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Dr. John Sherk, owner and president of Operations Laboratory reveals all of his HVAC technician career happiness strategies, income improvements and killer tech-happiness tips and tricks so you can get ahead of the curve with your HVAC technician career. Discover how you can create a quality negotiated agreement with your manager that works for you so that you can have the time and freedom to do what you love, whether it’s coaching your kids’ teams, getting out there for hunting season, or just living comfortably at home with your family. Since 2010, he’s been consulting his many HVAC clients on how to develop and manage a culture that is friendly to tech-happiness, and here he openly shares his wins, his losses, and all the lessons in between with the community of energetic but humble HVAC techs, managers, and owners who follow him. Self-proclaimed “Technician Happiness Guru” you’ll learn about getting paid what you deserve, building genuine and loyal relationships at work and at home, recruiting winners (tip: they all already work for someone else), building a tech-happy culture, quality communication, skills mastery, optimizing performance, negotiating compensation, professionalism, , and productivity tips so that you create an amazing, tech-happy life without burning yourself out. It’s a mix of interviews, special co-hosts and solo shows from John you’re not going to want to miss. Hit subscribe, and get ready to change your life.
00:02 Welcome to HVAC JoyLab, everybody. Today we have Mr. Bill to me pronounce your last name for me. Bill Spoon. Spoon.
00:12 Spoon. Bill Sphon. I should have asked you that in pre recording. But in Mr. Bill Spoon, who is the Co-owner and CEO of True Tech Tools, very active up in the Pennsylvania Ohio area, but available to techs everywhere.
00:28 So welcome, Bill. Thank you. I really appreciate it, John. Thank you for inviting me to your very interesting podcast. Well, thank you.
00:36 Thank you for taking the time. So let's just jump in. Bill, introduce us to yourself and to true tech tools.
00:43 Tell us your story. Sure. My background is a mechanical engineer. I've always been curious about how things worked. And energy seemed to be on my mind as I was going through college and graduate school, like usage of energy and fell into HVAC.
01:00 After getting laid off from another job, I was just thinking about that last week, like someone said, how'd you get an HVAC?
01:05 And I'm like, I got laid off. So I would never be here if I didn't get laid off from another job.
01:12 I don't know what kind of career I would have been a manufacturing engineer or something like that. But I always wanted to own my own business and started working for a couple of companies and they found that I had the gift of GAB but from an engineering perspective.
01:24 So the marketing people kept inviting me to meetings and doing sales presentations. I'm like, I could actually do marketing. So I started doing that and then I worked for a company called Backerack for 10 years.
01:35 They make primarily combustion analyzers, but other things for HVAC tools. And then I got a job with Testo, who's a European-based, German-based manufacturer of similar kinds of tools, and worked for them for about 10 years.
01:48 And got to see an awful lot of product development, product application, different ways of thinking in using in advancements and tools.
01:58 And during that time, this gets into the founding of TruTech, we hired a guy named Jim Bergman, who was a teacher at a Votech school.
02:06 And he was really curious about these products. And we hired him to help explain the products, sort of the German products to the US contractors.
02:15 And through the course of that, he and I always, always complained about, there's not enough people using these products. These are really great.
02:23 Jim, you explain them well. I help market them well, but they aren't just catching on, why aren't they catching on?
02:29 And the answer was forming a focused internet presence for just tools and test instruments. Because many times, a lot of great resellers of these products sell them alongside equipment.
02:44 And sometimes the necessities of the equipment sort of overshadow the tools and test instruments. So it's a harder thing to be visible and perhaps even for their staff to train on.
02:56 So we decided we would focus on that. We literally started from gyms, retired fathers, spare bedroom. And our first year we had like 70,000 in sales and it was a partial year and we considered that successful.
03:11 And at that time I was still working another job. second year we started to put a little bit more plans together and that year we had 750K in sales the second full year and at that point his dad's like I wanted to retire I didn't want a second job.
