A TURNING POINT
If you read my last post, I made a reference to leaving my “Day Job”. I thought I would elaborate on that and the reasons that I made this major critical life change. Why would anyone do that? Was the job hard? No! Was my employer unfair? No! Then why?
For most of the past decade I have been involved in the HVAC industry. For those that don’t know, that is “Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning”. My roll has always been within the structure of wholesale distribution for that industry. In recent history I was a TM (Territory Manager) for a local distributor. Prior to that, a Vice President for a regional distributor. Regardless of title, I have always worked directly with customers, Heating & Air Contractors. The same guys that come to your house to fix your furnace or A/C.
Now I’ll get to the first part. Why did I leave this industry? About a week before I made the decision to leave, I was sitting in the office of one of my customers, a very large, high profile contractor. The kind you would find with a large ad in your Yellow Pages with a big presence in the area. Trucks, billboards, spots on local TV. The weather had been very cold and we were discussing the recent surge of business due to the weather. The contractor, knowing where I lived, said; “We just did a nice job in your hometown.” He said that his service tech found a bad compressor on a heat pump and they sold the customer a complete system change-out. He went on to brag about the circumstances of the sale. Because of the extremely cold weather, the family that bought this system was backed into a corner. This particular contractor uses a time based fear tactic sales approach. He went to explain. “I told the homeowner, that if they made the decision today, we could start this afternoon with the change-out and have them heat again by tomorrow. If he could not make the decision today, I told him it would be at least a week before we could get back to him due to the weather.” Since the homeowner had two small children, he made the decision, as most do, to go ahead.
Now comes the hard part. The contractor told me what work they performed and then gave me the price tag. $8,200. I asked him who the customer was. When he told me I was stunned. I know these folks (it’s a small town) and I know that they can not afford this. Then to top it all off, (and I wish he had not) he said that when they got the bad unit back tot he shop, they found a $14.00 capacitor was burned and they were able to repair the unit and will now sell this system to …. “someone who can’t afford new.”
So, why did I leave my job? Well, this story is not that unusual. Over my near decade of this industry I have consistently seen this happen. Let me say that it is not the norm, but there is what I believe to be a growing level of this type of heavy handed, less then honest sales tactics. Having seen this time and again, I guess I finally snapped. I know that everyone has to make a living, but I live by a very simple rule. I believe that there is good and bad with very little grey in between. This type of behavior is BAD! Oh!, I left out something. The cost of that $8,200 HVAC system that went into the home of that family that could not afford it, was $$2,300.
So, I have been considering doing this for a long time and this was the crowning blow. I am launching a series of websites that will address this issue. These sites will help train homeowners on how to deal with their contractors and how to get the best value. There will be constant reviews of products and advice on how to make this very large purchase as positive as possible. Oh!, and as a therapeutic exercise for myself, I will be uncovering some of the ‘Darkside” of this industry.
Thanks for letting me share. I feel better already 
Stay tuned for: http://www.askboyd.com http://www.acsecrets.com & http://www.homeairdirect.com
