As seen in the October 2006 edition of HVACR Business magazine. It’s unlikely that your customers will defect to a competitor if you are delivering the four elements of making customers happy that I outlined last month — on-time delivery, quality work, ethical corporate behavior, and convenience. Satisfied customers know that by switching, they’re taking…

As seen in the November 2007 edition of HVACR Business magazine. Building a highly profitable hvac retail business with residential service agreements takes more than ideas, it takes proper training and execution. With this final article in the service-agreement series, I will present the last steps necessary to position your company as the dominate force…

As seen in the October 2007 edition of HVACR Business magazine. Strive to make every customer more than satisfied. In an effort to emphasize the importance of understanding and practicing the marketing principle of added value, I’ve decided to revisit and elaborate on a past Discipline of Leadership column. In that column I discussed how…

As seen in the July 2007 edition of HVACR Business magazine. From small to medium to large to huge: Which are you, and which do you wish to be? When I founded my first air conditioning and heating company in 1965, it would have been classified as a small company. In fact, it could not have…

Now is the time to incorporate or improve upon these 10 practices.  Some time in the future  — hopefully in the near future — this recession will end. Don’t expect your role as a leader to become easier, though. Many elements of your business will be different, and you will need to respond differently. Going…

As seen in the December, 2008 edition of HVACR Business magazine. HVACR contractors that operate with divisions—whether it is two or ten—that internally report net profit results for each division have a common problem. The question always is this: how to properly allocate expenses. My first contracting company grew into a very large company with…

As seen in the January 2007 edition of HVACR Business magazine. Contrary to the opinion of most people in our industry, I maintain that you can staff your company with competent co-workers — and I have plenty of experience doing it both for my own contracting companies and my consulting clients. I have been traveling…

As seen in the February 2007 edition of HVACR Business magazine. 13 Methods — Some You Probably Aren’t Using Recruiting is the practice of getting people interested in working at your company. Recruiting people is totally different than hiring them; however, you can’t hire them if you don’t recruit them. Recruiting is the first step…

As seen in the August, 2008 edition of HVACR Business magazine. As the residential-new-construction building industry slows down, or basically dries up as it has in several areas around the country, many of the hvac contractors who specialize in residential new construction decide to become active in the residential retail business. Their objective is, of…

Sales-leads ideas for starting or growing your commercial service segment.  In the March issue, I wrote about the growth and diversification opportunities in building an hvacr light commercial service and service agreement business. I discussed how this segment of the business can be a natural, synergistic, and fairly easy method of significantly expanding revenue growth…