The Fire Protection Podcast: Episode #35 – Industry Profile: Hampshire Fire Protection

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A Professionally Made Program Makes everything Look Better  - Adds a Sense of Pride (38:08)

Psyched About Amerex (39:08)

With QR Codes, We sped up the Inspection Process of Fire Extinguishers From 5 minutes to 20 Seconds (40:54)

Wrap Up (41:08)

Full Transcript

Drew Slocum:

This is episode 35 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Today my guest is Jimmy Snowden. Jimmy’s the inspection manager at Hampshire Fire in New Hampshire.  They also have some offices in Massachusetts. I had a great talk with Jimmy. You know, I met him a few years back. He’s such a great guy. He’s implemented Inspect Point very well at Hampshire Fire; it’s a very old business. They’ve had it for 30 or so years and got in the inspection and service game really strong over the last 15 or so, and, uh, obviously accelerated that even more so with Inspect Point. A little highlight, obviously, on their experience,  in Hampshire’s fire through the years. So, I appreciate Jimmy coming on and hope everybody enjoys it. Thanks. Very good. <laugh>.

Jimmy Snowden:

Uh, I think it’s the first time I’ve tried to do anything with my computer remotely like that. Oh. Um, it clearly, clearly isn’t set up.

Drew Slocum:

Are you in the office, or are you remote today?

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah, I’m in the office. Uh, I guess by remotely, I just mean like, you know, the electronic communication,

Drew Slocum:

So Oh, yeah. Instead of the phone. I know.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yep.

Drew Slocum:

It’s good and bad, right, <laugh>.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. Yeah. It’s, I mean, once you get it all set up and you kind of get, the kinks worked out, it’s fine.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. It’s not too bad. Um, yeah, so what I’ll do is I’ve got, uh, again, I got a bunch of questions here, so, you know. Yeah. Uh, Hampshire, Hampshire Fire Protection. Um, what, what do you guys do? I know you’re a fire protection company, but what do you guys do? What kind of services do you provide? How long have you been around? Any little background on Yeah. On Hampshire fire?

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. So, uh, Hampshire Fire was started in 1978 by Larry Tido.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah.

Jimmy Snowden:

And he just started the business out of his truck, and Wow. Over the years, it’s, at first, it was just a, um, it, it was, um, only when I took this out, does that make a difference?

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, yeah. No, let’s go. Yeah. Okay, good. Talk away. Okay.

Jimmy Snowden:

So, it started in 1978 by Larry Tido, and he kind of just worked out of his, you know, one truck, and it was a, um, it was just a sprinkler installation company. Yep. Yep. And then toward the end of the eighties, you know, they started growing, and toward the end, they started doing service. And I think they started doing sprinkler inspections in the early nineties, but it was primarily sprinkler installation. And it kept growing, um, and they, the service department kind of took off in the late eighties, early nineties, and grew throughout that, you know, the nineties. And then in 2005, I think it was somewhere around 2005 they acquired an extinguisher company. So they added that on, doing, you know, installations and service and inspections of, and then somewhere around 2011 or so, I think it was, they brought on, uh, acquired a fire alarm company.

Yep. And, um, and then I came on board in 2015. And, by the time that I got here,  Hampshire, you know, Fire is the big behemoth, you know, with a sprinkler installation division, and then also the service department with the inspection, you know, a division that had gotten, you know, has gotten sizable and, uh, for, you know, for a family run, privately owned company. And, um, then it, uh, you know, the, when I got here in 2015, there was already the extinguisher department, the fire alarm, you know, division. And, um, yeah. So that’s kind of where we are right now. We have, uh, we are kind of called the one-stop shop for all your fire protection needs. Exactly. Kind of the little tagline that I tell customers.

