Tag Archives: propane education

NPGA Propane Expo — A Learning Experience

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An expanded edu­ca­tion pro­gram for every­one from field to front office 

The South­east­ern Con­ven­tion & Inter­na­tional Propane Expo is going to be held at the Geor­gia World Con­gress Cen­ter in Atlanta, Geor­gia, on April 11–13, 2015.  This inter­na­tional event, sim­ply called Propane Expo, has the world’s largest propane indus­try trade show and the most com­pre­hen­sive propane indus­try edu­ca­tion pro­gram avail­able any­where.  

The Propane Expo edu­ca­tion and train­ing pro­gram con­tin­ues to expand to meet the busi­ness knowl­edge and work skill needs of every­one work­ing in the stor­age, trans­porta­tion, mar­ket­ing, sales, and deliv­ery of propane and related appli­ca­tions and prod­ucts.  The edu­ca­tion pro­gram is divided among sev­eral venues in the con­ven­tion cen­ter and starts at 9:00 A.M. on Sat­ur­day, so you should sched­ule your travel plans accord­ingly.  Most of the edu­ca­tion events are held in con­cur­rent ses­sions so you won’t always be able to sched­ule your time to attend every ses­sion in which you are inter­ested.  You should con­sider bring­ing more than one per­son from your com­pany to the Propane Expo to gain max­i­mum ben­e­fit from all of the edu­ca­tion offer­ings.   

Edu­ca­tion Ses­sions, held in a series of meet­ing rooms at the reg­is­tra­tion level of the World Con­gress Cen­ter, start off Sat­ur­day morn­ing with sev­eral work­shops.  An Online & Social Media Mar­ket­ing Work­shop will be con­ducted by Ben Gutkin from Warm Thoughts Com­mu­ni­ca­tions.  Ben’s work­shop has been the most pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion event at the Expo for two years in a row.  Run­ning con­cur­rently will be sev­eral Propane Deliv­ery Automa­tion Work­shops where you can learn about and com­pare the lat­est propane deliv­ery automa­tion tech­nol­ogy.  Other Edu­ca­tion Ses­sions con­tinue through Sat­ur­day after­noon and Sun­day morn­ing and cover a wide range of top­ics includ­ing propane sup­ply risk man­age­ment, col­lab­o­ra­tive nego­ti­a­tion, and sev­eral mar­ket­ing, tech­nol­ogy, and safety and train­ing ses­sions by sub­ject mat­ter experts from PERC.  Some of the ses­sions are iden­ti­fied for atten­dees to receive cer­tifi­cates of atten­dance as a record of their learn­ing expe­ri­ences.  These Edu­ca­tion Ses­sions are not held dur­ing exhibit hall hours, so you will be able to par­tic­i­pate in all aspects of the Propane Expo. 

Another pop­u­lar learn­ing expe­ri­ence at the Propane Expo is the Fast-Track Ses­sions held in the exhibit hall at the PERC Inno­va­tion Pavil­ion.  A sep­a­rate stage and seat­ing area is set up for 45 minute Fast-Tracks on a vari­ety of top­ics that can be more tech­ni­cal in nature and often related to safety and reg­u­la­tions.  You are sur­rounded by, and only steps away from, all of the exhibitors on the trade show floor.  Some of these ses­sions end up being stand­ing room only. 

Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Ses­sions con­tinue to expand and this year are focused on most com­po­nents of a res­i­den­tial or com­mer­cial propane sys­tem, from propane tank to burner tip.  Ser­vice tech­ni­cians and installers, sales per­son­nel, and any­one else involved in the sales, instal­la­tion, and ser­vic­ing of propane sys­tems will be inter­ested in attend­ing one or more of the hands-on Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Ses­sions.  Learn about the lat­est tech­nol­ogy in propane gas sys­tem com­po­nents and how they can be applied in the field to build safe, effi­cient, high per­for­mance propane gas sys­tems.  Com­po­nents such as propane tanks, plas­tic under­ground pipe, CSST flex­i­ble gas pip­ing, vapor­iz­ers, reg­u­la­tors, and meters are cov­ered in detail in sep­a­rate ses­sions held in enclosed areas toward the rear of the exhibit floor so you will be close to all the exhibitor action.  All Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Ses­sions will be con­ducted by fac­tory experts and you will receive a cer­tifi­cate of par­tic­i­pa­tion. 

