← Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
How the HVAC Industry Is Being Disrupted by LG’s US Manufacturing & Inverter Tech - Dustin Ketchem
00:36:54
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- [00:00]
Dustin
Actually where LG used to manufacture solar panels. We got out of the solar business and we had, you know, I don't know if it was quite a million square feet, but it was a pretty big facility and it was just sitting empty. So, you know, somebody over on the eco solutions side of the business, the H Vac side of the business said, hey, you know, we could use that for the American market. And so we started the CV line of equipment, our new unitary line of equipment which if you've seen the black LG split system, that's the CV line.
- [00:30]
Tersh Blissett
Are you looking for valuable business advice to reach that seven figure revenue mark? Do you want actionable tips to properly navigate through every business challenge you encounter along the way? Let Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch be your guide in getting you to the top here at Service Business Mastery. Tune in as they sit down with world renowned authors in business leadership and personal growth who share valuable insights about management, marketing, pricing, human resources and so much more. Let their nuggets of wisdom goals guide you in owning a thriving, profitable, profitable and ever growing business. Here are your hosts, Tersh and Josh.
- [01:16]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
If you're a contractor with multiple CSRs, check out this service Business Mastery podcast partner, Lace AI. Lace uses Cutting Edge AI to analyze your phone calls, uncover lost revenue opportunities and empower your CSRs to to convert more leads, you can significantly increase revenue without spending extra on marketing or hiring. By using LACE AI to boost your conversion rates for the first time, you can gain deep insights into customer needs at scale with minimal effort. Elevate your call center to achieve industry leading booking rates and revenue. Visit www.lace.AI to book a demo today. Now back to the show. Yo Joshua, really fast. I want to talk about online scheduling for the trades and how they should be affordable, effective and easy to manage. A really quick second here to share a little bit about the latest group of experts that we've teamed up with Autobot AI. Our team of industry experts has developed best in class scheduling of app that seamlessly integrates with your CRM. Every book job goes directly into your software and becomes one of our advanced marketing analytics which is really cool. We can automatically select the marketing campaign of your choice based on how the customer came to your site.
- [02:33]
Josh
Yeah Trish, those industry leading analytics tells.
- [02:36]
Dustin
You everything that you're going to want to know about your lead, where they.
- [02:38]
Josh
Came from, what they did before scheduling and what page they converted on other things. On average about 75% of people start a booking with our app completed, but we'll give you A more granular reporting that shows conversion rates based on marketing source and medium to help improve your marketing efforts.
- [02:54]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
So honestly, with no contracts, affordable monthly rates and you really don't have anything to lose. And so it's, it's a great program to try out. And if you use SBM when you go to sign up for it, you'll actually save fifteen hundred dollars on the setup fees. Honestly, give it a shot. Tell us what you think. Hello everyone out there in podcast world. Hope you're having a wonderful day. You're listening to or watching Service Business Mastery Podcast and I am excited to have a good friend of mine, Dustin from lg. We've known each other for several years. We have some mutual friends. If you are going to be attending the Tap into the Future event, you'll get to see him. And then LG is actually putting on an event right the week following Tap into the Future down in Orlando. So you'll notice Josh isn't with us. He's actually traveling right now to Pantheon in California. So he won't be with us today on show, but he's here with us in spirit. I'm excited to talk to Dustin about everything going on. I mean, lg, if you don't know who LG is, you have your head under a rock somewhere. I mean, it's a product that's everywhere, but they are really coming in like gangbusters in the unitary side of things. And so I'm excited to talk to you about that today.
- [04:06]
Dustin
The Tampa area right now actually been out visiting contractors with one of our distributors out here and it's really nice to see all the enthusiasm around the new unitary product, the split systems that we've got coming out and got some packaged product coming up in the next 6 to 12 months. The only standalone full line manufacturer of H Vac products in America. I think everybody else is in bed with somebody.
- [04:30]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
What does that mean exactly?
