The Smart HVAC Sales Strategy to Win Union Clients and Avoid Price Traps with Chloe Glynn Part 1
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All right, welcome back, everybody. So listen, ethical, I'm going to use that term ethical in quotations, ethical maintenance contracts should be sold to your customers. It's a way to make money. It's a way to make sure their equipment runs properly. What I don't like is the $39.99, 100 point inspection type maintenances because they're a bit of a scam as far as I'm concerned. It'll get you in the door, sure. But make sure when you get in the door, it's all ethical maintenance and all ethical sales anyway.

We're going to speak to a young and upcoming rock star in the industry. Okay. Her name is Chloe Glenn. And what she does is she's on the commercial side of selling maintenance contracts and tailoring maintenance contracts, right? Customizing them for different...

applications, different buildings and stuff like that. So we're going to have a conversation with her and she's only been doing this for four years, but it sounds like she's been doing this for eons because her terminology is bang on and she wants to keep learning and progressing in her career. So we got Chloe Glenn.

Welcome to the HVAC Know It All Podcast, recorded from a basement somewhere in Toronto, Canada.

Your host and HVAC tech, Gary McCready, will take you on a deep dive into the industry discussing all things HVAC, from storytelling to technical discussion. Enjoy the show.

All right, Chloe, welcome. I've been seeing a lot of your LinkedIn stuff coming through my feed on LinkedIn, obviously, because that's where I seen it. But you're in commercial HVAC maintenance. You want to explain that for us a little bit? Yeah, sure. So I work for a commercial and industrial mechanical contractor. I

I sell preventative maintenance services through that company. So you won't see me on the project side at all, engineering side at all. My sole job at Midwest Mechanical, which is where I'm at, is to find new business and sell preventative maintenance agreements to them. Only commercial industrial. So I tend to stay away from what we say like the three areas.

Ours, which is residential retail and restaurants. Few instances, maybe I'll dabble in it depending on the opportunity, but primarily commercial industrial for sure. Cool. I'm going to agree with you on that. I do a little bit of residential. I don't like it. And I find it's very hard to sell maintenance to a residential customer, I find, because nowadays, especially I find them to get a little bit more tighter on the wallet.

Restaurants. I've done work for restaurants before, but I find restaurants, it's the same thing. It's like they need you, they want you, you do the work, and it's hard to extract money from them because restaurants have very low margins. Retail, yeah, I can see where you're coming from there. I've done some retail stores as well, as long as it's within the realm of

commercial work, then I will do it because that's the kind of stuff that I like to do. So tell me why not retail? What is it about retail that you try to stay away from? I do retail sometimes. If it's like an entire strip mall or like sometimes like fan coil units and like a perfume store or something like that. Why I would stay away from them most of the time, unless I have a relationship built with the person who's asking or something like that, is because we're a union contractor. Okay.

Okay. And usually it's a rooftop or two, depending on that. And you're paying me a pre like the union, what I call a union premium, essentially, uh,

For something that maybe Chuck in a truck could do for substantially less money and might not do it badly because it's one rooftop unit. There's not a lot of liability depending on what it's feeding into. So pricing wise, I tend to get priced out of those. Even if they really want me in there, unless there's multiple units. It's just I'm competing with someone with a lot lower hourly rate.

So that's why I tend to not go for those very often. And I feel like, yeah, when they see the price of a service call for one rooftop unit, I've seen sometimes I feel like there's like a buck back at it, which is fair, you know, fair enough. So I think that's where I like to dabble where I'm also going against another union contractor because it's just comparing apples to apples where there it's way harder to compete, in my opinion.

I gotcha. No, it's very cutthroat sometimes, right? It's very competitive. It's very cutthroat. And I see what you're saying about the strip malls. If you're getting the whole entire mall and it's mainly retail, like why not go after it?

But when you said fan coils, it brings up the scary... You said fan coil in a perfume store. And I was recently at a fan coil in a makeup store. I hated my life because it was like up in the ceiling and it was a drywall ceiling and there was this little portion cut out. That's it. And you could barely get up there. You're standing there like this. You could barely reach the filters, barely reach the belt. It was dangerous. And I'm like... Because I did it for a sub. I was subbed to go there. And I'm like, I don't think I want to go back there. Because...

It's not accessible. I mean, if there was a problem beyond maintenance, I don't know how I would even get in there to even troubleshoot or fix anything because there's just no room. Like, do you come across that as well? Yeah. So I always joke when I look at accessibility, when I do a walkthrough in general, but in this specific case, I always say, I'm like, Ooh, I'm going to have to give you a tiny or skinny technician because I don't know how they're going to fit through that. Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, it's always in like an awkward place or over a counter that's like where their cash register is. Or again, like it's not labeled. So then you're kind of searching for it for a second. And obviously, if you have a main technician that goes there, they're going to know where it's at. It'll be labeled. Yeah. But I just don't find that.

