Chapter 1 is an actual business plan I put together for an HVAC business I managed.  Most of us just need a template and a format to walk us through the process and make us think about the decisions we need to make when building a business plan.

Chapter 1 also includes a detailed description of service agreement plans and the tasks to be completed in a service agreement.

Chapter 2 includes the budgeting process which is different from a business plan. The budgeting process includes all the detail including sales forecast, the cost of trucks, payroll, materials and overhead.   The budget will also give us monthly breakdowns of where our business will come from and what actions will be used to generate our business and leads.

Chapter 2 also includes details on service technician and precision tune-up specialist compensation.  The recommended maintenance department commission and spiff program are also detailed.

Chapter 3 covers staffing. This includes the opportunity manager or sales manager, Service technicians and PTS.  Key performance indicators which are the measures you will use to judge performance are included. Position descriptions for all key positions are included.

Details on hiring the precision tune-up specialist are also included in Chapter 3.  You will be interested in the training agenda and interview questions when hiring for these key positions.

Chapter 4 includes additional training information including personality profiles to hire for these key positions the first time.   Instructions on converting service calls to tune-ups, training the precision tune-up specialist, information on the tune-up tasks such as how to clean a condenser are described.

Chapter 5 details marketing deployment.  Step-by-step instructions for direct mail and initial marketing steps are included.

Chapter 6 includes step-by-step instructions for managing the maintenance department.  This chapter will detail managing service agreements, debriefing, renewing service agreements, and a manual system for tracking service agreements. There is no need to buy and learn expensive software when starting a service agreement program.

You can find most of this material if you search the internet and read dozens of articles, but this eBook will save you a lot of time by documenting everything in one digital file.

Good luck with your HVAC Maintenance Department.

Outbound Telephone Marketing

• In most states you can call consumers that you
  have done business with in the past.  Check
  your state laws.
• You can also call consumers who have not
  enrolled in the no-call-list
• You can usually call businesses
• Call and confirm service calls before
  dispatching the tech.  Set up a service
  agreement sale by asking if they qualify for your 15% discount?
• Make a happy call after every visit to make sure
  you have a happy customer
• Follow direct mail with a phone call and ask the
  customer if they have any questions
• Ask customers if they want a filter change
  reminder via phone
• Conduct telephone surveys

Inbound Telephone Marketing

• Answer the phone with a cheerful greeting.  “It’s a wonderful day at myAcCompany, how can
  we help you?”
• Ask curiosity questions to get the customer
  involved.  “Do you qualify for our 15%
  discount?”  When the ask how to qualify,
  you explain your service agreement program
• Have a live person answer the phone
• Never let the phone ring more than twice
• Everyone answers the phone, even the owner
• No one gets their calls screened.  If you don’t want to talk, politely excuse
  yourself
• Ask all customers if they are happy with their
  electric bill.  Present benefits of
  energy efficient product or service.
• Design phone scripts for all possible questions
  and have them available in a binder at every desk.
• Recruit a secret shopper and listen-in when they
  call your company and ask questions.
• Use a message on hold.

Don’t participate in a slow economy; turn on your HVAC
Marketing.

Make it convenient and easy for your customer to buy.

• Visa
• MasterCard
• Discover
• Carte Blanche
• American Express
• Diners Club
• Pay Pal
• Checks by phone

Do you offer a full service agreement?  The customer can authorize you to auto draft
or deduct $25.00 from their credit card or bank account every month.  In return, you perform preventive maintenance and emergency repairs at no charge.  It is in your best interest to keep the equipment in top condition to prevent breakdowns.  This is a Win-Win arrangement.

When it’s time to replace the system, you get the order.

Increase your HVAC Marketing and don’t participate in a slow economy!

This series of posts will suggest no-cost or low-cost marketing to help grow your business.

Direct mail is the old reliable marketing technique for HVAC Marketing. Direct mail activity has declined in the past year with many businesses moving their marketing to the Internet. This provides less competition and more opportunity in direct mail.

Make sure you implement your direct mail program using the proven methods suggested in our postcard marketing article. Track your results and if you do decide to experiment, test the trial against the traditional method.

We recommend marketing single HVAC tune-ups and having your tech convert the tune-up to a HVAC service agreement or HVAC replacement lead.

Good luck with your HVAC marketing and growing your business.

Who to Mail To
Mail to prospects that are just like your existing customers. Are they homeowners, what income level, Married/single, 10 year old homes, 20 year old homes, new homes? Get professional help from a list company if you are not sure.

