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There's a few...
I would say, large leaps
that need to be made.
One is in the home performance world,
what you're doing with TREAT and modeling
the buildings to the ERPs
that are required for the multifamily,
there's a vast difference.
So, there's quite a bit that's involved
with creating the ERP in the multifamily world
versus a--what I would call, the one to four families.
So, that's one area and then the next
is understanding the buildings.
Now, if you're used to or familiar
with the one to four family buildings
and you're doing a low-rise building,
they're very, they're very similar.
In general if you're working on, you know,
garden apartments or if you're working on,
you know, units, that may be three stories
and they may have between 30 to 70 units in them.
In general a lot of the building science,
a lot of what's being done in those buildings,
though it is different, but it's still very similar.
If you're transitioning from the one to four
to like a high-rise building,
now it is different because you're dealing, you know,
perhaps with Scotch marine boilers that
are the size of a school bus.
You're dealing with, you know,
stack effect on a different level
and you know, compartmentalization,
you know, tends to have, you know, more of an impact.
So, it depends on what you're jumping into.
And of course if you're considering this,
my recommendation would be what are you familiar with?
What are you used to working with?
If it's one to fours then you might want to start
with looking at a building that may be like
a five to 25 unit building
that's similar to what you're doing.
You can get used to the ERPs,
get used to what TRC and NYSERDA
are looking for and kind of transitioning
into it, you know that way,
kind of working your way up on somewhat familiar ground
would be helpful perhaps rather than just jumping
into you know, a high-rise building
down in Manhattan.
(male #1) The computer side of it can be a challenge
for a home performance contractor
because all of a sudden you need, you know,
really good Excel skills,
much better TREAT modeling skills,
and really good Microsoft Word skills.
And if you don't have that in house,
that can become a challenge.
(female #1) At the negotiations with your client
are significantly different.
You're dealing with folks generally
on a different level of sophistication and...
you know, try as they may to convince me that,
you know, green is at the basis
of all of their decisions,
it's money decisions, that kind of green,
and you really need to get into that mindset.
I mean trying to sell somebody a measure
with a 20 year payback if they're only planning
on owning that building for five years,
really, you're wasting your time,
generally, I shouldn't say across the board,
but I think you have to really get into
their mindset, understand their
business model, where they're going
with their property.
And I think that's pretty important.
Selling them on your fees also,
I mean the fees involved in being a partner,
I mean don't take it lightly.
I mean you're with them and...
you know the fees are fairly significant.
Obviously you want to make a profit on it too.
So, I mean that's, that's one of your first
contacts with your client, making them understand
your services have that value to them.
I came from place, from a nonprofit
and a weatherization background
and were already doing multies and single families,
but they were grant based.
But all of a sudden to make the shift
into fee-for-service or for-profit,
it's a whole different reality as we know.
But I think the number one,
besides the trained staff and being able to work
with Microsoft and those tools,
for us the biggest staff was changing--
the biggest implement was changing
the staff's experience and knowledge and ability
to do sales because now, all of a sudden
instead of getting these grant based million
dollar projects, now all of a sudden
you're selling a project.
And so we really had to learn
some ways to really know them
and have knowledge of the product
that we're delivering, but the sales end,
being able to give the owner everything
in terms of the knowledge,
education, the ability to um,
bring the closure to the project
and--and sell it.
So, I think sales is a big thing.
It's a big difference for a nonprofit
to start selling something.
(Joseph) What I like about...
what Davey mentioned and Peggy touched on this is,
is that's knowing who you're talking to,
knowing what your client,
what your customer is looking for.
And I would say, principally speaking,
when you're dealing with homeowners
or one to fours, typically homeowners
where they have their building,
it's more often that we find people that are
looking to do things like, you know,
I like to do this,
it's environmentally friendly,
it's nice, it's good.
But rarely in the multifamily world are they,
are building owners concerned so much
about, you know, environmental impact
as far as financial.
Does this save me money?
Do I have a three to five year payback?
You know the shorter the payback
the more likely the sale.
What can you present?
You know, they typically want to know
how much can you get for me?
You know, how quickly can we get this?
How accurate, you know,
more, more money talk,
more business talk rather than kind of,
you know, perhaps how comfortable
they'll feel and other things.
Again, it's knowing who you're talking to,
but typically the priorities,
you know, shift a little bit
when you're dealing with multifamily building owners.
I think failures involve projects that we spent
considerable time and effort trying
to get into the program,
applications developed, whatever,
and then for any number of reasons,
and there's been a variety of reasons,
the projects, after spending loads of time
trying to ramp up, the projects died.
And some of it was my-- our inexperience to know
when to walk away, should've walked away
earlier in some of these things.
