The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
[Music]
welcome to scaling up the podcast where
we scale up on knowledge so we don’t
scale up our systems
i’m trace blackmore the host of scaling
up h2o
and folks we are wrapping up 2020 2020
has just been
uh i don’t even know how to describe
2020
there’s lots of words that come to mind
and i’m sure you have lots of words to
come to mind
and i will say it is unique how about we
go with that as the word
that we are going to use we learned a
lot of things
we learned how to do a lot of things in
situations we never thought
we would have to do them in before but
we
learned and we got through it and
through that year
scaling up h2o has brought you some
great
guests some great episodes and we all
learn together through the magic
of the scaling up h2o podcast so i
thought
what we would do today is something
we’ve never done before
we are going to replay segments of some
of our most
popular shows that we produced
in the year 2020. so i hope that you
enjoy
this special episode where we look
back in 2020 now the first episode that
we’re going to look at
is episode 119 and this was the very
first
episode that i did last year
if only i had a crystal ball if only i
could tell
the scaling up nation that we were going
to live through a pandemic
that year this year folks we would have
had a very different year but i did not
have a crystal ball
i did not know anything more than
anybody else
and we were talking about
regular goal planning and i know i spoke
a lot about this
during the year of 2020 that a lot of us
had goals
and because of the pandemic we had to
reset
our goals now notice i didn’t say we had
to completely
cancel our goals because i know there
are a lot of people out there that
thought that that’s what they had to do
their goals just weren’t going to get
done
they had to wipe them clean and they
were just going to see what happened
this year so i hope that you were one of
the people that realized
that you had to sit down look at your
goals and see what you could
accomplish maybe it wasn’t the complete
goal maybe it was a piece of that goal
maybe it was taking that goal and using
different metrics that you
could use during a pandemic whatever it
was
i hope that you were successful this
year but what we’re going to listen to
next is the very first episode i did
in 2020 it’s sort of the tail end where
i’m
explaining the smart acronym smart
stands for specific
measurable attainable realistic and
time-bound
so let’s listen to that episode the last
letter in smart is t
and that stands for time bound
so this is we are stating
when we are going to get that goal
done the way you want to do this is you
want to have a specific
date that you will have the item done
you write that down and that’s the date
that you expect to get things done
now normally that’s where smart planning
stops and i have noticed
that some people will get some items
done and
some people won’t so i started reading
several books many of which were last
year and there was one book that i read
that i really
thought addressed this it was a book
called the 13 week year and again the
goal
is many of us don’t have a planning
issue many of us have an execution
issue and that’s exactly what the
13-week year
dealt with the specific thing the book
dealt with
was that a year was too long
it was just too long for us to get a
hold of
and make sure we were effective with
that point in time
so here’s the example in january if we
have a goal that’s
due in december if we’re off
we’re not really upset about it maybe
february again
we’re not too upset about it but when
december comes around
and we see that we don’t have a lot of
days
left to get this goal done we’re now
working frantically on it what they
propose in the book
is why not use that to our benefit
so they say split up your year into
four 13 week years
so each and every 13 weeks that’s a
quarter by the way
you are going to pretty much treat it as
the end of the year so what am i going
to do this year
or in their language what am i going to
do in the next 13 weeks
that’s going to be our goals the other
thing they say is we have to evaluate
what we
say we’re going to do we’ve identified
all of those issues well now we have to
make sure
that we really did solve those issues
so what they have in the 13-week year
and you don’t need this matrix but it
does help
and by the way if you want the book you
can go to an affiliate site we set up
for amazon
it’s scaling up h2o.com forward slash
13 that’s the number 13 week year so
forward slash 13 week year anyway they
have a template in there
and basically what they’re having you do
is
write down everything you’re going to do
each and
every week now it’s not as complicated
as it sounds
so i’m not writing every one thing i’m
pretty much writing themes of
what i’m going to do and what i’m going
to achieve
on week 1 week 2 week 3 and so on and a
lot of those things repeat
like it might mean i’m going to do three
extra sales calls each and every week
and then that just follows through so
they don’t have to be unique for each
and every week
but we are going to evaluate how well
we ended each and every week did we do
what we said we needed to do by working
backwards
to achieve those goals so we have what
we said we were going to do week one
did we do that if we did great
if we just hit the target we can move to
week two we can do exactly what week two
said
if we overachieve the target maybe we