Yep. And, uh, we do, you know, sprinkler installations, and then we have two main buildings at our main location. And the two main buildings you have, the sprinkler installation building, really, it’s where they fab, you know, fabricate a bunch of stuff for installing sprinklers in the field. And then there’s the service department. And out of the service department, we have the sprinkler service, sprinkler inspections, fire alarm installation service, and inspections. And then, you know, the extinguisher, service installation, inspection. Nice, nice, nice. And we do kitchen hood as well. We just don’t, we don’t do any cleaning. It’s just the inspection and service. So

Drew Slocum:

Funny, we were just on a demo with somebody out of Florida, and they’re like, yep, we just gave up cleaning. We finally gave up cleaning. And I’m like, yeah, yeah. It’s the worst. It’s the worst of the worst!

Jimmy Snowden:

<laugh>. Yeah. We just never got into it because, you know, the owner was like, no, you know, we want to stay in our lane that way. You know what we do. That’s all we do. And, uh, you know, cause you, you have some companies, I won’t mention any names, but, you know, they’ll do your fire protection. They’ll, you know, they’ll do your taxes for you and <laugh>, uh, clean your, clean your suits, <laugh>, you know, the, they’re your local barbershop. They do everything. And that’s fine. That’s a fine, you know, model. Uh, but, you know, the whole focus here has been, we, we wanna stay in our lane, and yeah. Uh, you know, just do what we do really well.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. No, no. You guys, you guys, you’ve obviously hit the right formula. So how many employees and, uh, you know, field technicians are out there?

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah, so we have around 180 employees. And, in the service department, we have about eight or nine full-time service guys with, you know, they all have helpers. And then we have six to seven full-time inspectors, you know, they all have helpers as well. in our sprinkler inspection division, And then in our fire alarm division, they have six or seven fire alarm technicians, and they do the installation service and inspections. And then extinguisher has probably about the same, about six or seven full-time extinguisher inspectors out in the field. They do inspections and service and installation and stuff like that.

Drew Slocum:

So a little before. Let’s do a little before and after. So, you know, you got there in 2015. How are things, you know, I know they were pretty new to, you know, inspection and service, you know, probably we said early, late two thousand, I guess. They got more into it and that reoccurring revenue model, which is done well. And I, you know, I talked to Paul Delorian the other day, and he’s trying to move that percentage more. Cuz it’s, you know, it’s that reoccurring revenue, it’s great. So

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. And you have a higher margin

Drew Slocum:

Yeah.

Jimmy Snowden:

As well. Yeah.

Drew Slocum:

Not, not, not the issues that you have in an install job sometimes, so

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. With the massive risk and all that. Yeah.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, exactly. So what were they using before, you know, you guys converted to Inspect Point pen and paper, pdf, Excel?

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah, so, you know, it started actually the inspection started in the early nineties and they, from about 1990, back thinking, you know, <laugh> the first Bush or Clinton’s time  <laugh> Yeah at the White House. Um, from then until about 2013, they just did paper. And then 2013, before I was here, they made PDF forms, and it was basically what you have in the AFSA handbook. Yep. You know, they recommend a certain inspection form, and it was basically that, but it was, tailored a little bit specifically around Hampshire Fire and our unique needs. And so we had a pdf. Our inspectors used an editor on their iPad to fill those out. <affirmative>. And, um, that was used from 2013 until we started with Inspect Point, which was 2018, maybe. Does that sound right? In 2019?

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. It might have been ‘19, or something like that. Two years ago. Yeah.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. So yeah, we used the pdf inspection reports. And, you know, especially it’s difficult with these PDF inspection reports because if you have to edit any of the questions you want your inspectors to ask, or you wanna just even put a new question in or delete a question, standards change. And, you know, we were even just looking at narrow, drilling the purpose and scope of our inspections down into NFPA 25 to really narrow our focus. Yeah. And that caused a need to change some of the questions to be more specific, a little less vague. Yep. And that’s how we started looking into using software or, you know, a program like Inspect Point. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and because, you know, we, we needed to make this change, but we were looking at having to redo, and you know how it was a PDF form? Oh yeah. Once you make it, you can make the smallest little change. You want just to make a quick, you know, a put a period in <laugh> right now you have to redo the whole thing, and Yeah. Um, you have to ensure you have the right version.

