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Our Philosophy
At HVAC Business Solutions we help heating and air conditioning companies maximize
every dollar allocated towards marketing. Most HVAC companies know they need to some form of
marketing, but quite often they waste money on marketing campaigns that don?t work, don't establish
benchmarks for success, don?t leverage technologies that can reduce costs and increase marketing
activities or target the wrong customer. Marketing can be fun and profitable if you follow the
concepts below:
Marketing Leverage ? spend less, get more
Leverage is the backbone of the financial industry. For example, if you want to buy a house that costs $200,000, you don?t need to have $200,000. You can purchase the house for $40,000. The financial leverage is that $40,000 can buy you a $200,000 home.
Marketing in the HVAC industry is the same way. Traditional marketing methods, such as direct mail, door hangers, radio and Valpack, have no marketing leverage. If you want to have $10,000 worth of direct mail advertising, you need to spend $10,000.
But what if you could have $10,000 worth of advertising and marketing for only $1000 or less?
How is this possible?
Leverage technology! Specifically Internet technologies!
Using email and Internet based technologies you can market and advertise more often for a low, fixed cost. Therefore, you can communicate more often, with no incremental cost, to existing customers. Furthermore, you will no longer be constrained by costs to launch new marketing campaigns.
For small air conditioning companies, money is tight and marketing budget is limited. However, by leveraging Internet technologies, a small air conditioning company can market and advertise like a big one.
Marketing is an Investment, not an Expense
Before you make an investment what do you do?
You research the opportunity. You understand how much upfront money is needed. You determine the potential upside.
Once the investment decision is made, what do most people do? Track and monitor the performance of the investment!! If the investment starts to go bad, they get out. If the investment goes well, they keep it going.
This same approach and philosophy needs to be taken when approaching your marketing and advertising strategy. You have to be willing to invest a certain amount of money upfront, but you also have to track the investment and know if it is performing.
For example, if you launched a $1,000 advertising campaign and it returned $5,000, would you do it again? Would you not try investing $2,000 for a $10,000 return?
Similarly, if you launched a $1,000 advertising campaign and it returned $100, would you do it again?
You shouldn?t, but in our industry this happens all the time. This happens when HVAC companies commit money year after year to direct mail pieces, phone book ads and other campaigns that don?t provide a return on investment.
This leads us to...
Accountability - every dollar counts
For the air conditioning industry - the average profit margin is just 3%!!!
There is no room for error and unfortunately many good, honest, hard working air conditioning technicians go out of business every year.
Not a single dollar can be wasted.
Unfortunately, most HVAC companies create a marketing or advertising budget at the beginning of the year and no matter what happens, no matter how many times the phone rings, no matter how many sales are made, or no matter how many new customers are acquired they spend the money year in and year out.
Does this make any sense?
Whatever type of marketing and advertising strategy you decide to implement you MUST TRACK THE RESULTS.
Knowledge is power. Once you understand which advertisements are profitable and which ones are not, it is very easy to decide where next month?s advertising investment will go.
Your Future Customers Do Business Online
The way you communicate with a baby boomer is significantly different than the way you need to attract and keep new customers ? Generation X and Generation Y. The bottom line is if you don?t keep up with technology, adapt and evolve to communicate and keep customers they way they want, you will be out of business.
For example, Generation X (people aged 30-44) conduct business and have a vastly different lifestyle than their parents (the majority of most HVAC customers). They do not have a home phone, they communicate over email and they will use the Internet to form an opinion about a company, product or service before spending money.
Therefore, if you do not have a website, or communicate via email you have very little chance of attracting new, younger customers. After all, these customers (young lawyers, doctors, engineers, professionals) have a higher long-term earning potential for your business than the older generation.
If you adapt to the way your customers want to do business, you will have a better chance of acquiring new customers and building long-lasting relationships.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Maximize your time, target the right customer
There are only so many hours in the day. Most people with a good work ethic will put in the extra hour or two and do what it takes to get the job done. But what if you could leverage technology so you could reduce the amount of time it takes to perform a task?
What would that time savings be worth to you? How much more could you accomplish?
With Internet-based technologies you can automate your business! Your business is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. If you use your website correctly, you can make sales, communicate with customers, prospect and cultivate new customers all without manual intervention.
Another part of working smarter, is targeting the right customer. Most companies target the wrong the customer ? the type of customer that is expensive to acquire, the most price conscience, and the hardest to keep. By spending your time, energy and money on the right customer you will increase profitability and spend less time, energy and money to do so.
We Have the Solutions
HVAC Business Solutions has not only identified several technologies applicable for air conditioning industry, but has tested the technology by selling industry-specific products and services with much success.
If you want to know how to best incorporate these concepts into your business, please give us call (713-270-6400).
Marketing Leverage ? spend less, get more
Leverage is the backbone of the financial industry. For example, if you want to buy a house that costs $200,000, you don?t need to have $200,000. You can purchase the house for $40,000. The financial leverage is that $40,000 can buy you a $200,000 home.
