Today we have a guest blog post on behalf of WIA (Welding Industries of Australia) on four trades that are crucial for the construction industry.
Whether you live in a small town or a large city, you rely on the construction industry to provide infrastructure. From large corporations to modest family households, the construction industry is responsible for creating buildings that shelter you. But while we may depend on this industry for many things, the industry itself relies on several specialized trades. Here are four of the trades that are vital to the field of construction.
1. Electricians
Reading at night, keeping cool in the summer, using computers at work or cooking a meal, there’s a seemingly endless list of day-to-day activities that are made possible by electricians. In our modern society, there’s no doubt that any building without electrical wiring would be virtually useless; the construction industry wouldn’t get very far without the skills of electricians. And while these tradespeople generally get paid well (U.S. News puts the average salary for electricians at around $55,000), there are certainly drawbacks to this profession. Aside from limited promotion opportunities and a lack of flexibility, electricians also face the very real risk of injury or death on a daily basis. According to Electrical Contractor magazine, 143 or so construction workers die due to electrocution each year, with about 34 percent of these individuals being electrical workers. It’s little wonder electricians experience above-average stress levels on the job.
2. Carpenters
Most of the wooden furniture you use, timber floors you walk on and wooden walls and beams that support the roof over your head are the handiwork of carpenters. When you consider that the majority of homes in the U.S. are constructed with timber frames, the importance of carpentry becomes even more obvious. With more than 1 million carpenters in the country and projections for this number to rapidly grow, this trade is clearly an important part of the construction industry. Fortunately, the decent working conditions and respectable average salary of about $48,000 should see this trade continue to flourish in the future.
3. Welders
Welders, often categorized together with cutters, solderers and brazers, are essentially the metal equivalent of carpenters. From manufacturing household appliances, to building race cars, there is a uniquely diverse range of projects that a skilled welder can find themselves working on. While less known than other trades, welding is an extremely valuable element of the construction industry.
Welders require thorough training and often need to earn credentials before landing their first job. Sometimes, they also have to invest in their own equipment from a specialist provider like WIA. These factors may contribute to the fact that welding is the only trade on this list that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has predicted a slower growth than the average for other occupations through 2028. According to this Forbes article, welding is one of the main fields in which an older average population of workers could lead to a shortage in the near future. This means that welding is not just a crucial trade for the construction industry, it’s also a worthwhile career path for young aspiring tradespeople.
4. Plumbers
Similar to electricians, plumbers are essential in the construction of any contemporary building. They also become vital tradespeople when you want to renovate a bathroom, decide to add an en suite to your home or have any toilet issues. The task of keeping our pipes and water systems functioning smoothly employs about 500,000 plumbers in the U.S., and this number is expected to grow much faster than the average profession this decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This steady growth is likely due to the construction industry’s (and society’s) consistent demand for plumbing work, combined with the healthy average salary of around $53,000 and the job satisfaction that comes from regularly making a difference to the lives of other people.
There are many trades that form integral parts of the construction industry – these are just four of the most crucial ones. Reflecting on the important role these tradespeople play can help us appreciate and understand why pursuing a trade can be a lucrative and very fulfilling path.
March 11th is set aside each year to spread awareness of the importance of plumbing and plumbers. At Sonnhalter, we have a great appreciation for plumbers and the work that they do. Today, we will be sharing some plumbing facts to promote the practice and why it’s important.
Did you Know That Plumbing Improves the World…
Standardized plumbing can be traced back to around 3,000 B.C
Over 1 billion of people gained access to piped water supplies between 2000 and 2015
About 0.3% of homes across the country have a minor plumbing leak
The global population of people who used safely managed sanitation services increased from 28% in 2000 to 39% in 2015
A 4-minute shower can now use as little as 24 liters of water
The dual system toilet flush, created in a small town in Australia in 1980, now uses as little as 4.5 liters of water
Today we salute the ones who keep everything flowing, and not overflowing. Thank you to the dedicated plumbers who answer the call and don’t recount the tales of what they’ve pulled out of pipes.
When I attended PHCC Connect back in October, I thought it was a crowded show, but how I was proven wrong at AHR Expo. AHR Expo brings together manufacturers and suppliers of all sizes and specialties to share ideas and showcase the future of HVACR technology. This year was my first time attending the show, so I had no idea of what I was getting myself into when I arrived at the convention center.
The show took place in the “windy city” of Chicago this year, and it was my first time traveling on a plane for work! I was very excited if you couldn’t tell. I was shocked at the amount of people in Chicago, from the traffic leaving the airport, to when we arrived at the expo where we waited over an hour to get our badges! This show was very well attended, and the attendees had a great time visiting.
Some key things I noticed around the show were the interactive elements that booths were promoting. Here are a few that stood out:
Booths handing out beer and flavored water
Plinko to win “swag” items
A chance to win an E-bike if you gathered stamps from specific booths
And more!
Over the last few years, we’ve seen booths utilizing engaging designs to drive traffic and promote brand awareness. Companies continue to make the most out of their booths and get creative to drive traffic.
