We had a business called Premier Environmental Technologies out of the Chicago land area. And we were one of the first companies that actually truly, just did indoor air quality. And back then we didn’t even have UVs yet, that didn’t come out. I’m going back to the 1990s when we started. 1992 is when we put the first design team together to design the first UV lights for residential applications. Not that they weren’t out before, we didn’t invent UV and actually God did that. It’s called the sun. But from the 1930s or so, we’ve been using it for water treatment and other things. But residential, it wasn’t popular. So we developed that, and for about 10 years I had that business and folded it into a national company and became their national trainer. And that’s kind of where I’m at today is VP of Training and Sales for Dynamic and private brand, the solar server, and Purex line for you guys.

David Heimer: So on a day-to-day basis, what do you do as Vice President of Training and Sales?

Steve Mores: Well, we kind of have a unique business model. We don’t go through distribution. We sell directly to contractors and we do that for a specific reason. The reason is the training that I’ve helped develop throughout the years and train some other guys in the field. They became our trainers as well, so we have nine trainers in the field. And so, one of the things that we do that’s different, we got a great product. David, I can spend the whole podcast, telling you how wonderful it is, but I’m supposed to tell you that because I work for the manufacturer. But beyond our great scientifically correct products, we have awesome training. So our claim to fame is, when we take our customer, or our clients, or our contractor, is that we get in there and we train them. We have 19 modules, we have recorded modules, we have WebEx, we do ride alongs, we come in on site and train technicians.

So we have a little thing in our company. Sales is a transfer of your belief to someone else and the reward is money. So the first thing you gotta do is believe in the product. That’s why we do technical training. That’s why we do a ton of research on our products and other products as well. And the industry, how it is scientifically, physically, how products can and can’t work, what you can claim, and what you shouldn’t claim. And we pass that information along to technicians and salespeople in the field. So they can be confident when they’re talking about the product. So that’s the belief factor.

And then we get into, I’m just saying, sales is the transfer of your beliefs to somebody else. So now you gotta be able to take technical information and transfer that to somebody else in layman’s terms. Because most people that we call on homes, they are technicians, these homeowners, they don’t want to hear about the nanometer wavelength of light, and court glass, and centimeters per square inch of microwatts, and always kind of fun stuff. But the technician likes to hear it because they want to be convinced the product works. They want to technically know how it sounds. Then we break that down into layman’s terms. So on every single call, they can have an indoor air quality conversation.

David Heimer: So this is a very timely conversation. You know, there’s been a lot of attention. You couldn’t possibly help not notice it, there’s a lot of attention recently about the Coronavirus. So can any type of filtration help prevent the spread of bacteria and viruses?

Steve Mores: But you know, we’ve been literally bombarded with hundreds of inquiries on this, since it came out in the media. There’s a ton of media attention on it, as you know, and it’s serious. I don’t want to downplay it at all. But I look at that, as of this call, there’s six people in the United States that died of it. And I don’t know exactly how many have been infected by it. But over 11,000 people this year have died of influenza. So I know the virus, it’s out there. So the coronavirus is nothing that’s really new. This strand is new, and they first found the first coronavirus in the 1960s. And it could be the cold, it could be, you know, flu in another virus. But there’s other things, MERS, SARS, things that you’ve heard of in the past, that’s from the coronavirus. And this is a new strand, and it comes from animals. And there’s a whole nother research project that we can talk about there.

But at the end of the day, it is a problem that, something we want to stop and want to be careful with, but it’s a virus. And we’ve been training for the last 30 years that ultraviolet energy can kill viruses. So the question we get is, can UV or UV lights kill the virus? They can kill any virus. Viruses are one of the simplest microorganisms to kill. That cures a little bit harder with UV mold spores are pretty difficult, because they have spores around them. So it’s a virus, if it gets by the light, gets close up to the light, you have enough microwatts to do it, it will kill it.

Where I cost in a contractor is, you know, let’s not run out there and use scare tactics, and you know, tell everybody they’re going to die of the coronavirus unless they put this in their home. So they should have been talking about killing viruses and bacterias way before this Coronavirus media attention came into effect. But it actually helped people to start thinking about it, and the things that we’ve been training on for years, and UV, with the right intensity, will kill viruses. That’s not going to change just because there’s another virus that’s out there, especially when it’s in the same family. It’s a lot of the stuff that’s out there that we are familiar with in the past.

