It’s A Family Affair

Most people identify “Mom and Pop” shops for their welcoming charm. Yet despite a reputation for exuding a comfortable feeling, many end up closing their doors. Whether the challenge is big-box competitors, an economic slump or limited resources, making ends meet can be tough. But for Precision Air-Conditioning of Memphis, Tenn., the family business figured out the secret to staying open for 37 years and counting.

Just as individuals have a story, so do businesses. Ten years ago, asking Kathe Stewart if she would ever work in the family business would have resulted in a firm “no.” As a practicing lawyer, she never imagined she would one day be chief operations officer of her father’s air-conditioning company.

But in 2002, an unfortunate event changed the course of her life and the direction of her father’s company.

A Family In Need

In 1973, her father, Dennis Stewart, founded Memphis Tenn.-based Precision Air-Conditioning. For almost 30 years, he lovingly managed the company he built, dedicating himself to his customers.

“My dad genuinely cared about people and wanted to take care of his customers,” says Kathe.  In 2002, everything changed.  Dennis Stewart passed away and his son, Larry Stewart, who had worked alongside his father, took over managing the business.

Even though Larry had just lost his father, he didn’t have much time to grieve. He still had a business to run and customers who needed him. So Kathe decided to help.  “I packed a suitcase only intending to stay for a few weeks,” Kathe says, recalling that fateful trip to Memphis.

More Than Anticipated

What she discovered was a far larger challenge than she could have anticipated.   Kathe and Larry quickly learned that the family business was facing some major challenges. If they wanted to keep their father’s business moving forward in the new millennium, changes had to happen, and they had to do it quickly.

In one sense, the company was in good hands to make those changes, if you looked at the management team. Kathe describes Larry as the technical brains, while she felt more comfortable on the business end.  Although they were an ideal management pair, success in the HVAC industry is never an easy feat. And family businesses have an emotional component that other companies don’t.

For Kathe and Larry, the challenge was keeping the integrity of their father’s customer service, yet overhauling some outdated or ineffective business practices.

He Had What We Wanted

Luckily, there was a consultant who would end up teaching them how to turn unparalleled customer service into great success. That consultant was Joe Crisara.

Kathe and Larry had met Joe in 2005, at a HVAC Comfortech show. They exchanged contact information, and Joe stayed in touch, sending them tips and offering advice.  He eventually invited Kathe and Larry to one of his immersion summits.

“Joe was genuinely interested in helping us be successful whether we bought anything or not,” Kathe says. “He didn’t sell us anything, yet when he was done talking, we decided that what he was offering was what we wanted.”

So Kathe decided to go to the seminar, and she took along two contractors with her. A month later, Larry and another contractor went.  “After the week-long tech summit, I was sold,” Kathe says. “My brother thought we should hire Joe to come and do a more intensive training.”  But finding the money was difficult.

“When we were first talking about this, we kept saying we can’t do that.  Then it became we can’t afford not to do this,” Kathe says. “But Joe isn’t one of those people who makes you buy the big program. For a year, he was very generous with his time and advice.”

And it was Crisara’s generosity that convinced Kathe and Larry to hire him to train their employees. He went to their office in Memphis a few weeks later.

Put Your Customers In The Driver’s Seat

Crisara’s method takes the persuasion out of selling and puts customers in the driver’s seat. He urges contractors to listen more, talk less and offer a variety of options, including expensive ones. Crisara believes that contractors don’t have to slash their prices to make a sale, especially when they provide a good and valuable service.

“It shook us up a bit to recognize that doing the cheapest, basic thing we can do for people is frequently not what they want,” Kathe recalls.  Both Kathe and Larry thought they were “doing right” by their customers. But after hearing Crisara’s theory, they started to open up to the idea.

“When you worked for your dad, and always talked about how he did it, sometimes you have to shake it up and try somebody else’s way,” Kathe says. “We thought we were doing them a favor by giving them the bare minimum. But maybe they may want a tax credit or maybe they may hate their unit. We learned that by giving customers choices we were actually giving them giving them better customer service.”

Everyone’s Not As Open Minded

Not everyone opened up to Joe’s ideas. His program was not met with complete acceptance.  “After we went through Joe’s program, we had one service technician quit, and then another,” Kathe says.

And the customers who had gotten used to Dennis Stewart’s service and taken advantage of it didn’t like Joe’s program either. A handful of customers went elsewhere.