- [04:31]
Dustin
Yeah, well, you know, for us it means, you know, independence to do what we need to do to capture the market for them. Put up with a marriage or a girlfriend or, you know, whatever situation they've got themselves in. I think some of them have a little bit more say so in the relationship than others. You know, just like any relationship, it's just something we didn't want to go into as a company. And you know, Steve Scarborough, our senior vice president and the head of our residential and commercial heat and air divisions, he's gone through a marriage before in the industry and that was one of the things that he just, he Wanted to stay away from. And that's why, I mean, he's been really the one that's pushed the whole unitary move that's leading us into some American manufacturing. And it's a big deal for us right now. And I think it's a big deal for the market to see us moving some of our production over to Huntsville, Alabama, and investing in.
- [05:20]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
That's exciting.
- [05:21]
Dustin
The American market. Yeah.
- [05:22]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
A lot of people, like, they see LG appliances, and they don't think about the LG unitary products. And a lot of people didn't even know that that was a thing. It's not even just product that's backed by a massive brand, but it's actually a really good product. The fact that you can heat pump systems in such cold conditions without even having electric heat is kind of mind blowing to me.
- [05:48]
Dustin
We're testing with the University of Alaska, and we've got a facility. Actually, not even a facility. Two homes that we built, One in Anchorage and one in Fairbanks. And over this last winter, I mean, Fairbanks get super cold, like Anchorage is cold. But at one point, Fairbanks was like, negative 45 degrees. And with that LG Red system, no auxiliary heat. The indoor temperature was 75 degrees. So when we're able to take that technology and bring that technology to market, man, that's. That's a big deal. And that's all public information because it's with a public university that's all published. We're leaving it out there for everybody else to see. And if they want to try to replicate it, they're welcome to. The one thing they won't have is R1 rotary compressor. So that's what makes it all possible.
- [06:31]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Y' all don't use the same compressor that everybody else uses?
- [06:34]
Dustin
No, we don't sell our compressor to anybody else either. Not the one that we use in our equipment. You know, one of the things that I have to overcome when I'm out in the field is depending on the brand that has used an LG scroll compressor or something like that A lot of times, you know, whether it just be spec issues with the size of their coils or some other restriction, you know, something like that. People have run across some LG scroll compressor issues. But I can tell you from working at lg, in touch with a lot of the contractors we have in the program, that as far as our compressor failure rate at LG, R1 rotary compressor, hands down, is the best in the market. I know I'm a little bit biased, but, I mean, I think it's evident the warranty rates. We've got one of the best warranty rates in the market as a manufacturer of heat pumps. And then, you know, also just reliability. We don't see a lot of failures on that end.
- [07:22]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
What refrigerant is used?
- [07:23]
Dustin
R32. We made that decision early on. Something that we've had in the European market overseas for more than a decade. We had all the warranty information, we knew all about the testing data. So it was easy for us. I mean, you get a UL certification and some AHRI numbers and you're pretty much ready to go to market. Where some of our competition has stumbled all over themselves trying to figure things out with our 454B, you know, a blend is already difficult. I was in the field when we made the transition from 22 to 410 and it's a whole other ball game. And the fact that some of them chose to do that to themselves after going through the 410 stuff. It was bad business decisions and you know, they paid for it. They got their hands slapped.
- [08:04]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Price of Is it available yet? Like, I don't, I'm not a contractor, man.
- [08:08]
Dustin
You're the contractor?
- [08:09]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Yeah, I mean, I don't do that. So I don't have to ask that question to the supply house and. But yeah, yeah, it's the last.
- [08:17]
Dustin
I still comes up in conversations. The contractors that I've talked to since I've been out doing these sales blitzes and this isn't my first sales blitz this year. I mean we're all over the country doing these things from Texas to Tennessee to down here in Florida. And it seems like it's still a topic. And I mean we're almost in October. I think it first started popping up back in, you know, April, May. And you would think they would have a solution by now. I know there's. There's some companies selling like 99 or 90 pound drums and different things like that because those drums are more readily available. But I think a lot of it had to do with chemical shortages and stuff like that. There's a couple of different factors that fed into it.