Have you heard yet?  There will be an Auto­gas Pavil­ion as a new exhibit area in the exhibit hall this year.  The Auto­gas Pavil­ion will bring together auto­gas indus­try vehi­cles, prod­ucts, edu­ca­tion, and ser­vices in one place.  You will be able to visit with experts in the field and learn how you can become more involved with propane auto­gas, the lead­ing alter­na­tive fuel in the United States and abroad.  A sep­a­rate Auto­gas Fast-Tracks seat­ing area will be avail­able where you can lis­ten to pre­sen­ta­tions by indus­try experts about the lat­est in propane auto­gas tech­nol­ogy.  The Auto­gas Pavil­ion will make the world’s largest propane indus­try trade show an even more pop­u­lar part of the Propane Expo. 

The entire energy indus­try, includ­ing propane, is chang­ing rapidly and the NPGA Propane Expo is the one event you can attend to catch up with many of those changes.  The NPGA Con­ven­tion Com­mit­tee and NPGA staff have put together a pro­gram that will draw atten­tion and atten­dance from across Amer­ica and around the world.  Atten­dees are able to get max­i­mum value for their travel dol­lars and time by hav­ing access to the most com­pre­hen­sive propane indus­try edu­ca­tion avail­able any­where, along with the world’s best exhibit of propane-related prod­ucts and ser­vices, all in one loca­tion, at the NPGA Propane Expo.  To find out more about the edu­ca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties at the Propane Expo and reg­is­ter for the event, go to www.propaneexpo.com.   

I hope to see you in Atlanta.  I’ll be one of those old dogs there to learn new tricks about Propane, Clean Amer­i­can Energy. 

 

 

 

New Year’s resolutions for propane marketers

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Cre­at­ing small mea­sur­able steps for propane mar­ket growth    

Accord­ing to the lat­est Wikipedia def­i­n­i­tion, a New Year’s Res­o­lu­tion is a promise that you make to your­self to start doing some­thing good or stop doing some­thing bad on the first day of the year.  New Year’s res­o­lu­tions date back to pre-Christian times with the Baby­lo­ni­ans and Romans and have had reli­gious and moral over­tones.  It is esti­mated that over 40% of Amer­i­cans now make New Year’s res­o­lu­tions on small mea­sur­able steps that can be as sim­ple as lose weight, quit smok­ing, and vol­un­teer to help others.

New Year’s res­o­lu­tions can be an impor­tant part of the plan­ning process for your propane busi­ness too.  Res­o­lu­tions are not meant to replace a busi­ness plan, an annual mar­ket­ing plan, or your bud­get process, but res­o­lu­tions can help you find your range and set the tone for those more for­mal plan­ning processes.

Here are a few New Year’s res­o­lu­tions for your propane busi­ness that can make a difference.

I Resolve to:

• Stop using the words “switch” and “switch out” in my adver­tis­ing, as it applies to steal­ing cus­tomers from your propane com­peti­tors.  There is noth­ing wrong with adding new cus­tomers to your base by tak­ing cus­tomers from your weak per­form­ing propane com­peti­tors but using those words show a total lack of cre­ativ­ity and cheapen your growth efforts and our propane indus­try rep­u­ta­tion.  Your mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing should give com­pelling rea­sons why you are the best propane com­pany with which to do busi­ness and con­sumers will respond.  If you still feel you must strengthen your adver­tis­ing close, try sub­sti­tut­ing “upgrade” for “switch out”.
• Start learn­ing more about propane and my energy com­peti­tors.  Attend the Propane Expo in Atlanta and other regional and state events that have a strong edu­ca­tion com­po­nent.  Study the elec­tric­ity, heat­ing oil, bio­mass, and renew­ables mar­kets in your area.  These energy mar­kets dif­fer across the coun­try.  I find that energy web­sites, blogs, other social media, and my elec­tric bill pro­vide an abun­dant amount of use­able energy infor­ma­tion.  Few propane mar­keters I talk with even know their own local elec­tric rates, but they can tell me the per gal­lon price of propane for every com­peti­tor within 50 miles.  That’s a good way to win small bat­tles but lose the war.
• Pro­vide more train­ing for my employ­ees.  If you want to cre­ate a healthy team spirit at your com­pany and have a safer and more suc­cess­ful propane busi­ness, keep your employ­ees well-trained in their core areas of work and other aspects of the propane busi­ness.  CETP or equiv­a­lent train­ing, propane sys­tem instal­la­tion and main­te­nance train­ing, and appli­ance instal­la­tion and ser­vice train­ing offered by man­u­fac­tur­ers or dis­trib­u­tors are a few of the cur­ricu­lum areas that can improve your employ­ees’ skills, ver­sa­til­ity, and over­all worth to your com­pany.  Look to NPGA, your State or Regional propane gas asso­ci­a­tion, and appli­ance and equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­ers and dis­trib­uters in your area for pri­mary employee train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties.
• Add more burner tips to my res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial cus­tomers.  Your mar­ket­ing plan strat­egy and tac­tics should include the addi­tion of burner tips and result­ing gal­lons to your cur­rent cus­tomer base.  You can start with small steps like improv­ing your data base on the propane usage of your res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial cus­tomers.  Every one of your cus­tomers has 5 pri­mary oppor­tu­ni­ties for propane usage inside their homes or busi­nesses.  You should know what form of energy your cus­tomers use for space heat­ing, water heat­ing, cook­ing, clothes dry­ing, and fire­places.  It is also help­ful to know the age and con­di­tion of that equip­ment.  Then you can work toward ways to increase the num­ber of those usage points per cus­tomer.  You can iden­tify propane usage by cus­tomer and appli­ca­tion in a vari­ety of ways, includ­ing GAS Check, cus­tomer sur­veys, new cus­tomer check lists, and ser­vice orders. Also, con­sider join­ing the Res­i­den­tial and Com­mer­cial Mar­ket Growth Group, a newly formed work­ing group of NPGA mem­bers that includes propane mar­keters, appli­ance man­u­fac­tur­ers and dis­trib­u­tors, and State Exec­u­tives.  This still evolv­ing group’s efforts to increase res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial gas load are also sup­ported by PERC.  Con­tact Randy Doyle at rdoyle@blossmangas.com or me for more details.  Increas­ing the num­ber of burner tips per cus­tomer will increase your gal­lon sales and the value and sus­tain­abil­ity of your business.

Now is the time to think about what your New Year’s res­o­lu­tions should be for your propane busi­ness.  Hope­fully you have been inspired by some of the above.  You may be sur­prised at how much these small steps can pos­i­tively influ­ence your over­all busi­ness strat­egy and for­mal plan­ning process.

May you have a Merry Christ­mas, Happy Hol­i­days, and a Pros­per­ous New Year!

 

What is your burner tip business model?

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Increas­ing res­i­den­tial propane sales may mean adjust­ing your approach

Does your present busi­ness model fully sup­port res­i­den­tial propane growth by max­i­miz­ing the num­ber of burner tips in exist­ing homes and in new homes being built?  Don’t let your energy com­peti­tors, mainly elec­tric­ity, con­tinue to gain mar­ket share because you have turned your back on the chal­lenge.  You should feel respon­si­ble for the shrink­ing res­i­den­tial mar­ket and not wait around for your propane com­peti­tors to solve the prob­lem for you.  Here are some ideas that can turn energy switch­ing in your favor.

