Scaling UP! H2O

Menu

8 Transcript

The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.

[Music]
welcome to scaling up the podcast for water creatures by water traders where we’re scaling up on water to the
knowledge so you don’t scale up our systems hi folks Andres Blackmore I though
I want to thank you for listing I want to thank you for trying some of the things that we’re talking about on this
show I want to thank you for being a better water treater tomorrow than you
are today I have heard from many of you and the things that I have been hearing
proves to me that this show is worthwhile and we as a water treatment
group are scaling up on water treatment knowledge hopefully so we’re not scaling
up our systems I really appreciate that I really appreciate all the information that you guys have been giving me either
through emailing me directly calling me or going to my webpage at scaling up h2o
comm and going to the show notes page and telling me what you think that’s where I’m getting all my ideas from and
that’s where I’m getting my feedback from that’s what I know what to talk
about so I thank you for that one of my favorite ways to tell people what it is
that I do as a water treat is that I am a heat transfer efficiency manager
everything we do revolves around that simple fact we are making sure that all
the equipment that we are treating is transferring that heat from where we
don’t want it to where we’re going to send it to as efficiently as it possibly
can go our job is heat transfer efficiency management so with that in
mind my challenge to you is to go and look at all of your accounts and say how
am I doing this am I truly being an effective heat transfer efficiency
manager one of the things that I see when the mechanical contractor or even
the water treater goes to hook up control equipment on a cooling tower it’s wherever we can get the easiest
flow well it’s nice to have flow but it’s also important to make sure that
we’re drawing water from the right areas making sure that we’re efficiently
managing that heat now what am I talking about here think about the cooling tower lead well
it doesn’t matter where we bleed the cooling tower from or getting rid of that water anyway so why not just take it where it’s convenient off of the
system and throw it down the drain well you now know that you’re a heat transfer
efficiency manager so you’re gonna look at this differently now you’re gonna say wait a second as a water treat my
primary function is a heat transfer efficiency manager and I now need to look at the system and see how I can do
a better job of managing that heat transfer so think about what’s going on here we’re taking heat out of the
building and then ultimately it’s going to the cooling tower where the cooling tower is going to disperse that heat
into the atmosphere so we don’t want the hot water so wouldn’t it make sense for
us to believe the hottest water out so we can get rid of it now we know that
that high solids hot water that we’re bleeding out is going to be replaced
with low solids cool cooler make up
water so why would we ever bleed water that we pay to cool we pumped it out to
the cooling tower we had those fans kick on and we pumped it all the way back and
then we’re going to bleed it out it doesn’t make sense especially when we’re heat transfer efficiency managers so the
next time you install a system think about bleeding the hottest water out knowing that we don’t want that hot
water in there any way we can replace it with the cool incoming low solids make
up water and now the system is a little bit more efficient I’m here today with
Connor parish of FCT water and Connor I’m gonna let the cat out of the bag
because people don’t know this but you were the driving force that pushed me to
produce this podcast so folks out there if you do not like the show you now have somebody to blame how are you doing
Connor I’m doing well trace how are you doing today very well Connor one of the reasons I
wanted you on the show is quite frankly I’m really impressed with the amount of
time that you’ve been in the water treatment business which is not very long and the amount of knowledge that you’ve been able to pick up and one of
the themes of this show is how can we become a better water trader tomorrow from what we work today and I really
think that you live that so I’m hoping through today’s interview you can share some tips and some ideas that you do on
a regular basis that might motivate somebody hey I can do that too and they’re also gonna be a better water
trader tomorrow than they are today how does that sound that sounds great well Connor tell us a little bit about
yourself you know how you got involved in water treatment where you went to school things like that okay so I guess
a good place to start would be college I went to Drake University in Des Moines
Iowa it’s a small private school there my family is from the Midwest I grew up
in Kansas City had family in Des Moines and decided that that would be a good
fit from Des Moines I ended up out here in Colorado working for FCT water
through some connections I made at Drake knew I wanted to be in Colorado and
actually knew about the water treatment industry because of my dad he works for
a company see you water in Kansas City so when the opportunity to work for a water treatment company presented itself
to me I was maybe the rare case of actually knowing what exactly water