- [08:53]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
That's interesting. So tell me about the fact that the inverter.
- [08:57]
Dustin
We don't make anything single stage or two stage. Everything we make is inverter driven. The package systems that are going to come out are all going to be inverter driven. We're an inverter company. The LG slogan is ahead of the expected. We always want to be on the leading edge. And there's other manufacturers that have touted they're going to have a full line of, you know, inverter only equipment in, you know, sometime by 2030 or something like that. But I mean, here we are in 2025, we're five years ahead of everybody else with, with nothing but inverters.
- [09:24]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Well, does it not price you out of the market on your lower end? I mean, I'm sure on the 18 or 20s, this fine, but there would.
- [09:30]
Dustin
Be some price pressure. But our team has done great job of market research and, and finding ways for us to be competitive. A lot of it is like we don't make an AC only product. We focus strictly on heat pumps. So, you know, you talk about lean manufacturing, we're able to kind of streamline our process because we're not making two or three different types of the same unit. That helps us a lot. And just the fact that we make, you know, more than 95% of the components that are in our products. So whether it's the compressor, the coils, the inverter boards, all of that stuff, because LG such an electronic powerhouse, we're able to manufacture a lot of that stuff ourselves. You know, a lot of the cost for other manufacturers is the fact that they have to go to outside suppliers. And so that helps us keep a lot more cost control. And our 16 seer, which is our entry level product, our CV product, that's actually what I'm out pitching this week, is price competitive with nearly every other manufacturer's single stage and two stage product. Now we're not trying to be the cheapest in the market because we don't believe in just moving cheap boxes. We build relationships and we help dealers grow. And that's why, you know, looking over here at the sponsors, you know, LACE is one of our newest preferred vendors and we've got a great relationship with that team. We're always looking to bring not only the best technology in our equipment, but also the best technology for our, our suite of business tools that we pitch to our dealers. So that's.
- [10:57]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
How does that work as a dealer if they become the, a pro dealer with you?
- [11:02]
Dustin
I know a little bit about it. Having run the program for the last couple years and we're in the middle of a big revamp, but it's pretty simple. Man as an area sales manager would do or say a manufacturer's rep with LG would do. Our job, especially our contractor development reps, is to go out, sit down, ask questions to the contractor, get information about what the contractor's pain points are and then Provide solutions. And so it's my job on the back end to make sure that we've got a full suite of different products that they can use to help fix those pain points. The same thing that our heat and air contractors do when they go into a house. You ask open ended questions, you find out what kind of issues the homeowner is having and then you provide a solution. And we're not doing anything different here at lg. It's the same strategy. It's just we're helping you grow your business, whereas our H Vac dealers are helping a homeowner come.
- [11:53]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
That kind of leads me into another question because with us being a partner of yours, we talk a lot about AI in general. Just naturally, how do you feel like it's going to affect production in the future?
- [12:08]
Dustin
Production from a manufacturing standpoint?
- [12:11]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Yeah, yeah.
- [12:11]
Dustin
You know, we already use a lot of automation. If you ever get the privilege of going to Korea and seeing our factories, we have workers in there, obviously. But a lot of stuff is done with robotics and I think what you're going to see is you're going to see less manufacturer defects because that robot's going to be able to learn and you know, if it makes a mistake and where in the past it would just make that same mistake over and over and over again and then the next thing you know you've got a bad run of product and you're having to go back and fix things. I think it's going to eliminate a lot of those issues. I don't see the day where humans are replaced. I think you see that a lot too, right? AI is to make humans better. It's not necessarily to replace humans. Unless you're frontline customer support somewhere, you're not really threatened at your job. And I think in manufacturing situation it's the same thing. You know, robots aren't going to replace the humans, but where we are using robots and even where we're using our humans, they're going to become better at what they do because of the intuition, the intelligence AI is going to be able to bring to the table in reporting and everything else to help us first off become more efficient at production, cut down on any kind of defects and then also just, you know, increase overall morale and everything else. Everybody's job is going to be easier. I know it makes my job easier just using chatgpt to get things done. So you know where I might spend two or three weeks working on a proposal or some kind of sales playbook or education for internal employees or external customers. Me personally, I can get my job done two or three times as fast. I might have to go back and tweak some stuff and kind of lg ify definitely makes life easier on my end. I think it's going to be the same thing in the manufacturing world.
