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Contractormag 13315 Growth 2
Contractormag 13315 Growth 2
Contractormag 13315 Growth 2
Contractormag 13315 Growth 2
Contractormag 13315 Growth 2

Helping Contractors Thrive

Aug. 26, 2019
Bradford White Corporation has spent years honing its relationships with contractors.

By Joel Davis

To succeed, manufacturers have to do more than build great products—they have to build goodwill, establishing beneficial partnerships with the contractors that buy and install their products. To do this, they look for new ways to provide the tools and resources needed to help their partners build up their own businesses.

There are great examples of these partnerships to be found in the marketplace. Bradford White Corporation, a manufacturer of residential, commercial and industrial products for water heating, space heating, combination heating and storage applications, has spent years honing its relationships with contractors. Its efforts can be used as a case study for effectively reaching out to the broader community, supplementing face-to-face interactions with effective digital initiatives.

Building For the Pro

Bradford White launched the For the Pro website in 2017 to offer marketing and practical application tools designed to help the professional contractors who install Bradford White products. The website is home to helpful videos to enhance contractors’ knowledge of installation, troubleshooting and maintenance.

The website was never meant as a replacement for the in-person support the company offers contractors, said Carl Pinto, Bradford White senior director of marketing. “The success of Bradford White has always been about our relationships with contractors, especially since 1992, when, as a newly formed private company, a cornerstone of our mission was to support wholesale distribution and the professional contractor. For The Pro is an extension of that mission.”

Bradford White continues offering training in the field and at its iTEC training facility, but the addition of For The Pro allows contractors access to helpful material at any time. “We took what we were doing in the field to help professionals and used it to create something that was more broadly accessible by our customers,” he said. “We want to provide educational resources to ensure that end-customers, via residential or commercial contractors, are getting the right products and that they are installed properly and safely.”

For The Pro also provides access to a program that contractors can use to help residential customers secure financing for home projects. The contractor directory that allows homeowners to find participating contractors near them was also expanded, adding an element that lets the contractors offer pricing of installed products right from their own websites. This helps them drive more immediate sales and establish lasting relationships with their own customers.

IT Landes, a heating, HVAC, and plumbing company based in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, has found the contractor directory functionality very useful. “It's a great lead generator,” residential business manager Tammy Halteman said. “It's directing people to us that are specifically looking for water heater replacement, which means it is a perfect lead. It's not a general lead that's coming out of pay per click advertising or something. We know specifically what they're inquiring about, and it's easier to convert that type of lead to an actual sale.”

The company finds it much easier to convert leads generated through the function than other means, Halteman said. “All we have to do is make a phone call to the customer to verify the information that they've provided us on the website and verify the price for the water heater. It just makes it a little easier. There doesn't have to be a diagnostic visit to see what's going on. We can just give them an upfront price on what it will cost to replace their water heater, based on the questions that are asked.”

In addition, contractors can use the For The Pro website to secure product cross-reference guides, sizing applications, and product calculators to help them find the best products to meet their needs, as well as up-to-date Uniform Energy Factor ratings and state and local rebate information.

Ellen’s Corner

The dynamics of the industry and the needs of professional contractors are continually changing. Bradford White has found that it is important to keep the For the Pro content fresh and published at regular intervals and to introduce new concepts based on feedback.

The content in For The Pro is not just about helping contractors with the nuts and bolts of product installation. Case in point, home service business guru Ellen Rohr became a For The Pro contributor as a means to help contractors in the field successfully build their businesses.

Ellen is author of the “Bare Bones Biz” book series and franchise operations manager of Zoom Drain and Sewer. She created a business development video series, “Ellen’s Corner,” exclusively on For the Pro.

“She’s dedicated herself to helping contractors in the HVAC and plumbing and mechanical trades live their best lives,” Pinto said. “So, while Bradford White is working on the mechanical side of the contracting realm, Ellen’s work is really about setting up contracting businesses and hiring and developing those businesses. It really expands what contractors can get out of the site.”

Breaking the Wall

As originally envisioned, contractors needed to register to access For the Pro content, but since that time, many of them have advocated for Bradford White to make the information more accessible.

The company is planning to make more content available beyond the virtual walls of For the Pro, making it accessible on other places on the internet, such as YouTube.

“Increasing access to the content benefits us all,” Pinto said. “It ensures that contractors and customers are getting the information they need, prepared by Bradford White, that represents the brand appropriately and uses best practices, in contrast to some videos and information provided by third parties.”

By providing these new videos outside the wall, so to speak, anybody that may have to work with a Bradford White product has quick access to the right information to do so. Increasingly, contractors don't want to log on and go through an extra layer to get to that information, Pinto said.  

“The contractors we work with recognize the way of the world is changing and that the accessibility of information matters. This change is representative of the spirit of For the Pro.”

Investing in Results

This kind of mutually beneficial approach to relationships with contractors pays off. Halteman said that she hasn’t encountered other companies that have been as receptive to feedback to Bradford White. The president of IT Landes had a voice in the development of contractor directory service. “He was part of a focus group to help Bradford White understand how they could better help contractors in generating leads for water heater sales.”

The investment in building these relationships is critical to Bradford White’s success, said Matt Kozak, the company’s national sales manager. “For the Pro is an important piece in our success. As a company that relies on the contractors exclusively for our sales, it helps individual contractors build their business, making them more appealing to the end-user and better prepared to sell and service our products.”

The industry is changing quickly, and companies like Bradford White have to work hard to update and change content offerings to meet the evolving needs of contractors. Strengthening the partnerships between manufacturers and contractors ultimately benefits the industry as a whole.

Joel Davis is a writer with more than 20 years of journalism experience, covering business and local governments. He is the content supervisor for Maryville, Tennessee-based Ripley PR.

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