treatment was now I’ve learned a lot since then that there’s a whole lot more to it than what I thought I understood
that it was but I knew enough to know that it would be an interesting career
and decided to jump on in and really commit to learning it and getting to
where I am today what kind of how long have you been in the industry oh I started on January 5th
2015 so what is that a little over two years now two years four months and what
do you what do you like most about this industry I think the the biggest thing for me is that it’s dynamic I’m not
very good at sitting around and doing one thing all day I need to be challenged and in different ways so with
the water treatment you have the technical piece the science piece which I loved I was an environmental science
major at Drake really loved digging into the Y and the theory and all that which
I get to do with water treatment which is fantastic I love dealing with people and there’s a lot of relationship
building and dealing with all different types of people in the industry and then
really it’s just not at a desk which was important to me well let me ask the same
question but in the reverse what do you like least about this job probably the thing that I like least is how most
instances you’re dealing in an imperfect environment and what I mean by that is I
like to know all the answers to all the variables and all the inputs into a system and oftentimes that’s not
something that you’re afforded in this industry so it’s been a little bit of an adjustment for me to get used to moving
forward and working with incomplete information and then working backwards once you learn a little bit more about a
system that you’re taking over or an existing system that you know you’re trying to learn more about from your
customer and they just don’t have the ethers that you seem to want and then and then you’ve got to of course guess
until you find the answer and riot and that’s that’s a difficult thing for me I want to you know be very precise and
know exactly what I’m getting into and so I’m getting used to that and I understand that it’s a part of it and
really I’m coming to appreciate it because it makes it in some ways you become a detective or you know a
researcher really trying to to come to the bottom of what may be causing some problems that you’re observing
well Connor I know one of the goals that you have is to get your certified water
technologist designation what are you doing to make sure that you’re as prepared as you can be when the day
comes if you can take that test yeah I mean there’s a couple things that that I’m doing and I’m fortunate to work for
a company that invests a whole lot in education I’m able to attend the AWT training
seminars which are incredible and I’m sure we’ll talk a little bit more about you know my involvement with the AWT and
how I’ve benefited from that later on but really that’s that’s a big starting
point because you’re surrounded by you know other CW T’s or other people aspiring to BC WTS and so it kind of
really opens up your eyes to what the possibilities are now in addition to
that I do a lot of reading I’ve got the TR TM the technical reference and
training manual and of course that’s that’s fantastic that’s like my Bible I like to say I read through that probably
more than I should or care to admit but I find it fascinating the analyst is a
big one and then if I find something that I’m curious about all the start
googling and reading so maybe it’s not directly related to the CW T but I know if I build a breadth of knowledge that
was you know that’s if I if I build my knowledge to a point where I’ve got a
whole whole heck of a lot of it then the CW T test in theory should be something
that I’m able to pass and then maybe most important piece of it all is
building relationships with existing CW TS and asking a lot of questions when
there’s something that I see that I don’t understand and is not readily available and you know typed out in a
perfect answer for you to Google I will warn you that Angela Pike is a listener
to this show and the CW T is not a test it is it is an examination so you’re
going to get a phone call about that I just want to let you know and you know I know better about it as well she
lectured me for probably 10 minutes that one of the trainings webinars in San
Diego this this spring so I apologize Angela something that our listeners I’m
betting do not know is when they read The CW T requirements it says you have to have five years in the industry
however I know the CW t requirements actually give you the ability to take
some time off of that if you have some of the pre req was said do you mind sharing some of the
prerequisites that you have so our members now know yeah absolutely and again maybe vert file that’s with Angela
I don’t want to get in trouble twice before in one interview with Angela but I think if you have a technical degree
for one you know four-year degree then that gives you you start off with 12
months of experience and then if you have a technical degree in a relevant
field so from the environmental science applied you know Chemical Engineering chemistry biology I’m not 100% sure what
degrees fall into that category I assume all those are one but with that you get
an additional six months so you start off really with 18 months and that’s what I was fortunate to have happen so
now really I only need three and a half years in the field from an experience