“Customers got complacent with having my dad come over, whether it was Christmas or Sunday, and not charging them,” says Kathe. “Some expected to always get things for free. But you can’t keep doing that and be able to keep your doors open, not today when so many businesses are closing. It’s one thing when we need to fix a unit, but it’s another thing when customers just don’t want to pay for your service.”

Although they lost a few customers, Kathe and Larry were confident in Joe’s program. They spent time implementing it and working hard to connect with their customers.

After the initial shock, real results started to come.

Today, 99% of their customers are very happy with their service. Anytime a bid, service call or installation takes place, Precision Air-Conditioning sends out customer satisfaction surveys. Since working with Joe, only 1% have provided any negative feedback.

“Sometimes it’s just a difficult customer,” Kathe says. “The rest of the time, we messed up Joe’s process because there’s a difference between paying attention to what Joe tells you and doing what he tells so customers enjoy their experience. If you don’t do it properly, you end up pushing through the sales steps and pressuring the customer. That’s wrong, and the result is they will just want you out of their house. You either have a happy customer or you have someone who is never going to call you again.”

Precision Air-Conditioning’s sales have also increased. It has been almost 10 years since Dennis’ passing, and the company continues to grow. Although they may not give as much away for free, the level of dedication and customer service has remained high.

“The difference is whether you are doing the program with a pure intention,” Kathe says. “If you truly want to help people, you will see results. It is a quality that I look for in my staff.”

Kathe acknowledges that Joe’s program is not for everyone.

“It is mandatory that our team use Joe’s program,” Kathe says. “If they don’t, they can’t work for us.”

Looking back, Kathe says the technicians who quit didn’t care about helping others and didn’t fit with Precision Air-Conditioning’s philosophy.

“Growing up in a family business, you tend to be more tolerant of people who aren’t necessarily a good fit,” Kathe says. “We are better now at deciding whether this is a person we want in our company. After all, our company is an extension of our family,” she says.

And for Kathe and Larry, Joe Crisara is someone they want in their family.

“Joe has a natural helpfulness about him,” Kathe says. “Joe shows with his actions that he is generous and interested in paying it forward. He has a way of connecting people. Sometimes he’ll say that he was talking to this person who is trying something new and then he helps me connect with that person. Sometimes the ideas work and sometimes they don’t.”

Since she first started working at Precision Air-Conditioning, Kathe has come a long way in the HVAC business.

“I’ve learned from Joe and other contractors that he’s put me in touch with.” Kathe says “Being part of the Crisara family means that I never feel like I have nobody to call, because he’s always ready to help.”

It is truly a family business. “That’s why our family business is succeeding,” says Kathe.

Are These Skills Really “Soft?”

One of the things that has always made me crazy is the labeling of sales and customer service as a so called “soft” skill. If sales and service are soft then why is it so hard to get your team to put them into practice?  I often wonder, “Who was the dunderhead, that coined this term?”

My best guess is that it is probably someone who has a very strong technical skill-set that has failed to develop equally strong customer skills. This person (Probably a guy) then trying to justify this weakness, downplays the importance of customers by labeling this uber-important skill as “soft” which implies that it is not very important.

Selling Skills Are Essential

The essential skills of selling your services at a profitable price while providing service that exceeds that price is very rare indeed. In fact, many careers, companies and customers have been lost due to the inability to implement them. Far from soft, they are very powerful and can indeed change the lives of employees, customers and companies.

In fact, when you think about it, your “Hard” (technical) skills will whither away fast if you fail to sell or create value in your service. After all, if you can’t convince a customer they should purchase from you, then you will not do the work. This means that all of our tech and product knowledge never gets put into action. Eventually you will lose your skills due to atrophy.

Do You Diagnose People?

What we are talking about here is the ability of your team to diagnose a customer and their family so that your technical solutions can be “on-code” with these buyers. It really amounts to our willingness to listen to our customers words and feelings in a way that helps us find the perfect solution for them. This creates a higher value for the service they provide.

Conversely those who are great at the technical part of their jobs but can’t communicate the value of the service they are about to do, will find themselves struggling to find work. Think of all the families of those employees who are suffering because of this.

The Happy Loser

These “happy losers” are stuck in a rut, going about their lame but persistent business of trying not to go broke. No doubt they will blame, the economy, the president, employees, vendors or anybody else but themselves for their failure. I call them “happy losers” because they are fine with mediocrity or failure as long as other contractors they know are failing too. Basically, they understood the work but they do not know how to provide service or know how to sell that service. That is their legacy.