03:29 Help me find someone to buy this and I'm like so his son and I step forward and we decided to buy it together so we did and then next year we were like 2.3 million so just continue to go up from there.
03:42 And we saw things for heating, air conditioning, contractors, IECU specialists, things to measure air flow, temperature pressure, things like that.
03:52 But we also get into an area which I learned a lot about through those other two experiences called building performance or home performance.
03:59 And it's how the whole ecosystem of the home, the air tightness of the home, the duct system, the thermal leakage, thermal gain, all those factor together.
04:08 So that's where we're at now is tools and test instruments for heating, air conditioning and building performance technicians. Interesting, interesting.
04:19 And I assume you do the calibration as well. Yeah, for the combustion analyzer, some of the products required like manufacturer level cal labs.
04:27 And we don't touch that. We only, we don't try to get dangerous with what we do. I mean, we just go as far as we know we can do.
04:33 So the combustion analyzer calibration is absolutely we have a lab almost from day one set up doing that with all the different brands.
04:40 We have very good, very good. Well, so the the point of the podcast is to talk about things that improve the lives of technicians and we talked about this earlier.
04:51 And so I'd like to just have a conversation about technicians and their tools other than maybe their truck, maybe their dog.
04:59 There's very few things more personal to a technician than their tools. right? So talk about that a little bit Bill.
05:05 Like if you're, if you had a technician, he's just getting his first job and he's really got to start thinking about how do I build up my toolbox or my truck or how are we going to think about that?
05:16 How think like talk through that? Where do you get started? How do you start going at that? Well like a lot of things like even like starting a business, some people like they put a lot into the infrastructure.
05:28 They rent a big space. You know, we started from a bedroom, so it's sort of like, you know, manage your investments, your expectations.
05:38 So in that line laying it over on top of technicians, I would say get the minimum required tools to do your job and take a look a little bit at the quality because there's a couple things that happen.
05:51 Quality usually relates to durability. ability. So they say, you know, by once cry once, when you invest in something, I learned it from someone else.
06:04 I didn't invent that, but it's a good one. And then it's also the quality of performance of the product, which can be related to your stress level.
06:14 If you're second guessing, what you're doing, or you're getting called back, or you're put under scrutiny because the device you use, the measurement, the tool, whatever isn't getting you what you needed, you may regret that or may cause additional strain and stress on you.
06:35 And I like to say, it's pay for performance. There's a lot of things as I used to teach a lot of classes on air flow measurements.
06:45 That's another thing we do at TrueTech and I have a colleague here at Kaiser that does an off a lot of videos, and he's actually at an event right now, a conference right now, teaching weatherization.
06:56 you can usually conduct the same, you can execute the same process either by spending more time or by more money on the tool.
07:06 And the tool could also be software, and that's been a big change. You want to talk about things that are new in the industry, but investing in those kind of things, It's like you can you can still get away with not investing in a hard item, but it will probably cost you time in one way or another So
07:23 you got to decide Where you're going to spend that either either a better tool or time now If you do buy a better tool make sure you allocate some time and training on how to use it sure There's a set of tools we sell Popular at the temperature people seem thermal imagers like you know night vision kind
07:41 of things but looking for thermal anomalies and buildings and equipment and the rule is done for that is of your budget for thermal imagers spend 80% on the tool and 20% on training so don't forget to allocate towards training.
07:58 So and there's also like for you know almost every tool we sell there's lots of people including ourselves to some some extent but there's a lot of resources resources out there.
08:10 One big one is the HVACR school and the HVACR school podcast, tremendous free resources. There's other resources out there like the Esco Institute, a lot of other places to get, you know, hands-on physical face-to-face training, but there's no shortage of resources out there.
08:31 So you don't necessarily have to spend the money, you know, that 20% that could be gained, but you do need to spend the time.
08:37 Yeah, very good. Yeah, and having talked to a lot of techs, one of the things I've noticed is the younger, there's some kind of relationship between the skill level of the technician and their capacity for appreciation of a certain level of tool.