standpoint and then of course passing the test and the letters of recommendations and all the other requirements for the CWG
yeah I get a lot of questions on when am I eligible to take the examination and
and folks if you would go online download the packet that AWT has created
to let you know all these things because you might be eligible to you can take
the exam anytime you want but to actually become a certified water technologist you might be eligible a little sooner than you think so thanks
for than that yeah absolutely and I think the one thing I want to add to that because I’ve been asking Angela
about this because I do you want to take the exam is once you pass it I believe it’s only valid for 12 months so you
have to be within the 12 months of hitting your experience before you take the exam if you want it to count good
tip well you had mentioned that you have been to several training seminars and I
know a lot of our listeners they say oh I went to technical training or I went to the fundamentals and applications training five years ago I don’t need to
go back because I’ve already been there that’s not the attitude that you share do you mind letting our listeners know
why you find it valuable to go back each and every year yeah absolutely I mean I
guess the first thing that comes to mind is I’m a huge nerd so I actually enjoy
sitting in class and learning and and gang up on that but I guess the important piece of that statement is
I’ve gone three consecutive years now in every single year I learn a lot and that
comes from of course that the courses themselves and the training and the actual lecture portion but maybe more
importantly especially now that I’ve done it three years is the After Hours or between session periods where you’re
able to interact with everyone that’s there and you know start to pick up on
other issues that other people are having and learn from their experience to ask the instructors questions that
you may you know normally have to pay quite a bit of money for as they’re consultants and you know their time is
valuable and then hanging out at night and just building those relationships
that you’re able to draw from and in times that you know you know that their
experience will be able to help you what’s the best piece of advice that you’ve received from one of the
technical training seminars oh man now
that’s a good question I’m trying to think of something broad and not and not
like a specific water treatment thing that you know that has implications more than to just one thing probably
nothing’s jump into mind but you know I I think that what one of the things
that’s really resonated with me is kind of in your training actually traced the
the calculations training when or maybe it wasn’t even the calculations training but it was one of your trainings when
you talk about you know you don’t want to be a bad water treater and so that’s always kind of a looming thing in the
back of my mind is okay what would what do I need to do so I don’t have a bad reputation from my competitors and
everyone else in this room and I want to I want to be viewed in a light that you know if someone’s gonna try and compete
against me or beat me or whatever it’s not because of a mistake that I’ve made or just negligence so I think one of the
that’s one big piece of it is just understanding that you know it’s okay to not know everything but as long as
you’re asking questions and seeking to understand what may actually be happening versus just ignoring a problem
then you’re right path so who is your favorite trader at the AWT training seminars you
know I feel like this is a loaded question considering here one of the trainers but no in all seriousness I I
enjoy your your sessions your animated in the training like you are are here
and of course we’ve gotten close so certainly you’re one of my favorite trainers and then you know the other one
that really jumps out to me is Jim Jim Luca niche you know he I he recently
gotten to know him a bit more and him and I are I have a lot of shared interests and he’s very passionate about
it as are all the trainers but he’s outwardly passionate very outwardly
passionate and and I and I you know can kind of feed off of that energy so on the last day of training when Jim’s
teaching and everyone else is dozing off it he makes it easy to stay focused and
really feel energized at the end of the day and ready to go really back to work
on Monday even though it’s already Saturday night well I will tell you that Jim is the trainer that all of us other
trainers aspire to be he truly is amazing in fact he’s going to be guest on our show in a couple of weeks so
please tune into that Conor as one of being a water treat or we spend a lot of
time in our cars and I know that you really utilize that time to learn more
and to be better do you mind sharing what you actually do in your car what you listen to to our listeners yeah I
very rarely listen to music and let the one time I listen to music is if I find
myself probably more tired than I should be when I’m driving and I need the energy but what I try to do really is
twofold I listen to a lot of podcasts and that’s kind of why I have mentioned
to you that this would be a great idea and something that I would personally utilize a lot as much content as you’re
able to put out I I think I told you I would listen and then you know another podcast that I listened to is the Tim
Ferriss show I’ve I guess I could describe myself as a fanboy of the Tim Ferriss to all these episodes and they’re quite