Marketing in the HVAC industry is the same way. Traditional marketing methods, such as direct mail, door hangers, radio and Valpack, have no marketing leverage. If you want to have $10,000 worth of direct mail advertising, you need to spend $10,000.
But what if you could have $10,000 worth of advertising and marketing for only $1000 or less?
How is this possible?
Leverage technology! Specifically Internet technologies!
Using email and Internet based technologies you can market and advertise more often for a low, fixed cost. Therefore, you can communicate more often, with no incremental cost, to existing customers. Furthermore, you will no longer be constrained by costs to launch new marketing campaigns.
For small air conditioning companies, money is tight and marketing budget is limited. However, by leveraging Internet technologies, a small air conditioning company can market and advertise like a big one.
Marketing is an Investment, not an Expense
Before you make an investment what do you do?
You research the opportunity. You understand how much upfront money is needed. You determine the potential upside.
Once the investment decision is made, what do most people do? Track and monitor the performance of the investment!! If the investment starts to go bad, they get out. If the investment goes well, they keep it going.
This same approach and philosophy needs to be taken when approaching your marketing and advertising strategy. You have to be willing to invest a certain amount of money upfront, but you also have to track the investment and know if it is performing.
For example, if you launched a $1,000 advertising campaign and it returned $5,000, would you do it again? Would you not try investing $2,000 for a $10,000 return?
Similarly, if you launched a $1,000 advertising campaign and it returned $100, would you do it again?
You shouldn?t, but in our industry this happens all the time. This happens when HVAC companies commit money year after year to direct mail pieces, phone book ads and other campaigns that don?t provide a return on investment.
This leads us to...
Accountability - every dollar counts
For the air conditioning industry - the average profit margin is just 3%!!!
There is no room for error and unfortunately many good, honest, hard working air conditioning technicians go out of business every year.
Not a single dollar can be wasted.
Unfortunately, most HVAC companies create a marketing or advertising budget at the beginning of the year and no matter what happens, no matter how many times the phone rings, no matter how many sales are made, or no matter how many new customers are acquired they spend the money year in and year out.
Does this make any sense?
Whatever type of marketing and advertising strategy you decide to implement you MUST TRACK THE RESULTS.
Knowledge is power. Once you understand which advertisements are profitable and which ones are not, it is very easy to decide where next month?s advertising investment will go.
Your Future Customers Do Business Online
The way you communicate with a baby boomer is significantly different than the way you need to attract and keep new customers ? Generation X and Generation Y. The bottom line is if you don?t keep up with technology, adapt and evolve to communicate and keep customers they way they want, you will be out of business.
For example, Generation X (people aged 30-44) conduct business and have a vastly different lifestyle than their parents (the majority of most HVAC customers). They do not have a home phone, they communicate over email and they will use the Internet to form an opinion about a company, product or service before spending money.
Therefore, if you do not have a website, or communicate via email you have very little chance of attracting new, younger customers. After all, these customers (young lawyers, doctors, engineers, professionals) have a higher long-term earning potential for your business than the older generation.
If you adapt to the way your customers want to do business, you will have a better chance of acquiring new customers and building long-lasting relationships.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Maximize your time, target the right customer
There are only so many hours in the day. Most people with a good work ethic will put in the extra hour or two and do what it takes to get the job done. But what if you could leverage technology so you could reduce the amount of time it takes to perform a task?
What would that time savings be worth to you? How much more could you accomplish?
With Internet-based technologies you can automate your business! Your business is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. If you use your website correctly, you can make sales, communicate with customers, prospect and cultivate new customers all without manual intervention.
Another part of working smarter, is targeting the right customer. Most companies target the wrong the customer ? the type of customer that is expensive to acquire, the most price conscience, and the hardest to keep. By spending your time, energy and money on the right customer you will increase profitability and spend less time, energy and money to do so.
We Have the Solutions
HVAC Business Solutions has not only identified several technologies applicable for air conditioning industry, but has tested the technology by selling industry-specific products and services with much success.
If you want to know how to best incorporate these concepts into your business, please give us call (713-270-6400).
Case Study - Houston, TX
Air Conditioning Company - Houston, TX
BackgroundBefore working with us, a current client of ours was spending $9,000 a year on Yellow Page advertising. They didn?t track the number of leads and customers from this source, but they knew it was not significant.
The problem was that they did not understand how much business they needed ? JUST TO BREAK EVEN.
With an industry average profit margin of 3% they needed to generate
$300,000 in NEW BUSINESS to just BREAK EVEN
With an industry average service call charge of $200 (this number is on the high end of the spectrum), that means the ac company would have to perform 1,500 new service calls during the course of the year, or 125 per month, or a little more than 4 per day.
Needless to say they were not averaging anywhere close to 4 new jobs per day.
Once the company understood the financials, applied our philosophy, they elected to significantly cut back on this investment and reallocate the money into other, more profitable, Internet-based, marketing campaigns.
Marketing ROI Calculator
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