This presentation provides guidance to contractors on business fundamentals, marketing and lead generation, successful consultative selling and closing, and measuring and improving performance.

The Small Town Energy Program (STEP) toolkit gives a complete overview of STEP from planning to implementation. It also includes access to a wide variety of materials developed by the program, including: local asset materials, partner materials, personnel materials, program administrative materials, outreach materials, and surveys. STEP has posted these toolkit documents with the hope that it will assist other small towns and communities in building and running more energy efficiency programs.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on creating and sustaining contractor interest in a program.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on trends in contractor conversion rates.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on working with smaller municipal and publicly owned facilities.

This report contains information on the market for home performance upgrades and the opportunities that exist for new home performance contractors; start-up needs and costs for firms entering the home performance contracting industry; home performance business approaches; and how established home performance contractors attract customers. It also contains detailed profiles of eight successful home performance firms across the United States.

This report serves as a resource for program administrators and building contractors who are or may be interested in starting or expanding their services into the residential energy efficiency market.

This presentation describes the qualities and skills of successful home performance sales people.

This document contains Clean Energy Works Oregon (now Enhabit) High Road standards for its statewide upgrade program; the standards are designed to ensure contractors do high-quality work, disadvantaged communities get new employment opportunities, and high-quality, family-supporting jobs are created.

This webcast includes slides and information on programs' use of concierge programs to support contractors. It highlights two program examples: Clean Energy Works Oregon (now Enhabit) and Vermont NeighborWorks.

This webcast includes slides and information on programs' use of concierge programs to support contractors. It highlights two program examples: Clean Energy Works Oregon (now Enhabit) and Vermont NeighborWorks.

This guide shows HVAC contractors how to get started in the home improvement market. It explains the approach of treating a house like a system and provides step-by-step instructions on setting up a home performance contracting business.

This peer exchange call summary focused on the relationship between contract pricing and customers.

This peer exchange call summary focused on sales training assistance programs for contractors.

Presentation describing how Conservation Services Group uses data to monitor market transformation and for internal QA/QC purposes.

Guidelines for home performance professionals for quality work, effective training, and professional accreditation.

Efficiency Maine created a code of conduct for contractors to follow when working in homes. The code is available for download on the Efficiency Maine website, and dictates guidelines for respecting homeowners' property and communicating with the homeowner about appropriate information. Users on the Efficiency Maine website can search a list of vendors that have agreed to follow the code.

This video explains how Efficiency Maine helped contractors gain sales and business skills through training, which helped the program improve assessment-to-upgrade conversion rates and homeowner satisfaction.

This video describes how RePower benefited from coordinating with contractors from the very beginning.

This peer exchange call summary focused on how to engage, grow and identify challenges of small contractor businesses.

Presentation on five steps to building a profitable contractor base. The steps include sensible program design and administration, certification and credentialing, communicating with contractors, contractor requirements (business vs. trade), and training and sales support.

This practitioner-focused Toolkit for Residential Energy Efficiency Upgrade Programs was created by Green For All to assist new, established, and future energy efficiency programs launch and scale initiatives that can deliver the full promise of the green economy. It is intended as a practical resource that offers examples, tools, and templates that a program manager can deploy to implement a variety of aspects of their program including best practice briefs and summary documents, RFPs, contracts, and other program design and implementation templates that communities nationwide have used to create their own efficiency programs.

This paper focuses on two strategies to create quality careers and placement opportunities through deep green energy efficiency retrofits, namely joint labor-management apprenticeships and community workforce agreements.

This report covers how to create high road standards and use the momentum of energy sector projects to create safe, well-paying, long-term careers for a diverse group of people. It includes case studies on Community Power Works in Seattle, Washington, and Clean Energy Works Oregon's (now Enhabit's) efforts to use community high road agreements.

This article, part of a series sponsored by Home Performance with ENERGY STAR, details the successes and lessons learned of the Neil Kelly Company. Over the past 63 years, the Neil Kelly Company has successfully navigated several economic downturns and has revamped its home performance division to emerge as a leader of sustainable building practices.

This video explains how Better Buildings for Michigan's performance metrics and quality assurance enabled them to encourage high-performing contractors, to help underperforming contractors improve, and ultimately to dismiss some contractors.

This peer exchange call summary focused on developing field training and mentoring programs for newly hired contractors.

This video provides an overview of Better Buildings for Michigan's mentoring program for contractors, and the high value that contractors and the program gain from mentoring.

To deliver the most effective residential energy efficiency programs possible, NYSERDA implemented a quality assurance process to verify that projects meet all program requirements while maintaining healthy and safe conditions for the occupants.

This video describes the partnerships that EnergyWorks in Philadelphia established to offer classroom, lab, and in-field training to technicians to help them enter the home performance market.

This report profiles the early results of a diverse range of small- to medium-sized American cities with different economic and energy profiles that are pioneering the clean energy economy. Many communities used federal grants to jumpstart long-term strategies to test and refine various clean energy and energy efficiency solutions. Others developed innovative financing strategies in the absence of grant money. These city-led efforts to catalyze local clean energy economic development are important to watch as federal grants sunset, especially in the absence of a comprehensive national energy or climate policy.

