Profire Energy, Inc.

Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call

11/3/2022

spk02: have so much more activity going on in Q3 of this year compared to Q3 of last year, where we were still coming out of COVID and the recovery at that point. So certainly the majority of it is activity for the industry, for our customers. And year over year, we did that 10% price increase late last year that we talked about, and then we've done some others. throughout this year. So there's a portion of it that would be attributable to price, but the majority is going to be activity.
spk04: Okay. That's it for me. Thanks a lot, guys. Take care. Excellent. Thanks, Jim. Thanks, Jim.
spk00: Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question is from John Bear with Ascend Wealth Advisors. Please go ahead.
spk03: Thank you. Good morning, guys. Good morning. A couple of questions here. With the diversification effort, new industries and so forth, can you share what percentage of those that you've addressed? I think you said roughly 60 new projects that have turned into repeat customers as opposed to, say, a one-off project. project that you've worked on?
spk01: Ooh, that's a great question. If I look at just kind of looking at the project log in my mind, I would say over half of the customers have been repeat. Now, most of the revenue is still new, but after you do the, like based on the initial project, So we still haven't even, I think, seen what can happen for repeat business. It's not like we talked about a million dollars in the third quarter. It's not like it's from two customers. It's from quite a few, and some of them are brand-new projects that we finished who have already started on the process for new projects for the future. So we love that. It shows that, hey, they like us. It's not... a one-and-done type thing. We will have some of those. There are some facilities that they don't have opportunities for multiple burners. For example, one food and beverage facility that we've done in the quarter, they don't have other heaters at this facility, so probably not unless they expand, which they've talked about. But, yeah, I don't know the percentage offhand, John. It's something probably we should look at a little closer. The business development team leaders, they have it, but... Yeah, it's definitely growing.
spk03: That's kind of where I was going. Sorry, go ahead.
spk02: Sorry, John. I would just add to that that, as Cam mentioned earlier in the call, that sometimes it may not be the end customer that's a repeat business, but it's the group that brought us the end customer, and that's who we're targeting. So those OEMs, those engineering or construction companies who do lots of different projects for lots of different customers. That's who we want to bring the repeat business just as much as the end user. So there is a little bit of difference and nuance there, but keep that in mind as well.
spk03: Okay. So when you get that type of business, then do you question the OEM and say, you know, where is this going to and, you know, what type of, you know, how large is this company? In other words, do they have multiple facilities where our product could be, you know, utilized in? In other words, to get a sense of what that potential for additional growth or repeat business could be.
spk01: Yeah, our sales team wouldn't be good sales team members if they weren't digging those types for opportunities such as that. And sometimes the OEMs can be a little tight-lipped, but we really have kind of a track record with we're not looking to steal their business because obviously we're not going to get into building hydrogen reformers or other types of equipment like that. And so, yes, we definitely ask. We look to quantify every single OEM or systems integrator project. And part of the way we get that is when we do the project process, when we go through an engineer and put together the package, we need to know the appliance. We need to know what it's doing in order to spec out the appropriate inputs and outputs, in order to spec out the different types of relays. the packaging we need to put together in terms of what this goes in from a hazardous location. So all those things have to be taken into account. And so we often, right from the get-out, we know who the end user is, and we know what industry they're in, and then definitely we look to look for more opportunities. If that OEM is not going to go and get more, well, we'll go and look for those things. Google is a great tool for us. You just look up who the end user is and what they have and where they have it.
spk03: Great. Okay, and now shifting over to the supply chain area, are you seeing any issues in the supply chain where a particular product that you need, that that supplier is no longer manufacturing that particular product and that that creates an issue? that you have to find another supplier to accommodate that order or that product. In other words, obsolescence or a supplier that's shutting down for whatever reason that was making a particular product for you, be it a chip or whatever.
spk01: I'll have some comments and I'll turn it over to Ryan to add further color, but really Do we deal with obsolescence in some components? For sure. As some products get older, you need to deal with that. But it's not normally full products. It's pieces and parts that go into the whole product and solution itself. So that's a constant thing that Profire has always dealt with. We always have to be looking into those things, especially for our proprietary products. We need to watch that. More of the challenge that we're dealing with now is, The plants and the companies that make our things, it's not so much that they're, it's really just layers and layers down the supply chain where there's problems. And it's not problems so much that customers have gone out of business or they're not building these things. We're not just catching up from COVID demand here. We're catching up plants, one, who are, depending on where they are, are dealing with human power shortages, and now that the world has really, you know, all of us use some sort of Zoom or Teams or BlueJeans or something before COVID, right, to have an analogy. We all used it, but we were forced into it during COVID, and now it's just normal. Well, that automation, that type of call upon electronics and different types of things in so many industries, escalated dramatically with that. And it's not just now that the plants that were running just need to get enough people and then they can keep up. They have to almost bring on new plants to keep up. And that's generalizing a lot of industries. But if we look at our controllers industries, for example, for our controllers and other people who are building things with microprocessors and different chips that go into these types of electronics, we all depend on a lot of the similar vendors. For example, Texas Instruments, we all rely on them. Well, Texas Instruments probably needs to bring online, and we know they are, more plants to be able to keep up with demand. And they're not the only one that is just trying to play catch up and build for the future. And it's all been escalated by just the greater need for automation for our electronic world. So, anyways, I hope that answered, but I will turn it over to Ryan to add any color to that he'd like.
spk02: Yeah, Cam, I think you covered it really well. Probably the only other thing I would add is that because of all the pressures that Cam talked about, we've struggled to be able to get the quantities that we need of various components from good, reputable suppliers And in that effort, we've reached out and tried to go into the broker market or find additional suppliers that could supplement that. And some of those have been better than others. And some of those have not been good at all. And the product has had a lot of quality issues. So there are those challenges more than just companies going out of business or stopping producing a product. I think it's more what Cam described.
spk03: Very good. Thanks very much.
spk04: Thanks, John.
spk00: There are no further questions in the queue. I'd like to hand the call back over to Cameron Tidballs for closing remarks.
spk01: Thanks, everyone, for joining us on our call today to discuss our third quarter results. We would like to thank all of you for your continued support. As always, we're available for any discussions or questions you may have. We'll be participating in the Three-Part Advisors Ideas Conference in Dallas later this month. For more information or to register, please contact Three-Part Advisors. Thank you and have a great day.
spk00: This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.
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