HVAC Sales Training: How To Increase Your Revenue in 2025

Why Is HVAC Sales Training Important?

The mark of a good salesperson is being able to explain things simply and create a sense of urgency without coming off as pushy. They ask the right questions and subtly influence people to make an educated buying decision.

In HVAC sales, it’s the same thing. You want your technicians to demonstrate good sales skills while explaining complex HVAC systems in a way that makes sense to homeowners and business owners.

As Jerry Rollins, Sales Coach and owner of BGDG Group, and Keith Mercurio, ServiceTitan’s Sr. Director of Executive Success, pointed out in a recent webinar, being intentional about sales training benefits your company in the long run.

Techs should also be able to identify real customer needs to provide good service that leads to more sales. Good HVAC industry sales training targets the following main areas:

• Displaying deep technical knowledge of HVAC systems: Technicians or sales agents need to know which model does what and how it fits into a home or business HVAC system. 

• Listening to your customers carefully: Communicate as clearly as possible and listen to what your customers say. Listen actively, which means noticing your customer's underlying concerns and asking for more details about them.

• Understanding customer needs: Listen for what your customers really want and make sure you’re hitting their pain points with your proposed solutions. Your team needs to be up-to-date with the latest tech, regulation changes, and energy efficiency trends, as these all affect customers’ needs. 

• Spotting opportunities and nurturing relationships: Once you know exactly what your customers need, weigh the options and present solutions that work for them. Then, inspect the home for other equipment malfunctions or needed repairs and offer solutions to help them solve those problems.

What Is the HVAC Sales Process?

Finding and contacting people who might need your HVAC services goes much more smoothly with a well-designed strategy and training process in place. 

For HVAC sales training, focus on the areas below:

Lead Generation 

This is the first stage of the HVAC sales process when reaching out to potential clients. There are two main ways to do this, using an inbound lead generation strategy or an outbound strategy. Many businesses use a combination of both.

• Outbound Lead Generation: Cold calling and cold emailing are common outbound methods for generating HVAC leads. You can buy phone numbers and email lists online with contact details for customers you want to target. But make sure to choose lists that adhere to data privacy rules. You can also use ServiceTitan tools that automate email and direct mail campaigns to save time. 

• Inbound Lead Generation: To generate inbound leads, you need to create content that attracts potential customers. For example, you can start a blog or YouTube channel or publish social media posts on platforms such as LinkedIn or X (Twitter).

Lead Qualification 

Qualified leads are more likely to become your customers. If you’re using inbound marketing, your leads are already qualified, as they’ve already shown an interest in your content. If an outbound lead replies to your message or responds well to a cold call, the next step is to determine that particular lead’s value. 

Some businesses use a lead scoring system and store the details in a CRM. You should also apply your industry knowledge at this stage to qualify or eliminate leads. For example, if you’re running a summer promotion for air conditioning services, it makes no sense to target a home or business with a brand-new unit installed. 

First Contact 

This refers to the first person-to-person contact with a lead. This happens if an outbound lead answers a call or email or an inbound lead contacts you through an online form. For outbound leads, you’ve already narrowed it down to qualified leads only, so make your pitch highly focused. 

Pitch 

The sales pitch is where you present your offer to the prospect. It shouldn’t be a hard sell, as this will likely put people off.

Start by acknowledging the prospect’s pain points, then describe how your service overcomes them. For example, if you realize the client is frustrated by rising energy costs, you can explain how a new, more energy-efficient HVAC system will save them money over the long run.

Overcoming Concerns 

Some prospective customers voice objections or concerns. This can be due to the estimated pricing, the level of service, or the disruption caused by HVAC upgrades or servicing. Training your team on how to handle these objections pays dividends. Encourage them to listen actively and respond with information that reassures and gently persuades the client.

You should also teach them to create and present options tailored to the client. 

This is vital, since the current crop of homeowners is young and driven by comparison. They also prefer to be presented with multiple options they can choose from. Take it from Chase Boyce, VP of Sales at HomeTown Services:

“They [current customers] get multiple estimates. They want to know the details, whereas some of the previous generations may have taken our word for it. This generation says, ‘Show me. I want to see pictures. I want to see what my options are. How can I pay for it? What is your company going to do for me?’ And I think that is one thing that is vastly different in today's homeownership.”

