We are just starting out and have lost a few jobs due to not offering financing. Tell me the good, bad and ugly. Anything you wish you would have known.

Got my first van to go out solo, high roof promaster.

Looking for some direction on brands (best, most affordable, etc) of shelving to build it out.

I just got a quote for the Ranger HVAC package and it was $5900 with self install. No idea how that compares or if that’s average, as most people had told me it was going to run me around $2500 to build this van out.

I got the van well under what my budget was, so I’m okay to spend a little more than anticipated, and I want a system that will last for a long time through installer/technician abuse.

Thanks

I’ve been in the hvac industry for almost 20 years now. Owning my own business, and licensed in two states where HVAC does well. I’m tired, I’m not the best business operator in the world, we are profitable but I don’t know how to grow. I’ve got around 10 employees and 5 trucks. We do around 2 million gross. Net about 5%.

So knowing that, I’d like to be more involved in my family life then my work life. I’m not the best people manager, I get frustrated with people who I feel like are not getting better at their job, dealing with the hiring, and anyways I’m a technical person. Always took pride in providing high quality work. Built a name for myself. But I want out. I’ve been tempted to just going back to me and a truck. I’m surviving I just don’t enjoy operating the business.

So my question is this, are there companies out there that just want to hire a license holder? I’ve got unlimited mechanical licenses in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Like one of those Private equity firms that build companies up? Is that a thing?

I am new to HVAC ownership but my family has run a long time shop. I recently became partners with my Dad to help aid his retirement transition and keep family shop going, (I’ll be 3rd gen).

From my outside perspective, my dad has done ok, treats the team and customers great but has struggled to grow. Him and my mom also have limited retirement saving because they’ve put everything into the business. They never wanted their employees to go without pay so they’d empty retirement to cover payroll during slow times. It’s been a cycle like this for about 15yrs now.

I never wanted to be in the business. I went off and had my own successful career. Last year I learned their bank was no longer going to support them. They were over $250K behind between owing distributor, credit cards and bank. Worse, their AP was 3x hired than AR.

I started helping right the ship about 6months ago. I found a lot of problem areas and over spending. I’ve cut 30% of their overhead and laid off 2 overly paid family members (that’s been very hard).

Now we are mostly lean and still brining in work. This is great, our bank account is growing for first time in 5yrs.

My next issue is their AR. My dad drank some coaching kool-aid and is constantly $2500-$3000 higher on our bids. We are starting to loose long time customers because too high. He refuses to lower prices though. When I show him the data he just walks away and says he “needs to make money”. Well yes, but we need to be considered by the customer to make money. 15% profit is better than $0.

Any advice on getting through to him or am I too late to help turn around their shop?

We get so many customers calling in to buy parts over counter. YouTube really has given too many customers a false sense of confidence.

As a policy, we don’t sell parts (other than filters) over the counter currently. We don’t want a diy’r to hurt themselves.

Do other shops sell parts over the counter? Where do you draw line? Filters? Fan motors?

I noticed there is a new complete DIY minisplit system our dealer is selling. Seems like a bad idea.

So I’m curious how you guys expand your business. Seems like a balancing act for sure. We have 3 guys. Two are journeymen and one isn’t. One is self sufficient and work jobs alone but the other two need help as they are still learning. We need a 4th guy to teach the other two well the one other guy can work alone. Do you just save some capital up to hire another guy? Do you save 6 months worth of wages? Etc

Hello,

I’d like to market to people that have recently purchased their home in specific zip codes. Does anyone have experience with getting a list of purchased homes and the purchasers first and last name and address? Or have you tried this and had any success? Small business trying to do gorilla marketing to build up our clientele.

Thank you!

I qualified a business in FL, they pay me a monthly fee for the use of it. Their original business plan was to go through the PACE program to get their customers financing.

PACE financing wanted me to sign off on being financially liable for projects and I refuse to take on that liability. I do however have a signed contract with this company agreeing to pay the monthly fee but they can no longer use the PACE program for financing since I will not sign. They discovered this after signing our contract.