Review your busi­ness plan to make sure it sup­ports all res­i­den­tial uses of propane.  You should be actively look­ing for ways to stop energy switch­ing in your cur­rent cus­tomer base and work­ing to make sure that homes being effi­ciency upgraded or newly built are using propane in all avail­able appli­ca­tions.  One or a com­bi­na­tion of the 3 fol­low­ing burner tip busi­ness mod­els will help you accom­plish this.

Sell, install, and ser­vice res­i­den­tial propane burner tips.  The res­i­den­tial propane burner tips inside the home are the big 5: heat­ing, water heat­ing, cook­ing, clothes dry­ing, and fire­places.  Rough esti­mates are that only10-15% of propane mar­keters fall into this cat­e­gory of sales, ser­vice, and instal­la­tion.  Mar­keters offer var­i­ous excuses why they aren’t into this level of com­mit­ment, includ­ing lack of trained employ­ees, licens­ing issues, lia­bil­ity, and ser­vice issues, and the list goes on.  Yet, I can name many propane mar­keters who sell, install, and ser­vice propane appli­ances and heat­ing equip­ment and do it well.  Some of the mar­keters only sell zone heat­ing equip­ment, such as wall fur­naces and smaller space heaters, while oth­ers have a com­plete HVAC depart­ment that installs forced air fur­naces and air con­di­tion­ers, boil­ers, and other types of heat­ing and air con­di­tion­ing sys­tems.  Some­times this busi­ness is under a sep­a­rate cor­po­rate or LLC umbrella so the busi­ness can be more closely mon­i­tored.  The hearth shop con­cept is also pop­u­lar with some mar­keters where they deal mostly in gas fire­place projects and higher end out­door cook­ing equip­ment.  Many propane mar­keters aban­doned appli­ance sales when big box stores came on the scene.  Big box stores have some of this busi­ness, but not every con­sumer wants Chi­nese cheap prod­ucts and ser­vice and instal­la­tion from some­one they don’t know.  Your propane cus­tomers trust you and the ser­vices you offer or they wouldn’t be buy­ing propane from you.  Sell­ing, installing, and ser­vic­ing res­i­den­tial propane burner tips is the best way to con­trol the con­trol­lable and add more burner tips and related usage to the res­i­den­tial tanks you have in the field.  Finance plans and other pro­mo­tions can increase your cus­tomer loy­alty and referrals.

Part­ner with con­trac­tors to sell, install, and ser­vice res­i­den­tial propane burner tips.  There are var­i­ous lev­els of com­mit­ment in this model depend­ing on the rela­tion­ship you have with instal­la­tion and ser­vice con­trac­tors in your area.  It allows you to be in the sales, instal­la­tion, and ser­vice busi­ness with a hand-picked part­ner you and your propane cus­tomers can trust.  A pop­u­lar arrange­ment is to have more com­pli­cated and lengthy instal­la­tions han­dled by the con­trac­tor part­ner, while the orig­i­nal sale and ser­vice after the sale is han­dled by the propane com­pany ser­vice per­son­nel.  This arrange­ment can take advan­tage of the strengths of both com­pa­nies and bring added referrals.

Pro­mote con­sumer aware­ness, favor­a­bil­ity, and pur­chase of res­i­den­tial propane burner tips.  This is the eas­i­est busi­ness model to imple­ment but very few mar­keters are as active as they should be.  In fact, most mar­keters, big and small, are sit­ting by the side­lines while their energy com­peti­tors, espe­cially elec­tric, are eat­ing their lunches and low­er­ing their per cus­tomer usage rate.  Yet there are more effec­tive, low cost ways to pro­mote increased burner tips than ever before.  Some propane com­pa­nies don’t go inside a customer’s home because of lia­bil­ity fears but that shouldn’t stop them from pro­mot­ing con­sumer aware­ness, favor­a­bil­ity, and pur­chase of res­i­den­tial appli­ances and other burner tips from qual­i­fied con­trac­tors in the area.  Propane com­pa­nies have web sites, social media, email, PERC mar­ket­ing mate­ri­als, and good old fash­ioned state­ment stuffers they can use to pro­mote the value of more propane burner tips in the home even if they don’t sell, install, and service.