can adjust
part of that or we can just keep it
knowing that we’re going to complete it
early now let’s say we did not hit the
target we came
short of that target well now in week
two we’re going to have to do
something different to get us back on
track so at the end
of our 13 weeks we’re going to hit that
target
and folks i truly believe that’s where
our planning breaks down
when things happen we don’t ever
re-evaluate our plan and adjust for what
we need to
do to get back on track and that’s what
the book
taught me to do and that’s what i teach
people to do when we do planning like
this
is we have to come up with weekly
metrics of what we’re going to do
and if we don’t hit those we have to
adjust those weekly metrics but just
changing the number
isn’t what we’re talking about here we
have to evaluate
what’s going on in our lives
so we can adjust what our plan
needs to be now maybe that soccer game
now
has a bunch of playoff games that we
weren’t
thinking about we have to adjust for
that
and if we do that each and every week we
can still adjust it to hit our target
now let’s say you didn’t hit your target
because you spent
three days binge watching a full
house marathon on netflix well folks
not much you can do about that you’re
just not spending your time right unless
your goal was to watch all the full
house on netflix
i think you get what i am saying we’re
going to take
what life is teaching us we’re going to
apply that
and we’re going to always re-evaluate
our plans
i do that on a weekly basis i advise you
to do that on a weekly basis
and see where we are and make
slight adjustments so we
don’t end up in the wrong place so if we
were off at three degrees when we took
off at lax and we made slight
adjustments
all the way and by the way that’s what
autopilot is
doing when the planes are in the air
we’re touching down
on the destination because flight plans
are continuously changing
and headings are changing but those
little tiny
changes making sure that we’re still
going to the proper destination
is the same mindset that we need to have
when
we are planning the other item i want to
bring up
around planning is how much do you plan
i know everybody gets excited in january
they’re thinking i have
all these things i want to get done and
maybe they come up with 20 goals they
want to get done this year
folks when it comes to goal planning
less
is more in that same book they did
a study and that study was how many
goals that were assigned to a particular
person
i think they even did teams and then how
much
either the person or the teams got
accomplished
so the first set was three to four
goals over whatever the assigned period
was
most of the time that team achieved
three to four
goals they got those completed well then
they went and they assigned
five to eight goals on
average those teams and those
individuals got
zero to one of those done and then they
assigned
nine or more and the teams they looked
at got
zero done so i think what we can take
from this
is what are the most important things
that we need to be working on
and then make sure we limit that to a
small amount
folks three to four goals within a year
from that data
that’s still really hard to work on and
it looks like that’s
just enough that’s the goldilocks number
it looks like
that we can get these things
accomplished
that was a lot of information this
episode so let’s do a quick recap
so start off thinking about
what you learned from last year
and then look at why you accomplish
what you accomplished and why you didn’t
accomplish the things that didn’t get
completed
then think about all the things that you
want to get completed this year
again our goal is less is more and then
take those items through
the smart tool and smart is specific
measurable achievable relevant and
time-bound
and then make sure that you never stop
planning you look at each and every week
you look at the metrics of the week and
if you’re not on track
you make adjustments each and every week
so
you can make a course correction to find
the destination that you said
you wanted to achieve folks that is good
advice
and i almost think that the staff here
at scaling up h2o is poking a little bit
of fun
because i mispronounced the title i
misspoke the title of that book
it’s actually called the 12 week year
and yes if you do
go to the affiliate link that we set up
13 week year that will work but also the
real one works as well
if you go to 12 week year so scaling up
h2o.com
forward slash 12 week year it’ll take
you to that amazon affiliate
link so just thinking that my staff is
poking a little bit of fun
but it is great advice
and folks now more than ever i think is
a great time for
us to take stock of what we achieved
this year and what we want to achieve
next year but we need to use the
knowledge that we
learned this year so we can make
next year even more effective
now the next episode we are going to
listen to
is an excerpt from episode 120
and that was one of the episodes that i
did with
janet stout janet stout has been a great
contributor to the scaling up h2o
podcast
and folks let’s face it you in the scale
of nation have sent me a lot of
questions
about legionella what we as a water
treatment professional
need to know and i’ve tried to give you
as much
information as i could with that we even
devoted the entire
month of august to being more aware
about legionella so let’s listen in
on a question that i asked dr janet
stout