Essential Skills Used By Very Few

On the other hand there are a small but growing group of service contractors who are working to master these essential skills. Their employees are working year round. They are earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, while the “company-next-door” continues to struggle not knowing these “soft” skills.

In summary, one must be crazy to not see the importance of these so called “soft” skills. It is the difference between a life wasted, families broken and financial struggle OR a legacy of value, quality family togetherness and living the life you have always imagined. This is “soft?” This is easy? Let’s stop with the “soft” label and let everyone know how essential this skill is to become a true success.

A Fateful Meeting For Sales Expert

Rick Picard walked curiously into the company’s sales meeting. His company had hired a consultant to help sales reps increase their revenues. A top performer and no stranger to seven-figure annual sales, Picard was not required to go. But he went anyway. After the meeting, Picard knew his life was going to change.

A Webster, MA, native, Picard began his career doing plumbing repairs and installations after he completed trade school. Picard worked hard to support his wife, Monika, and their four daughters, Ashley, Austin, Gabrielle and Kaitlin. The family moved to Coventry, RI more than 10 years ago.

In 2003, he had the opportunity to join Lincoln, RI,-based Gem Plumbing & Heating’s residential service team.

For six years, Picard has been a successful sales manager at Gem. From 2003 to 2005, Picard estimates that he was selling as much as $2 million annually, which is more than three times the industry average.

From Good To Great

But in 2005, Picard met his future life coach and found even greater success.

As part of a sales initiative, the management team at Gem hired a consultant, Joe Crisara, who had been generating buzz in the plumbing and heating industry.

Crisara flew out to Rhode Island from his home in Los Angeles, CA, to begin working with the team at Gem. Picard distinctly recalls having the right to “pass” on attending. After all, Picard reasoned, he really was a hot-shot salesman, and what could this consultant teach him?

“The Ring Of Truth”

“If a person want to perform at his best possible level, he never really stops looking at how to become better, how to get that critical edge,” says Picard. “Sure, I had some tremendous success, certainly better than the average salesperson, but I also knew that you might learn something new that will make an impact.”

So he went to hear Joe Crisara.

Picard, who has been to more than a dozen sales trainings, was immediately convinced that Crisara had something to offer.

“When I heard Joe talk, it had a ring of truth,” Picard says.” When I heard him explaining there was a better way to do this, I could tell this was someone who really knew what he was talking about,” says Picard.

Crisara began working intensively with the company. He accompanied the contractors, including Picard this time, during their sales and service calls. Crisara identified individual habits, patterns and pitfalls. He trained the contractors on his proven sales method and helped each person master the technique.

“When I used to go to a sales call, I had my own little system and didn’t really listen to the customer,” says Picard. “What Joe’s system does is allow me to be a student of the customer. I was able to have the customer tell me needs, wants and interests, and I was able to modify my solutions to tailor them,” says Picard.

A Dramatic Improvement

Since working with Crisara, Picard started spending more time listening to customers and offering more premium products. And, yes, the results were dramatic. His sales have over doubled from $2 million to $5 million annually with higher profit margins and have remained steady.

Other sales and service representatives have experienced similar results.

Taze Picard, Rick’s brother, also works at Gem Plumbing & Heating. Since working with Crisara, Taze’s sales have more than tripled from $600,000 to more than $2 million annually.

“Joe fine-tunes us,” is how Picard describes what occurs. “You can teach someone the best habits, but by staying in constant contact with a coach, he keeps you focused on where you are going to be. Joe is a master communicator,” says Picard.

The Rewards Are Obvious

Since doubling his sales, Picard’s income too has doubled. He said working with Crisara has improved his home life and put him in a better position to support his wife and daughters. Picard adds that his family is also grateful to Crisara.

“Joe is a life changer for me. Because of him, I can take better care of my family,” says Picard.

The two have formed a friendship and meet several times each month. Picard has attended Crisara’s “Total Immersion Seminar” twice and describes Crisara as a master communicator, life coach and friend.

“One of the best things about Joe is he is sincere and compassionate,” Picard says.” It brings him joy to see others around him succeed. The happiest moment for him is seeing someone he’s helped do better.”

It’s been four years since the fateful meeting that changed Picard’s life. When asked if he will continue to work with Crisara, his answer is simple: “As long as he’ll have me.”