The NPGA Bench­mark­ing Coun­cil has com­mit­ted to an inter­nal bench­mark­ing study of the ser­vice busi­ness at each of their mem­ber com­pa­nies in 2013.  Mem­ber com­pany ser­vice busi­ness involve­ment fol­lows the gen­eral pat­tern, rang­ing from near zero to some very sophis­ti­cated sales, instal­la­tion, and ser­vice oper­a­tions.  Mem­bers are look­ing for ideas on mak­ing their ser­vice a more prof­itable part of their busi­ness and maybe they will be able to add some burner tips too.

Tom Jaenicke is the owner and prin­ci­pal advi­sor at ATomiK Cre­ative Solu­tions, LLC, a com­pany that pro­vides mar­ket­ing ser­vices, tech­ni­cal advice, con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion solu­tions, and busi­ness devel­op­ment assis­tance to energy com­pa­nies and sup­port orga­ni­za­tions.  He can be reached at 810 252‑7855 or tom@atomikenergysolutions.com.

 

Switching from Propane to Natural Gas Won’t Save Energy

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Focus your cus­tomers on effi­ciency to get desired cost savings

Expect nat­ural gas pub­lic util­i­ties to become increas­ingly aggres­sive in switch­ing home­own­ers from propane to nat­ural gas for the pri­mary energy source for their homes.  Abun­dant sup­plies of nat­ural gas and low pric­ing have forced nat­ural gas com­pa­nies to look for the most prof­itable way to sell the increased pro­duc­tion from shale sources.  Nat­ural gas util­i­ties will be plac­ing extra empha­sis on the res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial uses of nat­ural gas instead of watch­ing all the new gas pro­duc­tion go to fuel new or retro­fit power plants.  It’s all about mar­gin, some­thing the propane indus­try knows very well.

The com­bi­na­tion of low home energy effi­ciency and volatile propane pric­ing can make switch­ing to nat­ural gas an easy deci­sion for the aver­age home owner.  Propane home­own­ers look­ing for a quick fix for their high energy bills will be tempted to switch to nat­ural gas, but doing so will not save energy.  The owner of an older home built to an ear­lier, less aggres­sive build­ing code, and with an orig­i­nal heat­ing sys­tem that has prob­a­bly been de-rated to 60% or less effi­ciency due to age and neglect, will not save energy by switch­ing to nat­ural gas.  Using nat­ural gas instead of propane will still send 40% or more of the pro­duced heat up the vent pipe and leak more through the enve­lope of the home.  All that is not even con­sid­er­ing the energy expended in propane ser­vice dis­con­nect and pip­ing of nat­ural gas to the home­site that energy switch­ing will cause.

If you see energy switch­ing as a chal­lenge in your mar­ket­place, now is the time to engage your cus­tomers in a con­ver­sa­tion about increas­ing the effi­ciency of their homes, includ­ing the enve­lope, heat­ing equip­ment and appli­ances, so they can pocket the sav­ings on their over­all energy bills and not be mis­led by energy switch­ing claims.  Home­own­ers can gain even more effi­ciency and energy cost sav­ings beyond space heat­ing by divert­ing home energy usage from elec­tric­ity to propane for other appli­ca­tions in the home such as water heat­ing, cook­ing, clothes dry­ing, and fire­places.  Your aver­age res­i­den­tial cus­tomer will end up with greatly increased home effi­ciency, lower total energy bills (propane and elec­tric­ity), and a more com­fort­able home.  There are dozens of National, State, and local pro­grams to help home­own­ers pay for home effi­ciency and weath­er­iza­tion improve­ments.  Energy not used is always the cheap­est, and energy not used is always the cleanest.