one of the comments that i get from
several of my listeners
is they do try to talk to their
customers about legionella
we have to do something to take
negligence off the table
and they say fine just test for
legionella well if we test for something
and we don’t know what we’re going to do
if we find it or when we find it what do
we do then so we need to figure out now
what we’re going to do
before we test and they say no no we’re
just going to test and hopefully we’ll
find zero
what advice do you have for them and
what should they be saying to their
customers
you want to have a plan to deal with
whatever the result is of the testing
that you perform
so for example it’s a healthcare
facility
and it’s somewhere around 200 beds and
if it’s in new york state the
recommendation is a minimum of 10
outlets plus the hot water tank and
you’re looking
to see whether or not more than three
out of those 10 or more than 30 percent
of the faucets or showers that you’ve
tested are positive
and if it is then you need to have a
plan
for what to do in response to that so
this kind of speaks to a couple of
different
issues one is the laboratory partner
that you have
can help you interpret what those
results mean and if it’s
if it’s special pathogens one of the
things i always say to water treaters is
i’m happy to get on a call with you and
your client and
talk about what the meaning is of these
results and it gets complicated because
what kind of legionella
is it how extensive is the positivity
what is the relationship to disease
risk these are all things that i’ve sort
of spent my entire life
developing a foundation for prevention
around
and that goes back a long way and so i
think that
it is important to have this discussion
with the client that
what are the action steps in response
and luckily
in 2019 we have the
ashrae standard 188 we have cms
we have awt we have cti we have a body
of documents that we can point
the client to and say here are some
examples that we can draw from
in terms of response i really like the
new york state
public health regulation for health care
because it follows
our 30 percent metric for assessing when
the risk is increasing for healthcare
patients
what got incorporated into the new york
city guidance document
is based on an australian new zealand
standard
which has logarithmic changes you know
tenfold changes and
legionella concentration in your cooling
tower water and steps
and what to do in response to those
positive results
so i think if you have a client and you
have that kind of conversation with that
client about how
you can help them get good information
from
experts on how to to manage that
situation should it occur
then i’d say probably nine times out of
ten they would be
positively responsive to that guidance
and so this also
sort of speaks to when the water
treatment provider
provides guidance to their client
directs them to information
and that’s an added service that’s
really important
and i don’t know if you’ve ever heard
this trace but sometimes you have
clients
that you want to donate to your
competition surely not
and if after all of that discussion
where you’re really trying to help them
both in terms of a public safety issue
or a patient safety issue but also for
their own good
they continue to reject that some water
treatment professionals have those
clients sign
i’ve been uh i’ve been made aware of the
offer you know
for testing for legionella and i
respectfully decline
and they sign their name and the date
and that’s
i thought was a brilliant thing to
incorporate into that relationship for
two reasons
it protects the water treatment
professional
it documents that you’ve provided this
information and this option to your
client
and provides documentation that they’ve
refused because
as i said earlier legionella cases get
litigated
more often than many other infections i
get calls every week from lawyers right
and so you have to protect yourself from
that risk
and then it also puts that client kind
of going well this is probably
a little more serious than i thought and
maybe i should do it
and and you want to preach the you know
don’t be the pennywise and pound
foolish person where you’re saving a few
hundred dollars here
but when the case and the public health
people come knocking at your door
now you’re spending five hundred
thousand dollars in an outbreak
investigation
so those are very powerful messages that
can be
delivered to the clients to help them
make the right decision and the one i
think that most of your audience wants
them to make
nation i hope that through the year of
2020 through all the episodes
that we brought you about legionella
that you are more
versed on the topic more importantly
i hope that you are having better
conversations
with your clients and i hope you’re
using the advice that dr stout
gave us in the previous segment
the next episode we’re going to listen
in on is episode
122 and this is where we spoke with
reid hutchinson of hoh
and reid and i were talking about a
system
that we both use in our companies
and we both contribute a lot of the
successes
that we’ve had in our companies because
of
us using this operating system
called eos the entrepreneurial operating
system
i was hoping we could take a few moments
and talk about
what eos is and specifically as a water
treatment company
owner why you were seeking something
like eos
and what it’s done for you yeah so our
eos
journey really began even prior to to me
