Business training and management firm Grandy & Associates signed an agreement with the Radiant Professionals Alliance to provide members with discounted courses online, in person, or at their place of business.  RPA members have the opportunity to take G&A courses at significantly discounted rates over those available to nonmembers.

One of the program’s key features is that through the RPA’s members-only portal, members will have free access to Grandy’s “Profit University Audio Series,” which features a different business topic, by a different national speaker, each month. This series has more than 240 past presentations on every conceivable business topic.  

Many RPA members who have completed Grandy & Associates courses have said they were worth the time and money spent, were extremely relevant to their day-to-day operations, and their investment was quickly recovered through increased productivity and profitability.  

“The existing member base requested it because they are tired of working so hard and not feeling like they are being compensated for their efforts,” said RPA Executive Director Mark Eatherton. “By signing up for G&A classes, contractor members will have a fine-tuned plan to increase their efficiency, along with increasing rates and creating better profit margins.  

He added that while the majority of its older members understand the technical part of their businesses, they don’t understand why they are working long hours and not realizing the profits they deserve.

“For the younger-generation owners who want to learn about the pipe, valve, fitting, boiler, tubing and pump parts of their businesses, we’re ready and willing to help them learn the entire system and how to build their business,” Eatherton noted.

The RPA will be soliciting members to set up an intense two-day, in-person “Planning for Profit” seminar at the Mokena, Ill., office in the coming months. By the time contractors leave this class, they will have created a computer model of their company that will cover:

• What to charge in each department to cover costs while generating a reasonable profit;  

• The creation of a month-by-month, department-by-department cash-flow budget for tracking and making cash flow projections;

• The design, pricing and marketing of residential and commercial maintenance agreements;

• The use of the Job Pricing calculator that will price jobs (based on their cost of doing business) while providing break-even pricing; and

• Collections, what numbers to track and how to track them.

“We are excited to be bringing our unique and educational business training programs to radiant contractors,” Tom Grandy said. “Ninety percent of the current owners within the trades industry used to be technicians, which means most are very good at what they do on the technical side of the business but few understand the business side. Our objective with the Radiant Professionals Alliance is to help their contractor members become the most profitable within their industry.”