So at the end of the day, when they ask us, will it kill it? The answer is absolutely yes. But there’s so many variables. How close did it get to the lamp? What are microwatts? What’s the velocity of the air? and is it in your air, to begin with? What other viruses are in the air? So as long as you have the right intensity, what we call microwatts, that’s how it’s measured. And you have that in ductwork and it gets into the air. Now, if someone sneezes, and you wipe your hands with something they sneeze on, you put it in, by your mouth. That’s why they always tell you to wash your hands. None of that has changed. I travel a lot, and I see a lot of people wipe the trays down on airplanes. You never used to see it that often and you see it quite often now. A lot more people are wearing masks now.

So, just because it’s being out there in the media, there’s a lot more attention on it. But that doesn’t change anything that we have been teaching for the last 30 years. UV will kill it. Now you have to hear it again, have the right intensity, the right wave lights, and all the fun stuff, the technical stuff that the guys need to be aware of. Also, some viruses are big enough to be captured in certain filters. Now that doesn’t mean that they die, They get captured. It depends on the virus and its lifespan. Some of it said it could be 24 hours, some last 8, 9, 10 days. So what’s happening inside that filter while it’s sitting there alive.

So they can, depending on the size, some of them are smaller, 0.01-micron size, HEPA filters can cut the 0.3 per pass, {inaudible 07:49} can do it as well, other products that are out there can do it. But you gotta be careful with that too, because some of the stuff, it’s not going to do it in every single pass, HEPA as well. Some other products are efficient at 0.3 microns, but some viruses are smaller than that. So it depends on size, it depends on, if you look at an intensity chart, what it takes to kill certain microorganisms, what you’ll find is, it takes different intensities for different viruses. But with all that said, if you have enough intensity inside the ductwork with an exposed UV light, you’ll be able to control and kill it. So when we get into the marketing end of it, we kind of train a little bit differently on it though.

David Heimer: So there’s no question that indoor air quality is going to improve the quality of your air. If a virus is exposed to UV light, that’s going through there, it’s going to kill it. If it’s there long enough, it’s likely to kill it. But if it doesn’t get into the ductwork, for some reason, it’s not going to kill it obviously. But nevertheless, indoor air quality just does make air healthier overall. If you were a contractor and you were marketing IQ products, would you mention the Coronavirus? What would you advise contractors to do about this? And I want to give a little bit of perspective. Anecdotally, I heard that a contractor sent out something. It was very gently worded, said, look, we have these indoor air quality products. They will make your air healthier, it will kill viruses if they get into the ductwork system, maybe not all viruses. But, some viruses it’ll make it healthier. It’s a good thing to have in your house. And he said that some people contacted him back right away, and said, hey, that sounds great, we’d like to get it. Other people assaulted him verbally for taking advantage of this situation.

Steve Mores: Right.

David Heimer: So what is your advice about this stuff?

Steve Mores: I’m glad you brought it up that way, because that’s what we’re running into as well. Now, these hundreds of inquiries, some guys jumped the gun and they went out there and until their tech, hey, tell everybody it’s going to kill the coronavirus. And they were getting those calls back. And the homeowners were saying, your texts are trying to scare us into buying products. The way I would approach it is, it’s no different here again, that we’ve been training for the last 30 years, if you got to capitalize on the call. We have a great opportunity. Let’s put the replacement business to the side for a while and start back servicing maintenance. We have a great opportunity to upsell on a lot of different accessories that we have.

We always have to be careful with that, because we get people when I do training or my other reps do training. One of the questions we ask is, has anybody ever said, every time you come into their house, you’re trying to sell them something? And all the Tech’s hands come up. And I go, why is that? The reason is, every time you go into their house, you’re trying to sell them something. And I said, quit doing that. You know, what we’re doing is, we’re technicians, we fix things, okay. Then I get technicians say, well, I’m not a sales guy, I don’t want to sell. I said, well, in the last month, did you put a new contractor in anybody’s place? Well, yeah. How about a capacitor? Yeah. How about a blower wheel? How about whatever gadgets or things you want to talk about? And they all say, yeah, of course I have. And I said, was it free? Well, no, we charged for it, you know, 2, $300, whatever the price was. Well then you sold something.

Well, that’s different. No, it is not different. When someone suffers from {inaudible 11:10} an allergy. When you’re looking in someone’s air handler and you see all this dirt and biological gross in there, something is broken. And when you say this to a technician, and he hasn’t started thinking about it, and say, what’s broken? I should think about what you’re seeing, you’re seeing dirt, dust, debris and gross and that. What’s broken is the filter. So don’t sell them a filter, fix it. Just like you would fix anything else in that piece of equipment. So once they get this fix it mentality into their head, which they already have, but apply that into air quality. That’s where we really start having some success.