coming on board at hoh i’ve been
been here for about five years and it
was just as i was coming on
that my dad made the decision to
implement eos
within hoh and so that was in 2014
at the time he was actually engaged in a
pure
ceo group through convene and with the
facilitator there
on one of their days when they were
meeting together an eos
implementer came in and presented the
the model to them
and out of that meeting my dad was
pretty much
convinced that eos was exactly what hoh
had needed to to move forward he
described it at the time
that we were a 30 million dollar company
operating like a 10 million dollar
company which
you know revenue numbers don’t paint a
full picture of what’s going on but
you know i think most people could
relate you know you you may
be doing a lot but you’re still
operating on the same
old principles and systems you used
before
and we were just simply not in a
position where we could grow
we had actually recently acquired a
company and that had grown
our operation by a third and our
existing management team at the time
just struggled to get their arms around
integrating that new company
and figuring out how to operate at a
different level
and so my dad saw eos really as a
as a shortcut to put in place the
systems
and the structures and the processes
from which the management team could
operate the business more profitably and
position us
uh to grow and then for me you know as
i’ve come in
to different management roles it’s been
super helpful for my own
experience because i didn’t have a ton
of management experience prior to hoh
and so eos talks a lot about getting the
right people in the right seat
and making sure that everybody in their
role is clear
on what they’re accountable for what
their priorities are and that they
get want and have the capacity to their
job and that
simple framework those words i’m using
comes straight out of the playbook that
eos provides you
and for a new manager like myself that
gave me a solid foundation
from which to make decisions uh and and
oftentimes manage people that
were my superiors in experience and and
age
so i didn’t necessarily fall back on my
own knowledge or experience i would
typically fall back to the systems into
the playbook
that we had all submitted ourselves to
so it was hugely valuable for my dad to
get his arms around the business
upgrade the management team and then for
new managers like myself it gave us a
framework from which we could develop
and run the business and so we’re still
using it today
it’s evolved quite a bit over five years
but didn’t necessarily happen all at
once but the
the ultimate goal with the model is not
to just
be on eos it’s to eventually kind of
shape the eos model into your own model
uh which we call the hoh way so it’s an
ongoing discipline we’re utilizing
falling back to
in order to stay disciplined because we
want to operate profitably we want to
grow
and eos is kind of like our you know
microsoft windows operating system for
the business
it makes tangible some of the things
that are really intangible
about managing and leading and i think
it’s been a place we’ve been able to
create a lot of value from
it doesn’t give you all the answers but
it gives you sort of the canvas and
the framework to be able to build on
nation
i just have to say that using eos has
been one of the best decisions that we
have made
as a company and we made that decision
about
six years ago and my entire team
embraced it
we don’t know what we don’t know and
when we learn something that gives
us a glimpse of how to operate
better as a company i will be honest a
few people were resistant to it but
once we started explaining it and once
it started solving problems that we were
all having
everybody got behind it i will tell you
there was one individual that didn’t get
behind it and eventually he decided to
leave
and that was probably one of the better
decisions that
was made he actually made it because
of eos it makes sure that we have right
people in the right seats
and it gives us ways to make sure
that all cylinders are firing that all
people are
rowing in the right direction so if
you’re curious about
eos that’s all from a book called
traction
and you can go to an affiliate site that
we set up on amazon so scaling up
h2o.com
forward slash traction and you can get
the book that gino wickman wrote that i
was recommended to read
years ago about five six years ago as i
mentioned
by my business coach that really changed
how
we do business in our company now folks
we just listened to
reed and now we’re going to listen to an
excerpt from
episode 125 with justin ranger
and folks i want to let you know both
reid hutchinson and justin
ranger are members of the rising tide
mastermind
and i have to tell you that has been one
of the hugest successes
in the year 2020. you know i lead those
groups and i have to say
with all of the people getting together
on a weekly basis
the things that i have learned from
these
individuals has just been invaluable
and making sure that we’re going through
our processes making sure we’re going
through
our issue solving track each and every
one
of the members has grown this year
folks we have been so successful we have
actually launched
two more groups this past december
so the rising tide mastermind has really
taken off in the water treatment
community
i want to thank all of the people that
are part of it and if this is something
that you’re curious about go to scaling
