The Business You Built Was Never Supposed to Own You
There are two numbers almost every contractor knows by heart: last month's sales and next month's backlog. Ask how much profit they actually made, though, and the conversation often gets a little quieter. Some don't know. Some have an idea. Others probably know the answer but would rather not say it out loud. After spending more than two decades in this industry—as a contractor, in distribution, and now through nearly 200 conversations on the HVAC R&D Podcast—I've realized we spend an awful lot of time talking about sales and almost no time talking about what [...]
Stop Asking Employees to Think Like Owners
Do any of you remember that Vitamin C song, Graduation? Anyway, I’ll never forget it. It was the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school. I had just been bestowed with a “new to me” 1996 F-150 short cab with an eight-foot bed that officially became my work truck for the summer. It had the stereotypical RIDGID Tools toolbox strapped up against the back of the cab with heavy-duty bungee cords, and like every teenager who suddenly had keys in his pocket, I was convinced this was the summer I was going [...]
Better Conversations Build Better Industries
Every once in a while, a podcast conversation reminds me why HVAC R&D exists in the first place. Actually... that's a lie. Lately, it feels like almost every conversation does. Every guest, every story, and every lesson seems to fuel another idea, another connection, or another reason to make this platform better than it was the week before. That's the beauty of sitting down with people who genuinely care about this industry. You rarely walk away with just another episode. You walk away seeing something a little differently than you did before. That was certainly [...]
The Most Expensive Part of the System Isn’t the Compressor Anymore
There was a time when hearing the words, "The compressor failed," made every HVAC contractor brace for an uncomfortable conversation. For decades, the compressor was the heart of the system—and often the most expensive component to replace. A failed compressor meant difficult phone calls, expensive repairs, and customers wondering how something so costly could stop working long before they thought it should. Now, I am not saying that the compressor is no longer the heart of the system. But for many of us learning the trade, it also represented the greatest financial risk inside the [...]
Forty Has a Funny Way of Making You Honest
Forty has a funny way of making you honest. Not because there's anything magical about the number itself, but because milestones have a way of forcing us to stop measuring where we're going and start measuring where we've been. Some people celebrate with a party. Some buy a sports car. Some pretend it doesn't matter at all. And then there are people like Josh Zolin. Listen to the full show here - https://rhydonatzenhoffer.substack.com/p/life-begins-at-40-lessons-in-leadership Instead of trying to outrun the milestone, he sat down and wrote forty lessons he'd learned over forty years. Not because he'd [...]
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