Drew Slocum:

How do you get out?

Jimmy Snowden:

We were looking at a team.

Drew Slocum:

How do you get it out to all the iPad or, you know, whatever you’re using? Yeah. That’s,

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. And so we had originally looked around at some different options. We had a guy in-house who built some software, and we originally, you know, we had gone to Inspect Point, we had, I had done probably a couple of years before we came on board with Inspect Point, we had, I had done a demo, it was with maybe with you or with someone else. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, um, at, at that time, Inspect Point was very new. And, um, there were some features that we were looking for that you guys had not offered at the time. And then I ended up doing another demo a couple of years later. And many of the recommendations I gave you during that first demo you had incorporated. And, you know, when I went to my manager and the company owner, I said, you know, this is actually pretty impressive. They’re listening to the customer base. And that’s sort of a product that we want because a lot of people will have even a decent product, but when they don’t listen to their customers, they don’t keep it up to date. And it’s that voice of the customer, and you guys have to do the same, too, right?

Drew Slocum:

Yes, you have to listen to your customers so that you put out a better product overall.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. Yeah. And it’s that humility to say we can improve this thing. And to be able to tweak it a little bit. And by the time, you know, within two years you guys had it, it was almost a completely different product at that point because it had become much more powerful and more user friendly for each individual, you know, a company that would use it. Yeah. And, uh, yeah. So hats off to you guys for that. I mean, that to me is a huge selling point to me to see the radical, you know, change in progress.

Drew Slocum:

And there’s still a lot of, you know, we have the Amerex stuff now, which you guys are an Amerex distributor, hopefully. Yeah. I don’t know. Hopefully, the team’s going, you know, you, you get an account manager, and all that, so hopefully, Jenn or Caitlin is going over that with you.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. And that, hopefully, we’ll get to that point.

Drew Slocum:

Alright. You’re not on the extinguisher, right?

Jimmy Snowden:

No, we just use it for sprinkler inspections and service.

Drew Slocum:

Nice, nice. Yeah. The Amerex stuff’s been getting rave reviews. I don’t know if you roll fully with Amerex, but they were good; we’re trying to partner up with manufacturers now. Viking is coming on board as a partner here soon too.

Jimmy Snowden:

I remember I saw that.

Drew Slocum:

So, you know, that’s just trying to, we’ve gotten some good feedback from the field, and our clients and I thought this kind of makes sense. So let’s mix the product with software and then put it at the end of you guys, the users.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. Yep.

Drew Slocum:

Do you guys use the proposal feature at all?

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. Yeah. We use that heavily Yeah. For the, uh, especially for quoting deficiencies, you know, sprinkler deficiencies.

Drew Slocum:

Yep.

Jimmy Snowden:

Um, you use that and, and we also use it for, you know, just regular service work. And so we’ve, we’ve kind of gone to using your proposal format and inspect point solely for all of our sprinkler service.

Drew Slocum:

Um, oh, wow.

Jimmy Snowden:

You know, work. So yeah. That, and that’s been a great addition, you know, really. And that’s one of the things that is great about this program is that you guys do add, there’s, you keep on adding new features, you know, and Right. These features seem to work well, and they’re not too difficult to learn. You know, there’s a little bit of a learning curve. Right. Uh, but you would expect if it’s gonna be powerful enough to be able to use, you’d expect a learning curve.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah.

