News archive

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On September 15, 2024     We recently had the opportunity to visit with Brian DiBella, a 20-year veteran of Legrand, North and Central America, who became president and CEO in March 2024. Brian...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On August 15, 2024       What happens in Vegas does not always stay in Vegas. At the 2024 NECA Emerge conference in April, during a panel discussion about service and maintenance, Chris Harris,...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On June 15, 2024       “Breaking news!” is not usually a headline about electrical equipment maintenance.  But in late February 2024, “breaking news!” deserved to be shouted from the rooftop of...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On May 15, 2024       You’re in your service van, stopped at a traffic light. In your periphery, you spot another work van. You instinctively glance at the signage to see who owns the...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On April 15, 2024       As we peer into the future of smart lighting, we must ask how service and maintenance contractors can guide their organizations through the uncharted waters of the years...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On March 15, 2024       It’s March, and by now your accountant should have wrapped up your company’s financial statements for last year. Here’s a trick that beats computing and comparing classic...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On February 15, 2024       Service and maintenance electricians who spend their entire work week shuttling from one customer’s location to the next are in a position to benefit from a...

      By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished in Powerline Magazine Q4 2023   Since they first appeared in the mid-1800s, organization charts — more commonly called “org charts” — have evolved to reflect the progressively changing nature of...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On January 15, 2024   Selling multiyear maintenance contracts is an everyday event for mechanical contractors’ service departments. It has never been that easy for electrical contractors. However, there...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred Sargent Published On December 15, 2023   Henry J. Kaiser, a 20th century hero of American industry, coined a memorable expression that continues to inspire wannabe innovators in every walk of life: “Find a need and fill...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On November 15, 2023   The song on the B-side of a pop single was never expected to be a hit. In the heyday of 45-rpm vinyl recordings, it was the A-side that got all the attention. We see a parallel for...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On October 1, 2023 The Customer Experience: Seeing Things from the Customer’s Viewpoint   Continue Reading...    

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On October 13, 2023 The Universe of Emerging Markets: What service contractors can learn from the Voyager mission   On July 21, NASA temporarily lost contact with Voyager 2, one of its most famous...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On September 15, 2023 The Great Geomagnetic Storm of September 1859: A look at the solar event that caused worldwide electrical disruptions   Every electrical lineworker deserves to know the story of the...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On September 11, 2023 NECA’s first annual Service & Maintenance Conference was in June 2023 in Denver. It was a smashing success. Attendance exceeded expectations, and the two-day session earned huge...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On August 15, 2023 A Bold New Dimension to Business: Introducing electrical service and maintenance version 2.0     Continue Reading...    

  By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On July 15, 2023   We went into our visit at ASF Electric Inc., Daly City, Calif., expecting to discuss successful—but mostly conventional—approaches to the electrical service and maintenance business. But we came...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On June 15, 2023 Service & Maintenance Is Something Else   Continue Reading...    

   By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On June 15, 2023   We have often cited barbers as unique examples of businesses that benefit from earning recurring revenues—almost automatically—every day. We were wrong about that, which is an important mistake to...

  By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On May 15, 2023 In a $10 million lawsuit alleging safety-related negligence, an electrician sued his employer, a large electrical contractor, for failing to provide training and equipment that could have prevented the...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On April 15, 2023 Changing the Training Game: Learn wireless lighting control systems through gamification   In case readers don’t know, gamification transports elements of game-playing—like scoring...

    By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On March 15, 2023 A Special Guest: An exciting new look at building automation   Our interview guest became a national celebrity a few months ago. We were so amazed by the basic clarity of the following...

  By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On February 15, 2023 Derek is a great service electrician and loves his job. He relishes the satisfaction of knowing he has solved people’s problems at the end of each workday. He looks forward to applying his...

  By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On January 15, 2023   Saul Griffith is an engineer, entrepreneur, inventor, sought-after speaker and popular author. He is a world-class thought leader with a simple message: For a clean energy future, we must...