This case study discusses strategies that Fayette County, Pennsylvania used to provide Building Performance Institute (BPI) certification and business skills training to aspiring energy efficiency contractors.

This case study explains how Efficiency Maine provided contractor sales training to boost upgrade conversions.

These standard work specifications define minimum requirements for upgrade work and can be used as an industry guide for workers, training instructors, and program administrators involved in the home performance industry.

This peer exchange call summary focused on timing program demand with seasonal fluctuation (e.g., contractor schedules, seasonal lulls).

Presentation summarizing the important elements needed to induce and sustain contractor participation in home performance programs.

This video provides an overview of training a local workforce to meet program needs, including meeting the needs of local contractors for new hires.

This article and recruiting presentation highlights reasons why it makes sense for an HVAC contractor to move into home performance, and provides program staff with key touch points to consider in considering potential contractor partners.

This peer exchange call summary focused on assisting contractors with working capital and the coordination of financing strategies.

This research report and slides provide a detailed segmentation of the building energy upgrade market and summarize market research on each segment. Market segments include single-family homes, multi-family homes, and several types of commercial and institutional buildings.

This data intake template spreadsheet provides a way to track home energy performance metrics.

This template, used by Clean Energy Works Oregon (now Enhabit), standardizes a number of forms that contractors fill out for the program.

This guide from Boulder County's EnergySmart service is an example of expectations and guidelines for contractor operations.

This presentation describes strategies for outreach to energy contractors and auditors, including contractor incentives.

This Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Clean Energy Policy Brief describes how adding sales skills to contractors' existing technical expertise helps convert more assessments into comprehensive home energy upgrades. It profiles Efficiency Maine's contractor sales training and includes a list of resources.

This peer exchange call summary focused on the challenges, advantages and keys of working with partners to obtain and maintain an effective workforce.

This sample phone survey template for program drop-outs, created by the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program, was designed for programs to find out why applicants that applied to participate in a program ultimately dropped out.

This sample phone survey template, created by the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program, was designed for programs to use with applicants who have been screened out from participating in a program.

This sample email survey template, created by the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program, was designed for programs to develop their own survey of successful program participants in order to assess customer experience.

This lease agreement is an example of an equipment lease from the Fayette County equipment loan program for contractors.

These protocols provide recommended minimum specifications and best practices for protection of occupant health associated with home energy upgrades.

This report highlights the impact of investment for Portland, Oregon in terms of high-quality job creation, equitable hiring, inclusive business opportunities, standardized training, and energy conservation.

This peer exchange call summary focused on creating a dialogue between contractors, trainers and jobseekers about program design/implementation and results of workforce feedback.

On Maryland's Home Performance with ENERGY STAR website, homeowners can review their contractor and experience. These customer reviews, along with contractors' accreditations and services, are published on the website as part of each contractor's information page. Users of the website can search for contractors and sort the results based on homeowner ratings and by geographical location.

This document provides a tutorial of MY ENERGY STAR Account (MESA).  MESA is a Web portal that houses program marks for ENERGY STAR Sponsors and contractors as well as various marketing pieces.

This document provides a menu of initial questions for a program administrator or implementer to build on and use in developing a real-time evaluation survey to collect qualitative data from contractors.

This publication includes best practices for how to create a quality assurance plan and the key components that these plans should include.

This peer exchange call summary focused on the challenges and solutions to creating jobs, recruitment, training and retention of a workforce.

This document details the procedures for identifying, documenting, and responding to performance problems associated with contractors in the RePower Program in Washington. It includes example forms and a draft letter to contractors.

This case study discusses the strategies Clean Energy Works Oregon's (now Enhabit's) used to actively engage contractors to make the program successful (e.g., balancing contractors' work priorities, enforcing quality standards).

This peer exchange call summary focused on establishing the challenges, strategies and key topics related to the workforce for future peer exchange calls.

The AZ Home Performance with ENERGY STAR program (AZHPwES) requires that participating contractors demonstrate a high level of building science knowledge and maintain the highest standards of technical performance and customer service as described in the contractor requirements.

Flowcharts showing the key program elements (financing; workforce development; marketing and outreach; and data, evaluation; and reporting).

Courtesy of Clean Energy Solutions. This presentation provides an overview of topics related to building the workforce for energy efficiency programs, including market characterization, stakeholder engagement, training and certification, and community workforce agreements. It includes information on the experience of Clean Energy Works Oregon (now Enhabit) in Portland, Oregon.

This agreement outlines the goals, contractor standards, hiring standards, training program standards, and procedures for contractor participation in Seattle's Community Power Works program. As a "high-road" agreement, the employment and contracting standards are designed to ensure broad access to economic opportunities for all types of businesses and workers, support training on sustainable career paths, and ensure high-quality work.

This is a community workforce agreement between the City of Milwaukee and the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation.

This presentation provides information on strategies to successfully recruit contractors. Topics include setting goals, identifying contractors, contacting contractors, and following up with contractors.

A report examining workforce certifications, skills benchmarks, and credentialing efforts in renewable energy and energy efficiency programs nationwide and offering recommendations.