A next step for you as propane mar­keters can include part­ner­ing with a cer­ti­fied home energy audi­tor or start­ing a home energy audit­ing divi­sion of your own com­pany.  Home per­for­mance audi­tors use equip­ment to per­form tests such as Blower Door (whole-house infil­tra­tion), Duct Blaster (duct leak­age test), and Infrared Scan­ning ((iden­ti­fies invis­i­ble trou­ble spots in insu­la­tion).  Home energy audi­tors use a rec­og­nized per­for­mance stan­dard such as the REZNET (Res­i­den­tial Energy Ser­vices Net­work) -HERS (Home Energy Rat­ing Sys­tem) index, a nation­ally rec­og­nized sys­tem for inspect­ing and cal­cu­lat­ing a home’s energy per­for­mance.  Many new home builders are using the HERS index to effi­ciency rate their new homes to dif­fer­en­ti­ate them from the used home mar­ket.  Find out more about home energy per­for­mance by going to the PERC builder web site, http://www.buildwithpropane.com, and look for train­ing courses and train­ing tools such as the Energy Cost & Car­bon Cal­cu­la­tor.  This tool and sev­eral oth­ers can also be housed on your web­site to help make your com­pany the local energy expert.

Your local net­work­ing should always start with builders, but don’t stop there.  Great net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties also exist with HVAC con­trac­tors, plumbers, home energy audi­tors, home improve­ment con­trac­tors, and oth­ers.  For exam­ple, home energy audi­tors may know a lot about the effi­ciency of a home, but they may not know the impor­tant role that propane and related appli­ca­tions can play in rais­ing home effi­ciency and sav­ing energy.  You can bring them busi­ness, and they can help you pre­serve and grow your cus­tomer base.

PERC has avail­able impor­tant research results, train­ing courses, and a wide array of other up-to-date energy related mate­ri­als for res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial build­ing and remod­el­ing that propane mar­keters should be using to reach out to con­struc­tion and energy pro­fes­sion­als.  PERC also has an inte­grated national out­reach pro­gram that reaches res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial builders and archi­tects, and to a lesser degree, HVAC and plumb­ing con­trac­tors and other influ­encers.  Builders and archi­tects can be reached by PERC with such an inte­grated pro­gram in a cost effi­cient and highly effec­tive man­ner, but propane mar­keters need to be engaged with builders to help them close the sale for propane.  The fur­ther down the influ­encer chain that PERC gets from mar­ket­ing to builders and archi­tects, the more impor­tant it is for local propane mar­keters to be involved.  The HVAC and plumb­ing indus­try is not as eas­ily reached in national or regional mar­ket­ing cam­paigns because of less influ­en­tial national trade orga­ni­za­tions and less media oppor­tu­ni­ties.  This means the most cost effi­cient and effec­tive out­reach to them is local.  Local means propane mar­keters face to face, net­work­ing with builders, trade allies, and energy professionals.

Don’t allow your cus­tomers to be mis­led by energy switch­ing.  Get local with your effi­ciency net­work­ing and allow your cus­tomers to have choices that will save energy, lower their over­all energy bills, pre­serve the envi­ron­ment, and give them a more com­fort­able home.  Increas­ing effi­ciency is where it all starts.

 

Tom Jaenicke is the owner and prin­ci­pal advi­sor at ATomiK Cre­ative Solu­tions, LLC, a com­pany that pro­vides mar­ket­ing ser­vices, tech­ni­cal advice, con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion solu­tions, and busi­ness devel­op­ment assis­tance to energy com­pa­nies and sup­port orga­ni­za­tions.  He can be reached at 810 252‑7855 or tom@atomikenergysolutions.com.