Because it’s just like saying your capacitors got up, inside of here got a bad reading, it’s about time to change it. No different than I’m looking at your blower wheel here, and BPA says that 1/20th of an inch buildup on the coil, And 1/8 of buildup on the blower wheel. It reduces your efficiency by 21%, 1/20th of an inch, David, is about the thickness of a business card. So when I asked technicians, have you ever seen that much dirt on a coil or blower wheel? They’ll roll their eyes, of course we have, see it every day. Where every day you’re looking at someone’s air handler, that’s got dirt and dust going through a filter, that’s not stopping it. Since it’s not stopping it, it’s getting caught up, and the air handler itself, starting to, it’s going to become the filter.

Something is going to eventually attract dust to it. But those parts and pieces, we don’t want to be dirty. And so, because we want to keep them running at its efficiency. You know, if they bought an 18 Sear air conditioner, 95% and amp percent furnace or whatever, $15,000, whatever price they pay for it, it’s probably the most expensive appliance that they’ve ever purchased. Then they put a 59 central air filter in there. That makes zero sense to me. Because it’s going to end up being like a 12 Sear, 80% or in about six months with all this stuff going through it. So you might as well sell him the 2% to begin with.

So on the replacement side, we should talk about protection packages. Our salesmen, I know a lot of them want to get the box sold or are afraid to do add ons. It should either be part of the package or once they get the box sold and signed for, now, how do you want to protect this? What do you mean by protection? Remember when we talked about indoor air quality earlier, and this infiltration that however you guys, where they run it through their sales process. Well, I remember that, well, let’s choose a protection package, it’s going to keep this running at the efficiency you paid for. So it’s kind of on the replacement end, but back to the service guys, they see stuff every single day and our brochures even have right in there. The quotes from the EPA and Texas A and M that say about dirt dust accumulation. How just a little bit of it ruins the efficiency of the equipment.

So they should lead with not as many allergies. You know, their health concerns, they should lead with what they know. They know the furnaces, they know coils, they know blower wheels, they get it that they’re comfortable with that. So that’s what we start with. Oh, and by the way, now is when you ask who in your house suffers from asthma and allergies? Don’t lead with that, it becomes a by-product of keeping your system running at peak efficiency. So when you asked that question during what we call the anatomy of a service or maintenance call. Now you’re going from the equipment, which they’re very comfortable talking about, into asking the question, who in your house suffers from asthma and allergies? Now, back 15 years ago, I can remember trainers teaching that, asking that question at the thermostat before your diagnostic stage. And I would get technicians telling me, I don’t like asking it there. I had one lady say, what are you a doctor? Where does that come from? Well you’re not relating it to anything. You know, if you have an air conditioner that is broken and you’re hot and sweaty. What are they expecting to do? Expecting you to fix the air conditioner.

You don’t talk about indoor air quality stuff right away. But in every single service and maintenance call, you’re going to see something in there, dirt, dust, debris, growth. Unless they got a wonderful air cleaner, that’s all been taken care of already. There’s an opportunity to start with talking about the equipment first, efficiency is how they can keep it running, at peak efficiency is to have their system last longer. And at the same time you have less unnecessary breakdowns, the reason you’re there today. And then on the maintenance end, this keeps the system clean between maintenance. That was just one quick funny thing, I had a technician say, “well, I had a homeowner say to me, you guys are coming here twice a year and maintain it. Why do I need an air cleaner? You’re going to come and clean it anyway.” I said, “what did you say?” He didn’t know what to say.

So let me give you an analogy. How often do you go to the dentist? Well, I’m supposed to go twice a year. Right. Two times a year, every six months. Just kind of like our maintenance, right? Yeah. So between dentist appointments, when they do all this real deep cleaning, do you ever brush your teeth? Yeah. Well, okay. This is what this is, you know, your indoor air quality products are the teeth brushing, between maintenance. We still got to check the capacitors, we still got to check the blower wheel, we still got to check the contactors, all these things we do. The thing is that, this is also going to keep that thing running at peak efficiency while we’re not here and to stop unnecessary breakdowns, it’s going to have your system run longer. Oh, and by the way, it’s going to clean your air and keep you healthier.

David Heimer: What about marketing? What you’ve talked us through, is the technician is out there. But what about doing direct marketing for IQ products?

