I firmly believe that credit should be given when credit is due.
A bit over a month ago I wrote a Blog about Alarm Ordinances and when they go to far, which addressed some of the requirements in place and/or being proposed by the Louisiana Fire Marshall's Office, the AHJ regulating the Fire & Burglar Alarm Industry in Louisiana.
A bit over a month ago I wrote a Blog about Alarm Ordinances and when they go to far, which addressed some of the requirements in place and/or being proposed by the Louisiana Fire Marshall's Office, the AHJ regulating the Fire & Burglar Alarm Industry in Louisiana.
I am following up on that Blog because Louisiana has amended most of what was wrong about the requirements. If you hadn't read the first Blog you can go to http://lousepulveda.blogspot.com to read all of the details.
The changes made are as follows:
The changes made are as follows:
1. Instead of the proposed change to require salespeople to take the UAS (Understanding Alarm Systems) course and pass the test imediately before being able to work, they now give the salesperson six months to take the course. Given the course at this time is only offered 3 or 4 times each year, six months sounds like a reasonable time frame in which to have taken the course.
So once again I applaud and thank the Louisiana Fire Marshall for making this important change. Growing companies operating in Louisiana will appreciate the change.
That said, one major problem still exists and I can only hope the Fire Marshall's Office will consider following the lead of many other states.
The problem is that once a salesperson is hired, the company/salesperson must submit an application to the Fire Marshall's Office for a background check and issuance of a license. However, I'm told that the time frame between submitting an application and receiving the actual license can take as much a two months, meanwhile, based on Louisiana's rule, the salesperson cannot sell untill he or she receives the official license. Obviously, the salesperson cannot afford to wait up to two months without pay, and asking the company to support an unproductive salesperson for two months isn't reasonable either.
First of all, it doesn't take even one, much less two months to conduct a background check. I can understand a govenment agency claiming to be understaffed and overworked and therefore processing take longer. However, Louisiana could take a lesson from their neighbor Texas as well as lots of other states that allow the salesperson to start working after submitting an application. Like a license applied for with a car, the salesperson must only carry a copy of the application with him to prove it has been filed. That is a more reasonable solution.
If it's the criminal background check the state is worried about, two solutions come to mind. First, the applying company could have the background check done, which usually takes 48 hours or so, and then submit the report they receive along with the application. A second reasonable option is the state could do the background check, again within 48 hours or so, and then simply inform the applying company by email or mail that the applicant has passed or failed. Utilizing either of the above methods would satisfy the main intent of the license requirement and allow the salesperson to begin earning a living.
I can only hope that the AHJ in Louisiana amends the license requirement once again to make it possible for companies that wish to grow business a chance to do so. And of course increasing employment; creating jobs is good for the state and stimulates our lagging economy.
What do you think? Am I asking for too much?
Lou,
ReplyDeleteThe reason the Licensing Advisory Board changed the original one year amount of time that a salesperson had to take the UAS or another approved course was to combat the potential abuse of the license by summertime only sales personnel. In the past few years, Louisiana has had a large influx of "door knocker sales" that stay the duration of the summer only then leave, allowing them a loophole to never acquire the minimum education for the sales license. I was in attendance, not as a member, at the Advisory Board session when the change was made and due to the potential abuse I just mentioned and the importance of a salespersons responsibility, i.e. designing security and life safety systems for the public we serve. It was and still is my opinion that they should be educated and have criminal background checks completed prior to being issued a license. An example in defense of the Fire Marshal Licensing Division, I made a presentation of a new Residential Fire Alarm Course (RFAC) to the board that same day and requested that it be a required course for anyone designing, installing and servicing Household Life Safety Systems which is allowed under a Security License in LA, but the Fire Marshal representative, felt like requiring that additional two day class would be an excessive burden on LA Security Contractors at this time so my request was denied by the Board.
On the issue of a license taking up to two months to acquire: I proudly helped get the licensing act passed in 1995 and worked on two revisions to the law since that time. I also sat on the Licensing Advisory Board for over eight years and this is the first I've ever heard of that long of a delay in receiving an initial license after all the correct paperwork and fees were submitted. In my own experience, new licenses are usually received within one to two weeks after submitting application, documentation and fees without errors. Annual renewals may take longer, but the SFM policy is that if your renewal information is in their office awaiting processing, it is OK for companies and individuals to keep working prior to receiving the renewed licenses.
