Season 1 Episode 1 – Meet our HVAC Contractors

Meet our 6 extreme HVAC makeover candidates. Why did our HVAC contractors decide to go into business for themselves. What is preventing them from achieving their dreams and aspirations. Subscribe to this video to make sure you see the entire transformation.

Meet Our HVAC Contractors

Most entrepreneurs follow a path to owning their own business in pursuit of freedom and adventure. You become the master of your own destiny. You set the course and put the plan in motion to reach your goals. The most common reasons that entrepreneurs decide on this path include:

l Creation of wealth

l Free time

l More freedom

Every person has a dream or aspirations to become something better, but few have the time or freedom to actually pursue this with determination.

During this journey on this accelerated mission, you will have the opportunity to experience the trials and successes of six of our contractors who have made the commitment to reach their goals. Every one of the six experienced challenges. These challenges need to be overcome in order to progress.

All Valley Air Conditioning and Heating

The telling question is always the why behind starting your own business. In the case of All Valley, the owner has always been involved in the industry. His father was an HVAC contractor and he in turn took over that family business. Personal issues resulted in the closing of that business and his journey to starting over. HVAC is all that he has known and what he is good at. After meeting Amanda, All Valley was started and is now their own family business that includes both their daughter and son-in-law. The owner wishes to retire in the next few years but needs to set everything in place in order to do so. 

The challenges All Valley have experienced have mainly been a result of the flailing economy. The recent pandemic having heightened that.  With 50% of their business coming from commercial customers, the closing of businesses due to the pandemic affected their income tremendously. All Valley clawed their way through and are committed to growing and thriving going forward. 

Max Comfort AC

The owner of Max Comfort AC also has a lifetime link with the HVAC industry. His father worked in the industry throughout his life and brings to the table a wealth of experience and knowledge. This venture is a new one and the company is just starting out. The father and son duo are wanting to place their feet firmly in a very competitive industry. This company kicked off in the thick of the pandemic, however, they have not been adversely affected as you would expect. All their goals have been surpassed thus far. Demand coupled with a huge emphasis on marketing has allowed this new company to hit the two million dollar mark in merely eight months. A phenomenal feat in anyone’s book.

The challenges identified by this company relate to their social media exposure. 

While they have invested heavily in social media marketing, they haven’t seen the response that they are after as yet. The second obstacle is purely operational. While the high sales margins are fantastic, this does bring with it the need to properly manage the accounting systems and inventory. Another fear that the company has is that their scheduling and the ability to fulfill on the technical side due to the number of sales they are completing. Financing is offered by the company, they are however encountering issues with the costs related to offering these services. Their future goal is to be a national name in the industry and to increase their foothold throughout their state and into other states. Their target for sales in the next few years is to reach five million dollars sales yearly. 

The first step is to increase your daily cash inflow and that’s what will be worked on first. Identifying the cash coming in and going out will alert you to any issues in how the business is operating. High risk, slow pay is the greatest challenge and something that needs to be addressed. This is the first step in that direction. 

BLR Heating and Air

The husband and wife duo own and operate the company. Annie in the office and her partner is out in the field a majority of the time. The company has one employee. The short-term goal for the company is to increase the staff composition by at least one experienced technician and to add a vehicle onto the road. The long-term goal is to increase their workload, sales and revenue to a point where they need to increase their technical team considerably. Annie’s concern is that they don’t want to grow too fast and get to a point where they feel out of control. She would much prefer to have the processes in place first in order to grow and maintain control. 

Pioneer Air

This company came out of last year with a loss of around $260 000 which is considerable. They have already identified areas of concern which are the payroll and the office space. The company is forced to rent an office space through the brand which they sell and this amounts to unnecessary expenses for something that is really not worth the money spent. The entire scenario seems to be quite a complicated one. The necessity to employ and pay people who are of no value to the company is eating into their profit margins. They have in the last few months made the decision to purchase this division of the company to gain more control over where the money is going and to build from there. 

The question was posed to the owner as to what he thinks would have the greatest impact on their business cash flow in the fastest amount of time? The challenges identified were related to lack of marketing and no social media presence. The other issue raised was the warranty services offered. While calls coming in and attended to increased, revenue did not increase accordingly. These are areas that need to be targeted in order for drastic change to take place. It is vital to find the aspects of the business apart from the rest.

Toptech Mechanical Services

Kevin from Toptech is new to the residential HVAC industry. Their main concerns are marketing budgets which are at present costing them considerably for little return. Kevin is excited to get started and is confident in his abilities to be successful. This is the perfect opportunity to gain understanding and knowledge of how to get there.

Employees and dealing with them is one of the things that troubles Kevin the most. He struggles to work with the variety of personalities. It isn’t an easy industry to employ people for because of the variety of specialties. The employees are the backbone of the company and the team that will implement the work. It is vital to have a good definition of the kind of employee you are looking for to fill the positions available. 

While Kevin has focused mainly on commercial HVAC systems. Through COVID 19 and the shut downs on commercial properties, the work available disintegrated. In order to survive, they had to adapt or die. They are making the transition into residential HVAC in order to broaden their horizons and extend their revenue margins. 

Centraire

Minnesota based company Centraire is the final contractor selected for this program. They have been in the industry for more than 5 years. The current manager/owner has been in this position for around 5 years. Kenny has the drive and ambition to succeed. 

This is not his first attempt at running an air conditioning company but this time round it’s for himself. He is focused on increasing residential HVAC business.

Their challenges at present are generating leads and converting to sales. The program is the perfect opportunity for the coaches to train the team and provide them with the tools and skills to achieve success.