Test
Test your HVAC Marketing mailing with 1000 to 5000 pieces. Measure the response and decide to mail higher quantities or retest. Multiple mailings, 3 minimum, are recommended since it takes multiple impressions to reach some potential customers. Mail to the same prospect a minimum of three times and test the results (over time) of additional mailings.

Response Rate
Measure the results of your test or mailing based on return on investment. Response numbers will vary greatly based on the level of competition, time of year, your message, etc, etc, etc. Determine what a new customer is worth and how much you can afford in marketing. A new customer should be worth $500 to $1000 per year in sales. If you are making 10% to 20% on sales you can afford $50 to $200 in new customer acquisition cost, per new customer. This is assuming your goal is to grow your company.

Taking the Calls
Make sure your CSR or call taker is well trained. This person should have a bubbly outgoing personality and be genuinely interested in people. Make sure you provide them with a script and that they rehearse so they don’t have to read it. Provide a log and ask the new customers how they heard of your company. Keep good records and measure what works.

Your HVAC Marketing direct mail should include a call to action. If that call to action directs them to your website or a special landing page, make sure the customer will have a favorable first impression. You only have one chance to make a good first impression. This landing page should get, at minimum, an email address. Include your phone number in a prominent place.

Converting
Your techs must be trained to convert tune-ups to service agreements and replacement leads.

You are not the person who will make a great HVAC marketing manager, because marketing HVAC is repetition.
• The best customer is an existing customer. You already have name recognition. They trust you. You must repeatedly communicate with and pamper your existing customers to keep them.
• To get a new customer, you have to put your name in front of them dozens of times. This is repetitive and boring. You typically get tired of the same old message before it has time to work.
• To get a new customer you have to establish trust. How do you establish trust before you have an opportunity to demonstrate your technical skills? You guessed it …repetition.

Your competition thanks you for not recognizing and resolving this problem.

The Secret Sauce

As soon as your company can afford an Opportunity Manager, you need to fill this position. This person is in charge of administering and managing the boring tasks and repetition:
• Customer retention
• New customer acquisition.

The opportunity manager is a people person in charge of HVAC Marketing. They love talking to customers and potential customers. They can perform the same functions day after day as long as other people are involved and as long as they can socialize and communicate. The opportunity manager will manage:
• Service agreement customers and renewals.
• Leads generated by your tune-up specialists.
• Leads generated by service technicians
• Track sales results
• Newsletter
• Social media including Face book and Twitter
• Satisfaction surveys

See the “The HVAC Maintenance Department, “Lead Generation Manifesto” for more on the Opportunity Manager.

Postcards or direct mail can be divided into three major parts.

•             Design

•             The Offer

•             The Mail List

Design

The design of a postcard overcomes some of the initial challenges of direct mail.  The first challenge is getting the mail opened.  Many marketing pieces go to the trash unopened.  With a postcard, there is no opening required.  The recipient can’t help but see the bright colors of the eye catching headline and graphic.

The second challenge of direct mail is getting the piece read.  Professionals advise that the headline must draw the reader into the first sentence.  The first sentence must set the hook and motivate the reader to read on.  Many readers will skip the body and go to the bottom or PS postscript which is your last chance.

Every postcard should have:

•             An uncluttered bold headline.  Design should direct the reader’s eye directly to this headline first.  Example:  “Is your Air Conditioner Leaking Money?”

•             A picture or graphic that supports the headline. Example: Picture of an electric meter.

•             A Clear font and color that draw your eyes to the headline.

•             Any text should have a heading for ease of reading.

•             Stress benefits over features.  Example:  A benefit is saving money and increasing cooling comfort; the feature would be cleaning a condenser.

•             Create urgency to call now.  Example:  This offer expires this week.

•             Don’t let your company logo overshadow the headline or benefits.

•             Don’t leave the next step to chance.  Tell the reader exactly what to do next.  A call to action.  Example:  “Call today” or “Go to www.xxx.com for more information.”

•             Always include your name or company name, e-mail, return address, phone number and website.  Make sure you have a return address so you get undeliverable cards back.

•             If your call to action advises the customer to go to a website, you will need a landing page that will close the sale.

The Offer

Your offer should result in scheduling a tune-up.  You can sell this tune-up at a significant discount or even give it away.  You can offer utility discounts.  The offer must be attractive and a good offer for the HVAC industry.  A benefit too small or too large and unbelievable will not be effective.  What can you profitably offer to land a customer that will spend $6,000 to $10,000 in the next 10 years with you?

Mailing List

You can purchase a list from a list company or you can have a company specializing in a turnkey solution supply the entire project.  You want to match the demographics of your existing service agreement customers.  A good list company can do this for you.  Demographics are things like income level, marital status, location, value of home, etc.  You want to market to potential customers similar to your existing customers in order to get the best results.

