Tom Merriott

Your air conditioning business might be slowing down right now, so what are you doing to prepare for the next rush?

Are you sending technicians home early because the phones aren’t ringing?

Maybe you have customer service representatives catching up on all of that pesky filing built up around the office?

The way we’ve always done things is to keep staff light while the calls aren’t coming in. Then once we get slammed, everyone panics and just tries to do the best they can. I’d ask you instead to take some of this time and work with your team to train and help them improve their skills before heating season hits. Want to get started?

First, take a look at the upcoming heating season. Evaluate what your company usually does well and what are your major challenges. Then talk with your people and ask what they need to do their jobs better, making this fall/winter the best busy season in the history of your company. Finally, get to work on fixing those problem areas.

The hardest part of this exercise will be stepping back from your daily focus of how much money you are not making right now and changing your mind set to: How can I make the most of the busy time to come?

Once you have done this exercise and seen the improvement for fall/winter, it will be that much easier to repeat the process when your heating season slows and you prepare for air conditioning season. The weather pattern is going to be relatively the same, each and every year.

I realize it’s easier to talk about and harder to implement, but we all signed up for a weather dependent business. I challenge you to change that pattern in your business.