According to Michael Riegel, director of A/E/C Business Strategies in New York, communication of what is truly meant by a no must be done clearly and positioned correctly.
Potential customers have many choices in today’s crowded marketplaces. As home service companies struggle to differentiate themselves from their competitors, they can’t neglect the growing consumer desire for convenience above all else.
All jokes aside, there’s a saying that I have on repeat as a business coach. “The answer to your problem is somewhere close by, you just need to know where to look.”
The idea that there is an ideal HVACR customer waiting to be discovered may seem absurd, but according to Justin Jacobs, marketing coach for Hudson Ink, finding the right customers for contractors depends on the bait that is used.
On the residential side, contractors are concerned about keeping IoT-enabled thermostats safe from hackers, and on the commercial side, they want to ensure that building automation systems are as impenetrable as possible.
For decades, many company business models have remained the same. Run service calls one after the other, and fix or replace the equipment. This often results in companies barely surviving and a bleak outlook on the future.
When working with consulting clients, I take my operating manual templates that I’ve created at my own company, and I help owners tweak them to become their own. The lesson is that it’s easier to edit than to create.
At Welsch Heating & Cooling Inc., we are far from perfect at accumulating this information. We have very little success getting our salesforce to find out why a particular customer called us. However, our sales coordinator does a good job of obtaining that information as the calls come in.