One other item you mentioned is the frequency of the UAS class presentation being only three or four times a year. We have seven UAS classes on our regular 2011 education calendar. We have already added two additional to what was on the calendar, held one each month of 2011 and are adding three more in each of August, October and December of 2011 for a total of twelve. In 2010 we started out with only four on our calendar but taught two additional UAS classes to accomodate contractors requests. I told the Advisory Board when they voted the requirement of "education before licensing," LLSSA will put on additional classes to accommodate Security Contractors and individuals as needed. Our only restriction here is having a minimum number of students to hold a LLSSA sponsored class and enough time to acquire an adequate facility. We also provide private classes for companies to have one of our instructors come to their facilities and train their personnel on request. I sit on the the Electronic Security Association (ESA) National Training School (NTS) committee and immediately after the Advisory Board voted the "education before license" change I asked NTS for an expedited UAS update as well as an "on-line" version of the course. My request has been granted, funded and should be available soon.
Louisiana has an outstanding licensing act for security contractors that has been the model for some other states when preparing their own legislation. The Louisiana State Fire Marshal has always tried to balance the requirements of the law with the concerns of the Contractors, but the bottom line for regulators and contractors has to be for the best interest of those we serve.
Danny Northcutt
LLSSA Education Coordinator
President, Lafayette Alarm Services
Danny,
ReplyDeleteIt is very good news to hear that the UAS course will be offered more frequently in 2011, the four scheduled in 2010 wasn't enough given the 90 day requirement put in place in November of 2010. The change to offering the class 11 or more times each year as well as the change to 6 months to take and pass the course are positive changes and will help Louisiana businesses hire & train new salespeople.
I also assumed some of the earlier proposed changes were aimed at the summer sales companies. Unfortunately, however, the proposed changes wouldn't have affected their business much. Unlike your company and most other year around companies, the summer companies sign up salespeople during the winter for sales positions in the summer. Because they then have several months to get them trained and to meet local requirements, most of the big summer companies and many of the smaller ones have no problem having their salespeople go through a UAS course offered somewhere in the country prior to them arriving in the markets that require the course. So it doesn't affect them as much as it affects the local Louisiana growing alarm companies.
Regarding the time to receive a license, I know first hand of a couple of recent incidents where the time to receive a license after all of the required paper work was submitted ran close to 2 months.
If, as you say, a license application can be processed within a week or two after submission, and the salesperson could begin work in a week or two, that would be great. But the delayed license requests I have been told about happened within the past couple of months, and not to a summer company. Perhaps that was just an abnormal event and not likely to happen again as a rule. I can only hope so.
I am in favor of good licensing requirements. And I am also in favor of proper training of all employees in the security alarm business. I just want the licensing rules to be fair for all legitimate companies, which includes companies that are properly licensed to do business in Louisiana whom are trying to grow which necessitates the hiring of salespeople and technicians. However, if everything you say regarding the availability of UAS training is now 11 or more times each year, and the processing time to license a salesperson is truly within a week or two, then the problem I've been informed exited is no longer a problem, and all is good.
Sincerely,
Lou
This is in response to Danny Northcutt,
ReplyDeleteHere is another example where the Fire Marshal makes it diffilcult for a security company to hire sales representatives.
Besides the issue where it took me 2 months to get a sales reps license only to lose them because of the wait, I just recently sent in another sales representatives paperwork to the Fire Marshal on April 18th. I sent it to the Fire Marshal by way of PRIORITY 2 DAY delivery. Not expecting the license to be ready yet, I decided to call the Fire marshal today, 4/26/2011, to just check on the progress. They received the paperwork on 4/20/2011 according to our postal receipt however when I spoke to Linda at the Fire Marshal, she told me they just received it today! So either the postal office has falsified the receipt or I was not told the truth. I didn't expect for the check to be complete but I did expect them to be working on it once they get it and I expect to be told the truth when I call.
I strongly believe that since I am working for the ADT Dealer program, the other alarm companies do everything to influence the Fire Marshal to make it diffilcult for us. After all, the ADT Dealers, and other Dealer programs are taking business away from all other local companies. I have been told by Danny Northcutt personnally that they are trying to chase away the "Door Knocking" companies.
I feel that it shouldn't be my problem that the other alarm companies can't keep up because they refuse to utilize the best form of selling. I prefer door knocking because it lowers expenses and allows me to get in front of as many homeowners as possible. Is it logical that the more people you see, the more sales you can make, so why wouldn't anyone want to door knock?
Just to update you on my progress with the above sales rep I was trying to bring on. It has been two weeks now since I sent in his application and we have yet to hear back from the Fire Marshal. We know his record is fine because we performed our own background check.
ReplyDeleteHowever, 4 days ago, we received a phone call from the sales representative stating that he had to take another job (outside of Security) because he needed a job right away. So my company paid $120.00 to the Fire Marshal for nothing! Having to wait 2 weeks or longer to bring on a new representative is too long to wait. The majority of the time, they currently do not have a job and need employment immediatly. We can't bring him on immediatly for training because that would require us bringing him to a customer's home with a licensed rep. That is against Fire Marshal code.