Jimmy Snowden:

Um, and that, that, and that is one of the things I like about it is, you know, when it comes to the user, it really doesn’t,  I don’t want to say this negatively but Sure. It really doesn’t come ready to go when you get it. Right. And I, I personally like that because you can make it whatever you want it to be. Right. And there’s kind of you; you get to build it from the ground up, Right? And kind of make it because there’s a lot of, uh, options. There are a lot of things that you can use, but you don’t have to use everything. So it’s very adaptable to however someone wants to use it. And I’ve been talking with different branches of ours out of Massachusetts, and when they first started using Inspect Point, I told him, listen, you know, however much work you’re, you’re gonna put into it, this is what you’re gonna get out of it. And so if you just kind of play around with it and then try to get it up off the ground, you’re not gonna get much out of it. But if you invest in it, you’ll get ten times more back. Oh, yeah. And we have found that it’s worth the investment of putting in the time to make it what you want.

Drew Slocum:

No, I agree. I mean, you could use it pretty basic for just inspections, but I think, you know, the features we keep adding with the proposals, the deficiency management, the work orders, now, I don’t know if you’re using the material piece yet, where you can bring in essentially material list for work orders and followup.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. And we do use that as well. Yeah. And, and when I say the detail, you know, there’s a lot Inspect Point has a place to put information all over the place. You can go nuts with it, with, um, you know, all the valve information, the heads Oh yeah. And the whole, my whole push, you know, the first year especially was let’s cram as much info into this and see how much it benefits us, and it’s proven to be really worth the investment. So the time investment,

Drew Slocum:

So you’ve, you know, that the 2019 year or whatever, six months, however long it took. Have you, do you have a metric out there that you can kind of say before, during, and after implementation? Is there any key metric that you look at, like service sales or quotes accepted? Is there anything that you’ve tracked?

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah, so there is one primary metric. It’s primarily on the deficiency quote side of things. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. That has been our deficiency estimator. The first year that we used Inspect Point mm-hmm. <affirmative> had doubled more than doubled what was done before we had Inspect Point.

Drew Slocum:

In dollars?

Jimmy Snowden:

Yes, doubled In dollars Yeah of what was sold. And then, this year right now, it’s, you know, August 24th, and right now, the deficiency estimator, actually, I was just talking to her yesterday, and she said that she had already reached what she had reached last year. Wow! At the end of the year. Wow! So this is kind of what I was referring to when I talked about, you know, the investment of putting all this information in. You can kind of be lazy about it and only put so much information in. But because we’ve, you know, been adamant about, you know, the putting in all the valves or locations, the size, and all that stuff, you put it in once, and you’re done with it, you know.

And, uh, you put in the sprinkler heads, and they’re tight, so their size, make, model, and location. And once you do that once, then it’s in there forever. And so when you get, you know, we get a deficiency that comes back, she doesn’t have to, she gets our, you know, inspector’s report. She doesn’t have to go do any research. It’s all right there. Right. Yep. Uh, because of that emphasis on putting as much info, you know, put as much information in, we know that it will take longer. It’s new, you know, the inspections are gonna take a little bit longer because we want you to be more detailed than you ever have. Right. And this is a newer program. Um, but you know, this year we’re, last year was really kind of our, um, building, we were looking to really build it up.

And this year, we’re kind of running off the fruit of that and, so she can get a report in and everything. And this was the main reason I wanted to go with Inspect Point that we kind of had these three; it’s almost like three separate divisions. We had, you know, you have your inspections, scheduling inspections, and then going out and doing the inspection, and then you get the inspection report back, and it’s almost like another division. Right. You take the inspection report, you have the deficiencies, you quote them, and then that’s handed like to another division where they then schedule the service to be done actually to do the repairs. Then they go out and perform that service. Right. And what Inspect Point has done is it’s really connected these three, what seemed to be before like three disconnected separate divisions, and it’s brought them all together so that it’s kind of a seamless Yeah.

