Welcome back to Teaching the Unteachables, where we dive into teaching and learning methodologies for professionals like you.
This episode brought to you by Refrigeration Technologies, HVACR products developed by technicians for technicians.
Learn more at refrigtech.com.
Alright everyone, thank you so much for joining us on Did You Know? We're hanging out at the 2024 National HVACR Education Conference in Las Vegas, and I'm spending some time with Ashley Lynn. How are you doing?
I am fantastic.
So we know the name Viper, we know some of us older guys know Refrigeration Technologies a lot, and Viper is a very, very, very popular name in the industry, but you're also really starting to expand out a little bit more and bringing a lot of awareness to the training and education within the industry.
And as your new role as Director of Training, as well as Marketing, your presence is going to be in the industry a lot more.
You got it.
Alright, so tell me a little bit more about what we've got going on over at Viper, and ways that educators and contractors can connect to learn about some of the new products and existing products and how to use things properly.
Sure. So, we have a big social media presence. So if you are on social media, you can find us at Refrigeration Technologies. You can also find myself, I run an independent channel, it's hvac underscore ash.
We also do a ton of training at the wholesaler level trying to get everyone kind of at the counter and the TMS educated, and we're going to be working on doing some like hosted webinars and YouTube content.
Very good.
So that you know if you if you are really interested in specific product you can go there you can find the product and learn a little bit more in depth.
Yes, obviously social is great for short form content, you know it's quick little blurbs but you know we want to get some of that larger or longer format stuff out there too.
All right, so tell me a little bit about some of the history and some of our primary products to work with. Sure. So, if you don't know, we've been around since 87 so you know we've been around a long time.
Refrigeration Technologies is the OG name we did a little bit of a rebrand and kind of like 2017, where the snake or the Viper became very very prominent.
Yeah, you see the logo out there all the time like that's a great logo. It's very eye catching and you know I think it's, it's important because not a lot of companies are super great at marketing in this industry right I think a lot of stuff is kind of stuck in the past,
a little 80s little 90s focus so we wanted to bring our company you know more to the 2020s.
I get it completely. So we have the Viper brand. For those of you who haven't really followed, Big Blue was actually the first product that was created and John our founder was actually a tech in the industry he was a chemist by trade before that.
Oh really? Yeah, lost his job and of course the first listing in that newspaper was an AC tech. Yeah. So he became an AC tech, and as he was using products out there in the field he was like, wow, you know what this is hurting my skin I'm hurting the
skin, I can do better than this. So he created Big Blue. That's so fun. And he started using it and his friends were like wow that's way better than anything else that we've been using and they were like can we buy it from you, and that is how it all started.
Our company started, which is, I think a really cool story right? Yeah, I've been using Big Blue my entire career so that's really cool that it came from.
I've just had this conversation earlier about the innovations that happen in our industry, a lot of times come from technicians, they see a problem that doesn't have a good solution and they challenge themselves, they go I think I can do better than this.
And so a primary product, not just a product but a brand and a company out of that.
And now we have about 40 products within our repertoire. We do leak detection, we do leak sealant, we do brazing and soldering products and then we have our line of like the coil cleaners and the cleaning products.
You know I think everyone also probably knows our red can or aerosol, it's pretty infamous. If they haven't used that then they've probably been on a rocks under a rock somewhere.
Absolutely. And always the infamous Nylag which can be very polarizing depending on who you're talking to. Yeah, yeah that is an interesting and definitely but it absolutely has the applications.
So let's think about 2024, you know 2024 I always look at it as like the year for training and education within our industry. So what are your goals and what are you looking to do going forward for this year.
That's a great question. Educating as many people as possible. So we've been really hitting the shows hard, right, trying to talk to as many people as I can possibly talk to. If I could clone myself I would do that.
I get it.
More opportunity than there is availability.
We are also working with a couple of companies here in the industry that are like education based, where they do, you know, like a, like a membership fee, you pay, you know so much per month and you're able to access specific content.
We haven't signed anything so I'm not exactly at liberty to say who they are. Yeah, I get that. But there's a couple of really good companies in this space so we'll be putting out some content on there so it's easier access for everyone.
And then obviously like I mentioned trying to do some longer form content for YouTube, so that you guys have, you know, readily available tools about all of our products about safety with chemicals because that's a really big one too.
Yeah, and so we see a lot of products that are actually changing construction so we've seen a big shift in our evaporator coils going from copper tube with aluminum fin to all aluminum and so now we have to be really cautious on our cleaning products.
And so there really needs to be a lot more education and emphasis to proper chemical selection, and I can see that as being something to dive into.
Absolutely. So, you know, part of the beauty of our company is that our focus has always been on safe chemicals. So, like I said, we have about 40 SKUs and there are only two that are a like a corrosive chemical.
So we out of the gate from the very beginning, from the very very beginning we've never, we haven't had to really change any formulas or anything like that because we don't promote corrosive chemicals, you know, you know toxic or anything like that so we're already there.
You know, like oh you need something for micro channel or to re reduce. I didn't have to reinvent the wheel the wheel was already there.
Exactly, exactly. Which is nice makes it simple makes it easy for me.
Indeed, indeed. You know one of the things we were talking about is the evolution of the company and the last couple years have been really really good for Viper and people are starting to recognize the brand very much recognizing the products and tell us a little bit about, you know, the directive and objectives for Viper.
So, explosive growth is right like over the last three years we've doubled our revenue so we've been on the Inc 5000 fastest growing privately held companies the last two years in a row. Nice, congratulations. Which is huge. I would like to take more credit for that but I wasn't there the whole time so I can't.
So you take some of it though.
That's right. And obviously that's our goal again for you know the upcoming year and future years, you know obviously gets harder as you get bigger but definitely, definitely, but with that explosive growth we've hired on like three new people within the last year myself being one of them.
And yeah we're looking for probably a couple more people in the next year to handle the influx of leads and sales, but you know even even yesterday during the expo pretty much everyone is coming up and saying we use your product we love your product.
And that's a really cool feeling. It's like I don't even have to sell it. It's exactly. You know a good product is its best advertising.
Absolutely. Very, very, very cool. So we've been out there in the expo been to any classes while you're here. I have not been to any classes yet. The one class that I wanted to attend.
It was about leadership and it happened to be just in the middle of when I was doing had another meeting. Oh yeah, I'm about, but I am going to attend.
Miss Marsha's class I think it's at four o'clock today because she is a part of the women in each one. Yeah, I want to be really supportive of that as well. Yeah, fantastic movement a lot of involvement and acceptance in the industry and I just I highly
encourage everyone to check out what they're doing and definitely come by your booth. What booth are you at? We're at 2004. Okay, yeah, fantastic. So a lot happening here at the conference this year. We're on the second full day.
Haven't even got into the expo. You're actually going to be probably heading out into the expo in just a little bit. I'll be grabbing a bite to eat and then I'll be at that table.
Well Ashley, we thank you so much for joining us this year. Any other anything we want to talk about before we hop out of here?
Definitely give us a follow on social. We always appreciate that. Where do we find you? So for the company it's at refrigeration technologies.
For myself it's at hvec underscore ash. We'd love to have you as part of our community. We really want to support you know everyone out there in the field.
Other than that come see me at the table. Come say hi. Awesome. All right Ashley. Thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you. Appreciate hanging out with you.