They are now refusing to pay me since they can not use their original business plan. Any idea what my options are here?

Hello all. I am second year service tech. I started off with the union, but left because no overtime and I don’t believe that union guys shouldn’t be allowed to do side work. I now work with another commercial contractor.

HVAC became my life. All I do is read about it, work in it, watch it, and listen to it. All day. I love it. I’ve always been obsessive like this. I currently do about 3-4 residential service calls a week and about an instal every other week on my own. I have my own LLC for the side work, a website, social media pages, etc. it’s very good money, more than what I make at work.

My problem is that I only want to work on commercial equipment. So because of this I have to continue to work with my contractor and learn as much as I possibly can until I am ready to get on my own. I’ve done a few commercial side jobs like rooftop repairs and installs. But I want to work on the bigger stuff like I do at work.

My question is how did you gets manage to start from nothing to landing some work in those bigger buildings?

For anyone on the commercial/industrial side, how much work do you typically give a PM to run? I know all jobs are different, looking for a dollar amount. I’ve heard one PM should be able to handle $5m in projects at a time. Is this accurate?

I am really needing help understanding what my value is to a company as I hired in at $15 and promises of getting a raise keep getting pushed out. skip to the section "Tune Up Process" if you don't want to read my mental dump of the past 6 months in the trade. I hope below it does not seem like a word vomit.

My Scenario:

I am 25 and have been a service based business owner/operator for 6 years then worked as a sales/social media manager for a larger company in the cleaning industry. I moved back to my home state and after hitting the ceiling in almost every aspect of the cleaning industry even building a social media following to 1.6 mm just pressure washing I decided I wanted to start a new chapter/learn a trade.

Low and behold I would have a company reach out to me on indeed due to my resume and originally wanted to hire me for a management position based upon my resume. Once they saw my age and I stated I wanted to learn the trade we choose to go the route of me learning to be a tune up tech. The kicker being that they would not start me at $20 but $15 however they would pay me $50 per every Tuneup I sold if I wanted to make extra on the weekend. The major item would be that if I showed up, fully bought into learning, and performed I would see $20 per hour (base pay) in 6 months.

Well It sucked starting at $15 so I told myself I would make up for it b/c I would bust it open on the weekend and when I got my own van I would be a top producer for the company. First three months I over exceeded their expectations. The $50 per door knock ended up working so well we started a door knocking division. The reason being is that I could book 5-10+ Tune ups in a day. my second month into the trade I ended up selling a $3k iaq package and lead setting another 18K in blow in insulation and a unit.

Fast forward to the past three well really the month of January was a wash due to sickness and a snow storm. I have finally won them over enough to provide me with my own van (on most days..) I am starting to receive a few club member maintenances but my days are focused on going d2d to do now "First tune up is on us" the reason being mainly they didn't want to pay me $50 per tune up bc I was getting hourly & I was killing it so much I was making more then my office manager (the owners wife). The other tuneup techs/d2d guys well they couldn't produce (That's a whole story in itself).

The month of February is the most time I got to focus on producing without having to jump on installs or other company tasks. I would receive three company provided clubs/maintenances the whole month (each I converted on). The rest of my time I would run my own door knocked tune ups. This would produce at the end of the month $60k but the kicker is out of 20 working days that month I would only have 5 days of running my own door knocks or running company provided club maintenances. This month I am at $40k sold and have another $40k very to closing. My older service techs were first mad at me for converting their long time customers or going behind them & selling a new unit, new duct system, or IAQ.