You also want to develop an email list if you don’t have one.  This email list will be used for follow-up accessory and replacement sales.  Delivery cost for email is very low.

The Business Details

How much does it cost?

•             Postcard design:  $100 to $200

•             Full color postcards: $ .05 to $ .07 each

•             Mail list and addressing $.05 each

•             Postage:  $.21 to $.28

•             Web site landing page $300.

This is a business and you want to get a good return on your investment.  You can expect a 1% to 2% response rate.  That means 1 or 2 tune-ups sold for every 100 postcards you mail.  This would represent up to $20,000 in sales over the next 10 years.

You will want to do less of the marketing that doesn’t work and more of the marketing that does work, so you are going to track your results.  You can assign a special code or 800 phone number to each postcard campaign and track the results manually or automate the process in Yodle or Infusionsoft.

You should allow one month from the day you pull the trigger to get started to the day you start seeing results.

Call Sammy at: www.Postcardmania.com for a professional turnkey solution.

This is one of those books you should keep in stock. A classic since it rolled off the press in 1998. Hand one to any employee especially those in your HVAC Marketing Department, you see struggling with accepting change.

Some of us are just wired to fight change to the death. Personality profiles show technical people are the most adverse to change. HVAC companies are full of technical people. Do us a favor and help us work through the issues.

The book is a business fable about two mice and two little people and their four reactions to change.

Written by: Spence Johnson

The days of driving employees to perform have long gone.  Today only motivation and leadership works.  I think Mark Twain said something about “things need to be as simple as possible, but not too simple”.  This book has three simple principals that are proven methods.

We should treat our employees how we would like to be treated.

You can read this simple book in less than a day.  It is written in a story telling format that is entertaining.  You should read this book, practice the principals and give a copy to your managers.

Author, Kenneth Blanchard, Ph.D, has sold more than nine million copies of this book.

Companies with under a few hundred service agreements can utilize a manual scheduling system.  The addition of a spreadsheet will also help keep track of history and plan future workload.  It’s a good idea to overdo recordkeeping since each service agreement will represent several thousand dollars in service, repair and replacement revenue over the lifetime of the agreement.

A well designed software solution is the best answer, but if you are setting up a new program for the first time, you can get bogged down learning software.  Defer the software option until you have mastered the other requirements.  Program success will result from developing sales skills and delivering exceptional service.  If you have existing software, use it.  If you don’t have software, use a manual system and get the program up and running before spending six months learning new software.

What you need to know:

• Number of service agreements.  Measure your growth and success.
• Number of tune-ups, complete/incomplete.  (Two tune-ups per agreement).
• Number of tune-ups to be performed each month.
• Earned revenue.  Recognize revenue only for tune-ups performed.
• Unearned revenue.  (tune-ups not performed)
• Details of the equipment covered under each service agreement.

Manual System

If you are marketing single tune-ups as your marketing strategy, you want to convert that tune-up to a service agreement.  Don’t use your single tune-up as the first tune-up of the agreement.  The new service agreement will have two tune-ups and the last tune-up is performed at the end of the service agreement.  This allows your superbly trained PTS to renew the agreement during the second tune-up at the time the agreement is expiring.  You don’t want six months left after the last tune-up, at the end of the agreement.  Their is more urgency on the customers part to renew, since the agreement is expiring.  The PTS will renew many more agreements than a phone call or letter.  The PTS gets a bonus or spiff for each renewal.

Log the new service agreement in your spreadsheet and schedule the next two tune-ups paying close attention to the workload for each month.  You want to balance the workload.  You can use a separate tab on your spreadsheet for each month.

Place a copy of the completed agreement form in a 12 pocket, monthly expanding folder.  File the agreement under the month of the next tune-up.  At the beginning of each month pull the service agreements for that month from the expanding folder. Compare the paper agreements with the spreadsheet, schedule and complete the tune-up and place the copy back in the expanding file for the next tune-up.  Update the spreadsheet log.

If the PTS doesn’t renew the agreement, go visit the customer yourself and find out why.  Determine a countermeasure to be implemented to increase renewals.

General Guidelines:

• Use the street address for service agreements and service files.  Label files “street name”, “street number”, “City”, “State”, “zip code”.  People move, but the equipment normally stays at the same address.  The service agreement is written for each piece of equipment and is not transferred.  Write a new agreement if your customer moves.
• Write one agreement for each address, listing all the equipment at that address.

When you get ready to purchase software to manage your service replacement business, check back with us for recommendations.