What’s In The Maintenance Department eBook?

by: Michael Glover - Filed under: Must Read Business Books

Our book “The Maintenance Department Business Model” includes six chapters.

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.

HVAC Marketing, Using the Telephone

by: Michael Glover - Filed under: Marketing

E-mail and direct mail are essential tools in the HVAC Marketing arsenal.  Using the telephone for marketing  should also be a tool used on a regular basis.  Many people communicate best by voice. Use every excuse you can think of to talk to your customer.

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.

HVAC Marketing in a Down Economy, Part 1

by: Michael Glover - Filed under: Marketing

Do you remember your high school sports coach saying, “when things get tough, the tough get going”? That was good advice. When things get tough in the economy, make the mental decision not to participate. Redouble your efforts. If a recession is a 10% decline in business, double your efforts to make up the 10% plus growth of 10%.

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.

HVAC Marketing, “The Secret Sauce”

by: Michael Glover - Filed under: Marketing

Most contractors have a “Driver Personality Profile”. It takes a driver to make a business successful. One of the traits of this profile is a very short attention span. You get bored easily with things. You are not detail oriented and go from the current big thing to the next big thing driving the business.

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.

HVAC Marketing, Book Review, Guerrilla Marketing

by: admin - Filed under: Must Read Business Books

I read Guerrilla Marketing for the first time in the mid 1980’s.  I was blown away and this book became my marketing bible.  This book was written for every small business.

For the first time someone had written a HVAC marketing book for a small business.

The fourth edition is the latest of a dozen different versions of the basic book.

HVAC Marketing is everything you do to promote your business and a lot of it is free.  Advertising is a small part of marketing.

Some will say this is the old basic marketing methods and they are right.  I’m going to read it again since I tend to get distracted and need to be re-grounded in the basics on a regular basis.

Buy from Amazon Guerrilla Marketing, 4th edition: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business