Here are some of the highlights from March 2021 as told by the Sales Team . . .
Jim Krochune: Steve McManus acquired more STS days at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and the customer was very impressed with Steve’s work:
“Jim, Steve is doing a fantastic job and has discovered previously tagged traps in Pipe Alley that were not on the previous survey log. Please send a quote for two (2) additional days of STS, and try to maintain continuity by keeping Steve on-site until Friday. If you can get me the quote late today/early tomorrow, I can get a change done on the current PO tomorrow.”
Nice work Steve!
Jim Krochune: Con Ed C & I Project Updates – APM left a great impression on Jonathan Kiss from Con Ed.
“Jonathan Kiss at Con Ed sent the below information on projects we have with them. He called me this morning and elaborated more on how they look at contractors and we are #1 for gas vendors. He said the engineering team is extremely pleased with the submissions, and we are always available if they have questions. The pre and post-inspection teams told Jonathan we are the most straightforward, organized, and knowledgeable team they work with. Hats off to the whole team.”
Great work to all involved!
Eric Hayston: Moving forward with Bristol Community College Air & Duct Cleaning and HEX Cleaning program implementation from Jonathan Davis.
Bristol Community College had us perform the air and duct cleaning for the science building back in February. The customer was so happy with the project they have already given us a PO for the cafeteria and we are now quoting the engineering lab and the business building. With potentially more buildings to come. Also they have been part of the utility pilot program for the HEX cleaning, they have 2 units that have been selected to be part of the program to discover if HEX cleanings save energy as we have been theorizing. Jonathan Davis deserves a huge shout out for the 100’s of hours he has put into helping promote and develop the pilot program with the utilities. Without his efforts we wouldn’t even be at the discovery stage with the program.
Way to go team! Thank you for all your hard work and dedication Jonathan Davis!
Brett Houlihan (& Mark Martella): First 2 sales in the Chicago Territory!
In March, we performed surveys and guaranteed repairs for 2 locations owned by the City of Chicago, These locations were:
- DOT/Fire Maintenance Complex (3015 West 31st Street) – 4 day survey and repairs
- Chicago City Hall – 4 day survey and repairs
A lot of teamwork went into making this happen. I procured the relationship with the contacts at City of Chicago, People’s Gas, and Granite Construction (General Contractor) to piece together this complicated puzzle. Mark Martella (Chicago Sales) and Jason Jimenez went out to the sites and scoped out the surveys to ensure what we were quoting was entirely accurate. Michelle and Chip worked together closely to move the schedule around in such a way that seemed impossible at times. But we made it happen and these are scheduled to start next week on 4/6.
Nice teamwork from the field, sales, and logistics!
Brett Houlihan (& Mark Martella): Chicago Site Visits
Mark and I have been cold calling into the territory for some time now and we were able to set up a total of (10+) onsite visits in the past month to scope out the survey and repair work to be quoted. The reason we are doing this is to avoid any unnecessary expenses from misquoting critical travel jobs. We are having technicians accompany Mark onsite to these visits for not only quoting purposes but in person training for Mark to be able to one day go off on his own to run these walkthroughs.
Jason Jimenez and Eric Chagnon have already traveled out there (Chagnon was there during his Birthday last week) to assist in this effort to get the territory started. This was very well received from the customers as it gave the perception of a so called “white glove service” being presented to customers as our standard practice. It is also a much higher success rate of selling a project being in person with these customers rather than over a Zoom/Teams call.
Excellent Customer Service from Eric Chagnon!
Brett Houlihan (& Mark Martella): Chicago Utilities
We have uncovered 3 main utility players in the region (Ameren, Peoples Gas, and NICOR). Mark and I have been able to forge relationships with the reps that manage these programs and understand how they work. Discovering these programs has shaped how we are now doing business in the Chicago/Illinois territory. We have changed how we quote surveys and repairs by giving the customer 2 options:
Option 1: Choosing APM Steam for repair work: (APM collects survey incentive only). We will not charge the customer anything for the survey if they choose APM to run the repairs. In order to be eligible for this option they must agree to the terms and provide a purchase order for repairs within 90 days of report delivery. Option 2: Choosing to run repairs in house or another contractor: We will still work with this customer but in this case the standard APM daily survey rate is applied and the customer will collect the incentive rebate directly from utility once they complete the repair work on their own.
This method of quoting was really the key to unlock many opportunities in the region, Ricardo and Chip were very open to this idea and its possible that we will end up using this model in other regions of the country in the future as well. Chip and Honan were instrumental in creating this approach. Chip laid out the foundation for the quote/process and Honan was able to use his expertise to fill in the blanks on pricing and time estimates.
Sounds like great collaboration of efforts from Brett and Mark as well as Chip and Eric Honan in creating this new quoting process for Chicago! Keep up the great teamwork guys!
Sid Khanna: Union Public Schools – We were awarded this project via Schneider Electric.
APM surveyed the school district in February of 2020. The repair portion was put on hold until Q2 of 2021 due to COVID restrictions. On re-examination of the survey reports it appears that APM had inconsistencies with the data collection. We were asked to go back onto the site to do a visual inspection to complete our reports.
Ryan Patterson was the tech that was assigned to the project. I spoke with Ryan before he went out to the site and gave him the background on the project. He did an excellent job of walking through the site to gather the data. He also communicated with myself and the customer very effectively. He did such a great job that we were able to accomplish the walkthrough in 2 shifts vs 3. The result was the customer was able to complete the bid package on time. They were so impressed by us that even though we still have to bid the repair work, they will award us the post install commissioning portion. This can be done since it is more of an audit vs actual labor.
Great job Ryan Patterson!