World Plumbing Day

World Plumbing Day

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.

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48,034 Attendees, 1,875 Exhibitors and My First AHR Expo

48,034 Attendees, 1,875 Exhibitors and My First AHR Expo

By Kylie Stanley, PR Technician

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.

Until next year–at AHR in Orlando!

Check out our recap video here:

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Market Intelligence: Data-Driven Profit Growth

Market Intelligence: Data-Driven Profit Growth

By: Insight2Profit

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?

Andy: The best way to explain how market intelligence can help solve price increase uncertainty is with an example:

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.

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.

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20+ Industrial Maintenance Training Resources

20+ Industrial Maintenance Training Resources

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.

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Your Most Important Brand Asset

Your Most Important Brand Asset

Following is a guest post from our friends over at Long & Short of It, masters of ideation, customer insights and market research. They like to say they “dig and find lots of data and then turn it into actionable insights.” Following is their guest post. 

Your Employees Are Your Best Secret Weapon

When it comes to promoting or managing your brand, your most important asset is your employees. It doesn’t matter if you are a B2C or a B2B company – we are all in a B2P world – business to people. It’s your people who interact with every customer, prospect, donor, recruit, or media person. There are few other channels you have that can achieve the reach and personal touch as your employees.  

Fundamental to marketing is knowing your audience, crafting the right message, and delivering it through the best medium. We all know that cutting through the clutter is increasingly difficult. Additionally, your target audience is also becoming increasingly wary of interacting with brands that are not authentic. Applying your brand so your employees understand it and deliver on its promise, not only alleviates both challenges, but is also your secret weapon to elevate your brand and build more loyalty. But how? Here are three things to begin with:

1.     Make sure every employee understands your brand. They should be clear about your mission, vision, and values. Any employee will know how to make the ‘right’ decision when they are guided by your values. They shouldn’t have to go to an employee handbook or run to their manager every time a new situation arises to know what to do. Living your brand through your values is the foundation of your culture. If your values are just lofty words that no one pays any attention to, then it’s time to revisit them and work with your employees on how to bring them to life.

2.     Give your employees the tools to be great brand ambassadors. One of the best ways to start is through social media. The combined reach of your employee’s social media presence probably surpasses that of your company social media channels; leverage that. Begin with developing a social media policy. Provide them with information on how to properly represent your company when they decide to do so through their various social media platforms. Give them examples of what is appropriate and what is not, and where to go if they have questions. If you are not comfortable enough to open this up for all your employees, then select a group as your dedicated social media brand ambassadors. Make sure they come from a wide variety of areas within your organization and represent a diversity of positions and tenure. Customers love to hear employee stories and see what goes on behind the scenes and it also adds an incredible amount of authenticity that no amount of advertising is going to get you.

3.     Encourage employees to find ways to bring your brand to life. Although your brand platform is not something that changes often, how its expressed and activated can constantly evolve. Your employees will have the best ideas on how to do that. It can range from potential new products to how to provide better customer service or how to improve the recruiting process. As an added benefit, it’s also a way to increase employee engagement because it demonstrates that the company genuinely values employees’ opinions and contributions.

It doesn’t matter what type or what size organization you have; your brand is one of your most important assets, and your employees are your secret weapon. By empowering them, they can elevate and promote your brand. We know this from experience. Telling our stories and being present on social media has been a key to our growth over the years – it’s a good as time as any to help make it one of yours as well.

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