From Yellow Pages to Millions: How Simple Principles Built My Career in HVAC

When I was 21 years old, I started working for my very first heating and air conditioning company professionally. Yes, I had grown up working in the trades, but this was the first time I had my name on a business card, making me feel bonafide!

I took the job without fully understanding the details—specifically, how much money I was
going to make.

Here’s what the owner told me: “Todd, I have $1,000,000 a year in business. I’m going to pay you 10% commission on the business you manage and bring in.”

In my mind, that meant I had just landed a job at 21 years old that was going to pay me $100,000 right out of the gate. Wow! I thought I was super lucky.

On my very first day of work, I walked into Mike’s office and said, “Mike, let me get the customer list.” He reached into the drawer of his desk, pulled out the local Yellow Pages and White Pages for West Monroe and Monroe, LA, and thumped the top of the book twice. Then he said, “Todd, my boy, here’s all the customers you’re ever going to need.”

“What about the $1,000,000 in business?” I asked.

“Those are my customers. I spent 18 years building that list. You’ll find your customers in that book—go get it.”

“Do I at least get a marketing budget?” I asked.

Mike reached into his pocket and pulled out $32.46. “Here, go buy some shoes—that’s your marketing budget,” he said.

I had a very slow start at my first air conditioning company. Within the first three months, I had built relationships but made basically no sales, and I thought I was going to get fired. However, I kept putting in the work, burning through the soles of the shoes I’d bought. By the end of the year, I had sold close to $1,000,000 in services and installs.

By the end of the following year, it was close to $2 million. In my third year, it was over $3 million. While I wasn’t taking a full 10% on everything, I was earning somewhere between 4% and 6%, and on the really profitable items, 8% to 10%.

I was doing so well by the end of my third year that the owner planned to offer me a sweat-equity partnership. We were going to open a new location in my hometown of Hattiesburg, MS, that would serve Hattiesburg, Jackson, and the Gulf Coast. Things were going pretty well—and it was all rooted in a few simple techniques:

1. Build amazingly strong relationships with people, centered on serving them.
2. Increase your knowledge in areas where you’re weak.
3. Establish a work routine that focuses on activities over goals.
4. Do what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’ll do it.

These four principles built my early career.

I joined the local Kiwanis Club and spent a lot of my time volunteering at pancake breakfasts and fundraisers. The relationships I made through Kiwanis connected me with influential people in the community. Those people helped me grow my business in its early days.

When I started, I knew so little about the technical side of heating and air conditioning that I volunteered my nights and weekends—completely for free—to work alongside skilled technicians as their apprentice. Not only did I learn a lot, but I also earned the favor of some amazing technicians. Many of them eventually followed me as their leader when I started making serious sales and putting them on my crews.

Three days a week, I dedicated myself to prospecting for new business. Most of this prospecting involved knocking on doors and asking for referrals. It’s the gritty work of sales that almost no one wants to do—but it still works, and it still delivers massive results to this day.

Every task felt like a test, and I wanted to make straight A’s. When someone gave me an opportunity—whether it was a job or an estimate—I worked with my best effort. I did the job on time and as promised. If an estimate needed to be delivered by a certain date, I got it there early.

These simple, proven methods worked for me when I started my air conditioning career in 2001—and they still work today.

The hunger for new leads is one that can almost never be satisfied. Yet the hunger for customer service seems to be diminishing.

Take a look at your approach to business and ask yourself this question:

“What would happen if I put service over sales?”