How to Grow Your Plumbing or HVAC Shop from $1 million to $10 million

So, a million dollars is a lot of dollars. Or it seemed like it, anyway, when you first jumped into the plumbing or HVAC business. But you’ve worked your tail off growing your shop, and now you’re actually there. You’re a $1 million business! That’s incredible! But now you’ve decided it’s not enough . You want to grow your HVAC or plumbing business from $1 million to $10 million… and you have no idea how. Heck, you’re not even sure how you got this far.

Well, friend, you’ve come to the right place. You’re ready to grow. And I’m ready to help you.

Before I give you my best tips for growing your plumbing or HVAC shop, let me clear one thing up right away: Business growth is not a fake-it-’til-you-make-it endeavor. In life, we experience plenty of fake-it moments. (Parenting comes immediately to mind.) But when you’re trying to grow a business, you can’t just pretend you’re bigger and expect to get bigger. In fact, pretending you’re bigger than you are can actually have the opposite effect. If you get in too much of a hurry and don’t right-size your staff, fleet, marketing budget, and so on, you’ll go under in a big hurry.

Growing your HVAC or plumbing business is a calculated process that requires strategic thinking, intentional planning, and flawless execution. Here’s how to do it:

Yes, I just said you shouldn’t pretend to be bigger than you are, but you absolutely have to think bigger than you are. Without a growth mindset, you’ll stall out.

What’s a growth mindset? In short, people with a growth mindset believe they can grow—personally and/or professionally. They know where they’re going, and they have a sense for the steps required to get there. They believe they’re capable of taking those steps—even when it’s difficult and exhausting—and they actually continually put one foot in front of the other, their eyes never leaving the finish line. Someone with a growth mindset would never say, “I’ll never grow my business any bigger” or even “I’ll probably cap out at about $8 million.” They believe more growth is always possible.

So, are you running your business like it’s a $1 million shop? Or are you hustling like it’s a $1 million shop on its way to becoming a $10 million shop?

Of course, success isn’t all in your head. You have to actually do things, too. Fortunately, adopting a growth mindset will naturally orient your days around activities and practices that will help you, well, grow. Like what? Keep reading.

Sometimes, significant business growth happens accidentally. But not very often. And the truth is, you’ll be better equipped to handle growth if you’re always expecting it. Look at patterns in your business so far—seasonal or otherwise. Then, hire another technician three months sooner than you think you might actually need one. Bring on another customer service rep before your current ones have a chance to complain about the phones ringing off the hook. Set yourself up for success. If you get flooded with business and you’re not equipped to handle it, it’ll only be a temporary gain—and that’s unlikely to get you to $10 million.

Up to this point, you’ve likely been taking service calls yourself. If you love doing plumbing or HVAC work, I have bad news for you: It’s time to shelve your toolbag.

See, when you’re a smaller shop, you can work the business and grow it at the same time. But right around the $1 million mark there’s a tipping point at which that’s simply no longer manageable. You’re going to need to shift from an entrepreneurial do-er to planner and delegator.

Now, I realize you don’t necessarily think of yourself as a “entrepreneur,” but that’s exactly what you are. You’re not a plumber. You’re not an HVAC guy. You’re a business owner. And unless you want to be stuck at $1 million for ever, you’ll have to start thinking like one.

So, if you’re not doing jobs, what should you be doing all day instead? Several things, really, but let’s start here: You should be building your plumbing or HVAC sales funnel.

Your sales funnel is your customer’s “path to purchase,” and it’s how they go from knowing nothing about your shop to being loyal, paying customers who tell all their friends about you. I’ve written plenty about this in my book, The Book on Digital Marketing for HVAC and Plumbing Contractors . ( You can get a free sample of the book here .)

Long-story-short, building a sales funnel requires some marketing savvy. You’ll need a solid understanding of your customers’ mindset as they move through the funnel and what marketing tactics are likely to speak to them along the way. At Levergy , we’re really good at this. If you’re feeling unsure about the whole sales funnel thing, let’s talk .