up h2o.com
forward slash mastermind read about it
see if this is something that
sounds interesting to you i will tell
you
most all the people that joined the
rising tide mastermind
never even heard of the term mastermind
now that they’ve been involved some for
over
a year they have found it as their
secret weapon to make sure that they are
getting their key
issues solved and they are pushing
themselves to make sure
they get to the next level at the same
time they’re helping
others get there too so again scaling up
h2o.com forward slash mastermind
see if this group is right for you if
it’s not i urge you to find a group like
this
that can help you that is right for you
because folks as you’ve heard me say
before
life is too short to do it alone and
frankly it’s
just too complicated as well well next
like i said we’re going to listen to
episode
125 and we’re talking to justin ranger
about safety yeah so nobody ever plans
to get hurt
and you’ve done something a hundred
times and it’s that hundred and first
time where
something happens i’m gonna call mark
lewis out for a second
uh he was inspecting a boiler that was
opened up and he had been on top of this
boiler dozens of times
well it just so happened that this was
the time that the ladder slipped and he
fell off and luckily he didn’t get hurt
but they had to report that as a as an
incident
and then they ended up putting some
safety equipment there where he didn’t
need a ladder anymore the next time he
inspected it they now had a catwalk up
there and a fixed
ladder so um you know you never know
when those things are going to happen
and in that story he was doing
everything right he had a somebody
holding the ladder for him
and he wasn’t really overreaching for
some reason the ladder just gave way and
he went down
that’s the thing i remember one of an
incident you know it’s kind of
embarrassing now but
early on in my career i just you know
could have received some more training
and just didn’t know i was at a
customer’s facility
small boiler and needed to replace uh
stainless steel check valve that
injected the chemical into the boiler
feed line
and so i just went over and turned the
feed pump in
to the off position and went over to the
boiler and closed the isolation valve
and started to unscrew the check valve
and i i forget i walked away from it for
a second
uh the valve wasn’t all the way
unscrewed but in the meantime
one of the plant operators had walked in
the door
and walked around and saw that the feed
pump handoff auto switch was in the off
position and said oh that should be an
auto
and flipped it on and you know hot da
water started spraying out of the loose
pipe fitting and fortunately nobody got
hurt and nothing was damaged but
that’s just a situation that that really
opened my eyes like wow there’s real
potential for people to
to be injured and you know obviously in
that situation
the plant personnel should have been
notified to the work that was going on
and the equipment should have been
locked out and tagged out properly
so from that incident is that now
something that you do is use
uh lockout tag out yeah so that’s that’s
right is
always working with the operators and
then following lockout tag up procedures
you know the whole idea behind that is
removing the potential
energy from a system so that way you’re
not injured especially when you’re in a
plant where there’s multiple people
working out
or working in that area and justin i
gotta say i’m really surprised at the
number of water treaters that don’t
carry
lockout tags and the hasp with them so
they can actually lock out a power
source
i was with somebody and they were
working on a controller and
the controller was actually energized in
the other room
and the only way that you could
disconnect it was to
you know flip the the breaker that it
was on and
they flipped the breaker and their hands
were inside this controller
and they were hoping nobody would flip
that breaker back
and that’s a that’s a little bit too
much faith that i want to have it’d be
very easy just to you know go ahead and
isolate that to notify people
with that lockout tag out system that
hey something’s going on and if you flip
this
if there’s a potential that you might
hurt somebody so those things are cheap
carry those with you and
another thing i think we were talking
about this earlier i’m surprised how
many people don’t realize
that they have to conform to the plan
of that customer when they’re on their
site so if you and i worked for the same
company
and we had our training within our water
treatment company
that doesn’t count we also have to be
trained on that specific
site and a lot of people don’t realize
that yeah yeah no that’s right well and
there’s a big difference between
customers you know you might be working
at
a small school house where their
training program is probably pretty
minimal
they may not have a formal walk-out
tag-out program even though they should
all the way up you know to heavy
industry where they’re going to have
really
strict safety protocol probably
exceed the osha standards and they’re
going to have a written plan that you
can
join in and get trained on and be a part
of and
and so i think it’s good for us to just
be educated on all those things to know
when the responsibility falls with us
when it falls with the customer and then
we can help be a catalyst
say you know mr customer if you weren’t
aware you should have a written walk-out
tag-out program for this equipment