- [13:56]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
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- [14:39]
Josh
Today's episode is powered by Ciro Systems.
- [14:42]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Sarah is all about removing the clutter and unnecessary touch points to run your home service business profitably.
- [14:47]
Josh
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- [14:56]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Get a tech upgrade for your business at Get Sarah Tech Service Business Mastery Today's episode is brought to you by one of our show partners, upfrog.
- [15:08]
Josh
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- [15:23]
Dustin
Help you grow your business.
- [15:24]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Learn more @UpfrogIO I want to give a huge shout out to Marcus Storm for sponsoring today's episode.
- [15:29]
Josh
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- [15:38]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
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- [15:39]
Josh
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- [15:51]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
To chat with a team about how they can help you grow your business, visit Marketstorm AI the thing about ChatGPT man, it changes so much. Like there were so many automations that I had built out with four turbo and then they changed swapped us over to five which was supposed to take over the world, according to Sam Altman, and then hasn't.
- [16:09]
Dustin
Hasn't been as. Yeah, as good as I thought it was going to be.
- [16:14]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
It's been a massive letdown. It's crazy how much. And they popped it up real fast. I mean, it to the public anyways. It was like, all right, five's out.
- [16:23]
Dustin
You're like, okay, let's call it 4.5 or something. You know, it's not something. I don't know if it's a whole level above 4.
- [16:32]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
You're exactly right because there's so many times. And, and you can go into a legacy model finally. So you can go back, you can revert Back to your 4.0 if you want to, but, you know, there's some things it does better. But that's the way it goes with technology in general. Has it affected positively or negatively the fact that LG has such a massive name already, and correct me if I'm wrong, they're not the same. Like, it's the same big company, but they're still. They're split apart. Correct.
- [17:04]
Dustin
So we call it the mothership. Right. And up under the mothership, you've got multiple division. We work with some of them and some of them we don't actually. Eco Solutions, which is where H Vac falls under. You probably know you live down in Savannah Market. The energy solutions side of the business is completely separate from us now. They were, they were the ones that were involved in the factory down there. The Koreans live really close to China and they're really protective of the technology. And so when they're setting up systems, especially important systems and stuff like that, they, they try to make sure that, you know, they, they keep their trade secrets. And so that's, that's why you have the situation you had in Savannah. But they are, they're a separate entity from us. Our profits don't report back through them or anything like that. Now, when we were up under appliances, we were all on the same team. And I mean, it's not hard to think about H Vac being an appliance, right? It's, it's, it is kind of an appliance. It's just a really important appliance. But to be broken out from under them for the first time ever has given us a lot of flexibility that we didn't have before. And we're a pretty profitable portion of lg just for our weight, we. We punch heavy. Right? And as we grow, that profitability is going to give us even more Flexibility, because then we were able to do things without having to necessarily ask for permission from the mothership. But yeah, LG is a huge, I mean, multinational 100 billion plus a year operation. It's intimidating sometimes because you do have to jump through a lot of hoops to get stuff done from a budget standpoint and different things like that. But it's a great company and there's a lot of us that have come over here recently and the whole thing has been, not only did we have great leaders and, you know, people like Steve and Darren and Suzanne, and I know you all know Suzanne, Mark Rogers and Aftermarket Support has been phenomenal. He's really revamping that side of our business and, and make what is that easier to do. So Mark is in charge of all of our field support operations, technical support operations. He's actually moving to Texas because our, our technical support facility, our main call center for technical support is in Texas and we've got, you know, a lab out there and everything else. But he wanted to be closer to the action is, and so he moved out there. I believe they're in the process of moving this week. So Wynonna, y' all know Wynonna. Wynonna and Mark are moving out to Texas and 10, 15 people out there answering the phones and