  By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On December 15, 2022 Inside a bright red cover—in keeping with this gift-giving season—is a beautiful present from the National Fire Protection Association for every electrical contractor engaged in service and...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On November 15, 2022   “Don’t leave home without it,” a tagline in American Express ads for decades, remains one of the longest-running and most-recognized advertising slogans of all time. It also fits squarely with...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On October 15, 2022   In the service and maintenance segment of electrical contracting, opportunities in emerging markets are not hard to find. After all, by definition, “emerging” means that they are on the rise and...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On September 15, 2022   If you are planning to attend the NECA Convention and Trade Show in Austin, here’s a self-assessment tool to measure your preparedness and make the most of the experience. Think about the brand...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On August 15, 2022 By 2030, it’s predicted that there will be a new name for “smart buildings.” They will simply be called “buildings.” By the end of this decade, all the hoopla about the internet of things components in...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On July 15, 2022 From the beginning of our visit to ECSI, a subsidiary of Hunt Electric, Bloomington, Minn., there was no doubt we had landed in the midst of a very busy organization that fully aspires to be, as they...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On June 15, 2022 “Who you gonna call?” That unforgettable question from “Ghostbusters” sprung to mind after our stop for coffee with Eichelle Thompson, marketing director at Lemberg Electric Co. Inc. in Brookfield, Wis....

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On May 15, 2022 FOR MOST ELECTRICAL CONTRACTORS, the terms "workplace safety" and "occupational safety" inspire mental images of construction sites. The changing nature of work and home life dictates a need to expand our...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On April 15, 2022 Fifty years after the five-season run of the TV show “Get Smart,” even folks who never saw a single episode of the original spy-spoof series will very likely recognize the silly image of detective Maxwell...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On March 15, 2022 Americans spend more time inside buildings than some whale species spend underwater, according to Rich Corsi, dean of engineering and computer science at Portland State University. Imagine that. According...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On February 15, 2022 Despite the many ways the soft and hard skills that service electricians must possess are so critical to the success of a service-delivery organization, sometimes electrical contractors do precious...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On February 15, 2022 In the last two years, the most basic concepts about the design and operation of business organizations have undergone more rethinking than at any other time in the last 300 years. In 1722, John Lombe...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On January 15, 2022 No one believed we could do it. But we arranged an on-the-job ­interview with a service and maintenance electrician 100 years from now. When we arrived at the job site, we immediately encountered someone...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On December 15, 2021 Many electrical contractors believe that having a competitive advantage means always having the lowest bid. However, business experts and academicians believe there’s more to it than pricing. They rate...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred SargentPublished On October 15, 2021 The second wave of electrification is well underway, and a new era of opportunities in service and maintenance is coming with it. Electrification in the United States did not end when the lights were...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred Sargent Published On October 15, 2021 Houses are being 3D-printed, and electrical contractors need to anticipate their role in this brave new world. The inevitable question that industry observers will ask is, “If building contractors can...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred Sargent Published On Aug 13, 2021 A lighting retrofit job completed 139 years ago contains two important reminders for today’s electrical contractors. First, we are going to lay out five new ways to win lighting retrofit work in 2021. 1....

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred Sargent Published On June 15, 2021 Lisa Sun is the founder and CEO of Gravitas, a New York City-based company that has demonstrably set itself apart in the world of fashion with patented innovations and stylish solutions in women’s apparel....

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred Sargent Published On Apr 15, 2021 By the age of 60, you’ve spent 54 years of your life inside buildings. Some of your fondest memories may be of great times outdoors. Nonetheless, researchers tell us that you’ve spent 90% of your life...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred Sargent Published On Feb 15, 2021 We asked a random group of electrical contractors one question: “What do you think the best service electricians all have in common?” It was amazing how strikingly similar their responses were. Before we...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred Sargent Published On Feb 15, 2021 Manufacturers of many heavy-duty, engineered industrial products—such as gas turbines, electric drives, wind turbines and heavy trucks—derive most of their top-line revenues from their factory production,...

By Andrew P. McCoy and Fred Sargent Published On Dec 15, 2020 Traditionally oriented electrical contractors and highly trained electricians are in jeopardy of being shut out of future opportunities in what has always been a major...