and we should get all the operators
trained on it so that way no one gets
hurt
and that’s a huge resource and most
water treaters aren’t going to do that
so if that customer can find
one that is they’re probably going to
keep them on for a while
well i think that’s exactly right i
think that’s that’s the next level
besides
just being a really good water treater
knowing your trade well
and doing the right things in terms of
protecting the equipment to
being a professional and being a real
asset to the customer
in every aspect being the vendor that’s
on site
and certainly that includes safety i i
saw a video on linkedin the other day
it um it was amazing it was a
construction site
there’s a two or three story opening on
the side of a building
with a crane and a forklift and it was
like a great all forklift on the ground
and then a crane and then
it was just like a normal sized forklift
that they were either trying to get into
the hole or pulling out of the hole to
put it on the ground
and at any rate they certainly didn’t
secure it properly and all the chains
broke and the
forklift that they were putting into or
pulling out of the building ended up
falling all the way to the ground
and they’re just like wow these are
these are really serious
situations and we want to make sure that
we’re not
jeopardizing our own lives or anybody
else’s by anything we’re doing
when we’re on a construction site or
customer’s location
yeah and i think you make a great point
a lot of times the customer doesn’t
really
think what could happen if you do this
they’re just thinking i need it done
you’re there you’re willing to do it
and then the water trader will think
well i’m not thinking about
what could happen if i do this i just
want to make the customer happy
it’s something simple that i can do but
i think if we can take a second to step
back
and ask ourselves okay you know can we
potentially get hurt or hurt somebody
else or
some equipment with this we might think
a little bit more about
what we need to do or maybe in the case
not
do when a customer asks us to do
something yeah no i think that’s
i think that’s exactly right and i think
that that’s the right position you know
if
if a customer’s asking you to do
something that’s not within
osha guidelines or against them or
something that’s just inherently not
safe
to be able to say no let’s let’s think
about this maybe there’s a better way to
go about this rather than
just feeling that you have to comply
because it was the customer’s request
yeah and i would also say that if you’re
listening to this
and you can’t remember the last time you
had a safety conversation
within your company that maybe that’s
something good that can come from this
conversation
you know go to the people that you’re in
charge of or the people that are in
charge of you
and ask them you know maybe this is
something that we should do
and maybe give them some suggestions
from what we were just talking about
yeah i think that’s a great idea i know
that you know when i first started the
industry i didn’t have
any safety training uh didn’t have
glasses or
even just gloves with me when i would go
out to do my service work and
i remember priming a pump one time and
you know it was kind of leaking around
the fittings as i was trying to get the
tubing snugged up and that kind of thing
and
looking down and my hands were starting
to turn orange
oh that’s probably not good and running
to the bathroom trying to wash it off
and then
the next day just a layer of skin
peeling off my hands
and you know that was just a really poor
situation to be in
you know i didn’t take the time to read
the sds sheets or to know what chemicals
i was working with in hindsight it was
glutaraldehyde
but you know i just shouldn’t have been
in that situation from the company’s
perspective either you know they should
have provided
some training at that time so yeah i
think it’s good just for all of us
to take that personal responsibility you
know those sds sheets are out there and
available
for our protection almost all of them
say to wear a minimum of safety glasses
that you know when i go to work
i put my glasses on when i get my truck
and i take them off when i pull into my
driveway at the end of the day because
some of that damage is irreversible and
at the end of the day it’s it’s your own
body that you’re
trying to protect you know nobody’s
going to be able to give you your eyes
back if you
make a poor decision or you’re not
informed about the dangers of a
situation
you’re absolutely right and again nobody
plans to get hurt and it happens in an
instant
i’m always surprised when i see people
that just refuse to wear hearing
protection and
i’ve i’ve been fairly diligent with that
in my career but my dad wasn’t
and he was losing parts of his hearing
especially in the high range because of
all the chiller wine that he was exposed
to
during his career so there’s just no
reason for that take a moment
use proper hearing protection and
you’ll be able to hear for the rest of
your life which i’m sure everybody wants
to do
yeah no that’s i think that’s fantastic
advice and it’s just easy to do
justin thank you for that information a
lot of times
we don’t think about safety until it’s
too late and i hope that that’s not you
but i know
a lot of times we get stuck in the
day-to-day
i need to work quickly i’m not taking
the extra few seconds that it takes to
scan the area to make sure
