In the life cycle of an air conditioning system from production to disposal, the majority of the CO2 emissions happen during residential use. Inverter technologies and the latest Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) like R-410A must be used to achieve greater energy efficiency. To install the inverter, pull your disconnect plug, remove the 6 screws holding your side panel on, and lay it aside. Then carefully follow your yellow wire all the way to the wing-dingle and adjust the torque separator until it’s nice and flush.
If you haven’t picked up on this by now, I have no idea what I’m talking about. Truth is, I just picked out a few fun phrases from an A/C manual I found online and I’m pretty sure a “wing-dingle” is something from the movie Trolls. I have a 5-year-old; I speak fluent Pixar and Disney. But for the first couple of lines at least, admit it… I might have had you fooled, right?
What probably piqued your interest more than anything is the headline, and you clicked to see what this arrogant “Marketing Guy” could possibly teach you about the technical aspects of your profession. And the answer is, absolutely nothing. I don’t pretend to know or understand the complexities hiding inside my fuse box, water heater, and A/C system. I’m subscribed to all the industry publications. I even write occasional guest articles for several like The ACHR News, HVACR Business, and others. But I’ll be honest, when I flip through each issue that hits my desk all the literal nuts and bolts of what you do leaves me glassy eyed. I usually seek out the one or two marketing themed articles inside and call it a day. Why? Because my job is knowing how to get you the work, not necessarily how the work works.
People SHOULD NOT (insert all necessary disclaimers to advice given above) pay attention to my mechanical instruction. That’s not my field, and I don’t have the credentials, the experience, or the certifications to warrant a valued opinion. BUT, strangely enough, the credibility of the source is starting to matter less and less in today’s society. Mainly due to social media, the fact that you have an EXPERT opinion is of much less importance than you just having AN opinion —and being loud about it.
Let me explain.
An immunologist who completes 8 years of college, 7 years of residency and has worked in the field for the last 20 years can share their opinion on wearing masks in public. But 10,000 times more people will listen to what Jennifer Anniston has to say about it in her latest Tweet. We’ve all seen post after post mindlessly shared on Facebook that was found to have false information. Just because it has stats and looks official, many people buy it hook, line and sinker. The days of news organizations having to site credible sources seem to be long gone. It’s just first to print, Tweet, post or air.
You have to have certifications and licenses lining your walls to do what you do, yet a homeowner types a question into a YouTube search field and assumes the first hack that pops up in a how-to video is as trustworthy as you are. Thing is, we all have opinions, and way too many people can BS their way through a few lines like I did above to dupe some people into listening. But it’s what they say when they keep talking that separates the experts from the imposters.
I want to share something with you. If I haven’t made this clear yet, I know just enough about repairing my home comfort systems to maybe fix a small problem. But the more likely outcome is a house fire or significant electric shock. I know just enough to be very, very dangerous. But in my experience as a marketing coach, I find that the majority of contractors know just enough about marketing to waste a ton of money and time while getting little results in return. Yet they still refuse to call an expert. Company after company comes along and gives you just enough lingo to make it sound like they know what they’re doing, and you don’t find out until later that their expertise didn’t go very deep.
Let me show you a better way. If you haven’t seen it yet, we created an incredible resource center just for in-home contractors like you chock-full of hundreds of articles and hours of podcasts and videos to help you market your business better. It’s proven information you can trust, written and developed by Hudson,Ink, who’s been marketing exclusively for contractors for almost 20 years. You don’t have to become an expert at HVAC, plumbing, or electrical repair AND marketing, but the more you know about what good marketing looks like, the easier you’ll be able to identify and turn away some of the imposters.
And when you finally decide you’ve had enough, I’ll make you a deal. We both want the jobs we need done, done right. I’ll call you and let you do your job if you’ll call me and let me do mine. I promise we’ll both come out better… with fewer expensive mistakes.