Tune Up Process: (Why I feel I am worth $20+ per hr at minimum)

The joke in the office is "I am not letting him do a tune up at my home bc he show me how bad my system is and I will probably want to replace everything" Now, I am not selling truly please understand when I say tune its not just washing your condenser. I am very through during this process it begins with understanding what the homeowner cares about, their utility bill, if they have allergy/health concerns, how long they are gonna live in the home, hot or cold spots. and their favorite color if needed. from that point I check every run with a micro camera & thermal camera (the homeowner does it with me). Then I go through checking all parts of the unit, check for growth and safety switches, and use a thermal camera for checking duct leakage. I constantly have the homeowner involved more then once I have had a homeowner on their belly with me crawling through the crawlspace. Once I have finished the discover phase I wash the condenser, head inside, go back over and/or present all findings and discuss options. Enough value and understanding has been built between showing what problems they have and the different options of solutions that they normally choose what they want for me. I then go to the van write up 4 different packages of solutions and financing options. (majority of d2ds I have to leadset to the GM as those are either full unit replacements or duct system replacement/modifications)

Commission Structure:

-Indoor Air quality 10%

-Duct Work replacement 5%

-New Unit 6%

The company:

On its 3rd year in residential past year it grossed 2mm in rev and had 1mm in unsold estimates. All management staff is 28yrs or younger. The commercial division is 5 years old and is doing fantastic they are the bread winners as residential has not shown a profit as it is all being reinvested for quick growth. I am gonna stop there as the guys with experience in working for or owning a small business know what problems a young company fully committed to growth with young leadership looks like/the problems it will have.

Please Note:

I know I am young in the industry technical knowledge wise however, I am up to speed on heating, low voltage, and general technical. I have yet to have the opportunity to dive head first into refrigerant as it has been lukewarm or cold outside. I love customer relations and i guess you would say sales but more relationship development paired with Investigating systems.

I own an hvac company that focuses on replacement and service. I would like to get into some new construction. Whats the best way to connect with builders to bid their projects?

Pros/Cons How do they pay in comparison? Is it worth getting higher general liability insurance? What the longest they ever took to pay you? I'm a one man shop with virtually no overhead btw.

Hi everyone, first post here and obvs throwaway acct so dont mind the foolish name.

I've been working in HVAC for 15 years in the states. I've had my own business here as well.

Looking to move back to Ireland in the next year or so. One thing I've noticed is that around Dublin or Ireland in general, they lack supply houses for hvac units. I'm good friends with a GC / Project manager who has contracts with major supermarkets all over the world. Last year he had a contract to work on a supermarket in Dublin. He mentioned that he was not able to purchase the required Mitsubishi minisplit units in Ireland and had to purchase them from Spain. I've not been back home in 8 years so this was new to me. He mentioned that I should look into opening up my own supply house.

How would I go about this? What types of licenses would I need? Is it even possible for me to do something like this? Where should I start looking to do my research?

Much appreciated!

So a few days ago I had asked about some ideas we had for evaluations and getting some structure to my current company on raises, positions etc and I got a couple great responses. My next question is this. I recently submitted a plan detailing where I'd like to be as far as pay rate, key accomplishments that lead up to this point that help solidify my argument for pay requested, a couple things I appreciate about the company, and areas I feel improvement could be made and a few things I'd like to accomplish that benefit both my own growth and help the company as well. It was a clean, single page outline. By doing this it helped my negotiations for my wages, adjustment on benefits etc go very smoothly and successful. My manager has asked I create a simple page with about 5 or so questions or parts to it for our other guys and future techs to fill out that could help streamline the process for everyone. What would be a good idea to include on this, should I just do something similar to my situation and ask the basics. Do any of yall utilize something like this at your company? Again thank you so much for the input.

I would like to expand into the public work arena. They require a 1 million dollar bond to bid on projects. Does anyone have any experience with acquiring a bond. Do you have to essentially self insure to get yourself off the ground? Any insight would be very helpful. Thanks!

At my company we are in the process of coming up with an in house apprenticeship and evaluation program for service techs. We have something similar in place already for our install side but want to come up with a program for our service department. My service manager and I discussed doing technician level such as tech 1 tech 2 tech 3 etc. Each would have a payscale range and as the technician accomplishes set goals and gets more proficient they will see pay increases , smaller inside each tier but larger increases to the next level if that makes sense at all.