At least what I'm looking for when it comes to preventative maintenance. I wouldn't say it's my bread and butter. I'll do it here and there. Again, if I know somebody who does it or who knows me who wants it or it's a larger opportunity, I'm likely to step in. But again, the tight spaces, business hours you have to be concerned about.

It's easier when you can go in a mechanical room and nobody can see you, I'd say, than being in the middle of the floor. Mechanical rooms are beautiful. I love a nice, clean, tidy, maintained mechanical room. They're the best. Yes, right. So let me ask you this. When you're going after a customer, what...

Is the maintenance requirements that you are trying to withhold, like you go to the customer and say, listen, we sell maintenance programs and we do maintenance and we follow up. We do basically preventative stuff. So your stuff is not breaking down in emergencies. We try to find it and fix it before it breaks down. What are the main selling points that you would use to sell a maintenance contract to a business?

Sure. I really think it's Midwest Mechanical's culture that makes my job significantly easier. That being said, I mean, this is pretty typical downtown, but we're union. So we use 597. And so it's nice to know that, you know, when I'm sending a technician out here, they're fully trained. And I'm not sending a guy out here who has to call two other people to figure out what's going on.

how we interact with our technicians and our customer service reps and our service managers. We all are a team, and it's really clear when you're working with us that we're a team and that we all collaborate together because at the end of the day, I always say, you know, when I'm taking pictures, looking at accessibility condition, model and serial numbers to put together a preventative maintenance agreement. When I'm working with the service manager, I want to make sure, you know, they're assigning the proper tech to service that type of equipment, which they are, and then

you know, communicating with the tech of the expectations that the customer and I had talked about, making sure those are executed. And then I always, you know, big, big shout out to our customer service reps. You could not pay me enough money to have that job. And they do such a good job scheduling and dealing with billing on a customer depending on, you know, their needs. So I feel like because it's such a collaborative effort,

At Midwest, it makes selling for me substantially easier. I'd say also reputation and word of mouth has helped me quite a bit. So, you know, taking... You don't ever know what engineer, facility director, property manager knows about

All the other ones, because they all talk to each other. So I feel like, you know, doing exactly what you say you're going to do with a customer. And then, you know, having them as a reference has helped me quite a bit. We're really large in the Chicagoland area. So, I mean, we have over 100 technicians. That being said, you know, like surface area wise and urgency, if you have a service call, we're able to, you know, show up in a very timely manner.

We use XOI. I don't know if you're familiar with XOI. I used to be affiliated with XOI back in my younger years. Oh, okay. Cool. HVAC know-it-all and XOI had a bit of a partnership at one point. Oh, okay. That's cool. Yeah, XOI, super helpful tool. I always say it's great for the guy who's the engineer on site, but it's also really great for communicating to someone who has no heating and cooling background because I

I mean, they might look at a burner and be like, I don't understand, but you can see it completely corroded over because you haven't pulled and cleaned the burner in two years and be like, I don't know what that is, but that doesn't look good. I feel like a picture tells, you know, a large story about what's going on. Yeah. So just quickly, XOI, is it still the same where the technician would have their phone, turn it on and someone back at the office could watch and help them out through that, through that phone or through the platform? Is it still the same way?

I think it's pretty similar. Yeah. So like pictures and videos get uploaded and then communicated through a link. So I actually, I use XOI too. So when I, I, for example, I was at a walkthrough like an hour ago and all my pictures I'll upload into there. Okay, cool. All right. So the maintenance programs that you sell. So I like the fact that you said you send different technicians to the

different maintenances because they require different skills and stuff like that. For instance, if you were to send an apprentice to something that's high level, like a big chiller or server room that can get intense if it's one unit and it's down and the managers or facility people are breathing down your back,

It's probably best that an experienced journeyman or something goes to those types of things or the apprentices. I know in my past, we would do like the smaller rooftops on the strip malls and stuff like that because they weren't like critical and by any means. Right. So is it something similar? You guys, is that how you roll out the tech? Something similar? Yeah, I would say a lot of it's based on skill level. You know, if we have a guy who's really good at boilers.

And there's a bunch of steam boilers or condensing boilers. It would make sense to send him rather than just like assign it in like an order type process. So getting that information on the equipment is helpful. I also think something that's underestimated from a salesperson perspective is understanding the client's personality type.

I have techs that are, you know, super chatty and they want to talk and have a conversation and they're really good with people that are outgoing or they want a lot of details. There's ones that are really detail oriented, you know. So I think understanding the personality type of who the client is, also matching a personality type with the technician. Because again, you've got a bunch of different personality types on either end of that and making sure that they would get along well.