long but again we’re in the car a lot so it it’s a good one and you know his there’s a lot to take away from from his
show as he brings in a lot of high performers and kind of distills down the tools and tactics that they use to have
gotten to get to where they’re at in their respective fields and I think that that’s interesting and I and I like to
see if I can learn and take something and apply it to my life on that and then the other thing that I do is I make a
lot of phone calls I’ve got hands-free and so I am able to just use my you know
Siri or whatever and call you or call someone that I know is going to be able to answer questions that I may have and
just try and chat with them and and and take advantage of that time that I
otherwise would just be would be spent doing nothing how would you go after a
new account what what sales tips could you give our audience well I think the
most important sales tip is to you actually have to make sales calls I know people don’t want to want to hear that
sometimes but the starting point is going out there every day and showing up
and and when I say sales calls I mean stop in and visit a facility even if you
don’t even have a contacts name that’s something that has been instilled into
me from from the owner of FCT water mics a mecca and you know it’s it’s really
stuck and it’s it’s proved to be successful I mean it takes time of course but that’s the starting point and
then once you start getting more involved I always like to sell from a
from a positive standpoint if that makes sense I never want to really be negative
about my competition I want to be positive about you know at what FCT water has to offer what our knowledge
and our customer service and really understand what it is that is lacking in
their current program that they want what they’re seeking and then really try and just to meet their needs and their
expectations and it’s not an easy process as everyone who’s listening to this knows but I think as long as you
come at it with all honesty and another big thing is don’t pretend that you know everything because oftentimes your
customer knows a lot whole heck of a lot more than you think and you don’t want to come across as a know-it-all or say
something that the customer knows is wrong so I think that that’s important as well
and don’t you find that even though you don’t know the exact answer right then if you commit to say hey I don’t know
that but I’m gonna get back to you and then you do and you keep that commitment that that is so much more powerful that
if you were just able to spout off an answer right there when they asked you oh absolutely it shows that you’re willing to put in some time and do some
research to solve their problem and I think that reflects on how your program would be for them as issues arise that
you may or may not know the answer to they’ll feel confident that you’re gonna be able to go out there and and do some
research and and and get them the answer that they need to fix their problem yeah so I think that that’s that’s huge and
the other piece of that is you’re sticking to your word if you make a commitment to do something and you and
you actually do it in the timeframe that you suggested you would it’s gonna you know reflect well on you as a person in
your company yeah I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen that they will make up an answer just so they can have
a reply right then and there and that’s that’s not the way to do that and you’re living proof that pay people respect if
you go out and find the answer and come back oh yeah absolutely and you know as
you as you already mentioned earlier with my experience and an age sometimes that can be a barrier but I think if you
just one show that you are technically competent and you do know what you’re talking about and when you don’t you’re
willing to go out and put in the effort to learn it and then share that what that knowledge that you just gained with
you know the prospective customer or your own customer that goes a long long way and actually you and I are very
similar in that case I got involved I actually started getting a paycheck in water treatment when I was 20 years old
so I going through so eventually that gray hair will come whether you want it
or not and I think that that helps you a little bit but yeah no I agree that the gray hair thing may maybe be a good or a
bad thing I’m not sure so let’s stay on the sales topic for a moment what would
you say that the biggest rejection statement you get is and how do you overcome
the biggest rejection statement you know if I’m understanding the question
correctly probably the most difficult thing to me is when I when I see a program that I know is it’s very bad yet
the company or the customer says you know I’ve had my water treatment guy in here for ten years and years or some
crazy long number and they’re not even willing to look at anything different
and to me that’s that’s the hardest obstacle to overcome now it’s not impossible but typically it’s one of
those things where you just have to say okay well here’s a few things that I noticed that I would be doing
differently give me a call if you still have these issues a year from now and
then I’ll touch base then to me that’s the most frustrating and the most difficult is you know but that fails
it’s a relationship game and I get that but I just rating when I see a poorly