Steve Mores: I get that question quite often. Where’s the magic ad? And I’m not sure if it’s because it’s not a mature enough market yet or if it’s a little bit under the radar. I see ads occasionally, and it’s usually an ad that says, you get a free UV light when we install it in your furnace or air conditioner, you know, that’s not really a good marketing ad. It’s just like, alright, what does the UV light do? Why is it free? And what’s the value anyway? What’s the value proposition? I have not seen something that’s making the phone ring. I’ve seen good ads that I like. I’ve seen good door hangers and stuff like that, but it’s just not making the phone ring off the hook with people calling HVAC contractors, saying, I want a UV light.

It’s more prevalent today than it was in the early 90s. When I got gone. I mean, we even had to teach contractors what IQ stood for now. Now, kind of like everybody gets that and they all know there’s UV out there. They all know there’s a photocatalytic cell, and filters, and ionizers, and all kinds of fun things. They may not know how to put it all together and how it all works. But to run that into an ad, David it is, kind of still problematic. Now, guys, listening to this or gals, they’re probably going to say what? Yeah, I got an ad and it works great, make my phone ring off the hook. God bless you, it’s working, I haven’t seen it yet.

So I always back it up to say, market to get into the home. Once you get into a home, educate your technicians on how to capitalize on that call. And I don’t mean capitalized by scamming people, not just talking about making more money. I mean, truly do what’s right for the customer. And that is making sure their systems are running at peak efficiency and helping with protecting their house. And I’ll give a little disclaimer here. I’m not a marketing person, that’s my opinion. If they have a great marketing team, that’s kicking butt with IQ ads. I just haven’t seen it. So, my advice is get in the door. Once you get in the door, train your technicians on how to promote it.

David Heimer: Steve, if I were a contractor and I believe in the benefits of indoor air quality products. I believe that they make the home healthier, and they will make the residents in the home happier and healthier as well. In this day and age where we have got fears about the virus, would I be wrong to try and inform my customers that I have something that might help them? And to do that in some sort of direct marketing way?

Steve Mores: You mean with the coronavirus?

David Heimer: Yeah.

Steve Mores: I would be careful with that. And let me give you a couple of examples. I read an article recently that said, it wasn’t an article. I knew it was clipping. It said, Amazon and Google have pulled some products off of their websites because they’re making direct claims on the coronavirus. They didn’t want you to be scaring people, just using that as a marketing ploy. So I’d be careful with that. There were also lawsuits during the swine flu thing, and during SARS and people were using that, there was litigation on that as well. There’s still litigation today on mold. They tell people don’t call it mold, you’re not a mold expert. That’s why we always say biological growth.

So we have to be careful what we say, it doesn’t sound like scare tactics, number one. And secondly, that is not going to get us into a legal jam. But with that said, I don’t think it’s good to say nothing. We should, I’m going to use the word take advantage, but we should take advantage of the information that’s out there to relate it to what we already know. I would more like to say, you know, we’ve been selling indoor air quality products for the last 15 years, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and we got testimonials from people that we’re keeping their system running at peak efficiency, or relieving asthma allergy symptoms. And that’s because we control the bacterias and viruses and other growth. And we’re collecting the dirt, dust, debris and the allergens that are recycling into your air.

So if they’re gonna, here again, I’m not a marketing guy, if you have a marketing person, that’s the advice I’d give them. I would talk to them, a marketing guy or gal about being proactive. You know, it’s like taking vitamins. I can’t tell you what vitamins are going to help you down the road. But I can say that there’s a lot of evidence that says, taking vitamins and eating correctly is going to help you down the road. So let’s be proactive with any kind of virus, with any kind of cold or flu, or protecting your equipment. So taking a quote-unquote, proactive approach is, number one better than doing nothing, number two, it’s going to have a lot of benefits to it.

David Heimer: Steve, this has been terrific. If someone wanted to contact you to get more information, what would be the best way for them to do that?

Steve Mores: I have a business development coordinator or director of, her name is Michelle Hogan, she would be the best one to get in contact with, because she can set you up on everything that we do, and training and all that. And her email is Mhogan, that’s, M, H, O, G, A, N @dynamicaqs, AQS stands for Air Quality Solutions.com or absolutely feel free to call me at 630-417-4998. And my email is Smores S, M, O, R E S @dynamicaqs.com.

David Heimer: I know Michelle, she’s awesome.

Steve Mores: Yes, she is.

David Heimer: As are you. Steve, thank you so much for doing this. This was terrific. Very informative, and I know people are going to get a lot of value out of it, and hopefully if they have any more questions, they won’t hesitate to contact you guys, because you guys do have terrific products. Our members have been using them for years, and I hear great things about them all the time. So thanks again. I really appreciate it.

Steve Mores: Thank you, David. Thanks for having me.

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