No matter how big or successful an HVACR contracting business may be, there is always another challenge or opportunity just around the corner. Whether it's increasing revenue, selling a business, or grappling with the task of hiring and/or retaining workers, contractors are constantly juggling multiple issues and responsibilities.

This reality was evident at EGIA Contractor University’s EPIC 2024 Convention, where a diverse group of contracting business owners answered questions from other contractors in the audience on a wide range of topics. Participating in this panel discussion were: Jason Hanson, president and CEO of Sierra Pacific Home and Comfort in Rancho Cordova, California; Anton Martin, president of English Air Inc. in Orlando, Florida; Paul Kelly, CEO of The Wrench Group, Southwest Region and Parker and Sons in Phoenix, Arizona; Mary Jean Anderson, president of Anderson Plumbing Heating and Air in San Diego, California; and Terri Wilkinson, co-owner of Comfort Tech Heating and Cooling in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada.

Below are a few of the questions asked by members of the audience.

QUESTION: What is the biggest mistake you made in your business?

Wilkinson: I think the biggest thing is realizing there's an issue and not taking action. You know there's something not right in your business, and you keep getting distracted and not going back and realizing that you haven't dealt with that problem. Then it's been a month and then three months and then five months, because it never got to the level of a fire.

Martin: For me, it's hiring too fast and firing too slow. We can always look at the problems, but now the mindset is to protect the brand. When you hire too fast, you damage your brand. We hired too fast last year, and we had two, three, four technicians who just weren't representing. We held on to them too long. It's better to make a customer wait and deliver on what you're supposed to deliver.

QUESTION: What can contractors do to encourage more women to enter the HVACR industry?

Anderson: I've been really successful with hiring women. Maybe because everyone knows it's a woman-owned company — it's pink and white — maybe that’s why women gravitate towards us. I started with the gay community, as I have always been an advocate, so that's where I put my first efforts, and I did really well there. We also started a school and specifically recruited women in the military. There's a program called SkillBridge, which is for women and men getting out of the military. They pay their wages, not their overtime, to come to work for you if you have a training program set up. There's a lot of women in the military who make excellent service techs and design consultants. Also, all of our marketing materials show female technicians in everything we do. When women realize they can get equal pay for an equal job, they are so loyal to you. They won't leave.

Wilkinson: It's exceedingly hard to get anyone into trades, but there's a whole untapped 50% of the population that you can bring in. Whether they want to work in the field or in the office, we need to encourage women to become knowledgeable and understand what it is that we do. I've been participating in trade schools. We need to get out there and have an opportunity to speak to high school students and make people understand that the trades can be just as lucrative and fulfilling as going to college — a lot of times more so, because they’re actually out there earning. I think it's just getting participation and trying to do it at the youngest levels that you have access to. I think if they see women involved in those things, then they're more likely to see that as an actual path.

Kelly: I think one of the secrets in our industry is how rewarding a job as a technician can actually be, not just from a compensation standpoint, but from a helping people standpoint. And I don't think that a lot of females actually know how much you can make. You can make great money in this industry. Once that gets out more and people actually know that, I think women will want to explore it more.

QUESTION: If you were to start your business over again, what would you do differently?

Martin: I didn't start my business to build a big business. I was a technician, and I worked for Trane for five years, and there were too many people in front of me, and I wanted to climb the ladder. I was just planning to be one guy in a truck. But when people find out that you can do good work, then you just grow — whether you want to grow or not. So what wouldn’t I do again? I wouldn't build the business around me. My business was so dependent on me, and I just got to the point where there weren’t enough hours in a day. Once it had outgrown me, I didn't really know about hiring people. I didn't have time to hire anyone. I didn't have time to interview anybody. I didn't know how to interview anybody. I didn't know how to put people on staff. I didn't know how to do payroll. I hadn't educated myself in running a business. I only ever really educated myself on being a technician. So, to do it all again, I'd spend a little bit of time basically learning how to run a business.

QUESTION: What is the most lucrative decision you've made that you would pass on to someone else?

Anderson: I did not have inside sales reps, until I learned about them from Paul Kelly. They call it sniffing for scraps — looking for what’s not sold — but it gets much deeper and much bigger than that. Inside sales reps bring in a lot of money on jobs that don’t close. In my first year, the inside sales reps brought in $1.5 million. We were so busy growing that some of our technicians and salespeople didn’t have time to get back to the client. Sometimes the clients just need a nudge, or they just want the reminder. I guarantee we are all leaving calls on the table in our call centers. With inside sales, things that didn't sell, they're just handed to you. Our inside sales reps now bring in $4 million a year.

Kelly: Our inside sales reps bring in close to $10 million a year. There's usually a gold mine right there that if you just work it much harder or better, make more out of the business you already get — which includes calls that you don't close or the recommendations that you made that the customer didn't go with — there's a gold mine of business right there. I sometimes say that contractors lose as much business as they get, because of how they answer the phone, or they don't go after calls they don't close, or they don't offer other things, but I'd start there.

Hanson: I was the second owner of a well-built, well-run business, and so when I came into it, there was a lot of tenure in the business already. They were good, hard-working, loyal people, but they didn't want to grow. They were happy and successful with what they were doing, and I could not inspire that tenured group of men and women to want to change. They had used the same systems for years, but I couldn't scale the company with the systems they were comfortable with. Our system was very disciplined and rigid, and we put out a very consistent and very good product, from a craftsmanship and a financial standpoint. Then when the pandemic hit, all of a sudden a folder sat on somebody's desk for two weeks while they were quarantining, and our system broke. So I didn't make the financial investment to change the business before we had to, and COVID broke that. We have spent the last couple of years rebuilding this thing from the ground up to be the proper kind of scalable business that we didn't have before.

The EPIC 2025 Convention will take place March 6-7, 2025, at the Yacht and Beach Club Resort in Orlando, Florida.