In retrospect I could've seen writing on the wall
a little bit better that this was not an appropriate
building for any variety of reasons,
not good upgrades for candidates,
building owners were not well vested,
building owners didn't have money to do the work.
The program took so long to get anywhere
through the application process or whatever,
that the building owner after a couple of months
became discouraged and said, "Forget it."
Or the building went up for sale,
and then right as we were starting
to get through the process,
said, "Ah, I'm selling the building now."
So, there was lots of little things
that happened that went from what looked
like a good project to begin with,
to something that ultimately fizzled
and we wasted a lot of time and money and effort on.
And as new partners you need to be aware of that.
It's based on the difficulty of the job.
And that is something that I used to not do
when we first started.
When we first started I put down a particular fee.
I've decided to change up on that approach
because, wow, complexities can come in all sorts
of shapes and sizes.
So, I try to do the best job I can now
to identify what may be the potential
complexities in this job and price accordingly.
I initially said, you know, that initial meeting
with the managers is where we start.
We actually call that, "size up" in our office.
You know, who are...
not only what do they want to do,
but what is their skill set?
Is this going to be a client that's on the phone
each and every day with you?
If they are, then maybe you better negotiate
for construction management.
I mean there's lots of different ways
of putting these projects together.
But you really have to know who you're dealing with.
And, you know, what they hope for from the program.
And you know, you may even want to leave an out
for yourself in your contract.
I know we have that out where we have
a schedule of services in addition to our
boiler plate partner services.
You know, and it allows you
to add-on if it wasn't what was
originally conceived of.
We actually allocate a certain amount of hours
to revising the TREAT model.
You know we'll come up with a model
that'll give them all the possible
measures they can do to save but then they
pick and choose and oftentimes,
well, take this out--one out and put that one in,
and you know all these different combinations.
Well, that all takes time.
So, now we have an hourly charge for that.
You get two revisions and after that
you're gonna pay for it.
But it's those sort of things,
you really have to get a good handle
on who your client is.
There's a whole bunch of things you have to do
no matter if the job's a 20 unit building
or a 200 unit building.
There's a real, quite a bit of tasks
that have to be done each time.
And it might be simpler on the 200 unit building
depending on the building owner.
And it might be more difficult
on the 20 unit building.
So, that's why we can't just base it
on a percent of the size of the project.
If you're really looking to get into this,
you know if you can talk to one of them
to kind of shadow, to say what, you know...
You might look at it as training your competition,
but I don't look at it that way
in the home performance and in the multifamily.
It's what can we do to support each other,
because there's so many buildings out there.
We're not gonna get, you know,
the more people the better.
They're building buildings quicker than we can
make them energy efficient so there's plenty of work
out there and to work together, I think it's good
to realize that and to see that.
We can share with you kind of what we've learned,
the pitfalls and get an idea of what,
what the costs are associated with buildings,
what type of buildings.
You know we do lot of the low-rise buildings.
Most of our buildings are four stories and less.
If you're doing a high-rise building,
you know I've done them, I've worked on them,
but I wouldn't-- I would recommend that
you find someone else.
Having, you know, lots of information
right at your disposal before you go in with that person.
How is their heating system operating?
Oftentimes they're not going to just relinquish
their fuel data to you just based on a phone call.
Hi, I'd like to see what we can do
to make your building more energy efficient.
But as much information as you can get
about the property and use those tidbits.
Well, I see you have this boiler
and it's only 70% efficient.
I think if we can bring it up to 92
these are the average savings you could enjoy.
You catch their ear.
I mean everybody's looking to save money.
So, I mean it just-- having a hook
and then, you know, you build up
a portfolio of success stories.
I mean we're very happy that we don't market anymore.
And we haven't, you know, the program hasn't been
around decades, so you too can get there,
but, you know, it's tried and true.
NYSERDA and TRC really helped us get to that point,
as well as relationships with other partners.
Well, any, any low cost money
is gonna help get building owners
over the hurdle of what it's gonna cost them
to make these improvements.
And we routinely help building owners find
resources as part of--
this is another part of the service we provide,
how they're gonna pay for it.
And they'll come to us and we will
give them, you know, here's one option,
here's--we know of others.
You know, look at these other options
to help come up with the bottom line
dollars you're gonna need to fund this project.
The home performance in comparison may be
like junior high school or high school
and the multifamily is more like graduate school.
So, there is this huge difference
in, you know, what's required.
And I will say that, that is an absolutely
awesome part of the multifamily program.
I mean I would personally like to see it streamlined
a lot more, but what we have learned
going through this and all of the requirements
has been very, very valuable.
I think it was tough for our staff
to step up and get into the mindset
and the precision
that the MPP program required.
That said, though, I think
every one of them are better off.
They're better auditors.
They are able to put together
a much more comprehensive package.
I think it's worth the growing pains.
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