Service Nation: Business Management Help Arrives for Smaller Contractors

Smaller HVAC contractors who need business management help have a new place to turn. Service Nation [TM] is a contractor group dedicated to improving the business practices and professionalism of the HVAC industry. Service Nation plans to do this through the Service Roundtable [TM], which will use the Internet to deliver low-cost, high-value business support material and training. Although any contractor may sign up for the Service Roundtable, the materials will be primarily designed to assist contractors who have sales of $1 million or less per year and have 10 or fewer employees. “This group of contractors is the most likely to need business management help, yet they’re also the least likely to get it,” says Service Nation Chairman of the Board Lee Rosenberg, a former contractor and a member of Contracting Business magazine’s Editorial Advisory Board. “They can’t take time away from their businesses to receive training outside their companies because, in many cases, they’re out in a truck every day. That’s why it makes sense for us to bring the training to them.” Rosenberg told CB that for a very modest fee of about $50 per month, contractors will have access to a variety of business management materials such as newsletters, direct mail items, sales and marketing pieces, business operation and business organizational materials, etc. Contractors who subscribe to the Service Roundtable will receive an e-mail to alert them when new items are available for their use; they can then visit the Service Nation website to access the materials. According to Rosenberg, Service Nation will eventually expand to cover other in-home service trades such as plumbing, electrical, pest control, roofing, and appliance repair, and branding is also a possibility. However, at the moment, the focus is on the Service Roundtable and what can be done to help smaller HVAC contractors succeed. “The need for this really hit me last year when I was doing presentations at HVAC Comfortech,” Rosenberg says. “I could feel that I was really connecting with the HVAC contractors in the audience and you could sense how hungry they were for good, solid business management information. The need is there, and we’ve got a method to address that need, backed by some of the best minds and most talented people in the industry.” For more information, visit www.servicenation.com