Jerry Gray
Sloan Electromechanical Service & Sales

Before getting underway with this marketing discussion, you may be asking:  Why should I even care about the Recommended Practice for the Repair of Rotating Electrical Apparatus (ANSI/EASA AR100-2015)? Actually, that’s a good question!  

The best place to start with answering this is to go to EASA’s website at easa.com and look up the “EASA Code of Business Practices”. Take a look at Item #3 that reads:  “A member will strive to adhere to all of the standards adopted by EASA.”  

If you’re a good EASA member and show pride in following the “EASA Code of Business Practices,” the “light switch” in your brain may have just switched on!  The ANSI/EASA AR100 is a STANDARD adopted by the Association. It’s a great feeling to know that by following ANSI/EASA AR100 in your service center processes, your staff has been doing the right thing all the time! Whew! You can see now that you know about and really do CARE about ANSI/EASA AR100!!

The next question
Now, here’s the next question:  WHY is there an ANSI/EASA AR100 standard? Part of the answer is given in the first sentence of the standard: “The purpose of this document is to establish recommended practices in each step of the rotating electrical apparatus rewinding and rebuilding processes.”

The other more serious consequential elements of the answer are to: 

1. Establish TRUST with potential customers;
2. Reinforce TRUST with previous customers;
3. And, most importantly, giving TRUST to the service center staff as acknowledgement of their ongoing training and skills, and knowing the services that they are required to perform are recommended practices.  Following these recommended practices proves competence in attaining a quality result.

EASA members are in a highly technical business with potentially life altering consequences as a result of a member-rendered service. Whether it’s putting a flooded pump station rapidly back online for temporary service until a more permanent repair can be performed or getting a production line back into operation so those employees can earn a paycheck, a customer supervisor retains his employment by selecting a trusted EASA member. By being part of a response team to a country’s nuclear disaster, which was the case in Fukushima, Japan, EASA members are given the opportunity to prove TRUST. (Likewise, the EASA member’s failure to prove TRUST diminishes the EASA organization and every EASA member.)

Building on trust
This leads into one of the goals of marketing the standard, and that is sending the message of TRUST. The foundation for any positive relationship is TRUST. Regardless of any product or service being offered, the TRUST message must be sincere and emotionally transparent to create a sales opportunity. 

Educating the customer and service center staff on ANSI/EASA AR100, providing leadership by implementing the recommended practices and furnishing the required equipment create the building blocks of TRUST for everyone.

The presence of TRUST leads naturally into the other goal of marketing: to create a sales opportunity.  

Note that there is really no such thing as an “existing customer.” There is only a previous customer who has become a POTENTIAL customer. A customer only exists during a sales transaction. When a sales transaction is completed, what was a customer now becomes a potential customer. Thus the marketing process repeats, starting with TRUST, in an endless loop to create more sales opportunities.

With a lack of Trust comes an absence of sales opportunities which ceases business growth – leading to an almost certain business decline. This means that marketing becomes a vital part of the EASA member’s business operation and marketing ANSI/EASA AR100 is a critical component of the marketing effort. 

Market standard to build trust
Creating TRUST means marketing ANSI/EASA AR100. How would ANSI/EASA AR100 be marketed to build TRUST for the sales opportunity? This is the easy part:

1. Have copies of the standard on your sales and service counters.
2. When visiting a customer, show the standard and explain the processes.
3. Explain to the customer where the standard can be downloaded on EASA’s website. Or better yet, leave a printed copy for your customer.
4. The last marketing step is in the final service product being delivered to the customer. The result is a reliable, efficient motor that performs as designed and lasts as long as originally designed – or longer.  

By completing these steps in marketing ANSI/EASA AR100, the goal of TRUST is immensely easier, leading to a sales opportunity with a POTENTIAL customer. Then business gets better!!