The podcast pavilion was just as popular as last year with 20 podcasters covering the latest topics in the industry. We can’t wait to see all the upcoming podcasts from the show, and we know they will continue to grow in popularity.
Outside of the show, we had a wonderful time hanging out with our clients Franklin Electric and NIBCO. Franklin Electric threw a customer appreciation party at Roots Pizza where they served beer, wine and lots of food options for its guests. Not to mention, the restaurant was decked out in blue lights, and they were raffling off some great prizes for attendees!
As for NIBCO, we had a wonderful surf and turf experience at Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab. We got to experience stone crab and a selection of pies including the restaurant’s famous (and amazing) key lime pie.
For this being my first AHR Expo, I would call the show a success! It’s exciting to see everything that’s happening within our industry up close and in person.
It should come as no surprise that data enables us to minimize risk and make more effective business decisions. Where does that data come from, though, and how is it interpreted? Market intelligence, the process of collecting, analyzing, and leveraging data on markets, competitors, and customers to maximize profit opportunities and reduce threats, is a major factor empowering companies to respond to changing conditions and succeed in today’s fluctuating market environment.
There are several different methodologies within market intelligence—qualitative interviews, quantitative surveys, secondary research—and all of them reveal unique actionable insights. This data can be used to answer critical business questions like willingness to pay, key purchasing criteria, and price perceptions relative to competitors.
We sat down with Andy Banyas, Director of Market Intelligence, to discuss the ways collecting market intelligence can enable strategic decision-making. Over his career, Andy has led more than 200 market intelligence consulting engagements, supporting some of the largest companies globally in gaining value-added insights to guide their business. He has experience across a wide range of industries, including various industrial markets, business services, and consumer products.
How Can Market Intelligence Drive Profit Growth?
Andy: Obtaining a clear understanding of how customers perceive a specific business and its offerings allows for formulation of a go-to-market strategy that leverages client strengths and exploits market opportunities and competitor vulnerabilities. Understanding the key elements customers consider when choosing a supplier provides the insight necessary to build a compelling market positioning and messaging strategy that leverages these key drivers, and the ability to price based on value to the customer to extract the full return from each sale.
Knowing how customers evaluate their purchases, what is most important to them, and how they perceive competitor offerings helps build the foundation for making sound and confident decisions on product, pricing, marketing, and channel strategies, all built on the knowledge of what is most important and compelling to customers, allowing the client to move forward with confidence.
What Are Some Examples of Key Questions Businesses Have About Customer, Competitor, and Supplier Behavior That Market Intelligence Can Help Answer?
Andy: While each situation is unique, there are several broad categories of inquiry that market intelligence can address, including:
What are the key drivers of a purchase decision – including the importance of product/service performance; price; availability; ease of use; and channel options?
How is the business and its offerings perceived in the market? Are they seen as a commodity, a low-price offering, or a high quality but high-priced provider? How is the business perceived across key criteria compared to leading competitors?
What is the role of price in the buying decision? Is it the most important consideration or are there other factors at play? And what is the level of willingness to pay more across each key market segment if specific additional value is provided?
Where are the key leverage points in the value chain? What role and level of importance does each node in the chain fulfill, and what is the impact of the value chain on customer behavior and the business?
How are competitors perceived in the market? What value do they bring; what is their key point of differentiation; where are their weak spots that can be exploited?
How Can Market Intelligence Help Solve Price Increase Uncertainty?
Problem: One of INSIGHT’s clients was considering a price increase but was concerned about the reaction in the market and potential loss of volume. They were also unsure as to the reaction among their key distributors to a price increase, so they wanted to gather data to better understand the role of price in the purchase decision as well as distributor perceptions.
Approach: INSIGHT designed a custom data-collection approach that included one-on-one interviews of end users conducted across two different market segments, and interviews with various large distributors serving those segments.
Result: End-users indicated that price played a minimal role in the purchase decision, and the product/provider chosen was based primarily on the strong performance of the product; a history with the product and provider; ease of use; and strong support from the provider sales rep.
Additionally, distributors reinforced this information regarding end users and also indicated that they didn’t see a price increase as affecting the market, and in fact were questioning why increases had not already occurred.
The takeaway here is that the client could increase prices significantly (10-15%) across key market segments with no risk of losing unit sales volume, while still maintaining a strong presence in the market and relationships with key distributors.
What Research Methods Does INSIGHT Use to Help Businesses Gather Market Intelligence on Topics Like Willingness-To-Pay, Purchasing Criteria, And Demand/Market Trends?
Andy: The methods employed differ by project and are customized for each specific need. Generally, though, there are two methods for gathering information:
Primary research, which involves collecting insights directly from people in the market, such as customers or competitors. Primary research may take two forms:
a. In-depth interviews, consisting of one-on-one conversations with key constituents in the market that obtains more qualitative data than surveys.
b. Surveys, with an appropriate sample size to ensure appropriate confidence levels that obtain more quantitative data than interviews.
Secondary research, which is focused on searching information already in the public domain for insights on industry trends, emerging technologies, government regulations, key competitor data, and macro-economic factors.
In addition, research will often include interviews with key stakeholders and SME’s within the client organization to gain their perspectives and insights on key topics.
