Insights Magazine

Money is tight in our industry. Businesses are working to perform the job faster and more competitive to win bids and grow revenue. May is National Electrical Safety Month — a good time to direct attention to the most important asset in your company, the people. Safety discussions should include ergonomics and the seven ways that ergonomics may impact your staff every day.
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After last year’s bout of hurricanes, flooding, wildfires, heat waves, and cold spells across the country, product resiliency is key for contractors and engineers in 2018 as they rebuild and renovate destructed areas to withstand these natural disasters. To keep facilities up and running through extreme weather situations, it is vital for industry workers to understand the environment they are building in to better utilize appropriate cables and conduits for safe construction. Whether renovating or rebuilding from ground up, the proper installation of cables and selecting conduits with appropriate insulation and jacketing should be the primary focus during redevelopment. While some damage is non-preventable, a large portion of issues and safety hazards can be avoided through proper cabling solutions suited for different environments. Let’s take a look at the dos and don’ts of potentially dangerous jobsite conditions, including wet environments, fire hazard areas, and extreme temperatures.
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Walk down the aisles of Home Depot, or another major power tool distributor, and you’ll probably see the word “ergonomic” claimed as a feature on the packaging of many tools. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find a tool on store shelves that doesn’t promote some sort of ergonomic benefit. But what does that word really mean to contractors and the companies they work for? What’s the difference between a claim of ergonomics and actual, proven muscle effort reductions?
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Each year, arc faults are responsible for more than 28,000 home fires, injuring or killing hundreds of people and causing more than $700 million in property damage1. Yet, arc fault circuit protection is still only mandated for 70 percent of a home’s electrical circuits. To get closer to 100 percent protection, consumers need to demand it, and electrical contractors need to get on board.
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Designed to exemplify the Workplace for the Future, the Washington, DC-based headquarters of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) is the first space in the world to achieve Platinum Level Certification for both the WELL v1 Building Standard™ (WELL™) and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), under the LEED ID+C rating system v3.
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Maintenance is a part of each of our lives in one manner or another, important for both longevity and safety. We invest in vehicle maintenance not only to ensure it lasts but also to be sure key components, like brakes, work when we need them. The electrical distribution system is a system that should receive the same level of attention that many things do in our lives, but unfortunately it doesn’t receive the attention important to ensure performance over the life of the facility it serves. We can’t take a set-it and forget-it mentality and expect these systems to last forever. This realization is the beginning of your journey to a long-lasting, well performing system that will pay dividends.
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“It’s always about money — until you make it about something else.” That’s my number one rule when selling anything to a customer. And it’s this rule that I apply when I teach techs to sell products and services to all our customers.
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Connection, Tribe, Circle of Influence, Team, these are all words which describe a collection of people who desire to be influenced by you. They can be general contractors, staff, customers, or someone else. The goal is simple; create a series of “touches” in which the group attributes high value. Now, I know you might think this is all subjective and people are fickle. Yes and yes. But I am still in favor of creating this value and connecting with these people.
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A lead comes in. Do you send them the same stuff you’ve always sent your leads? Sure, you could do that (except you know that your competitors are probably sending the same stuff, right?). That’s a problem in the industry: You want to show that you can help them, but it seems like there are only so many ways to convince them… And every other home service business in the area is using the same techniques.
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Remember when you were first dating? To get to know the other person, you spent lots of time talking, having fun, and doing things together. After the date, you would call and talk for hours, send them flowers, and keep in touch on a regular basis. Building relationships take commitment, time, and constant contact. When you don’t see each other or stay in touch, the relationship withers away and vanishes over time.
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