If you’re trying to do everything yourself, your business is not scalable. In fact, even if you have a good-sized team, but you haven’t figured out how to automate at least some of the work, your business isn’t scalable. Essential systems for HVAC and plumbing shops include:

• Intra-team communication. Everyone wants to feel like they’re part of something, even if it’s “just a job.” So make sure it’s easy for everyone—from your customer service reps to your technicians to the person who dumps your trash—to easily connect with one another.
• Customer relationship management. You must have a way to keep track of your prospects, current customers, past customers, and networking partners. More than that, you need a system that allows you to nurture your relationships with each of those groups over time. Automatically, preferably.
• Money management. Surely you haven’t gotten to be a $1 million plumbing or HVAC shop with messy books. But just in case: This is a system you must get right. I’ve talked to entrepreneurs who are so deep in the weeds of their business that they actually forget to invoice people! Don’t let that happen to you. Develop a system—again, that’s at least partially automated—so you’re not losing money on jobs you’ve already done.
• Training and development. Your technicians come to you with expertise in plumbing and HVAC. They likely aren’t coming to you with expertise in sales and customer service. If you don’t have one already, create a new employee onboarding process that goes beyond paperwork: introduce the basics of your business culture, empower people to make certain decisions on the fly, make clear your expectations about every single thing, outline your ongoing evaluation program, and so on. Create a training schedule for your whole crew so you can teach the soft skills of business over and over again. Invest in your people and treat them well—and they’ll stick around and serve your customers—and you—well into the future.
• Inventory management. It’s amazing how many HVAC and plumbing shops don’t keep track of their stuff. If you aren’t controlling your inventory, you’re likely losing money. Know what parts you frequently purchase so you can participate in bulk-buy programs. Keep an eye on what’s going in and out of your vans to make sure you’re not losing money to theft. Just keep track of your stuff!
• Vehicle maintenance. You’ve put a lot of money into your service vans. Create a system to take good care of them—from car washes to maintenance to degreasing the cargo area.
• HVAC & Plumber Marketing. This is, of course, related to the idea of creating a sales funnel. But if you’re going at your marketing all willy-nilly, instead of with a systematized strategy, you’ll never make it to $10 million.

It’s roughly ten times more expensive to earn a new customer than it is to keep an existing one. If you’re trying to get from $1 million to $10 million, you can speed up that process—significantly—just by keeping the customers you already have. 

If you had lousy customer service, you wouldn’t be a $1 million shop. So, way to go! But don’t get satisfied or complacent in your HVAC or plumbing customer service efforts. For example, customers have some unwieldy expectations these days, thanks in part to technology. If you don’t keep up with what they’re looking for—they’ll look elsewhere.

Also, remember that if you’re in a highly competitive market, every little detail matters. Train your techs to go above and beyond. Yes, it’s important that they do their job perfectly, but it’s also critical that they treat people well. I know you know this. But it’s good to be reminded, right? The lack of unmatched customer service will absolutely prevent you from becoming a $10 million plumbing or HVAC shop.

I’m not going to waste your time on website basics, here. You should know that stuff in your sleep. I just want to remind you that your website—your homepage in particular— should be optimized for conversion . In a nutshell, that means you should show that you’re the answer to your customers’ problems, and it should be super-easy for them to engage with you. (Please tell me the phone number at the top right of your website is clickable.)

OK, OK. Don’t actually “stalk” them. But pay attention to them, for sure. Google them. Check out the ads they’re running. Run better ads. See what content they’re putting on their site. Put out better content. Check out their social media presence. Do better than they’re doing. Don’t be a jerk about it, of course. For example, never, ever put out a campaign directly comparing yourself to your competition. But you’ve got to pay attention and respond—or it’ll be your competitor making $10 million instead of you.

So scary, right? But seriously: Just do it. One of the main fears HVAC and plumbing customers have is getting ripped off. They’re hard-wired to assume you’re going to overcharge them for parts, tack on all sorts of extra fees, and “find” additional problems you never mentioned up front. If you reduce their sense of risk by providing flat-rate pricing, they’ll feel more confident about selecting you.

While we’re on the subject of pricing, make sure you’re p ricing for value. Bottom line: If you haven’t revisited your pricing structure in a while, now’s the time to do it.

You’ve likely tracked things like sales conversions and repeat customers for some time. Now it’s time to go deeper and watch things like call-back percentage and on-the-job statistics like transit time and job completion time.

Then start optimizing everything.

To make it to $10 million, you’ll have to juice every single opportunity. Can you train your techs to do a standard job 20 minutes faster—to free up time at the end of the day for one more service call? How can you cut transit time between jobs without sacrificing good scheduling practices? Think outside the box to maximize profit opportunities across the board.

At the end of the day, growing from $1 million to $10 million boils down to being the very best plumbing or HVAC shop in your area. Every dime your competitor makes, is a dime you didn’t. If you want customers to choose you, you have to be visible and worth choosing .

If you’re ready to dive deep on strategies to get your plumbing or HVAC shop to the next level, let’s talk. I’ve helped dozens of companies just like yours 8x their revenue. We can help get you to that $10 million.