Regards,
Gaylord Security
Well so much for giving credit where credit is due. Here is a new update on my trial with the Louisiana State Fire Marshal. I had interviewed 2 very nice potential sales reps to start up my sales team, believing that the Fire Marshal will not get in my way. I sent in all the necessary documents and made sure we sent them by way of two day delivery. We signed them up for a class and submitted the confirmation to the Fire Marshal. We also paid $120 for each sales reps background check with the Fire Marshal. A week goes by, then another week, and then a 3rd week goes by and still no answer. Finally a month goes by and naturally we lose both sales reps because they were unable to wait for the Fire Marshal to get off their rear end and do their job.
ReplyDeleteNow why is that? Is it too much to ask for an unemployed person to starve for a month or two so the Fire Marshal can take their sweet time?
That seems to be the belief of the Fire Marshal because when I called them and spoke to Linda Luneau, she told me "Well we are shorthanded right now so it can take 3 weeks". When I told her that it is taking more than 3 weeks and that our company is losing applicants, not to mention losing the $120 per rep, all she can say is, "Well I can have Boyd Petty give you a call". Keep in mind that speaking with Boyd Petty is like speaking to a wall. All he does is repeat what Linda has already told you and then says, "Well you can go to our Monthly meetings to voice your concerns".
Don't get me wrong, I am a believer of going to association meetings; however in a state like this where the "Good Ole Boys" outnumber the Authorized dealer programs 100 to 1, it would be like trying to hear a pin drop while watching an Airshow. Your voice will not be heard, and if it is, you are outnumbered. The "Good Ole Boys" don't want ADT Dealers, Monitronics Dealers or any other dealer that sells systems for $99 to be in "their" territory.
So I decided to try to talk to someone else. I called Mike Polito, District Chief, in charge of licensing. When I explained to him that we lose our reps and our money because we are waiting months, he seemed to want to help us. I told him how in one state on the east coast, South Security company can hire a sales rep and have that sales rep immediately begin working (on a temp basis) so long as that company performs their own background check and submits the background check along with the application to the Alarm Systems Licensing Board. When I mentioned this to Mike, he told me that from now on, if I send our background check, along with all of the other required documentation directly to him, he would immediately provide a provisional license so our reps could start quickly and one they pass the Fire Marshals background check, they would receive a full license. I was naturally happy to hear that someone at the Fire Marshal was willing to listen to us and help us resolve our dilemma.
continued.... Now, this week I had to hire a technician immediately because our workload had increased. I interviewed a technician that has been in the industry for 15 years and has a current license (Security & Fire)with the Fire Marshal for another company. Now you would think that we could just hire the tech and send the paperwork in at the same time since he has a current license already and that license was just renewed. Well if you are thinking that, you would be wrong. We still have to go through the same procedures with him as we have to with a new person. So our licensing officer decided to take Mike's promise to help and send in our background check along with the required documents and photos to Mike so we can expedite his licensing. Well we were disappointed when we were told by Linda Luneau that what we were told was incorrect. That Mike could not help us out at all and that it would still take 3 weeks or more to hire this new tech. While we are waiting for the Fire Marshal, we are going to lose accounts because our customers want security NOW, not next week or 2 weeks from now. Can you blame them? We teach the importance of security and how every day can be the day they will be burglarized, but when a customer agrees with you and says they would like it scheduled this week, we have to tell them, "Oh, I am sorry, we can't schedule you for another week or two". So the customer, now wanting security now, decides to check around and find someone that can install right away.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, in South Carolina, their laws state that if a company wants to hire a technician that has a current license from that state or any other state, the employer can have the tech start immediately so long a proof of a background check was performed by the hiring company. The Hiring company then needs to send in the application along with a copy of the background check and the installer's license. Now that is reasonable.
I strongly believe that this is just another way that the Fire Marshal of Louisiana is siding with local "Good Ole Boys" to help stop any New Business and especially any Authorized dealers from doing business in this state.
I do have a question though.....What is the Fire Marshal getting out of this. Makes you wonder if they are getting paid under the table for stopping new business.
It is like someone I know always said, the Fire Marshal is just the local Mafia. You pay them for their protection. You pay them so they will allow you to stay in business and unless you are One of them, you are not going to be able to make a living in the state of Louisiana.
I hope Bobby Jindal and others are reading this because the State Fire Marshal is making the unemployment problem worse, not better. They are preventing people who need a job from getting one.
Kris Sepulveda
Louisiana District Manager
Gaylord Security
This is very interesting site.I really enjoyed to be reading it.Keep posting and sharing like this!!
ReplyDeleteI really admire the way you present your ideas.
thanks for share it to me....
Adt Home Security System