Better Than Double In Two Years
Emily and Chris Cunningham know what it feels like to have your business experience what some call a plateau. The couple entered the Indianapolis HVAC market when they started Service Plus in 2003 and quickly began to rack up referrals. Chris oversaw sales while Emily managed the operations side as the company grew into a larger facility with easy access to the metro area’s Interstate 465 loop.
Their family was growing, too, and they found themselves focused on the future they wanted for their little ones. If they kept growing the business over the next couple decades, their kids could enjoy great opportunities. The day might even come when they’d turn the keys over to them.
Thriving Despite The Coming HVAC Slowdown
We’re heading into a tough stretch for contractors like you. The sales boom that led to healthy growth over the past several years is drying up. You’re going to have to work harder to find and sell to customers.
Injecting more money into your digital marketing may seem like an obvious solution, but costs for digital are soaring and returns are diminishing. There are better ways to spend your money that will boost sales and long-term relationships.
That’s no half-baked theory from some self-styled expert. We work every day with businesses like yours all over the country. They’ll tell you what we describe here works because it’s exactly what they’ve been doing.
Why You Need New Customers To Accelerate Growth
Ask a contractor whether they’re better off spending their marketing dollars on promoting equipment sales or a cheap clean and check offer, and 99 out of 100 will answer “equipment.”
But they’re all wrong. If you want your contracting business to grow and become more profitable, those cheap offers will be your secret weapon. That and reorganizing and retraining your team.
We know this all works because we have a deep understanding of both the HVAC market and the human psyche. For example, we know why contractors who are extremely proud of their customers’ loyalty rarely grow all that much.
Why Your HVAC, Plumbing, or Electrical Business Probably Won’t Hire the Marketing Director It Needs
Too many HVAC, plumbing, or electrical contractors spend their days chasing a never- ending to-do list and trying to match staffing with business levels. They see marketing as an annoyance and think hiring someone — anyone — to make all those little decisions will let them concentrate on the more important stuff.
Yet hiring a marketing director may be one of the worst business mistakes you can make.
There’s a better approach that will take all that marketing stuff out of your hands, help you better align staffing and business, sharpen your sales efforts, and create the constant flow of new customers your business needs to grow. It’s not a magic solution … and it’s worked again and again for dozens of your peers.
How the Feds Are Going to Help You Make This a Record Year
Washington wants homeowners to shift to electricity from other fuels … and to replace lower-efficiency electric systems with today’s best. So, they’re preparing to pay as much as $14,000 for those upgrades. That means once these incentives are fully implemented, you’ll be able to sell homeowners higher-efficiency equipment for less than what your basic systems cost them today – without sacrificing your margin!
Remember, when times get tough (like the 2023 economic forecasts suggest), consumers will begin to inherently look to short-term repair options for their equipment vs. long-term replacement. However, these two new and expanded federal programs give contractors a counter-balance to that short-term thinking and support new, and more affordable, replacement options to fuel top line growth for contractors who embrace electrification.