much easier to secure an order from someone who already knows you, trusts you and likes you than from a stranger.
Imagine you decide you want an order from an HVAC contractor whom you have never met. You arrive at their office, tell them you are selling a well-priced split unit and then ask them for an order. What will your chances of success be? I think it’s safe to say that your chances of success are very slim.
Now imagine things are a little different and imagine you first work with them on a project and consistently deliver good service. They are really impressed and like the way you handle the entire project. Now imagine you tell them that you are selling some mid-wall split units at a discounted price – what are your chances of securing an order?
I’m sure you will agree it’s much higher than the previous scenario. So, what is so different? How can we secure constant recurring orders from the same client?
Well let’s face it, people buy an experience. Imagine again you are now the client and have just purchased an HVAC system for a specific project. Imagine the equipment arrives late, the technician cannot get the unit commissioned on time and the supplier never answers your calls.
To top it off, when the project is done, they ask for a variation order because what they supplied did not comply with the specification document. What are the chances you will give them another order? Pretty slim, right?
So, the key element to getting future recurring orders is experience. How do we deliver a good experience to our clients? The answer is “service”. Deliver exceptionally good service at a fair price and your chances of securing future orders increases.
There is a saying, “your first order will come from the sales team, your second order will come from the services team”. Within any project, building the equipment is the easy part. Installing the unit and getting it to perform as per the requirement is the difficult part.
This is where the structure of a team should be changed whereby both the sales and service team work together
with one goal in mind: “deliver an incredible experience for the client”.
Therefore, whenever there are problems, services should immediately report this to sales and the sales representative must immediately engage with the client. While engaging with the client, problems should be addressed but more importantly, an action plan needs to be presented.
If all problems are solved in the fastest possible time and should the project be handed over in the requested deadline, you will have accomplished your goal of giving your clients a pleasant experience of dealing with you.
That wraps up the squid game of the HVAC industry.
Wishing you another great month ahead.
To read the preceding articles of this series, see RACA Journal January and March 2022, or read online at www.refrigerationandaircon.co.za
About the author
Michael Young
Michael Young is a trainer, coach and mechanical engineer in the HVAC industry. He graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in the field of Mechanical Engineering (B.Sc Mech Eng) in 2008 and qualified as a Professional Engineer (Pr.Eng) in 2013. Michael is passionate about promoting knowledge and helping other young engineer grow within the industry through his training workshops and coaching sessions. Michael can be contacted on michael@myhvaccoach.com or 073 171 2311 for any questions or HVAC training needs.
