My first VRF job walk
Hi everyone,
I can trace the trajectory of my career all the way back to a job walk in Pasadena.
Back in 2007, our sales manager suggested we take a look at an installation of a new type of heat pump. It was one of the first installations of its kind. It had the ability to connect multiple fan coils to a single outdoor condenser. It even had the ability to heat and cool different zones of the system at the same time. The system was called a Variable Refrigerant Flow system or VRF.
I was a young sales engineer at the time and I understood those words but my mind had a hard time comprehending how that could work. I went to the job site and took these few photos with my Sidekick 3. I didn't know it at the time, but I ended up concentrating on and spending the majority of my career on VRF.
Back then, it was a new technology and even today in 2024, it still is considered "advanced" or "complicated" (at least in the United States). I've spent the last 10+ years selling, educating, and advocating the benefits of VRF and I can trace it all the way back to that job site visit.
If you watch one thing
When I was a young sales engineer, I had no idea what I was doing. I realized there are not many places that do sales training on actual sales skills. I made this video with some soft skills I picked up over the years.
Links
How Do Heat Pumps Work? - Another piece on heat pumps on a mainstream publication. This one is in Wired which goes a little bit deeper given the intended audience.
Quilt Heat Pumps - I've never heard of Quilt before seeing this article. It looks like they're approaching this as a D2C (Direct To Consumer) brand. Knowing how most HVAC companies go to market now, I have a hard time seeing how this will succeed, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
Thanks for reading! Whenever you're ready, here are ways I can help you.
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Online VRF Boot Camp - An online course designed to give you the fundamentals to understanding VRF and its applications from a sales perspective.
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Lunch and Learns - If you're in California, I'd love to come out and speak on VRF, heat pumps, and electrification.
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YouTube Channel - You can find all my video content at my YouTube channel.
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Consultations - Are you looking to use heat pumps or VRF on your next project? Let's talk.
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Buy me a coffee - Want to support what I do? Buy me a coffee