Lastly, to close sales, offer financing options for costly service offerings. This is vital given the decline in the disposable income of families in the United States and the rise of buy-now-pay-later services (projected to grow by 105 percent by 2028).

“It's [financing] now a piece that the sales process revolves around,” Boyce says. “Five years ago, it was, ‘We offer financing if you need it.’ Now, first of all, nobody wants that said to them in this day and age. But also, you have to say to a homeowner, ‘This is what you're getting. We're going to do exactly what we said we're going to do, and here's exactly how you can afford it.’ If you can take down barriers, you’ll be successful.”

Closing 

This is the make-or-break moment. You need to communicate the contract terms and answer any client questions. Sometimes, you must offer an enticing incentive or discount to seal the deal.

Nurturing 

Closing the deal isn’t the end. Once you gain their contact details, you can stay in touch over the long term with follow-up calls and email newsletters. This keeps your business at the forefront of customers’ minds whenever they need anything HVAC-related.

How to Provide HVAC Sales Training?

Let’s explore some ways to train your HVAC team to generate more leads and sales by creating a sales-focused training course. 

Workshops and Seminars

HVAC sales workshops and seminars focus on hands-on practice of sales techniques such as cold calling, usually through role-playing exercises and discussions. These sessions are typically led by industry and sales experts, giving your team a deeper understanding of how to find more leads and convert them successfully.

The other benefit of workshops is that they take place in a highly focused environment, removing daily business distractions and allowing people to immerse themselves in the training more thoroughly.

Online Courses and Webinars

Online courses and webinars are similar to seminars but more flexible. They often allow people to fit training into their schedules more conveniently. This is great for busy teams or if your sales professionals work remotely. 

Another benefit of online HVAC sales training is that it tends to be cheaper than in-person sessions, and there are no travel arrangements or accommodations to worry about. 

There are plenty of online sales courses to choose from, covering everything from basic lead gen to advanced conversion tactics.

One-on-One Coaching

Coaching is more expensive than workshops or online courses, but it can be more effective, as team members and sales professionals receive training that fits their strengths and weaknesses.

There’s more accountability, and you get instant feedback and redirection on performance, allowing you to strengthen specific skills and learn the concepts faster.

One common pushback against one-on-one coaching is not having time to speak to each employee individually. For most business owners, speaking generally to all employees seems like a better option. But, Keith Mercurio thinks differently.

“If you're talking to your employees all the time, both of you are being inefficient, distracting, and getting in the way of more productive work that could be done,” Mercurio says. 

He goes on to explain that being intentional about creating time for one-on-ones saves you time in the long run.

“The more you do one-on-ones, the more time you're going to have, and the less you're going to need to communicate ongoing throughout the week with each team member, because you're going to have a dedicated space to be able to have those conversations,” he adds.

So, make one-on-one coaching a part of your sales training strategy.

Mentorship Programs

Mentorship is conducted by pairing up your salespeople or HVAC technicians with more experienced professionals so they can learn from them. It gives people a chance to network and advance their skills over time, unlike short courses.

To increase the effectiveness of mentorship programs, incorporate physical ride-alongs. Before each session, state the agenda to the employee and put their mind at ease so they act like they normally would, without fear of being critiqued.

“You want to say, ‘Hey, here's our goal today,’” says Keith Mercurio.

“Secondly, you should say, ‘Hey, I'm here to coach you, not really critique you. This is good for you. I'm not doing something to you. I'm doing something for you. But at the end of the day, we're going to have some feedback, and we're going to give you one thing to work on.’”

Physical ride-alongs should happen continuously—probably weekly, once a month, and so on.

Now, we understand a major obstacle to consistently holding physical ride-alongs is time. It’s hard—or even impossible—to organize ride-along sessions for 50 employees, when you still have to focus on running the business.

To overcome this obstacle, we designed Sales Pro to help you organize virtual ride-alongs.

Sales Pro automatically records employees’ interactions with customers, once they click “arrive” on their tablets. It then uses an AI algorithm to analyse each recording and time-stamp potential mistakes, so you and your employees can listen to them later.

This makes the coaching process more efficient. You can coach employees on areas of improvement without having to ride with them to every job.