Almost like an assembly line. You know, you have the information that’s put in by the inspector, which is, you know, readily accessible to the deficiency estimator mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then that all that info is then just, uh, kind of, you know, just transferred right over to the guys in the field who are doing the service work to repair the deficiencies. And it’s, it’s made this kind of more streamlined, um, it’s really streamlined our ability to get quotes out and to get the service work done Yep. With the, you know, and not, not just the service work done, but to have all of the correct detailed information that you need not make multiple trips cuz you don’t have the right material, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And, I really think that you know, all of the customer information, you know, is transferred so you don’t have these three kind of loosely associated departments within a department, uh, and with all these different databases that aren’t connected with each other. Right. So, yeah, it’s been great.

Drew Slocum:

I’m glad you’ve, and that’s what we’ve been seeing over the last 18 months: people love the inspection because we handle all the NFPA, 25, 72, 10, and whatever your kind of business is. Right. But then you grow into this proposal thing. Because you know, you might get a hundred dollars, you know, whatever, a quarterly inspection, that’s probably a little low, but say you get a hundred dollars for a quarterly inspection, well you’re gonna want to find those deficiencies and propose to fix them ASAP to try to make a little bit of money there or at least cover your costs.  You need to get those deficiencies, you know, and it’s four to 500 for the deficiency repairs for that. So, that’s what we’re trying to drive. Yeah. And, and kind of work that all together. And then obviously that service ticket that goes out, you complete that out, get it over to invoicing, and then, you know, you’re off for the next one.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. Yep.

Drew Slocum:

That’s good.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Drew Slocum:

One last question. You hit a lot of it as we talked through this; this is great.  What feature would you like added? Is there anything that, you know, I, I know we just sent a survey out, but are there any features that you could see us developing or morphing over the next, I don’t know, six to 12 months?

Jimmy Snowden:

Um, yeah, so, uh, one of the things I think would be helpful regarding the scheduling mm-hmm. <affirmative>,  is, we’ve always used the Google calendar for our technicians – to get them information and stuff like that. And there was the Google Calendar integration. And, uh, the way it’s set up right now is you can only integrate, so each of our technicians has their own Google Calendar account. Okay. Um, and the reason is that if you only have one account for multiple technicians, it’s all the same color, and there’s no way to differentiate whose stuff is whose. Um, and uh, this, this is kind of like the, the only piece that we’re using something other than Inspect Point to do is we’re still using Google Calendar for the scheduling part of it.

We use, you know, once it’s scheduled with Google Calendar, we then go into Inspect Point and set up the reports and stuff. And there’s, um, the, the only reason we do it that way is that when you do the Google Calendar integration, it, it only allows you to integrate it with one Google calendar as opposed to being able to sync it up with all of the different technicians’ Google Calendar accounts. Um, and the reason why that, you know, uh, makes it not as useful for scheduling, uh, you know, is because it only shows up as one color when it shows up on the Google calendar. Yes. Okay. Um, and so you can’t differentiate, you know, whose, whose jobs are these, you know, they’re, they all show up blue, or they all show up whatever color. Right. And, uh, that would be something we would definitely benefit from.

That’s the one that’s kind of the last thing we are still using something other than  Inspect Point for. Um, but you know, there’s, uh, there’s I think with every program you’re gonna have little, things like that.  And I’m sure for you guys, it’s a thing that you have all these different customers. It’s, it’s one of the things that I appreciate about, about Inspect Point is that there’s, that you keep it, you make it general enough to where it’s user friendly for, you know, then you can kind of build it however you want it to be. I get that there’s kind of a fine line there. Yes. How do you keep it general? How do you add features without boxing people in, I guess?

Drew Slocum:

Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. If we made a custom platform for every company, um, you know, every fire protection company, we’d be out of business a long time ago. So, yeah. It’s trying to create a platform where we give the best practices, we get you 90 to 95% of the way there. And then from there, you know, you gotta tweak your process a little bit. But also it gives us some room. We want those ideas back, and they don’t happen overnight many times depending on the need. And, yeah. It just keeps making the product better, so that’s cool.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and I think it’s, um, understandable when there’s a time lag Yeah. For when it gets rolled out because this is one of the things that we’ve noticed is that you know, I guess when we moved over, I had this kind of nightmare of like, oh boy, you know, the guys are gonna be in the field and they’re gonna be watching that little circle go round and round all the time now. And, that’s just not happened when you guys make a change; it seems like you guys pretty well work out the majority of the bugs cuz we, we really haven’t had any issues with things not working, and that shows that you guys are putting in a lot of work before you roll things out, which takes time.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, it does. And it’s, uh, you know, I don’t wanna make it too overcomplicated, but we also wanna hit all aspects of fire protection, so that’s great. Anything else you wanna add? I know, I don’t wanna keep you too long here.

