*This content brought to you in partnership with KM International*
If you want to grow your pavement maintenance business, using infrared (IR) asphalt repair technology is an excellent and powerful tool to add to the other offerings you have for customers, especially when paired with an asphalt hot-box. For you, the contractor, the benefits of increasing IR business are:
- Speed: Infrared + hotbox patches can be completed in as little as 15 minutes, start-to-finish.
- Efficiency: Two-person crews, no heavy machinery, low work-zone footprint.
- Margins: Above average profit margins when effectively implementing IR solutions.
However, there are many property managers and other potential clients that are unfamiliar with IR, and others still, who might have misconceptions about how it works or its effectiveness.
Zach Young, the Chief Operating Officer, Potholes Heroes, a pavement patching and repair contractor based out of southern Florida, has run into this time and time again. Young described getting pushback from other contractors in the industry in addition to misinformed clients or clients who had a prior negative experience with IR that wasn’t implemented correctly.
“I was in the Nashville airport, talking to a guy and he just straight up told me that infrared isn’t as good,” Young recounted the anecdote from a time before he got involved with IR himself. “A guy told me that it takes too much time and that it doesn’t last as long. It had the opposite effect on me, though. It just made me want to know more. I’m kind of contrarian that way. I’ve got to find out for myself, and I did.” That personal investigation led Young and Potholes Heroes to grow into a hugely successful pavement repair and maintenance network, which has spread nearly statewide, doing nothing but pothole repair.
If you’re trying to grow your business, however, you have to do for your customers what Young sought out for himself. Where he took the time to seek out answers and educate himself on the power of infrared, you have to step in, know the facts, and be able to educate clients on just how powerful IR solutions can be for their property liabilities.
