This month, we welcome Charlie Greer and David Heimer to the Contracting Business HVAC Hall of Fame.
We don’t open the doors to the Hall every year, but when we do, we are always certain that the inductees are incredibly worthy.
Charlie Greer has written for Contracting Business since 1992. His column, “A Superior Level of Service,” has appeared 201 times, which makes him the longest-running columnist to appear in these pages. Each month Charlie has provided guidance to field technicians and contracting business owners, designed to help increase their closing rates for necessary comfort systems improvements and residential replacement sales.
Topics he’s covered over the years have included: system upgrades; the importance of Indoor Air Quality to homeowner health; if you sell it, own it; ingredients to superior service; a 12-part series on the sales call; and many, many more.
Key to much of Charlie’s advice has been the use of closing scripts, which require the salesperson to memorize responses to various customer objections. For Charlie Greer, a “no” from a customer is just the start of the journey to “yes.” But a script is an essential part of that ride.
“If you don’t have a scripted way to run calls, it means you don’t know what works, because if you knew what worked, you’d do it the same way every time,” Greer says.
In addition to his myriad columns, Charlie Greer was always a favorite presenter during our 20-year-run of Comfortech shows. With a background in acting, Charlie is a natural for the trade show circuit. He also provided an added dash of brilliance to our “Comfortech Idol” competitions, which had about a three-year run during the Ctech show.
Greer’s personal appearances and classes at his HVAC Profit Boosters in Fort Myers, Fla. continue to this day. At press time, he had just returned from a presentation in Houston for a meeting of Service Nation Alliance members. He’s working on two books and more. We welcome Charlie Greer to the Hall of Fame, with a great big Thank You!
David Heimer was a co-founder with Matt Michel of the Service Roundtable, a leading provider of business tools, seminars, and consultations for service businesses.
Actually, the full boat of offerings available to Service Roundtable and Service Nation Alliance members are so vast that they each stand alone in the field. What Michel (inducted in 2015) and Heimer have accomplished — with the support of champion contractors and a razor-sharp team — is truly amazing.
Heimer, like Michel, has worked in the HVAC industry his entire professional life. Before joining the Roundtable, he worked for Lennox and Air Systems Components.
I had the pleasure of visiting the new SR/SN offices recently, and came away very impressed by all that the organization has accomplished.
A class was in session at the time, led by John and Vicki LaPlant. The attendees (about 30) signed up for four-days of training. Four days. That means they have things in order at the shop, and can afford to take time off for learning. They got that way by applying the lessons learned in their Service Roundtable/Service Nation memberships.
When writing my article about Heimer, some working headlines were “Miracle Man,” “Solution Generator,” and “Ideas by the Thousands.” I settled on “Success Engineer,” which I think aptly defines David Heimer’s career at Service Roundtable/Service Nation. He, Matt Michel, Liz Patrick and the entire team of staffers continue to churn out ideas to help contracting business owners be better and sell more, and eventually be in an ideal position to sell the business.
Charlie Greer and David Heimer will be inducted into the CB HVAC Hall of Fame during Service World Expo, October 16-18, at Paris, Las Vegas. I’m looking forward to it, and I hope to see you there. Seek me out and say hello.
Congratulations and much thanks to Charlie Greer and David Heimer!
READ ABOUT CHARLIE GREER HERE.
READ ABOUT DAVID HEIMER HERE.