Because they're going to be seeing them quite a bit and they have to trust them enough to call them is really important too. Yeah, no, that's really fair. That's a really fair point. I mean, I don't know. I've taken the approach where I'm just myself with all the clients I've had. I've meshed with different personality types through the years. Grumpy, happy, moody. Like the seven dwarfs, basically, you could name them all. Right? And I mean, I just...

I just am myself with all of them. And if they don't like it, then too bad. I've never really had much of a problem because I can usually kind of anticipate someone's mood and kind of change the way I might approach them type thing. I just feel I've got a skill where I can adapt to the different moods and different people. But some people can't do that. Some people, they are the way they are. They're going to talk fast no matter what. They're going to talk slow no matter what. And you've got to match those people up.

So I think that's really cool that you do that. But let's talk about why commercial maintenance is important, because I don't know how many things I've come across or how many strip malls I've been on where the tenant downstairs is responsible for the machine type thing and don't do anything to it. They just wait till it breaks.

And then they call and then they wonder why it costs so much to fix it. Well, maybe if you've maintained it two or three times a year over the last 10 years, you wouldn't be in this predicament. So why is...

Selling maintenance to a customer important. And here's the thing. We talk about selling as being unethical sometimes, like going in and this happens a lot in residential and I'm glad you stay away from it. But we have these technicians going into residential homes, selling smart thermostats to 85 year old grandparents like they don't need that.

But in commercial, it's a different story. We need to maintain this equipment for that facility because the downtime in that facility could cost more than what it actually costs to fix the machine. Yes. Chloe, so tell me why selling maintenance is important ethically to these commercial customers that you have. Supplyhouse.com is your shortcut for part shopping. They have thousands of HVAC parts from all

all the leading brands and the orders get shipped and delivered across the U.S. in a day or two tops. HVAC professionals can get free shipping, free returns and discounts on every other order through their Trademaster program. Order parts and get them delivered right to your door at supplyhouse.com. Yeah, sure. So reason preventative maintenance is important is because

Heating and cooling installation of new equipment is a large upfront cost. So protecting your investment on an ongoing basis is,

I've always related it to cars. Sometimes it's easier for people to fathom, especially when an equipment's, you know, a piece of equipment's few hundred thousand dollars up to, you know, millions of dollars saying like, if you bought a Ferrari, would you never do an oil change? And they look at me like I'm crazy, but same concept. It's a mechanical piece of equipment that costs about the same. So it makes sense to maintain it, to extend the equipment's life on an ongoing basis and

A lot of things with energy efficiency can affect it. So lower utility costs overall is something that's pretty beneficial. You know, as time goes on, we're obviously getting more green. So HVAC is starting to move that way and the effort is going, you know, towards that. So making sure they're aware of that indoor air quality also is pretty important, especially depending on the facility and what it does inside HVAC.

Creature comfort is always a big thing and making sure people are comfortable. I always, you know, feel bad for certain facilities directors, depending on how many people they have that have the possibility to complain about it being too hot or too cold. It takes away their time to go, you know, deal with that rather than doing all the other maintenance activities they have throughout the facility.

Another huge one that I have always thought why do preventative maintenance is lower repair costs. So if you're performing preventative maintenance, ideally you're going to catch something deteriorating or signs of wear and tear before it catastrophically takes down the piece of equipment like a hole in a heat exchanger or something like that or a major leak happens. You'd see the deterioration happening. So instead of having, I always call them like

There's emergency calls and then there's true emergency calls where stuff is down and it's either knocking out an entire part of the facility or it's costing like a production type place money. And it could cost them a lot of money that goes down, you know, being proactive in tandem with preventative measures.

Makes everyone have a lot easier time when a breakdown does happen. And it usually, I'd say most of the time, saves money overall. Cool. So let me go back to your point about the Ferrari. The Ferrari is taken care of because...

It's a status symbol, right? It's also in front of you constantly where mechanical stuff is on the roof. It's in a mechanical room. It's not flashy. No one sees it. Yep. Right? So it's not a status symbol either. I mean, no one, unless you have a really, really cool and decked out mechanical room, no one's taking people to the mechanical room and going, hey, check this out. Right. Like, look how badass my mechanical room is. No one's doing that, right? The other thing,

Is that like you said about the heat exchangers. So if we check our heat exchangers in the fall and we find a crack or a hole or something like that, we're not going to in the middle of January, we're not going to have an emergency call. The heat exchangers cracked and then we got to shut your unit down because because of it.

right? These are the things that are super important. I mean, this is something that I used to do too, to fill my time. If it was slow period and it was kind of in between seasons, there wasn't heating or cooling requirements in demand is be like, okay, I'm checking the bearings on the blower wheels and the motors, and I'm checking the, the, the pulleys on them and all these things that are required to run the

or get air moving through the facility. Because if that goes down, then you got nothing. You got no heating. You got no cooling. So things like this are important to look at in the shoulder seasons. Going back to heating season, you can start up like a big rooftop,

If the induced draft motor squealing, guess what? I'm changing this now while it's, you know what I mean? It's 50 degrees outside, not below, not, I mean, you guys are using Fahrenheit, but still we can go in below zero in Fahrenheit, but, and I'm sure you do in Chicago at times, right? Yeah, we do. So we have extremes on both ends where there is a lot of shoulder weather. Yeah. Us too. Which can make actually selling maintenance sometimes harder.