08:55 Like, you know, the guy who's just getting started, you know, there's one meter that works for him, he gets done, what it needs to get done.
09:04 But then as that tech kind of gets more experienced, they get into year seven, eight, nine, and they become more of an expert at what they do, there's like a desire to have tools that match them, you know, kind of an evolution that way.
09:20 And I had a tech kind of describe it like, you know, there's it's almost like a gourmet chef kind of a thing where if you're in a kitchen and really you just cook eggs and hamburgers, there's one kind of knife.
09:34 But when you really are, this is your career. It's not just a job. And you are really getting good at it.
09:41 You might spend a lot more money on a knife and you'll appreciate it then as well. Yeah. And I think it's sometimes like the situations you get into may expand and you just maybe solve some past, past problems you experienced in the future as you go forward.
10:04 It's an appreciation. Just like you said, it's appreciation for the tool. It's going to do something for you. Whereas a lot of times, tools are sold with words on paper.
10:17 The words have the strike header resonance, have a meaning with you in order to appreciate what they do. Yeah, very interesting, yeah, and I really think that tools are really a component of a text job satisfaction, you know, that the and again, it tracks with this movement because my we haven't talked
10:36 that much bill, but like I study technicians academically wrote my dissertation on organizational commitment of technicians to the company they work for and I'm very fascinated by technicians my grandfather was a tech, my mother worked for Johnson controls for 40 years.
10:52 I study technicians and my son is a tech and Indianapolis. So it's kind of our family thing, you know? And so obviously, when at any time I'm thinking about a technician and their job satisfaction, my grandpa might add or right there, you know?
11:06 And so it has a special resonance for me. And I've just noticed that it, maybe it's just because I like to cook, but I see this comparison between chefs and technicians and there are mystero chefs and there are mystero technicians.
11:26 And there are competent professional chefs and competent professional technicians. And then there's weekend warrior techs and weekend warriors in the kitchen.
11:35 And I think that there's a kind of tool correlation that goes with all of them. And I would just say from a technician level, just expect your toolbox to grow with you over time and let it just don't feel like day one, then you got to go borrow $6,000 and buy, you got to buy a mega, you got to buy everything
11:55 the first day, you know, and there are some tools that you'll get on day one that you will outgrow that tool and then it will be time to upgrade that tool and, you know, then you can call Bill and get the upgrade.
12:07 But that, that, I think that movement is sort of, it tracks with you in the course of your career. Yeah, and like you talked like I watch the TV series The Bear.
12:20 Yes. I'm talking about cooking and yeah, just the in I've never seen such intensity in plating the engagement. And now I like into that to like the way a hydronic system is laid out on a board and some people you know post and social media these very and they should be proud of the execution of aligning
12:40 the pipes of align equipment dressing the wires. And it's just, and I think it does it correctly aligns with, you know, if I spent that much time with these outward details, I spent that much time with the inward details that the customer can't see.
12:56 Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. And that's a good feeling that, you know, talk about the joy of HVAC. There's a pride, you know, you're very proud of what you've done with you've executed you do want to show it off and you want you also want, you know, constructive criticism and feedback and people put
13:14 themselves out there anymore asking for that. And I sense like, you know, I've been in the industry since 1988. There's just a tremendous amount of openness and sharing that's happening, which I think is fantastic.
13:28 Yeah, I agree. I agree. I'm curious. What, what if anything, are you seeing in the relationship between tools and AI, maybe not inside the tool itself, but in the use of AI in the field with tools or what do you what do you sing along those lines?
13:45 Well, there's there is a The manufacturers of well, a series of tools start to come out and really was around 2000 more digital measurements versus analog sensors, especially in refriger refrigerant pressures or conditioning pressures.
14:04 And then they have migrated into what we call smart probes or wireless probes. So it's basically it's a sensor in a handle that transmits via Bluetooth to an app.
14:17 And many of the manufacturers, they have these products on their own and they put them in their app. And some of the displays have some calculations, some are just, you know, recording.