making sure that any kind of technical issues that you guys are having in the field and even handling some customer centric stuff if they've got some technical problems to get escalated up to them. In the past, LG has had support issues and we've been transparent about it. Even our CEO has been transparent about it. But at the end of the day, it's not about where you were yesterday, it's about what you're doing going forward. And Mark Rogers and that team over there, making a lot of strides and getting a lot of stuff done to make sure that we got support structure in place to take care of unitary customers. Because, you know, in the ductless market, yeah, maybe you could be two or three weeks out on a park, it's operating in a she shed, or it's in a garage, or it's in a room over the garage. But getting into the unitary business, man, somebody's system goes down and you tell them to wait two weeks, that's not a good situation. Have that stuff yanked out, file a lawsuit, you know, something like that. And I know contractors listen to this podcast and they're probably thinking the same thing, like, yeah, you can't wait on parts. And it was one of the things Before I came over, you know, it was, it was. You go into any forum or anything like that and you would see people just, just bashing us. And so, you know, before I came on, I got reassurance from leadership that, hey, this is something that was, we know as a focus. We're going to make sure things get better as we move forward. And I think if you talk to any contractors that have been with us over the long term, we're definitely in a better position today. And we're only getting better because Mark and his team are working their butt off and, and making things happen.
- [21:06]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
So tell me this really quick for those who are listening and heard me mention the fact that you're using inverters in all of the systems. Typically when I hear like you have an inverter compressor, I think electrical issues, potentially every system come have a, a surge protector.
- [21:25]
Dustin
Yeah, we recommend it. It's highly recommended. You know, I, I've got an inverter system on my house. I've got a surge protector. I think, you know, any of the work you do probably, if you, if you're dealing with inverters, right, if they don't have one, you're probably trying to upsell them on one is something I think is going to be the standard going forward just because the grid is in Georgia, at least it's stable. But you get out to pockets in Texas and other areas and you might, you might have issues.
- [21:53]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
We swapped over from Georgia Power to an emc and it wasn't my choice. I mean, I do like the EMC way better than I liked Georgia Power. But the, one of the issues that I, we ran into was they had where the power flickered every day. Like I was, I purchased battery backups for all of my computers and my server and everything because it wasn't like it turned off and then turned back on 10 minutes later. It was boom, boom.
- [22:24]
Dustin
And that's not good for any system. I mean, it's not just inverter systems. Every system nowadays has a board on it and they're all susceptible to any kind of power fluctuation, surges, anything like that. So, you know, I think if you're a contractor and you're doing your due diligence and making sure you're taking care of your customers, you're putting a surge protector on there anyway. But you know, it's another thing is, you know, and especially with some, some older guys in the business who are, who are just dead set on, you know, they're going to hang out with the capacitor and the blower motor, and they want things to be easy. Fact of the matter is, our equipment, especially on the LG side, is very easy to work on. We've got a Bluetooth tool. You plug in a little dongle into your outdoor unit, and you can sit there and you can look at every single. Every single sensor, every valve, the compressor. You can see there's no guesswork involved, and it's all right there on your cell phone or your iPad. So we make it super easy to troubleshoot our equipment. Even the guys who are a little bit scared of the technology or, you know, into the inverter side of the business. Even in my years with another manufacturer, we always preach get the dealer to make the homeowner comfortable.
- [23:34]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
If we don't love it, we're not selling it.
- [23:36]
Dustin
You've got to make them comfortable. You've got to do your due diligence on the manufacturer side to make sure that your guys are comfortable with the technology, understand the technology. They know who to call when they do have an issue, and they know how to get through the troubleshooting process. But I think once you get it down and you've done it enough times, it's just like anything else. You become a master at your. At your trade, and, you know, it becomes night and day as far as a contractor who just starts selling inverter equipment versus you. Talk to them two or three years down the road, they don't want to sell anything else. There's a reason for that.
