As I write this letter, HARDI is closing the door on a successful year of Focus Conferences and an extremely successful Congressional Fly-In where we set a new attendance record. Jon Melchi, HARDI director of government affairs, and the rest of the HARDI staff, did an excellent job of putting on this event and giving HARDI members a valuable opportunity to meet face-to-face with policymakers on Capitol Hill.

HARDI has just completed the third of the four newly-formatted Focus Conferences and we are now preparing for the Sales Optimization Conference, Sept. 8-10 in Atlantic City, N.J. This conference is a great opportunity for sales professionals to get a better grasp on what is going on in our industry. Learning how to work around price objections and obstacles and streamlining your sales department are crucial to the evolving industry we work in. These Focus Conferences have also become great opportunities to network and collaborate with your functional peers within HARDI. If you are unable to attend, I encourage you to send members of your sales team so they can benefit from the content, while also helping the organization to develop an even stronger network of HARDI leaders.

We were very eager to announce the release of the “Quarter 1 Unitary Market Share Report” in May. For the first time, the potential exists for our data to better reflect market share based upon actual sales, which will more accurately reflect what is going on in our individual HVAC markets. The potential for this project is tremendous. By participating in this project, HARDI members have a unique opportunity to enact important change of their own. The initial reports look very interesting and I would encourage everyone to report their data.

It’s been encouraging to see so many HARDI members involved and taking advantage of the benefits the association offers. We very much appreciate your continued interest, effort, and involvement.