As one of the senior contributors to this publication, I thought it appropriate to provide my perspective on the current world situation.

An HVAC contractor should use time between busy seasons to examine the areas which need improvement and make plans for corrections.

You can never forget the importance of providing excellent customer service at all times.

The BBB regularly publishes materials to assist companies in being more reactive to consumers in their area.

Many individuals in the HVAC industry want to open their own businesses one day. I am not here to discourage but only to urge caution.

Correcting common misconceptions about the cost of running your business will improve employee satisfaction.

There are two possible solutions I believe the industry needs to consider in order to change the landscape for our future workforce.

At Welsch Heating & Cooling Inc., we are far from perfect at accumulating this information. We have very little success getting our salesforce to find out why a particular customer called us. However, our sales coordinator does a good job of obtaining that information as the calls come in.

In addition to all of our friends, relatives, and employees, we also send those cards to the home’s of the owners of the companies that are our company’s best customers. But we still send those cards from Butch and Carol, not from Welsch Heating and Cooling Co.

These devices are being sold by the millions, and in most cases, the distribution is directly to the consumer — the sellers are avoiding the traditional manufacturer-to-wholesaler-to-contractor model that our industry has used for years.