Once Information Is Collected Through Interviews, Surveys, And Secondary Research, How Does INSIGHT Analyze and Interpret That Data?
Andy: All the information gathered is analyzed in its entirety to build a complete understanding of the key topic areas. For the interviews, INSIGHT will look for commonality of answers to build a consensus on certain key topics, as well as divergence in answers to reveal any confusion in the market or differences by segment or customer type.
For the survey analysis there are multiple analysis methods available including the comparison of numerous cross tabs of the results to compare responses across different criteria. In addition, tools such as Gabor-Granger may be used to determine the price elasticity of products and services.
A Van Westendorp analysis can be used to understand the ranges of prices offered that allow a determination of an optimized price point(s). Also, conjoint analysis can be done to help determine how people value different attributes that make up an individual product or service. The specific analysis tool INSIGHT chooses is dependent on the problem being addressed and the goal of the research.
Regardless of the tools used, the outcome is a detailed summary of the information obtained and the impact this market intelligence has on the client business, as well as clear recommendations on how the client should proceed considering the intelligence gathered.
What Are Some Examples of Market Intelligence in Action? How Have INSIGHT’s Findings Directly Contributed to A Business’s Strategy Going Forward?
Andy:
Example #1: Market intelligence on end users and competitive offerings allowed for the development of competitor profiles that sales reps could utilize to counter competitor positioning and offerings. This same market intelligence helped guide the development of customer profiles that segmented the market on key variables associated with perceptions of value and usage. Such prospects/customers could be prioritized based on opportunity, and specific messaging and sales outreach strategies could be developed for each profile.
Example #2: Market intelligence on distributor pricing of client products indicated a price position well below many leading competitors, providing the client the opportunity to increase prices on multiple products while still maintaining a competitive price advantage. Research methodologies were developed and introduced to the client so that they could regularly monitor distributor pricing to be alerted to any competitive price changes and/or changes in distributor pricing of both the client and competitor products.
Example #3: Primary interviews revealed a customer beginning the process of retooling their operations and in turn evaluating the potential purchase of all new equipment. Client sales team was alerted to the opportunity and were successful in beginning the conversation on selling equipment to this customer.
Example #4: Client was provided overwhelming evidence that end user customers had limited awareness of or sensitivity to product pricing, allowing the client to immediately increase prices with little risk of volume loss, and increased margins on sales to existing customers.
With the ongoing concern about our nation’s skills gap, the option for choosing an education to pursue a vocational career is certainly an attractive one. With plentiful skilled labor jobs to fill, trade jobs pay very well (sometimes better than four-year college degrees) and don’t saddle students with hefty student loans.
In an article from SJVC, a private career college, they discuss more than 20 resources for maintenance training. With a variety of resources, you can expand your knowledge about the industrial market and explore your career options.
General Resources and Publications
Sometimes the best place to learn more is by reading more about it. By reading publications that correspond with the industrial market, you can learn more about what’s happening in the industry and about tips and tricks.
Video Series
Watching videos is a great way to do online training and gives insights on the daily work a maintenance worker might be doing. You may also expand your knowledge by watching training videos that can allow you to get an overview of the job and the tools you would be using.
Podcasts
Podcasts offer crucial information from someone who works in the career firsthand. Putting on a podcast is a great way to hear day-in-the-life reporting and an easy way to listen to tips.
Social Media
Social media is a valuable place to get recommendations, learn industry news and see insight into the career you want to enter. Social media can also help you look at a specific company and show you what they do in a day.
Check out the article from SJVC to see further in depth about each of these training resources.
ng at night, keeping cool in the summer, using computers at work or cooking a meal, there’s a seemingly endless list of day-to-day activities that are made possible by electricians. In our modern society, there’s no doubt that any building without electrical wiring would be virtually useless; the construction industry wouldn’t get very far without the skills of electricians. And while these tradespeople generally get paid well (U.S. News puts the average salary for electricians at around $55,000), there are certainly drawbacks to this profession. Aside from limited promotion opportunities and a lack of flexibility, electricians also face the very real risk of injury or death on a daily basis. According to Electrical Contractor magazine, 143 or so construction workers die due to electrocution each year, with about 34 percent of these individuals being electrical workers. It’s little wonder electricians experience above-average stress levels on the job.
ture you use, timber floors you walk on and wooden walls and beams that support the roof over your head are the handiwork of carpenters. When you consider that the majority of homes in the U.S. are constructed with timber frames, the importance of carpentry becomes even more obvious. With more than 1 million carpenters in the country and projections for this number to rapidly grow, this trade is clearly an important part of the construction industry. Fortunately, the decent working conditions and respectable average salary of about $48,000 should see this trade continue to flourish in the future.
The task of keeping our pipes and water systems functioning smoothly employs about 500,000 plumbers in the U.S., and this number is expected to grow much faster than the average profession this decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This steady growth is likely due to the construction industry’s (and society’s) consistent demand for plumbing work, combined with the healthy average salary of around $53,000 and the job satisfaction that comes from regularly making a difference to the lives of other people.
