These three guides answer the questions heating owners ask before they hire a consultant, and the ones they should ask but often do not. Each is written to be used on its own. If you never call us, you should still finish each guide with something to do on Monday morning.
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How a heating company chooses between 90 days and a retainer
Choose 90 days when you can name one problem and want it measured by a set date. Choose a retainer when the business is sound and you want monthly judgement across seasons. Some companies should choose neither yet.
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The heating company scorecard: eight numbers, one page
Eight numbers on one page tell a heating owner more than any marketing report: answer rate, booking rate, cost per booked job, ticket by job type, close rate, members, renewals and shoulder-season share.
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Starting on the heating calendar: when day 1 should fall
Start a 90-day program so that day 90 lands a few weeks before your busiest heating weeks. For most companies in southern Canada that means a day 1 between February and June; never in the first cold week.
Choosing between a 90-day program and a retainer
How a heating company chooses between 90 days and a retainer works through the decision with three example companies: a two-truck furnace shop with a phone problem, a boiler and hydronic specialist with a dead summer, and a growing multi-line company that needs ongoing judgement more than a single fix.
What you will learn:
- the four questions that settle the choice in most cases
- what each format costs you in time, not just money
- why some companies should do neither yet, and what to do instead
- how to tell, on day 90, whether to continue
It pairs with the service pages for the 90-day heating program and the monthly retainer.
The eight-number heating company scorecard
The heating company scorecard lists the eight numbers that tell an owner how the business is really doing, and exactly where to find each one in a typical phone system, dispatch tool and ad account.
What you will learn:
- why ratios beat totals in a weather-driven business
- how to calculate answer rate, booking rate and cost per booked job
- how to read replacement close rate and maintenance renewals
- a one-page format you can fill in monthly
This is the same set of numbers we record on day 1 of every program, described on the measurement page.
Starting on the heating calendar
Starting on the heating calendar is about timing. A 90-day program that starts in the wrong week loses most of its value, because the office has no time to change anything once the first cold snap arrives.
What you will learn:
- the strongest and weakest start months for a program, by situation
- how the calendar differs between coastal BC, the Prairies, Ontario and Quebec, Atlantic Canada and the North
- what to do if you are already in the rush
- how a retainer's monthly priorities shift through the year
The regional detail behind it is on each region page.
Who the guides are for
The guides are written for three readers. The owner who wants to know whether a consultant is worth hiring at all. The office or service manager who will do most of the actual work, such as pulling numbers, changing call handling and following up quotes. And the owner of a growing company weighing a second location, a new heat-pump line or a different agency, who needs a way to judge those decisions against numbers.
Each guide flags which parts matter most to which reader, so an office manager can skip straight to the steps and an owner can skip to the decisions.
What the guides do not cover
The guides stay on the business side. They do not cover equipment selection, sizing, installation practice, safety codes or permits, because those belong to licensed technicians and provincial regulators. They also do not cover hiring and training technicians in depth, which is a separate discipline. Where a guide touches those topics, it says so and points you to the right authority.
How these guides are written
Every number in the guides is either a worked example, clearly labelled, or a published fact with a linked source. We do not quote industry averages we cannot verify. Where a guide touches government programs or regulators, it links the official page as of October 2026 and asks you to confirm current details there.
The guides are written by Ali Sedighi, MBA, from 17+ years of digital marketing work and 150+ live HVAC websites. They are business and marketing guidance only; none of it is technical, code or safety advice about heating equipment. For questions about anything in them, see the FAQ or get in touch through the contact page.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to hire a consultant to use these guides?
No. Each guide is written so an owner or office manager can do the work alone. If you get stuck, you can call, text or email, but nothing here depends on that.
Which guide should I read first?
If you are deciding whether to hire anyone, start with the choosing guide. If you just want to understand your company better, start with the scorecard guide.
How current are the guides?
They were last reviewed in October 2026. Where a guide mentions a government program, it links the official page and you should confirm the details there, because programs change.