I was curious if any of yall have a similar structure or ideas on how to implement this. We are located in central Louisiana, very moderate cost of living. I am lead tech on residential and light commercial but fill in for our commercial department as needed. This would primarily apply to our specific department of residential and light commercial. We would have the facilities set up to do actual demonstration of skills at our shop with a training room and were thinking of doing hands on and written evaluations. What are yalls thoughts. Thanks in advance

Title is obvious... but hear me out.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and another owner of a longtime HVAC company in my city. I know things are down these days in some markets (I think we're still coming off the Covid crazy spend money days) but he said things were abysmal for him. This is a company that has been around for 5+ decades.

They lost sight of marketing years ago. He really is not doing anything active and kind of trying to keep the name alive with good reputation and a super sticky customer base.

His market share is eroding.

My personal experience is: never take your foot off the marketing pedal if you can pull it off. Personally, I would never not spend less than 8% of my budgeted revenue in a year on marketing costs. There are challenges you will face like marketing cost efficiencies and, managing growth without pissing off your customer base, but this it's way better IMO to have vibrant active growth and the chaos that comes with it then stale stagnant or a continual decline in jobs.

Every bloodsucking thirsty "marketing genius" will want to suck your cash dry. This is the hardest part of running a service company, picking someone that will truly help you. The best advice I can give if you is: pick a platform or platforms and stick with it. Try to nail down an annual budget and commit to it. Try to have a mix of "branded" marketing (We're ABC Plumbing & Heating) and lots of "call to action marketing" (20% off furnaces for the next 30 days). You increase the top of mind presence for your company for the one day someone's furnace goes south, and your call to action marketing hits the shoppers in your market right there and then.

It might be helpful to try and get a gauge on your actual market share in your city. You need to try and figure out what the market size is in your city. This means you want to get the TOTAL market size for your industry in your country, then break that number down to a per capita amount, then multiply by your market population. (HVAC U.S. guys multiply your city/service area population by 90 / Canadians multiply by 100). That is roughly your total market size. Now take your annual revenue and divide by the total market size. Eg. My revenue last year was $3mm and our market size is $30mm, we have 10% of our market. This will kind of give you a base line that you can use to measure growth (or retraction). It's not a science, but it's a start.

Last thing because this is turning into a giant wall of text. Don't sink all your chips into marketing until you are really good at catching the ball. That means, your dispatchers can set leads, your techs can set leads, your guys can sell efficiently and effectively, and you are actually profitable. Full circle on my story about my friend. He hurt his company today by turning off the marketing taps a few years ago when things were good. Try to keep the momentum going, or someone is going to end up eating your lunch.

Consider this post a kick in your ass if you are stalling or wavering on marketing. Cheers guys and good luck.

I am starting an HVAC company that specializes in bulk pricing models to get cost lower for home owners and take advantage of economics of scale. Only thing is, I lack the installer network that I can sell/assign jobs to.

We handle marketing, admin work - scheduling, parts ordering and delivery, and more so installers only have to arrive on site and install. But what are good rates to offer technicians and how to structure the deals so they are taken care of.

I am looking for any feedback, advice, hard slaps in the face to help me structure my agreements and values to a network of installers based in Eastern Massachusetts while making sure the installers are happy and paid well.

I own a small (one man show) business, and I’m wondering how others have made the jump into hiring employee’s. I purchased the company from a guy I worked for, for 12 years when he retired. It was just him and I all those years. We were able to keep up with all resi and comm customers, but I had to drop resi when I took over. My largest client is a very well known fast food chain, and they keep me extremely busy. It was too much for one person, but not enough to keep an employee on full time. It seems every year I really need to hire someone, but then things slow a bit and I’m glad I didn’t. I’m constantly riding that line, and not sure how to get over it. I don't want to bring a guy on, only to have to lay him off when things slow down. Ive tried a few apprentices over the years, but cant find anyone willing to really work. Maybe it's just bad luck i don't know, but I make it a priority to treat people right and take care of them extremely well. I spent over 20 years as an employee in this field, and I always remember what it's like. Looking for any suggestions or advice from fellow hvac/r guys! Thank you!