- [24:08]
Josh
Thank you to companycam for supporting today's episode.
- [24:11]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
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- [24:15]
Josh
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- [24:20]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Try that for free for 14 days and get 25% off of your first two months at companycam.com forward/svm. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I agree. Like, especially if you haven't had support and then because the contractor is who gets the bad rap, you know, I mean, of course the manufacturer, they get some pushback as well. But it's me having to look at, you know, somebody else that's, you know, another parent on the soccer team who I just put in a system and, like, I can't get it fixed. And the manufacturer's six weeks out on the part, and now I'm seeing them every day at practice, and I'm like.
- [24:58]
Dustin
Oh, I mean, that's the thing.
- [25:00]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
You lose faith in it.
- [25:02]
Dustin
Yeah. And I think that's another thing about lg, that a lot of People might not realize is a lot of the employees, a lot of the salespeople, and then a lot of the people who work inside the corporate office have all been contractors. Even our senior vice president has been a contractor. So we know you've got to go to church with those people, you've got to go to school functions with those people. I always say heating and air contractors are superheroes, but in some people's eyes, if you do the wrong thing one time, you become the villain. And the last thing we want is for our guys to be. Be viewed as villains in their community because, you know, those are. That's your reputation as your livelihood. And not everybody has sold out to private equity yet. So we. And we've got a major emphasis on the mom and pop shops and trying to make sure that we're taking care of them. And that's kind of my whole. Whole purpose in the program is to make sure that we're giving our mom and pop shops the same kind of competitive advantage that the private equity companies have with some of the partners that we bring in.
- [26:01]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
That's really cool. That's interesting. You don't have distributors everywhere, correct? Because I don't think you have one in my neighborhood, do you?
- [26:07]
Dustin
We don't have any in Georgia yet. There's. And it's. Our headquarters is in Alpharetta, Georgia for the eco solutions side of the business. But I think things will change and they're probably likely to change soon. There's. There's a lot of conversations going on. A lot of balls that are moving. Nothing that's like snowballing with the distributor side of things.
- [26:30]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Um, do you. You don't. I'm assuming you don't normally have like an LG Supply house, like you would partner up with someone else, like another, like, bigger company, Like a.
- [26:43]
Dustin
Not bigger, but, you know, talk about mom and pop shops. A lot of our. A lot of our distributors are still mom and pop own. Now we've got some private equity partners and stuff like that that we deal with in distribution because just like heat and air contractors are getting gobbled up by private equity that end. I think that, you know, having our model dealing with a lot of independent wholesale distrib versus a corporate direct model is really kind of, I would say, gives us flexibility to do things that we wouldn't otherwise be able to do if we were selling direct to contractors. Right.
- [27:13]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
What sort of stuff do you think? Like what. How we're going to have flexibility? I don't. I am completely ignorant with this Whole situation. So I don't have any idea.
- [27:22]
Dustin
Well, I mean, I've worked for a manufacturer that had direct distribution before, and I do know that manufacturer is really good at making products. But a lot of times it can be really difficult to do business with a manufacturer on the distribution side. And I'm not going to name any names, but there's. I know there's some people that it's hard to do business with. And I can tell you internally, like, we're a giant corporation, sometimes it's really difficult for me as an employee to get some stuff done. I think at the end of the day, you know, working through these mom and pop distributors and them having the ability to make decisions on the fly and not have to go in front of a board, direct board of directors, or to answer to shareholders and different things like that. That is what I mean by it gives us the flexibility. We can work with our distributors and craft any kind of program, any kind of plan, any kind of strategy. And just like we help contractors build their business and provide tools and solutions for them, we do the same thing for our distributors. So there's a lot of resources. I was talking about Mark Rogers earlier. One owner, Rogers has been instrumental in bringing partners into the business on the distribution side, the same way that I am, not the commercial, but the contractor side, to give them tools and resources. We're doing the same thing with distribution. Wynonna's spearheading that and making sure that we've got a lot to offer our distributors as well.
- [28:40]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
If somebody wants to become a pro dealer, how do you make that happen?