run water treatment program that seems to be low-hanging fruit but there’s just a huge barrier to entry there what would
you say that you see more often than others that other water treatment
companies could do a better job with well I think you and I both agree on
this one a big one is corrosion coupons now I understand that that’s not always the water treatment companies fault in
that some of it comes down to the customer wanting to not wanting to
retrofit a plumbing or anything like that so there are some obstacles that you know require the water treatment
company really having to be persistent on the customer and getting them to make that change but you know that’s a big
one you’re testing your you know your calcium and all your normal tests that
give you a relatively good indication of what the scaling potential of the system might be but it’s very difficult in your
monthly testing to discern whether or not you may be corroding the system and and that’s you know a huge huge portion
of water treatment it’s not just scaling it’s bad so probably that would be one
thing that I see as a you know as a as a I guess room for
improvement for a lot of water treatment companies yeah even when I do some consulting and people ask me to look at
service reports and I will look to see if they have corrosion coupon reports to
go along with those they’ll say well the customers not allowing us to put a corrosion coupon rack in well as I go
through the service reports I don’t see where they’ve even made that recommendation or put the comment in
that the customer has rejected that recommendation so you are right the water trader may not be responsible for
that but if we can’t back that up and something happens you want to make sure that everything that happens goes in
that service report would you oh yeah absolutely and you know if there’s something that I feel really needs to be
changed I’m emphasizing it and every single report that way you know if something ever does happen that could
happen you know based off them not following my recommendation it’s right there in writing every single month or
however often the service visits are stating you know this could be a potential issue and here’s how we can
fix it or at least understand what’s going on and if they choose to ignore it I guess that’s that’s on them yeah as long as
it’s documented you know hopefully we’re making their program better by being there and working as a partner with them
but it’s got to be a give and take on both sides absolutely so you mentioned earlier that you are involved with the
Association of Water Technologies and just by participating you’ve been able
to gain a lot more than you’ve given so a lot of people are thinking whoa is
there any benefit to actually participate in the AWT what am I ever going to get back so my hope was you
could speak around that oh yeah absolutely I mean it’s a place where I guess the the industry leaders are
gathering and or at least a good chunk of them are gathering and sharing
thoughts and trying to lift the industry and progress it in in ways that you know
in numerous ways there’s the TR TM that I mentioned earlier that that’s great there’s the technical training
of course the convention and so just by being around all that and seeing where
the industry is headed and seeing what the people who have been extremely successful in their careers and gained a
whole wealth of knowledge throughout their careers what they’re doing that’s
important I think that you can take a lot from your observations just by being in the presence of these people and
trying to figure out okay how did they get to where they are now the other piece of that is you can directly build
relationships with these same people that are then gonna translate and you
having another resource to to learn from and then of course I’ve gotten involved
now with the Education Committee the there’s a new system committee and that
I’m a part of and then also the online service tech training and just again by being involved with all of that it’s
it’s a great way just to hear what it how every one else in industry is thinking and how they approach problems
and I think that that’s valuable I know a lot of people are intimidated to step
up and say hey I want to volunteer how did you do that uh you know I was just that at the very first probably the
first training I was at I immediately knew that you know this is something I want to be involved with and I think I
just started asking questions I’m not sure that I actually volunteered then but it was in the back of my mind I
think really the first time I decided to volunteer was at the convention in
Nashville I think Trace we got breakfast and you know it came up that you were part of the Education Committee and I
think right after that I signed up and from from that point forward I’ve now been involved in you know a few
different things including the Education Committee yeah and you’ve done a lot of great things on the education committee where we’re now doing the online service
tech training and you’re you’re doing your fair share of that I might add yeah
it’s been a fun project though I get a lot out of it and you know as a you and and the other AWT trainers can attest to
teaching and going through the process of you know writing a curriculum is a great way to learn yourself so I mean
yes it’s it’s I guess giving back and volunteering but selfishly I get a whole heck of a lot out of it so it’s been a good