Because they're like, well, there's only like three months of extreme heat or extreme cold. You know, people, I always joke, people open up their windows instead of turning on heating and cooling. Whereas if you're in a really hot climate like Florida or Arizona, or again, like a really cold climate, of course you need it because your equipment's running, you know, full load potentially really frequently where we have, you know, spurts of a higher load. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. So where do you get your education from? Because like you, you, you talk the lingo, you have all the terminology down and like where, what's your background in? Like, is it, did you go to a trade school? Did, did you do anything that, were you a technician at one point? Like any of this? No, nothing. So I'll explain on elaborate on nothing. Um, so I, like I didn't go to college. I graduated high school and I got into sales. I sold credit card processing much different than this.

And I, for some reason at the time, I had a bunch of friends who were union, either like operating engineers, plumbers, electricians, like within that field.

Yeah. And minus the laboring part to me, it seemed like they had a pretty good schedule. They all made pretty good money. And I was like, well, there's always construction going on, but I don't want to be a laborer. That's just not for me. So I was trying to figure out how I wanted to get into the space. And I actually applied. This is funny now. At the time, it was not to a bunch of very large construction companies as like a project manager. I had zero project management experience.

experience and to apply to like Walsh and power construction the two largest and expect to just get hired was funny now I did not I got denied I think 71 times total wow yeah really yes I just had no experience I was applying for like pretty intricate construction jobs for some reason yeah

And then I had a recruiter reach out to me and she was like, hey, you have a sales background and you're trying to get into something construction related. Have you ever considered sales and like mechanical or fire suppression or something in that realm? And I was like, no, I have not. So then I got an interview.

with Midwest Mechanical and then I ended up taking the job. So how my boss has our training set up initially, like for a new hire, I think he does a great job because I learned a lot initially. One, I was given a book of each type of commercial equipment you could see, what it did,

like why you would have it, where it would be in a facility. So I read through that. And then he, on a whiteboard, went through like the laws of thermodynamic, closed loop system, built up system, what it would look like. He used the example of a house, you know, what a coil would do, like very baseline of like, I remember I always joke too, when I found out that cooling was rejecting heat, I was like, I am screwed. That is not what I thought. So he went through like,

Why were you screwed by things? Like what made you think that? In my head, I was like, what do you mean? Cooling is just cold air. And he's like, okay, well, yeah, but like, no, there's all this that goes into receiving, you know, your air conditioning. So very interesting for me initially. And then something that I thought was really helpful was that we have a facility that has a large range of equipment that we've had a technician there for a really long time.

And they allowed, you know, any new hire at the time it was me. You go to that facility and he walks you through like this is what a cooling tower looks like. This is what a cooling tower does. This is a boiler. This is what a boiler does. And then honestly, being thrown to the wolves kind of helped. You know, you do enough walkthroughs, you see enough stuff as long as you're learning as you go. I've digested over the last few years that.

And honestly, I'm always learning something new. Sometimes I walk in a facility, I'm like, I've never even seen that or how this is installed. It's just something I'm not familiar with. And if I don't know, I'm more than happy to tell somebody I have no idea. And then I'll go back, figure out what's going on with it or what it is or how it's applied within the space and then talk about it. So I'm big on if I don't know something saying I don't know it, where I got the lingo from. Yeah.

was just, like, understanding, like, through other technicians. They're always really helpful. If I had a question on something, I'm like, okay, if I'm, you know, pulling a burner, why would I pull a burner? Or, like, when you're punching tubes, like, why would you punch the tubes on this? I would just ask. And then I picked up that lingo because then when I would be doing a walkthrough, I would say,

being a girl in this industry, there's a lot of upside and there's also a lot of downside where people like thought I didn't know what I was talking about, which fair, you know, honestly, fair enough. I'm not typically who you would see walk in to do a mechanical walkthrough and they've been doing it for 30 years and they know the building like the back of their hand. I totally understand initially being, you know, guarded with me. So learning, you know, the lingo and understanding how the equipment works is a lot,

More helpful for me when trying to you know break down those walls what people have been doing it a while Yeah