“We really need some help,” the caller said. “We’ve had some good times and have made a lot of money. Other times, such as right now, are so slow, I don’t know if we can hang on. I’m doing everything I can, even running service calls at night. I’m tired, and my knees are shot. I know we have to change. Can you help?”

The caller was Bob, who had been in my seminars a couple of times. He was attentive, asked good questions, and seemed to get it. I thought it was odd that he was struggling so badly, and I could tell by his voice that he was worried. His shop was about an hour from my home, so it was easy to say yes to his request.

I found his shop tucked underneath the back side of a small strip mall. His two techs were out on warranty service calls for one of those warranty companies. That was all the work they had right then. This wasn’t a good sign.

Bob met me, said hi, and introduced me to his wife, Julie, who had the desk just inside the door. Her greeting was polite, but I felt a chill in the air, and some of my questions started getting answered right there.

We chatted a bit, and I asked Bob what he thought his biggest challenges were. His reply included:

• low-priced competitors,
• seasonality of his business,
• very few maintenance agreements (by his company), and
• very low sales-closing rate.

When he mentioned the first one, he glanced at Julie, and I saw her nod. I knew where that issue had come from. And I knew that Bob didn’t fully agree. This was getting interesting. Julie probably figured I’d put a bunch of crazy ideas in Bob’s head.

I could tell Julie wanted to speak her mind, so I asked if I could see a copy of the last proposal Bob had made. Julie handed it to me. Good, I thought, there were three choices. But it went downhill from there. Each choice was a low-end system with three prices that were within a few hundred dollars of the next one. I asked about that, reminding Bob about price conditioning (by giving customers a higher-priced choice in a proposal, the lesser-priced choices seem more reasonable) and offering without judgment (not pre-determining for customers what they can or can’t afford, or what they will or won’t buy).

Julie answered by saying that homeowners are put off by high prices and besides, other contractors are selling furnaces and air conditioners at still lower prices. She had a lot of energy around that and a half-hour later, I knew I hadn’t changed her mind — maybe opened it a bit, but not changed. I sensed she was the kind of person who needed information and time to change her mind, so when I felt she had heard all she wanted to hear, I let it go. For now.

Julie, being in the company’s driver’s seat, was getting just what she asked for: low-end work with little profitability and a bleak future for the business. The recently published book and movie, The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, supports the notion that we tend to “attract” what we receive in life. One of the lessons is that “we become what we think about.” Thus, in this case, if we think we can’t sell hybrid systems for up to $20,000, then we can’t! Don’t offer them, and you won’t sell any. Believe in the value a hybrid system can offer your customers, offer it when appropriate, and you will sell them. It’s as simple as that.

We went on to the other challenges. They didn’t have a maintenance agreement form that detailed the benefits and value of doing planned maintenance. I asked if the technicians were enthusiastic about selling maintenance agreements and didn’t get a quick, confident affirmation. Also, Bob knew he should be making tune-up offers to attract new customers but didn’t know how. I opened Ron Smith’s book, HVAC Spells Wealth, and read them the sample letter he used, and reviewed the results they could expect. I could see Bob got it, and that Julie was warming up to the concept.

We’d found plenty to work on, so I asked them if they wanted my suggestions. I left them with this written priority list:

1. Read Ron Smith’s book HVAC Spells Wealth (www.ronsmithhvac.com).
2. Create or order a new maintenance agreement form that details the benefits and value of doing planned maintenance.
3. Retrain technicians on selling maintenance agreements on every customer contact, including to the third-party warranty customers once their other contracts expire.
4. Create tune-up-offering letters, mail them, and have Julie make follow-up phone calls on them. (Julie, by the way, took a couple of calls while I was there, and she’s good on the phone.)
5. Revise their proposal form to include their color logo, print it on nice stationary, and always note a “best-system” choice with a hybrid system and all the enhancements.
6. Add monthly financing to every system price. Ask for the sale every time by offering investment choices: If this system looks right for you, the monthly investment would be $287, and the total investment would be $14,257; we also have same as-cash, and of course we are happy to take Visa and MasterCard. Which of those investment choices might be best for you?
7. Create and use a home-comfort survey form on every call. (To download a home-comfort survey that I have compiled, go to www.hvacrbusiness.com/downloadcenter.)

I figured that was plenty to get working on, and if they created and implemented those things, they would create more add on-replacement sales, sell higher-end systems, sell more maintenance agreements, and start to be more in control of their financial future.

Curious about how this ends? Stay tuned, and I’ll let you know.

Tom Piscitelli has more than 30 years of experience in HVAC sales, sales management, marketing, and consulting. He has worked with major manufacturers, distributors, contractors, builders, and utilities. In 1997, he founded Applied Learning Associates Inc. and began teaching the System Selling That Works seminar series.

>> To pose a question to Tom, go to www.hvacrbusiness.com/forums.

Expert Advice
A home-comfort survey form is available for download at www.hvacrbusness.com/downloadcenter.