By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
Why does hiring a coach feel riskiest right before summer peak?
Most HVAC technicians start looking for a business coach in the run up to summer peak, when the phone rings constantly and every day without another set of hands on a split system install feels like money left on the table. That timing makes the decision feel urgent rather than considered, and an owner under that kind of pressure is an easy target for a coach who sells confidence instead of checking the numbers first.
A trade business owner staring down a stack of ducted installs and breakdown callouts does not usually stop to ask whether the business can carry a new wage through the winter lull that follows. The urgency of summer peak pushes the decision forward, and a coach who matches that urgency with enthusiasm rather than questions is agreeing to a hire before anyone has checked whether the workload or the margin actually supports it.
What's wrong with the usual checklist of questions people suggest asking a coach?
Most checklists for hiring a business coach ask about chemistry, references and price, which matter but tell an HVAC technician nothing about whether the coach understands how a compressor replacement during summer peak differs from a quiet week of filter cleans in winter. A coach can pass every generic question and still have no idea what actually drives profit in an air conditioning business.
Generic advice reads the same whether the business installs ducted systems, cleans gutters or lays bricks. A coach worth paying should be able to talk in the language of the trade: service agreement renewals, commissioning schedules, warranty callbacks, and how refrigerant handling licences shape who can even do the work. If a coach cannot hold that conversation, the questions about chemistry and price barely matter.
What should a coach ask about training a new technician before they touch a van?
Ask whether the coach wants to know how you, as an HVAC technician running the business, plan to train a new technician before they are handed a van, a callout list and a customer's address. A coach worth hiring will push for a structured first run on the tools, basic fault finding, PC boards, sensors, commissioning steps, before that person is sent out alone on a breakdown or a commercial job. Skipping that step rarely costs you straight away, it costs you later in warranty callbacks.
This is where the ceiling usually sits for an HVAC business adding its second or third technician: not the volume of work coming in, but whether there is a repeatable way to bring someone up to the standard the business already runs at. A coach who understands that will ask about onboarding before they ask about advertising for the role.
What should a coach understand about your supplier relationships going into summer peak?
A good coach should ask who supplies your condensers and compressors and how that relationship holds up when summer peak hits every HVAC business in the area at once. When a unit fails on a commercial job and the whole trade is ordering replacement stock, the business that gets a part on a truck same day is usually the one with a supplier relationship built months before the rush, not one chasing a cold call during it.
This is a capacity question as much as a service question. A coach who only talks about marketing and leads is missing the half of the business that decides whether a booked install actually gets finished on time. Supplier reliability belongs in the same conversation as staffing, because a crew with nothing to fit is no better off than a crew that is short handed.
What should a coach check about your maintenance contracts and service agreements before recommending a hire?
A coach should ask whether your maintenance contract process, service agreement renewals and job booking steps are written down and tested, not just carried in your head or a technician's, because adding staff exposes every gap in a system that was never documented. Hiring before that work is done usually means the new hire learns the business by repeating the same mistakes the business has already made once.
This is where an AI agent, which is software set up to do a job the way you would, with your own prices, wording and rules, can take over renewal reminders, booking confirmations and the paperwork around a maintenance contract so a new technician steps into a system that already runs, rather than one that only exists because the owner remembers it. A coach should be asking whether that groundwork exists before signing off on the hire, and this is data first thinking: starting from what your service agreements and job numbers actually show, not from a feeling that it's busy enough to justify another wage.
What are the warning signs that a coach isn't right for an air conditioning business?
The warning signs are consistent: a salesperson who leads with enthusiasm instead of questions, a coach who has never run a trade business and talks in theory, advice that reads the same whether the business does split system installs or renovates bathrooms, and an answer of hire someone every time you raise a problem. A coach worth paying should be able to show you where the gap sits in your own numbers before they tell you what to do about it.
Ask directly how the coach would use AI agents or similar tools to take non-billable office work off your plate before adding another wage, and watch whether the answer is specific to an HVAC business or generic enough to apply to any small business at all. A coach who cannot answer that with any detail is unlikely to understand what actually sits between the install calendar and the bank balance of an HVAC technician's business.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching starts from your own numbers before it asks a single question about hiring. For an HVAC technician weighing up a new hire before summer peak, Greg Allan looks at what the job and finance data actually show: whether the install and callout workload can carry a wage through winter lull, whether gross profit margin holds as a percentage once a new technician is on the books, and whether your maintenance contract and onboarding systems are documented enough to survive someone new touching them. Greg's own line on this is “ask yourself, have I got a system for this”, and that question comes before any decision about hiring or coaching. The how, the systems and the build, is worked through inside the Academy, with members, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member who joins it.
Looking for a business coach who starts from your numbers? HVAC Business Coach or every answer for HVAC technicians.