14:28 But there is one particular brand of products actually, it's one of the founders of Trutac Jim Bergman invented a product called MeasureQuick, which is a platform for about 16 different brands of products.
14:41 And you can bring them all together. And it isn't exactly AI, but it's it gives you when it sees readings that are out of specification, it will shoot trouble flags and it will give you possible causes of those of the trouble.
15:00 So the troubleshooting mode In addition, the workflows are really important. We're really big on process. A lot of the kits we put together at TrueTech are related to processes that a lot of good instructors out there are teaching.
15:14 And we just want to make it easy for you to execute those processes. And now, there's some digital ways like through products like Measure Quirk, where you can actually walk through and step through a process.
15:26 And a lot of people say, well, I got that all in my head. I can take care of that. All right, a lot of people do.
15:33 They have that capacity. Their brains are built that way. Their experience level comes together that way. Some people can't hold it all together or you get interrupted.
15:42 But if you have this system that's just a dedicated servant always giving you the next step, what to do, what to record, how to do it, there's less chance for error.
15:55 And we've seen a lot of business owners say like, That's the road for my technicians. I want them using this because now I'm not restricting their creativity, but I'm making sure they get down the best possible job and the shortest amount of time with the highest quality for our customer and getting
16:14 rid of those callbacks. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And physically. Yeah. Yeah. That's, if there's any one thing I hear about with technicians, it's especially in a residential where maybe there's 10 technicians in the company and one or two of them are the veteran technicians and their frustration in
16:35 like spending most of their time going and fixing other people's mistakes. You know, like that's, I hear a lot about that.
16:43 I think the movement, maybe movement's wrong word, but I've deep dive into the whole AI thing and where's it going and nobody knows for sure.
16:53 But one of the things I've observed and it relates to our tools conversation is people before they start really using AI in their work, they feel like AI is other meaning there's me over here and AI is over there and it's sort of like if I watch an old episode of Star Trek and John Luke Picard goes and
17:16 says Earl Grey T and then the computer makes the T and that's not him making it it's the computer right he's just giving orders.
17:23 But in real time, what's happening is a kind of slowly merging connection between the AI and the user. I'm seeing it used in the field with diagnostic stuff.
17:36 I'm seeing it used where because of the way the like chat GPT or Gemini or the standard ones, because you can go from photo to text, they'll just take a picture of the unit and start gathering data about the unit, just saying, tell me about this unit, take a picture.
17:53 And the work back and forth with AI, such that by the time they've made a troubleshooting diagnosis, it isn't clear whether they would say, AI did this or I did this.
18:06 And at first, I thought, oh, it's creepy and whatever, but it really isn't that different from 200 years ago and a craftsman with his tools.
18:14 I mean, if you to said, you know, there's some guy who's an expert using a set of tools to make a wooden chair 200 years ago And he's really good.
18:22 Would you say the tool did that or you say he did that? It's kind of like There's not a clear line, you know, he didn't do it bare handed But the tool didn't just jump up and do it either, you know No, and it's usually like it's that sort of their first round that likes when I use AI Jet GP team mainly
18:38 that first round you get back Now you can explore, but it's your mere mind that did the exploration, that retargets the response or digs deeper into it.
18:50 And then, you know, just good caution, just, you know, double check it, make sure it's in the sense. But I find more and more, like maybe I just ask simple questions, but I get pretty darn good answers.
19:01 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I really think this is, I'm not, I don't hear a lot of people volunteering to talk about it, because I think they're not sure if it's okay that they're doing it in the field.
19:12 But then if I ask and I'm like, just we're just talking here, just you and me, and they're like, yeah, I actually use it quite a bit, but I don't tell anybody, you know.
19:19 And I think that over the next five years, I think this integration of even simple tools, but also more complicated tools that give you, you know, multi-meters or more advanced than that, even.