- [28:44]
Dustin
There's a few different ways you can reach out to your local LG distributor, if you know who that is. If you're in a market without distribution, then you can always reach out to one of our area sales managers. You can do that through our website. If you go to lghvac.com and look for the contractor button, there's a sign up form. You know, Suzanne would probably get mad at me for not knowing the exact hyperlink, but it's in lghvac.com you can go in there. And what that does is that gives us your information and we can get that to a sponsor in your area, which will be the distributor, and get you signed up and get you into the program. And our program is going through a major revamp. So there is a lot of stuff that we're going to be releasing in Orlando. So for the contractors who are listening who are going to be in Orlando, you're going to See a lot of new stuff. Stuff including, including some software and different things like that that you'll be able to utilize on, on a mobile platform. We're coming. Yeah. There's going to be a lot of stuff that gets released. So I wish I could talk about it on here because it'd be a great place to hype it. But I can at least put some more energy behind the summit and, and make sure that everybody wants to be there. At least hear from somebody that was.
- [29:51]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
There, tell us who that is. Like, tell us about the summit.
- [29:53]
Dustin
The summit is in Orlando, October 9th through 11th. We're already overcome capacity and we got people on the waiting list. It's been phenomenal this year. Yeah, man, we're. It's, it's going to be a good year. You know, I'll send you my gofundme so everybody can send me money to pay overages on the budget. But we, we've got a lot going on, so we're kind of redoing the, the way that we do things in the past, I think. And, and it's not just with us. It's been with a lot of other manufacturers as well. People just get slide decks to death.
- [30:24]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Yeah.
- [30:24]
Dustin
And I know personally, I can't sit through 60, 70 slides at a time. So a lot of our workshops, and you notice the term workshops versus breakouts, right? No, no. 30, 45 minute breakouts. We're doing six or seven different workshops. They're all two hours long. We're giving people some free time to go out and have fun while they're in Orlando so they can take advantage of being in Florida and having access to a bunch of fun activities, especially the resorts that we're going to be on site with the World Center Marriott down there in Orlando. But then outside of that, we're saving our main stage presentations for the final day. So, you know, the contractors who want to leave early aren't going to get all the good info. And that was on purpose. We want them to kind of, you know, dangle that carrot out there and make them wait for the general session and to hear the state of the program and marketing activities. Steve is going to close it out, the state of LG and kind of give people a big picture of where we're headed. And, you know, I don't think it's any secret now we've got a manufacturing facility in Huntsville, Alabama that is growing by the minute. We're retooling and adding to that constantly.
- [31:32]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Is it done? Like, I mean, is it built well.
- [31:34]
Dustin
It'S actually a finished facility. So it's actually where LG used to manufacture solar panels. We got out of the solar business and we had. I don't know if it was quite a million square feet, but it was a pretty big facility and it was just sitting empty. And so, you know, somebody over on the eco solutions side of the business, the H Vac side of the business said, hey, you know, we could use that for the American market. And so we started the CV line of equipment, our new unitary line of equipment, which if you've seen the black LG split system, that's the CV line. It's being the indoor unit right now is being manufactured there. We're moving that entire line of equipment there from overseas. Currently they're retooling and adding for that. And then I go ahead and let the cat out of the bag. It's not a secret, we've talked about it to dealers and stuff today. But we're also going to have two to 25 ton package systems, single phase and three phase. They'll be coming out over the next year, year and a half. There's a lot that's going to be manufactured in that Huntsville facility and I'm looking forward to it because I think, you know, when it comes down to being able to do factory tours, we're always having to fly people over to Korea. Now we'll be able to just bring people to Rocket City and launch them in the LG world. So that'll be nice.
- [32:44]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
So I know there's other people who might have this burning question that I have here, and that is, since you're at lg, do you get you an amazing discount on a tv?