Product Demos and Training

When selling HVAC services, the people selling them should understand how they work and what they do. Let your team get hands-on with the components and control units. This way, they can explain things more convincingly to customers during in-home sales.

AI-powered sales training tool

The recent AI revolution has made it easier for HVAC contractors to offer sales training tools that adapt to the needs of your team and track everything automatically. 

For instance, ServiceTitan’s Sales Pro tool integrates an AI-powered ‘coach’ that records and analyzes sales calls before providing feedback on performance. It can also capture on-site conversations between your HVAC technicians and customers. The built-in tools analyze interactions and suggest ways to improve sales techniques based on the data. 

ServiceTitan Sales Pro also offers a community environment where technicians can view and learn from clips of top-performing peers.

Team members can share successful strategies and learn from each other. You can even set up a sales leaderboard to encourage further development.

HVAC Sales Training Tips To Boost Your Revenue

The whole point of HVAC sales training is to secure more business and grow your revenue. To do this, you and your team can focus on the following ‘quick wins’: 

Contact the client before arrival

It’s good practice for your techs to announce their arrival five to ten minutes beforehand. All they need to do is call or text the customer, politely introduce themselves, and tell them roughly how long they’ll be. When your team tries to be courteous, it improves your reputation and leads to more referrals. To make sure your techs don’t miss any appointments, you can use a scheduling app that automatically reminds them. 

Ask the customer for information

Take the opportunity to get a heads-up on any problems the customer is facing with their system before setting out so your techs can stock up on the right HVAC equipment or materials. 

Talk about money and financing 

Money is often a complex topic of conversation for techs and customers alike. After all, HVAC professionals didn’t take the job to work as a salesperson. It’s critical to frame it in a way that’s appealing to the customer. If you can offer monthly financing deals, this can be very attractive to customers, especially when money is tight.

Showcase all HVAC system components

Part of the HVAC technician's job is to explain how the HVAC system works to the customer. If the customer is interested, the tech can show them components as they do their checks, services, or repairs. Pay particular attention to showing them important areas like the thermostat, vents, air filters, temperature control, and the outdoor unit. 

Create a personalized plan

Train your HVAC service technicians to include the customer in the decisions and explain the plan thoroughly. Try to avoid making this a sales pitch, though. It should feel more like they are making the plan together in a collaborative way. 

Let the customer know they have the final say on things, especially for extra HVAC services that aren’t urgent but would be beneficial, such as regular service agreements or upgrades. Simply explain the long-term benefits of these additions, like energy savings or improved air quality, without pushing it down their throat.

How ServiceTitan Can Help HVAC Businesses With Their Sales Process

ServiceTitan can help HVAC companies improve their sales process in four core ways:

• Enable connection: As soon as a call comes in from a customer to a CSR (customer service rep) ServiceTitan records the audio using Call Booking software, which means your HVAC technicians can listen to the call again before their visit, so they’re fully informed and prepared. You can also send messages to the customer directly through the ServiceTitan app, so everything is logged. Customers can also track the tech’s vehicle in the app, to get a better idea of their arrival time.

• Facilitate assessment: You can add all your forms and checklists, including HVAC diagnostic charts, to the ServiceTitan Field Service Management feature. This means your HVAC technicians can access them on their smartphones rather than messing around with easily lost paperwork. It also means nothing gets overlooked during the assessment, as the app checks every step. 

• Offer recommendations: ServiceTitan comes with a customer-facing interface that shows people the different available options. Your HVAC techs can show the customer good, better, and best options on the screen, along with full explanations.

• Allow execution: ServiceTitan can be set up to show all the steps when carrying out the job and everything involved in a maintenance agreement. Customers can see the plan and sign a digital copy to agree to the proposed work. Your HVAC techs can see every step in a clear chart, along with all the parts and catalogs they might need. 

Over to You

Your HVAC business relies on a steady stream of new and old customers. That’s why you should invest time and effort into developing an HVAC sales training program for your technicians and admin support staff.

The main thing to focus on is understanding your customers’ needs and communicating your solutions in a way that resonates. Listening skills and the ability to present solutions in a non-pushy way are important. 

ServiceTitan facilitates communication, planning, and execution, which helps improve your HVAC sales process. The app has built-in sales enablement tools to track calls and facilitate upselling and cross-selling by technicians in the field.