Jimmy Snowden:

Um, no, we, we just really appreciate the working relationship we have. The customer service is really amazing, you know, especially in the beginning I had just tons of questions, and I felt bad. I know that you know, there’s that little feature and Inspect Point, or if you have a question, you know, you click there, and almost every email I sent, I’m like, I apologize that I keep on asking so many questions. but there was never a sense of, you know, the staff at Inspect Point being frustrated and the fact there seemed to be very eager to help. And, there’s never been a time where we ask something and, you know, there hasn’t at least been a, Hey, we will bring that up in the next meeting and talk about it, you know? Yeah. And, we all, in fact, there’s another guy here who works in the office and, and we both say now the people over at Inspect Point that would, you know, that would be a, a great team to work for. So everyone seems to be pretty eager to help, which can be unusual in our day.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, I appreciate the feedback. And a lot of that goes back to Jennifer and her team and, and the culture she’s created.

Jimmy Snowden:

It’s all good.

Drew Slocum:

And the better your success is both professionally, individually, and at the company, just makes people hang onto the platform longer too. And we wanna, you know, that’s, we wanna keep you on the platform as long as possible, right? So we gotta give that Yeah, yeah. That customer success And, it’s been a lot of fun. My struggle on the strategy side is making the product better through a bunch of different modules and how to bring other people in, but also conveying to the industry, saying, Hey,  just take a peek. Give me 20 to 30 minutes. I’ll show you the key components that would significantly transform your business. And yeah, I always say there’s some, there’s some three to six months worth of data entry and training and onboarding. But, like I did another testimonial with another company in Southern New England, and they doubled service sales as soon as they turned on similar to you, you, you doubled in the first year, which is, it’s a crazy stat to hear from both of you. Yeah. And they’re gonna probably do it again now, they’re, now they’re breaking out into different aspects of fire protection now because they can just turn it on within our platform. So, um, yeah. Yeah. There’s, it’s been a lot of fun.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah, and the guys in the field as well, you know, we were, I was a little hesitant because there were, you know, some of the guys aren’t as savvy, technologically, as others, and you know, it was just a matter of kind of sitting down and, you know, there’s a lot of little nooks and crannies Right? Within, you know, and you have to make decisions about where you’re gonna put information so that everyone’s doing it the same way. And, uh, you know, especially now that that first year is done, and most of all of our customers, they’re all the valves are entered in places and everything like that. It really is a plug-and-play thing. And I think that this year, we are doing the three-year full dry trips.

We do all those in one summer, so we don’t intersperse them throughout. We say, you know, we’re doing all of our customers’ dry trips every three years. And so that’s this year and I, so things are a little busy this summer, but I, I really think that next year we built it up the year before this year is our dry trip year. I think next year is when we were gonna really see, you know, the payoff. Sure. In terms of the amount of time to do the inspection. We just had a new inspector come on, and I met with him about a week or two after he had started, and I said, Hey, you know, how do you think, what do you think about the process? Do you understand? Are you able to follow everything and the reports? And he said, you know; actually, the inspection reports are set up in such a way where it helps me not forget anything. And the guys in the field are saying great things about it as well.