- [32:54]
Dustin
We do. And if you're an LG dealer, you get the same employee discounts I get. That's one of the things I love being out here in Florida this week doing the sales blitz that I'm on. As you can see, I'm in a hotel room. You know, one of the things that I always talk about that differentiates us from a lot of the other manufacturers is you get access to our partner portal, the same portal that I have access to, same pricing that I have access to as an employee. I'm limited to 10 purchases a year. I haven't used any this year. So if you need anything, let me know. But our contractors have the same deals on appliances, televisions, vacuum cleaners. LG makes a phenomenal laptop. They're really light. The battery lasts forever. So if you're ever in the market for A laptop or anything like that. We make some really quality stuff. I do not understand why we don't push our laptops more, advertise those more. But I bought one for my daughter when she went off to college. I work on one every day because LG doesn't let us work on anybody else's equipment. I've made up my mind that if I buy another laptop or anything like that, it'll definitely be using my employee discount. And then obviously, you can't beat our TVs. Our TVs are so good. We make displays for other people, too. If you're walking through the Atlanta airport or anywhere like that, most of the stadiums in the country, any of those big screens, and it's an exciting time to be an LG pro dealer. You know, lg, when they wanted to be number one at Appliances, and when they wanted to be number one in displays, they became number one. And right now they want to be number one in H vac. And I would say to anybody out there looking to be a pro dealer or even a distributor, now is the right time to get on board because the investments are being made, the products are being designed, the R and D is the majority of the R and D budget for LG as a whole. We talked about the mothership technology for this section of the business. We've got a lot of eyes on us. It's a really good time to be here, do it with some special people. And we've really got a talented group of people over here at LG and it's only getting better every day.
- [34:42]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
LGHVC.com and then I actually put out the full URL. I found it. And so it's in the chat. It'll be in the show. Notes. Who's at Wynonna in charge of it.
- [34:52]
Dustin
In charge of the dealer link.
- [34:54]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Yeah, yeah.
- [34:55]
Dustin
Suzanne. Marketing team.
- [34:57]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Suzanne. Suzanne. That's who I'm thinking of. Suzanne. If I gave you the wrong one, she'll correct me and I'll put the right one. That's your note.
- [35:04]
Dustin
If it's got a form to fill out, it's the right one.
- [35:06]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
It does have a form to fill out, so that must be the right one.
- [35:08]
Dustin
If anybody wants any information on the products or anything like that, it all lives on LGH Vac. You can go and look at all the submittals and everything like that. And I can tell you the CV line in particular, brand new, the black stuff, right? The 16 seer entry level product that we're making, the specs will blow your mind. I'm down here in Florida, and one of the things I've been talking about is humidity removal. Seven pints per hour on a three ton is really good, man. It's like a faucet thing running outside.
- [35:33]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
That's been an issue with some inverter products is the humidity removal aspect of it. It's really cool that you have that it's worked out there.
- [35:42]
Dustin
Yeah, it's good stuff.
- [35:43]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Well, I appreciate you hanging out with us. If anybody has any questions, don't hesitate lghvc.com if you want to meet them in person and you're not signed up.
- [35:52]
Dustin
For the pro dealer yet, can't sign up for that. We're done, man. So if you want to see me, you come to tap into the future in Savannah and you get to see Terse, too, right?
- [36:01]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
There are a couple tickets left, so if you do want to come to Savannah and hang out with the bananas.
- [36:05]
Dustin
Who doesn't want to see the bananas? I can't flip through the TV and not stop on the bananas game if it's on 100%.
- [36:11]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Dustin, I appreciate you hanging out with me.
- [36:12]
Dustin
BL Good to see you, man.
- [36:14]
Host (possibly Trish or another co-host)
Yeah. I'll talk to y' all soon.
- [36:15]
Dustin
All right. See you, Ter.
- [36:27]
Tersh Blissett
Thank you for listening to this episode of Service Business Mastery. Now that you are equipped with essential business advice from this impactful conversation, you are one step closer to becoming the successful owner of your dreams. If this episode has been helpful to your business journey, don't forget to subscribe to the show, leave a rating, and share it with other owners as well. Visit servicebusinessmastery.com to learn more.