19:33 They give you data and can integrate with the AI and the whole process with the technician in standing in front of a piece of equipment, I really think this is kind of an up-and-coming thing that is almost unavoidable because it's gonna be a training tool and everything else.
19:52 I mean, it's just too easy to use. One other thought I had here is terms of other types of equipment that we sell and have sold in the past, it's equipment that does remote monitoring And some of we don't sell, but that can also be a stress reducer because now you can use sort of the decision making
20:13 capacity of the data that's being sent to decide if a customer is on the verge of something or if they have a trend, excuse me, do you hear that siren?
20:25 I don't. Okay, good. We're near a volunteer fire department, so the ability to be able to sort of proactively take care of a customer or perhaps collect some trend data and that can be very important because a lot of times when you're on site, you may not see exactly what the customer has been experiencing
20:51 and your goals have solved the problem, so you need to have some historic data on hand. Interesting. So I've seen a lot more sensors that are connected through Wi-Fi, some even through cellular that can be put on equipment, even some simple ones that measure like three or four parameters on a residential
21:11 system but through multiple iterations of the, know, actually seeing what the faults were based upon the readings, they can make a predictive analysis that And more likely than not, here's your problem.
21:25 And then you can go take care of the customer. Interesting. And so then this would be, this is out of kind of a standard control kind of a system or is it, is it in addition to or so?
21:37 Yeah. The standard control, there are some, it tends to be on the higher end equipment where you get it built into the standard controls.
21:44 And then it usually involves, you know, subscriptions and things like that. But I've seen some startups and I'll mention the name if it's okay.
21:50 Sure, now please smart AC as a startup by Josh Teacle and he's pretty much nailed it in terms of the minimum information that tells you a customer is either trending towards or has a problem and it's pretty cool because when you get this level of information you can interpret it or present it one way
22:11 to the customer and interpret it presented another way to the technician or contractor in each of the same sensors, and now that thing, that extra little thing that they have in their house is actually doing something for them, as well as helping the contractor manage their equipment.
22:30 Interesting. Interesting. Well, I'm curious, what else do you see out there that's up and coming in HVAC tools? Sure. I think there's some new products that are used for measuring airflow within, there was always a challenge of mine, like even training on it, I would train like 16 different ways of measuring
22:50 air flow and none of them were really perfect until lately a company called the energy conservatory came up with a product called the digital true flow grid.
23:02 It uses science to measure air flow across a very broad range of circumstances. It gets into a few thousand dollars, but the product measures, when you need to measure it, when you need to measure flow specifically, it's great for residential systems up to five tons.
23:24 And that's, I want to just go back and re-circle on that one statement. Sure. I don't push tools on anybody.
23:30 What I do push is understanding what you're doing, understanding the process to do what you're doing, and then getting it done using the tools you can afford.
23:42 And sometimes if you can't afford the right tools maybe you shouldn't be working on the equipment or You're you're gonna spend either that you know pay for performance.
23:51 You will either pay with your time or you're pay with a better tool So to me it's a Wide open spectrum of how to address problems and then the other thing is I you know I do own a company sells tools, but I'm all for other company selling tools I want to see the industry change going back to that point
24:10 where Jim and I talked about, got frustrated, not enough people using these. I'd like to see more of the bricks and mortar equipment wholesalers selling the same kind of tools we sell.
24:20 It's a big enough world out there, enough problems to solve. Sure, yeah, yeah. Well, and we talked to really good.
24:26 Down here where I'm at in South Louisiana, where we've got, between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana, there are 58 different chemical and oil and gas plants.
24:36 And the kind of equipment, the level of equipment that goes into process chilling and, you know, the cooling towers that are done in an industrial setting that, you know, I mean, the tech is all over the place, you know, and it's big technology.
24:55 And I don't think that the tools have kept up with that as well. Because I think that there's, because I'm some of my clients are the contractors who go in, And they'll do comfort cooling and they'll do process cooling, but there's only a few companies that really are able to handle and they kind of
25:17 just have to engineer their own stuff because if you're going to do certain kinds of measurements on a big, a massive million dollar cooling tower, it's not like you can go down to lows and buy some stuff.
