HVAC WHOLESALER USES LOAD CALCULATION SOFTWARE AS MARKETING TOOL

HVAC WHOLESALER USES LOAD CALCULATION SOFTWARE AS MARKETING TOOL©
by Bill Smith, president of Elite Software

In a time of increasing competition and shrinking profit margins, many HVAC equipment wholesalers have had to find new ways, and tools, for not only maintaining but growing their businesses.

One company currently experiencing rapid and healthy growth is Benoist Bros. Supply Co. in Mt. Vernon, Illionis. The firm is a wholesale distributor of HVAC products serving the southern areas of Illinois, Indiana and Missouri, northern Kentucky and St. Louis. The company has 41 employees and specializes in supplying HVAC equipment for residential and light commercial buildings.

In their continuing efforts to become more competitive and responsive to its customers, Benoist Bros. has increasingly turned to computers and software. Jack Benoist, CEO, has found, at least for his business, that computerized load calcuations have provided important competitive advantages for his company.

Although he doesn't perform large system design work, he does provide small system sizing and "design" help to his dealers and contractors as an extra "value added" service to help them win more jobs.

He explains "For example, I might have an owner who is putting up a $100,000 building, like a body shop or dentist's office. He won't hire a engineer to do the job when he can get his dealer to do it for him. Using QHVAC, I show his dealer how much tonnage the job requires and prove that it will work for him. This is a value added service we provide to our customers so they can get the job."

Benoist notes it was not always this way in the past. "In the old days, we couldn't help our dealers like this because of the prohibitive amount of time it took to do manual load calculations. Before, we used to walk away from larger projects, and lost sales, simply because of the time to do the load calculations. As a result, we were limited to smaller and less profitable projects. Now, we can handle those larger projects because we can do the load calculations on a computer in very little time."

Benoist was introduced to computerized load calculations with Elite Software's QHVAC program in the mid-1980s. "Because most of our jobs are residential and light commercial buildings," he explains, "they don't require formal engineering design. QHVAC handles the the small to medium size buildings very well. Our dealers and contractors now look to us to provide engineering expertise and recommendations for them to bid their jobs. QHVAC paid for itself on its first job," he recalls.

An example of the importance of this new capability occured recently when one of his dealer's jobs required a "make up" air solution for a small factory in Mt. Vernon. "The dealer asked us to perform the load calculations necessary for the air changes. Because the program's reports were so professional and persuasive, our dealer had no competitors after we made the initial presentation using QHVAC. Needless to say, he ended up with a $50,000 job."

At another project, a dealer presented a negative pressure problem in a large building requiring a large amount of "make up" air. Benoist remembers, "The owner didn't want to complete the entire make up project at once but rather wanted to do it in stages. With QHVAC we helped our dealer and easily provided the loads for each step and show the owner exactly what each step would provide him in additional temperature and negative pressure reduction. The program allowed us to adapt easily to many design changes from the client and provide all new loads. QHVAC enabled us to do this unusual job quickly and accurately - the versatility of program was essential for this job."

Benoist admits that the program's computer generated reports are critical to the selling proccess. "One of the major benefits is that we can provide solid and precise documentation of the design process for my dealers to use a sales tool to their customer. We provide nice cover pages, and all the figures the program used to calculate the loads, locations, weather data, specifics of the buildings, operation times, maximum peak loads for the summer and winter and the hours those get generated. They can see everything right in front of them - it's impressive. And because these reports came out of the computer they're also more believable and persuavive."

"When a customer compares a competitor's rudimentary rule of thumb handwritten calculations side-by-side to our guy's comprehensive and professional-looking computer produced reports there is no doubt our guy will get the job every time."

He notes another impressive, and unexpected, benefit in the program's psychrometric analysis report. "Our customers are used to seeing psychrometrics only on large jobs. It's another service we provide to help our customers."

Benoist notes that using the program as value added service has helped increase his commercial business ten to twenty percent. "It makes us more competitive and helps put us in a strong leadership position in our area. Believe me, if I didn't use QHVAC to help my dealers, they would take their business to some other wholesaler who gave them that service. It's that important."

Benoist says they have never had a problem with a design using QHVAC. "None of our customers or dealers have told us later that the equipment is not properly heating or cooling the building. This says a lot for the program and gives us tremendous confidence in our judgement. We also have a sense of pride in the job that's not been excessively designed. For us, it's not reassuring that your customer could have paid 30% more than necessary. It will catch up with you when you are seen as an expensive supplier. Believe it or not, we still have significant competitors who do not provide computerized load calculations and they are being hurt - no question about it."

He adds that his competitors who still use antiquated rule of thumb methods are not considering new energy-efficient materials, better insulation, tighter bulidings and higher efficiency equipment. "In today's market, customers are much more intelligent and knowledgeable; they simply will not pay excessive amounts for equipment like they used to. Although my less sophisticated competitors are still making money, they are not taking care of their customers and their profit margins are shrinking."

"Small wholesalers who are not computerized and not providing this kind of service are becoming dinosaurs. They're going out of business right now and will continue to drop off. The National Association of Wholesalers has estimated that a great many simply will not exist in only a few years."

For Benoist however, the company's plans for further computerization include supplying small laptop computers for all of its salesmen and personal desktop computers for at least 80% of its staff. He adds, "We'll also connect all of our computers to our new mini-computer for increased efficiency and productivity gains. And we'll load QHVAC into our salesmen's laptops so that they can perform load calculations right at the customer's location."

He concludes, "QHVAC has been an outstanding program for us; it's a very useful tool that we use every week. The world has changed and marketing and productivity will determine the future of wholesalers. QHVAC is, in the end, a powerful marketing tool that makes us very competitive and allows us to make more money because we can access a much larger market."

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