Dan Goodman, CEO of Building36

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Originally published: 05.01.07 by Terry Tanker
Larry Trimbach, a second-generation HVACR distributor with 2J Supply Co., recently spent a morning with publisher Terry Tanker discussing rock 'n roll, expansion and growth, contractors, health-care costs, business strategies and more.
Bob Dylan.
The Who.
Absolutely, but it's been a while. The last time was in the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium with 90,000 other fans.
Oh yes. It's very interactive. I highly recommend going.
We are very much involved in the Blue Hawk buying co-op. It's helping us buy better and lowering our costs.
I joined my dad and brother in 1984 after working in the restaurant industry for eight years. We had about 10 employees and $1 million in sales. We now have nearly 100 employees and $33 million in sales.
Getting back to distribution basics. Give the customer what they want at the right price, on time.
First, they are focusing on selling comfort. They understand they can't just do a 15-minute pitch and leave the literature. There needs to be a more thorough sales process. They are concentrating on becoming better salesmen. Consumers are better buyers, so contractors need to improve their sales techniques. Finally, successful contractors are consistent with their follow up and follow through.
We had relationships with smaller companies in markets that we wanted to expand into. Those relationships worked in our favor, and we were in the right place at the right time.
The advantage to being national is access to products you didn't have before. However, there is still room for strong regional players that know their markets and leverage their relationships. In most cases they are family-owned businesses, and they understand their reach in the market.
Yes. Through Blue Hawk we've been buying more on the Internet, and there is a portion of our customer base that is doing a better job buying from us. However, they tend to be the contractors who can forecast their business. Many others are just not in that position.
We are moving from a traditional plan to a Health Savings Account Plan (HSA). The HSA puts the control of the program into the hands of the employee. The money is pretax and goes with them if they leave the company. We are implementing a wellness program as well, where employees can receive a health assessment and are assigned a health coach to help them with things like weight loss, smoking, and overall fitness.
Finding and retaining qualified people is one of our largest concerns. We aren't competing against other wholesalers; we're competing against all of the other companies of our size. Pressure on margins is another. Our challenge is to buy better and lower our cost.
For the first time we hired a person directly from a local university. We are going on campus to recruit. Our employees receive a bonus if we hire someone they bring to our attention. The real key is to always be hiring. Our company is always looking, always active.
We are better at segmenting our business now. We have sales managers who are singularly focused on Maytag and Westinghouse equipment lines.
IAQ is a great opportunity, but I don't think many small to medium-size contractors have been able to take advantage of it yet. In many cases they are still trying to understand their overhead, maintenance contracts, meeting payroll and other basic business principals, and IAQ represents another business challenge for them.
Over the years we've done just about every type of marketing you can think of from classic car giveaways to Super Bowl weekends. We've been guilty of over marketing. Recently we've been conducting more focus groups to determine what is best for our customers.
We've found repeating programs can get stale with our customers, so changing the mix works best for us.
We're trying to help them concentrate on being better salesmen. We offer classes and training. We want them to have a better sales process, better follow up, and follow through.
Being in business is extremely difficult, but it's not complicated. This trade is full of contractors who are fantastic installers or service techs and then open their own companies. Most often they just don't understand what it takes to be a good businessperson. I think your magazine, HVACR Business, is a tremendous help to them.
Terry is the owner of JFT Properties LLC and publisher of HVACR Business magazine. He has more than 25 years of experience in the advertising and publishing industries. He began his career with a business-to-business advertising agency. Prior to forming JFT Properties LLC in January 2006, he spent 20 years with a large national publishing and media firm where he was the publisher of several titles in the mechanical systems marketplace.
In addition to his experience in advertising and publishing, Terry has worked closely with numerous industry-related associations over the years including AHRI, NATE and ABMA.
By Terry Tanker. It’s not often you find a person with abundant knowledge to share, a passion for business and a willingness to help the next man in line.
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