25:31 You know, and so that I see it down here because it it relates to safety You know, there's many many many many stories of guys, you know, most of them have recovered, but you know that the The one example recently from a client where you know, it was in a plant.
25:50 There's a chiller The you know, there was a problem the plant had built a scaffolding in front of the chiller and so when he got there You know, it proper safety said you got to remove the scaffolding was like oh man We got to get this thing up is this you know Is there any way you can work around it
26:07 ? So he opened the chiller door a little bit and he wanted to see if the compressor was running So we just put the back of his hand against a professor or the compressor and just like that He got a jolt and it had stopped his heart and they brought they were able to bring him back but I mean the The
26:24 environment that guys working down here even though there's a there's an intense focus on safety. It's just a, it's a dangerous environment.
26:32 And there's a lot of stuff that can be done with tools that would mitigate some, you know, moments like that.
26:38 Absolutely. Yeah. I also do a podcast. I just want to mention that real quick through that. It's called Building HVAC Science.
26:49 We've got over 180 episodes now since 2017. And when people ask me the theme, I mean, it's written there in our little blurb on it, but really, it's stuff that I find interesting.
27:01 So, yeah, sure. And a few other people do, apparently, because we do some good followers and some people tell me they listen to every episode because you'll never know where it's gonna come from.
27:11 Sure. And then what kind of stuff do you cover? You're covering energy engineering kind of stuff, or? It's like, what I like a lot is covering stories of successful technicians, or technicians that are approaching things differently.
27:28 Sometimes it's new technologies or startups that a new software company, or in last week, last Friday's episode, we drop every Friday morning at 7 a.m.
27:40 Eastern, was somebody I found on the internet who's inventing a new type of vertical windmill for residential use. Interesting. Wind generator, I should say.
27:52 So, it was just the, again, the energy nerd in me, the mechanical engineer just had to learn more and I, I used the podcast to lure them in to learn more from myself.
28:04 That was all about me. good, very good, very good. So listen, what your website tells your website, Bill? Sure, it's true tech tools.com TRU, T-E-C-H-T-O-L-S.com.
28:18 The reason without the e and true, I mean, again, geometry, math, 3, 4, 5, true, 5, you know, the Pythagorean.
28:28 That's right. I was going to say, yeah. I was let her stack up nicely, the T's outlining up, it's all, it's beautiful.
28:35 What an engineer. What an engineer. Yeah. Yeah, and I poked around the website, Bill's website before we started recording today.
28:43 And if you're a technician, you haven't been on this website, I would go check it out. there's stuff here that, you know, it's kind of like he was just describing.
28:52 He's got stuff on his website, you're not going to find at a typical brick and mortar store. And so it's worth just that kind of go look and see kind of around the website, seeing what's there, seeing some things you may not see on a shelf wherever you go normally, and would be definitely worth your
29:10 time to go just poke around the website and see what Bill has for sale for sure. And we have a lot of educational resources and then we also have an area because we really, you know, we couldn't do it alone.
29:22 So we have a tab called True Friends. So some of our best friends in the industry, they're doing things independently in their own businesses.
29:29 So there's a little array, little gallery of our True Friends. Excellent. Very good. Very good. TrueTechTools.com. So listen, Bill. Thank you so much for taking some time today to be on the podcast.
29:44 and I appreciate you doing what you do. I mean, techs need plenty of support and one of those is with tools.
29:52 And so I appreciate you doing what you do. And we sort of are one of our bylines inside the business as we want to be the least hassle on techs day, because we try to understand there's a lot of pressure.
30:04 You know, it could be the client, the dispatcher, your boss, the equipment, traffic, your family. Lots of things stressing you.
30:13 If you come to us looking for something we want to make it fast and easy to get what you need Perfect perfect.
30:19 All right bill spawn. Thanks so much for being on the podcast. Thank you John