Edit: Just wanted to thank you all for the advice and suggestions. Definitely given me some food for thought, and I’ll be working on making some changes this year!

Do other residential shops still maintain a full sheet metal manufacturing shop? Our recent new hire on install was shocked that we make a lot of our own fittings in house. Maybe we run like dinosaurs?

We were mostly new construction back in the 60s-90s. Started doing more residential service and replacement in the 90s. Then dropped new construction all together in 2010s after 2008. We still do custom sheet metal work for our replacements and some special request projects. It’s getting harder to find guys that still know how to bend tin.

My friend has been doing HVAC for 15 years. He recently went on his own. He has being doing well and wants to expand. He has 5 guys under him and ready to work. He approached me to help because as he put it, he can’t be two places at one time. He told me he wants a business partner and we could build it together. I have no experience in HVAC but I can get stuff done and learn as I go. He wants me to revamp his logo, get website up and going, figure out a way to get customer financing, sales etc I would wear many hats and help day to day operations. I’m willing to put in the hours. What should I ask for compensation, I made it clear equity in the company is something I’d like. He seemed to agree so I’d like to ask anyone here that has experience what fair compensation would be? Thanks!

Hey guys Im a union apprentice who just got my Mechanical Contractors license. I already set up my llc, workmans comp exemption, business bank account, credit card, website etc. However I am missing the key aspect of any business which is getting customers. Outside of word of mouth how do I get customers. What do you guys think about home warranty?

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Hey,

I'm looking into hiring an SEO company, but I keep hearing the prices $1000-$1500+. Is this accurate, or have I been overcharged?

I’ve been in HVAC for 7 years 3 as a tech and 4 in sales. I have a friend who has been an installer for the last 8 years and another who has been a senior tech and then service manager at a separate company for about 10 years.

We would like go into business together and are just wondering how much capital we should have saved and how much additional we should raise.

We have decided after launching the company we would not bring anyone else on until demand more then requires it.

IWe also would use the pole barn i have on my property as the location until we are more then steady enough to move out of that location.

We are in a small midwest city with a decent cost of living.

We are a 10 tech operation that has been running on Service Fusion since 2016. I recently took a management position in the company, and am looking for ways to monetize our extensive database of emails & phone numbers.

I would love to utilize text & email marketing to run promo's and touch base with customers we haven't serviced in years, but doing this within Service Fusion seems like a nightmare (the database filtering & reports in Service Fusion are horrible).

​

For those of you running successful marketing campaigns on Service Fusion, are you doing this through API's with other software like Podium, Customer Lobby, etc.?

My close friend and I are looking to get our own company up and running. We are both 20 years old, graduated from trade school, both have experience in install and service, and have access to subcontractors. We are currently in the middle of getting every single thing we need to see down on paper to assure we set ourselves up for success. I guess this post is really for my guys who have their own company. What stresses do you guys battle the most and what was the hardest part in getting started? We both dedicate our free time to growing this business and work very hard together in making this happen. Thank you for any input that’s given!

I’m a new service manager for a commercial HVAC company. We get multiple new leads a day but i’m struggling with easily converting these leads into service calls.

A normal operation in our office goes like this: A customer calls in looking for service, I speak with them about the issue theyre having, tell them we can send someone out and that I will transfer them to billing to get a credit card number for a half days service to troubleshoot and see what the problem is. At this point the customer is usually confused because theyre not used to paying by card and it takes a while for them to figure out on their end.

So how do other commercial hvac companies make sure they get paid by new customers without making them feel uncomfortable about it and possibly backing out of the service all together? I probably get 2-3 new customer calls per day and probably convert 1 of those per week to an actual customer. This feels like an alarmingly low conversion rate.

I’m a bit disappointed- I’m in Arizona and I’ve tried taking the HVAC portion of the test (R-39 Residential and Commercial) and have failed it. I have 15 years experience in the field so I have practical knowledge but that doesn’t seem to help much with the test.

I did purchase and studied the “state exam experts- Arizona Study Guide for contractors c-39” for the past month.

Any advice or guidance is appreciated.