experience well you mentioned the convention and I know a lot of people go to convention and a lot of people don’t
know if they should go to convention and you know going to the convention where all the business owners are where every
single supplier is might be intimidating to some so can you give a few tips on
how somebody who’s new in the industry can get the most out of the AWT
convention yeah I think the starting point is to to recognize that it’s it’s
not nearly as intimidating as it may seem and just to kind of let the guard
your guard down and be okay with sounding I guess for lack of a better
word um you know you don’t have to be the expert to be there in fact probably as a non expert there
you’re gonna get a lot more out of it than most other people and so to me I just love walking around and talking to
whoever is manning the booths playing a lot of times I just played them and
asked a lot of questions even if I think they’re stupid questions because I don’t want i want to challenge my assumptions
so I’ll just you know if I think you know if I don’t understand something or I’m wondering why a company may be doing
you know applying their technology in a certain way i i i think that just asking the question why there’s no harm in that
so I guess stepping out of your comfort zone and realizing that it’s okay to ask questions is a huge piece to that and
then the other side of it is you know going into some of the white paper presentations and the Learning lounges
you can kind of hide in those so if you really don’t want to put yourself out there those can be is still a really good
resource to to take advantage of while you’re at the convention without really you know having to feel intimidated well
that’s that’s a great tip and for those of you that do want to put yourselves out there we’re going to try to do some
live broadcast or at least live recordings does that make sense live recordings can I say but we’re going to
try to we’re going to try to interview some people at the convention as well as some people that
are in the the vendor tradeshow so we can see what’s going on at the
convention this year so hopefully that works out well I think that’s a great idea there’s a lot of knowledge
concentrated at the convention probably more so than at the technical trainings
just simply due to the fact that not only do you have the same people that are teaching the technical trainings at
the convention but you also have the rest of the committee members you have the board you have all of the suppliers
and who they want there to represent their company and the supplier side of things they have a lot of knowledge of
course and the things that they’re trying to to supply to the industry so
there’s just a huge concentration of knowledge and I think it’s it’s a great place to be yeah Connor I think you were with me when somebody came up and asked
me during a convention how come we do not have technical trainings at the convention and it’s simply because we
want to go to the convention too so if if we were if we were their trainee we weren’t able to to see all the wonderful
things that the AWT Convention has to offer so we offered twice a year but not a convention Connor what would you say
your number one tip would be to a new water treaty my number one tip to a new water treaty
I think really the first the first and
most important thing is to to always be educating yourself there’s so much to
learn in this industry and there’s a lot of resources out there so every night
when you’re done at the end of the workday you know after training or however you’re starting at with your
company continue that when you’re home it’s it’s easy to I guess accelerate the
progression if you’re doing that because before you don’t know what you don’t know but as you start to build a little
bit of a base you start to realize okay here’s some of the things that are out there that I need to educate myself on
and then you can be a little bit more targeted in the approach but at the beginning it’s just trying to learn as much as possible as fast as possible
that way you can really start to isolate down what it is that you need to be focused on if that makes sense
Connor on a previous episode I mentioned on a boiling point that a lot of people don’t test raw water and
when I asked them why they don’t test for that they tell me they don’t have enough time to run all those tests and I
know through working with you you were very diligent and learning every single test that you have in your kit and also
when to run what and and how to organize things do you mind sharing with our
listeners how you do that yeah I think you know this actually ties back maybe
into one of the things that frustrated me about the job and that was what felt like wasted time or in efficiencies and
and so with testing when I first started of course and I’m learning you know
you’re just kind of going down the list and then it doesn’t take long for it
didn’t take long for me to realize that you know there’s probably a better way to do this so then so then I started
really learning and understanding okay what is the test what’s the methodology and is there a time limit between you
know when I take the sample and when I actually have to run it so that’s kind of how I approach it now trying to
condense down that testing into the shortest amount of time possible so I can get back out there doing the things
you know that I love offering technical support really fails I that’s probably