Drew Slocum:

That’s good to hear the technicians cuz that’s Yeah. That’s the start and stop of the process potentially. Right. If you can’t, if you can’t get them to utilize it or see the value of it. And then, and you know, I’m involved in many of these Facebook groups on social media, and they’re kind of interesting, to put it uh, very <laugh>, very basic. It is a lot of fun watching them, but we get a lot of great feedback from technicians in the platform, which is good to see, you know, and I see the downsides to other ones. So I like taking any feedback we can get. I wanna be able to, um, you know, push that into different parts of the platform because you guys are the experts.  We’re just the sounding board, right?

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. Yeah. It really is a thing where if it’s not usable on the ground,  it’s not usable at all. <laugh>.

Drew Slocum:

Wow. Totally. Totally.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. But it’s, yeah, but they really have, and, and there’s something too, you know, when we were using, paper and then going to PDFs, there’s something about now having a professionally made program that is professional looking, the reports look professional and the iPad, everything is set up. There’s a certain sort of a, I don’t, I don’t know where, or the, the guys in the field, there’s a psychological thing or the guys in the field, you know, there’s a real sense of, you know, we’re not just doing a Mickey Mouse inspection, and there’s some integrity to what we’re doing. Yep. Um, you know, because it’s not homemade.

Drew Slocum:

Exactly. Well, good. Next steps, you gotta get those extinguisher guys on, and then you gotta get the full gambit. So hopefully, the Amerex helps because  I’ve gotten rave reviews from Amerex distributors, and I wanna see your guys’ opinion once.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. Any information you can send over on what that will do for us? Uh, because I know we are an Amerex distributor, I’m not sure, you know, I don’t know the extent of it cause it’s not, I’m primarily in the sprinkler department. Any information you can provide me would be very useful for that, uh, on exactly the perks of being an Amerex distributor. Sure. That would be, that would be very helpful.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. Yeah. What what will happen is we’re about to; we’re just getting approved with Amerex right now. You’ll see an email,  I can just probably email it to you if you wanted to forward it off to your team. But work with Brittney.  Britteny’s your Account Manager, and she’ll set it up, probably 15 minutes just to go over everything. And obviously, you know the platform very well, but it essentially takes the QR code that is on every Amerex extinguisher now, and it mm-hmm. <affirmative> Literally, you’re populating eight pieces of its information from one click, one scan. So yeah, I don’t know, I don’t know how they’re doing an extinguisher now, whether it’s Excel or pen, pen, and paper, but, um, mm-hmm. <affirmative> <laugh>, yeah. It’s probably pen and paper, but getting that, yeah. I just, we just sped it up to, you know, it goes from, I don’t know, five minutes to 20 seconds essentially.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. Yeah. And it’s accurate.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. And it’s accurate. And then the next time, boom, it just flows. You get to quickly write up the service work as you’re doing the extinguisher inspection. So, um, yeah, Amerex seems to love it. And we got the feedback from the distributors, so that’s, that was, that was really key.

Jimmy Snowden:

Yep.

Drew Slocum:

So,

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah. No, that’s great. I see you just sent it in.

Drew Slocum:

Oh, cool. Thanks again for hopping on this, Jimmy. It was good to talk to you. We’re trying to do more of this and get your name out there for how you’ve grown as a company. You guys are in, in the New England area, you’re one of the best, you know, and, and full faceted fire protection, and obviously you wanna keep pushing and learning. It’s good to see in an industry that’s traditionally slow to adopt change. So I’m glad you’re able to push everybody with Hum. So,

Jimmy Snowden:

Yeah, no, it’s been, it’s been great; we’re really thankful for this program you guys have built.

Drew Slocum:

Cool.

Drew Slocum:

Thanks for listening to episode 35 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Again, thanks to  Jimmy Snowden,  from Hampshire Fire, for coming on the podcast today. Kinda give a testimony of what they’ve been through over the years with ITM and service and where they’re heading toward the future. Really excited to talk about some of these success stories over the last two episodes, with specific companies that have accelerated their businesses through Inspect Point. We’ll be back again with some new episodes later this month. And please like, and subscribe. Thanks.