that it’s safe to make sure that i have
everything that i need to protect myself
and folks it happens so quickly an
accident can put us out of commission
for
several days or much much much
longer and i think you know what i mean
by that so
take the time make sure that what you
are doing
is safe because after all if you get
hurt
nothing else matters it doesn’t matter
how fast you were servicing that account
if you got hurt in the process the final
clip that we’re going to listen to
is from episode 137 and that was the
first of a two-part episode that we did
with brett alexander of evapco
where he talks about all things cooling
towers and really gives
us the industrial water treater a peek
inside of how manufacturing
looks at cooling towers and we learned
all sorts of
terms that we may or may not
have been using and if you were like me
you called everything a cooling tower
and from
listening to these episodes you learned
that that is not necessarily the case
and when we use the correct terminology
more specific terminology and we’re
talking with the manufacturer
we’re able to get right down to the
issue
because now we’re both thinking about
the same piece of equipment
that we’re having a particular issue
with and we don’t have to make sure
that we’re talking about the same thing
so
take it from me learn the proper terms
because when you’re talking with other
people it just makes
explaining yourself a lot better
well another issue that i asked brett
about
was what happens when our customers get
new cooling towers and folks i’m going
to be the first to say that
we should be notified just like
everybody else
when a customer decides to replace or
add a new cooling tower
but that does not always happen
so i’m talking to all the water treaters
now when you know that there’s a new
cooling tower
or evaporative condenser or fluid cooler
because we know we just learned all
those new terms
coming in we need to talk to that
customer and say hey do you know we need
to do
these things to properly pacify that
metal
so it does not corrode prematurely
customers aren’t going to know that and
then they’re going to assume
12 months down the road when they’re
having issues that your program
is not working properly so again brett
was very nice to share his
uh bulletin with us so go to the show
notes page it will have some information
on that
and folks you can charge for this i mean
this is up and above
what your regular water treatment
program is
so by all means you should charge for
going out there and doing all the extra
stuff that you are doing
now the issue we have a lot is we’re not
notified that a new cooling tower is
going in we show up for our service
and we just see a new cooling tower is
on
the roof and i don’t know what to do
about that we just need to make sure
that we’re talking to our customers more
brett you have any advice on that yeah i
was just i was gonna
jump in that’s that is difficult right
because how do you
i always preach you gotta know the
materials the construction and the
equipment that you’re dealing with
but you can learn those when you first
go in and you do like a plant survey at
a new account
but you do that if you need to do
passivation
then like what we said it’s already too
late
so i think at that point it’s just
i guess i don’t know job to job how
you’re figuring out when you’re getting
these new towers
i just it’s just staying in contact with
the facility manager if it’s a big
central plant or it’s a hospital hotel
if they’re doing a change out you know
replacement job you know just staying on
top
with them be like hey i need to know the
timeline we need to talk passivation
a couple months beforehand because if
it’s a new account there’s sometimes you
know
a new commercial building across the
street and they’re like hey we know your
company we’re going to give you the job
they might not know if it’s a closed
circuit cooler with a galvanized coil or
just
all stainless steel cooling tower which
won’t need passivation
so it’s just really trying to get the
right person that
knows what that unit is going to be made
out of
what you know what the materials that
construction are going to be
finding that right person yeah
definitely communicating with your
customer and i would guess
more often than not most water treaters
i would say most water treaters some
water traders do not communicate with
their customers as well as they should
engineers are very overworked these days
so they’re always
off doing something because they don’t
have the staff that they used to have
and it’s hard to find them and a lot of
times if we’re trying to get so many
things done in a day it takes a lot of
time out of the water to stay to go and
find those but it is
so worth taking the time to do that
because you might just find a new
cooling tower on the roof if you don’t
folks if you go to the show notes page
of this episode
you can see that we have reposted the
materials that were mentioned in today’s
episodes
or you can go straight to the
episodes that they came from again i
want to thank
all of my guests so we had
janet stout justin ranger reed
hutchinson
and brett alexander thank you so much
for coming on scaling up h2o yet again
and folks i hope you have a great
rest of your 2020. i hope you have a
great
new year’s celebration and folks 2021
is just going to be spectacular so
my wish to all of you is that you are
safe and you have the best
rest of 2020. have a great
rest of the year folks
[Music]
you