my favorite part of the job is the actual you know technical selling so what I do is really I I make sure I grab
all of my samples at once so I’m not you know running back and forth make sure I get enough of a sample nothing
frustrates me more than getting halfway through the service visit and then having to go back and grab another
sample especially if it’s a boiler sample and it you know they don’t have a sample cooler and it’s just a it’s a
whole fiasco so that’s that’s the starting point and then of course is there something that
needs to be tested right away you know free chlorine residual or your sulfide
on the boiler something that you know by waiting you could view your results that
that always comes first and then after that I start the tests that take the longest and have the react
actions going or whatever may be needed for that and then once those are going then I start to fill in the the rest of
the time sequentially just in terms of everything else that’s relatively you
know takes relatively the same amount of time and then hopefully by the end when
I’m finished with everything else the other reactions are finishing up I can finalize that test record my results
talk to the person before I leave and you know get out of there in a timely manner those are some great tips have
you ever timed yourself and said okay I’m gonna see if I can shave two minutes
off of this you know I’ve never actually set a stopwatch but I typically know you
know roughly how long the entire visit should take or the the quickest I’ve ever gotten out of there so I’m a pretty
competitive person I and so I I definitely pay attention to that and
want to at least you know make that happen and sometimes I get myself into
trouble though because I’ll schedule my day assuming I’m gonna hit that record
time at most of the accounts and then I end up working you know a longer day
than I intended but no I I think it’s it’s it’s a lot of fun to try and you
know keep things competitive even if it’s just trying to be as efficient as possible in testing but that’s one of
the things that I you know that helps me get through the service component yeah I’m always amazed at the number of water
shooters out there that consider the account service just because they ran tests and and you say that the best part
is working with a customer and giving technical advice and I can’t agree with you more yeah I mean the testing itself is to me
it’s just a means to the end right I I want to be making sure that I know what
I’m talking about and have the knowledge when I do go to the customer but I really like taking all the inputs and
variables and understanding what’s going on and being able to you know teach that to the customer or share what share what
you know we’re seeing in the system and how that may be improved or is evidence
that we are doing what we said we would when we took over the account you know that’s interesting when I work with fee
a lot of people are scared to give up what they covet as their own knowledge to the customer but it sounds like
you’re saying the more knowledge that you help them get the the better the accounts gonna be and the more
successful everybody’s going yeah I mean maybe this is a little bit contrary to the typical you know water treatment
industry as a whole but I’m a big fan of transparency and sharing that knowledge
and and I see how much there is out there long it takes and how much
dedication so I’m not worried about the customer knowing at all or knowing more than me so to me that the more educated
educated a customer is the better off I am in terms of retaining the business or
picking up the business because I want to make sure that they understand and
value the knowledge all right Connor well now comes the lightning round part
of our interview are you ready for this oh I better be huh all right so first
question or what’s the last three books that you’ve read the last three books that I’ve read so I kind of have a
problem of starting a lot of books and reading them all simultaneously so the
last one that I finished with a book called the one thing and that’s a business book I believe the author is
Gary Keller but basically it talks about you know figuring it out what the one
thing you can do every day is that will make everything else easier and that’s
obviously an extreme simplification of the book but I think it’s a useful book to read to then apply it to your
personal life or your business to really understand what a where it is you should be spending your time so that was a good
one I’m also reading one of the Game of Thrones books right now I think it’s the
fourth or fifth one I should know that off the top of my head I think it’s the fourth one and that III held out didn’t
watch any of the game at their own shows and I still have it because I wanted to read the books first because I don’t
like reading the books after watching and I’m a and I know the book is always
better so that’s another one and then I just started a book last night I think it’s called Continental Divide
and it this is gonna sound really dry the most of you but it’s a history of the United
States told through the prism of mountaineering so basically the history
of mountaineering in the United States starting with you know accounts of people climbing some of the mountains on
the East Coast in the 1600s so I think that that’s kind of always interesting I’m a big fan of the outdoors in the
