TradesHVAC Technicians

You Keep Everyone Cool. Who Is Running the Business?Training, and Greg Allan, for air conditioning owners sick of the summer scramble and the winter silence.

This is the business side of running an air conditioning and refrigeration company in Australia and New Zealand. It is written for the owner who holds the trading authorisation, quotes the jobs, chases the money, and still installs when a tech calls in sick.

Have a chat with Greg

A painted scene of an air conditioning technician kneeling at an outdoor condenser unit against a brick wall, gauges and vacuum pump beside him

The week this is about

Running An Air Conditioning Business Looks Like This.

The summer scramble, then the winter silence

December hits and every line runs hot. You are quoting installs at 9pm, sending techs to breakdown callouts in a heatwave, and turning work away. Then May arrives, the diary empties, and you pay winter wages out of summer's cash.

Quoting against a bloke with a ute and a mate

Someone quotes a supply and install split at a price you cannot buy the head unit for. You know their labour is unpriced and their warranty is a mobile number. The customer does not. So you shave your margin again to stay in the running.

The compliance stack sits on you alone

The trading authorisation, every tech's handling licence, the state contractor licence, refrigerant records, and now flammable refrigerant rules changing what you can install. None of it wins a job. All of it lands on your desk after the last call.

Another year of trading your best summer for a survivable winter, while the business stays worth nothing the moment you step out of the van.

A trade business owner working alone at the kitchen table late at night, laptop open and paperwork spread across the table, work boots and tool bag by the door

How we help

Seven Ways We Help HVAC Technicians.

Every one of these is a way air conditioning business owners get out from under the business and start running it properly. Start wherever it hurts most.

Training

HVAC Business Training

Structured training that turns what hvac technicians know on the tools into a business that runs properly.

Coaching

HVAC Business Coaching

Greg Allan in your corner, holding hvac technicians to the plan. By application.

Systems

HVAC Business Systems

The documented process that lets the work happen properly when hvac technicians are not standing there.

The free app

HVAC Business App

Lessons, tools and a room full of other owners, free for hvac technicians with an active ABN.

Marketing and leads

HVAC Business Marketing

How hvac technicians get the phone ringing with the jobs worth having, not just the cheap ones.

Pricing and profit

HVAC Business Pricing

The number hvac technicians should actually be charging, worked out properly rather than guessed.

Hiring and team

HVAC Business Hiring

How hvac technicians build a crew that does it right without being watched.

A trade business owner watching his child play sport on a Saturday morning, coffee in hand and phone face down — Nights and weekends back

A trade business owner and his partner in the kitchen looking at a tablet showing the numbers going up — Work that actually pays

A trade business owner shaking hands with a new apprentice in the work yard — A good hire who stays

A trade business owner standing calmly in the yard while his crew load two utes behind him — Out of the middle of everything

Worth knowing

Two Things Every HVAC Technician Running A Business Should Know.

Award coverage for air conditioning tradespersons and refrigeration mechanics is confusing enough that the regulator publishes a dedicated advice article on which award applies.

Source: Fair Work Ombudsman, library article K600597

From 1 July 2025 Australia banned imports of high global warming potential multi-head split systems, one step in an HFC phase-down that runs to 2036.

Source: Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water

Why you get me

I built the coaching company everyone else runs. Then I took it apart.

Most coaching companies work the same way. You enquire, you get a salesperson. You sign up, you get a coach who has never run a trade business.

I know, because I built one. I grew the Academy to 35 staff, a CEO and 15 coaches. It ran without me.

And I hated it. The bigger it got, the further I was from the owners I started it for.

What gets me up in the morning is getting under the hood of a trade business and helping the owner hit their goals in the least time possible.

So I restructured the whole thing.

When you enquire, you speak to me. If you are accepted into the Academy, you work with me. Directly.

And with agentic AI, the results come sooner than most owners can imagine.

Places are limited. I only take on owners who are committed and ready to do the work.

Greg Allan mid-explanation with his hands open, talking to a trade business owner across a desk

Who you will be talking to

I built Response Electricians in Perth into a 30+ staff business with more than 1,950+ five-star reviews.

A general manager runs it day to day. I live in Byron Bay.

I have trained 9,000+ trade business owners across Australia and New Zealand.

What AI actually changes

The old way. The new way.

Illustration: a trade business owner standing over three office staff buried in paperwork at night. — The old way
More customers meant more people doing your computer work, and you paying for all of it.

Illustration: a tradesman shaking hands with a homeowner in her driveway, his phone showing jobs quoted and invoiced. — The new way
You stay with your customers and your team. Agents run the office your way.

The old way

Grow, then hire people to do the computer work.

Every new customer brought more quoting, invoicing, chasing, scheduling and reporting.

So you hired people to do it. Office staff, bookkeepers, admin.

None of it is billable, and every hire costs wages, sick leave and another person to manage.

Profit and time only grew as fast as you could add people.

The new way

Keep the human work. Give everything else to agents.

Your people do what only people can do: looking after customers and leading the team.

Everything else goes to agents that do it your way, instantly, any time it is needed.

No sick leave. No capacity problems. They scale as far as the business does.

So the only people you add are the ones facing your customers and your team.

A human-centred business that runs on systems you build in minutes. Nobody still running the old way can compete with it.

9,000+tradies trained4.9★Google rating4.9★App Store rating

Questions

HVAC Technicians Ask Us These.

Do I need a refrigerant trading authorisation as well as a handling licence?

Yes, if the business buys, sells, stores or uses refrigerant. The handling licence covers the individual technician, the trading authorisation covers the business, and the Australian Refrigeration Council requires that permit number on your advertising, quotes and invoices. The Academy does not issue licences. We train you to cost them properly, diarise every renewal, and stop compliance eating your Sundays.

Which modern award covers my air conditioning technicians?

It depends on what your business actually does. The Fair Work Ombudsman explains that air conditioning and refrigeration work can sit under the Electrical, the Manufacturing or the Building and Construction award, and the Building and Construction award carries its own air conditioning and refrigeration industry allowance. Get the classification right first. Our hiring training then shows you how to build that cost into your rate.

How do I stop the cash flow falling off a cliff every winter?

You stop selling only installs. Preventative maintenance agreements, commercial plant servicing and asset replacement planning move money into the quiet months and give you a base to hire against. The Academy's training and Greg walk you through what an agreement should include, how to price it for an Australian cost base, and how to sell it at the end of an install.

Do New Zealand air conditioning businesses need an ARCtick licence?

No. There is no ARCtick scheme in New Zealand. Filling work is handled through WorkSafe New Zealand Approved Filler compliance certification, with voluntary industry certification sitting alongside the Australian and New Zealand refrigerant handling code of practice. The compliance layer differs, the business problems do not, and the Academy works with owners in both countries.

Other trades

See all twelve trades

A painted scene of a trade business owner home before dark, sitting on the tray of his ute while his son runs to meet him

Have a Chat With Greg About Your Business.