mountains so it’s cool to read about you know people 400 years ago doing some of the things that I enjoy doing now well
it’s a very well-rounded reading list uh that’s just about every topic there is
yeah I I try not to get stuck in one category because I think that it’s
important to to draw knowledge from across different disciplines and I think
that that just helps in all aspects of life and you know I learned things and
history books that I can apply to business of course and you know my professional career and then fiction I
always like to have a fiction book because it allows me to turn my mind off before I go to bed so usually I’ll read
fiction for like 45 30 minutes before I go to bed that way I’m not thinking about what I have to do the next day or
what I did today from a work standpoint when I’m when I’m going to bed well I cannot believe you
have not seen any of the television show Game of Thrones that’s one of my favorite things yeah I know I’m excited
to be able to reward myself once I’m done with the books so I guess I’m gonna start reading I can actually tie water
treatment and Game of Thrones back I was doing some consulting with some people and of course all the real work has done
at the bar and somebody asked me a question about what was going on and I answered and he looked at me how on
earth did you know that so I use a tyranny quote I said that’s what I do I drink and I know things but you wouldn’t
know that because you haven’t seen the show but I read the books and I don’t remember that quote so maybe I’m either
not I’m either not there yet or I’m not reading close enough so if they were to make a movie about Conor Parrish who
would play you know Josh that is I feel like this is such a loaded question because you can come across so poorly
depending on who you say yes that will be lots of judgment right so – I I’m trying to think if someone’s
ever told me someone that that would fit that and and no one’s coming to mind and
and truthfully my knowledge of pop culture is pretty poor so it’s I don’t
have a whole lot of names to pull from here man why don’t we go with Jason
Statham because he seems pretty cool fair enough so my last question for you Conor and
you you’ve been a great guest I really appreciate you being here last question is if you could have a conversation with
anyone throughout history who would it be and why you know I’ve been trying to come up with a really intellectual
answer for this or or something that because I’ve had this question asked me before and I always have I always
struggle over and you know of course the the usual suspects come to mind and I was gonna say Ben Franklin
but of course tom said that in Episode three so I feel like that’s cheating if I say the same thing so now it’s like
okay who would I who would I meet that not Ben Franklin or one of the usual you know us history people and and what and
then I looked and actually another book I’m reading is meditations by Marcus Aurelius and so I think Marcus Aurelius
will be my answer because you know in reading this book which really wasn’t
intended to be published publicly you kind of get into the head of at the time
the most powerful person in the world and how he’s writing every night to
himself to be a good person and to treat people with respect and things like that so I think it’s really
interesting how you know in a time in an era back then when you I guess
view it with such I guess maybe negativity in terms of how they treated
people and I’m not saying that you know he he’s the perfect case of how to treat
people but I think it’s interesting that someone in his position back then was reflecting daily in ways to improve
himself and how he treats people all right well I I think it’s been fun I hope people out there have learned
a lot from what you’ve been able to talk about and I really appreciate you being on the show today yeah absolutely I I
appreciate being invited to be on here and that I think it’s a great thing that
you’re starting this and I’m excited to see where it goes because I think it’s gonna be very accessible successful well
I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s show a couple of things I want to remind you about the first thing is the association
of Water Technologies annual convention and Exposition is coming up September 13 through 16 so if you have not made your
reservations to attend the show please when you finish this podcast make sure that’s the next thing that you do early
registration is ending soon you don’t want to pay more for something just simply because you lacked planning for
it so make sure you make those reservations make sure you make your hotel reservations those booked up quickly and you want to
make sure you stay at the host hotel because there’s a lot going on there second thing I want you to do is I want
you to tell me what you think about this show what you want to hear about I get all my ideas from you so go to scaling-up h2o
comm tell me what you think tell me what you want to hear by the way telling me
what you want to hear isn’t free consulting I don’t mind helping you guys out if you have a couple of questions
but keep in mind that’s how I make my living so so please let me know what you
want to hear about the show and if you have a specific problem I’ll try to help you out one-to-one as best as I can that
being said it’s been a lot of fun today hope you’ve learned something I hope
you’re going to try something new that you haven’t tried
tomorrow thanks for joining us on
you