What do you need to start an HVAC business in this video, we're going to talk about all the things that I wish someone would have told me when I first started my business. and if you found this video, this is a part of a whole series of videos that we're doing. Very different from my normal videos. Most of my videos are for homeowners, giving them tips about the HVAC industry and things going on that pertain to them.

But in this series we're talking to guys that are either wanting to start an HVAC business, wanting to grow an HVAC business or just grow in the trade in general for HVAC technicians. So keep an eye out for the playlist on YouTube during the recording of this video. I'm not quite sure what that playlist is going to be called, but I'll put a little picture of it right here, so you know. But look for that series of videos for you guys that are in the trade who am I my name is Josh I'm the host of the HVAC Gu for homeowners YouTube channel I also own an HVAC business that I didn't inherit I started it from the ground round up that's grown every year.

So let's dive into this. 15 Things that I wish someone would have told me that I needed to start a business and these are in no particular order. Some of these may be out of order, meaning to get this one, you may need to get this one first and so on. And the last thing I'll say as we dive into these is these are things that you actually need to succeed or start the business.

These are not like you need motivation to start the business. Sure, you do need Mo motivation. It kind reminds me of a lot of folks will say well you need a business plan I'm of the thought process of I don't necessarily know that you do do, Are they good to have? Are they wise to start out with absolutely But do you need a business plan to sell that first product I Don't know if you do, these are 15 things that you absolutely need. and I'll even say that these 15 things can be applied to just about any service business.

Obviously, if you're going to be a painter or an electrician or some other trade other than than HVAC, these things might apply, but some of them may not. Let's dive into it. Number One: The first thing I Think you need to start your HVAC businesses I Think you need the EPA CFC certification to handle refrigerant and you may need more than one. Now you know we've got A2l refrigerants coming during the recording of this video.

but at bare minimum, you need the original 608 certification to be able to handle refrigerants. If you start your business and you don't have it and you can't buy a refrigerant, well, you're kind of out of business. Number two: You're going to need a business license. This is one of those ones that might be out of order.

You might find out as you try to get it, that you might need a few of these others. We're about to go over to get that license. so these are in no particular order, but you are going to need some sort of business license and just realize depending on where you live or where you're going to operate, that may play a role on where you get the business license. It may play a role in how many you need to get.

So for example, I used to live in a town located inside of a county and I had to get get a license with the town and the county. But just to stay legit, you've got to get a business license. In fact, some customers may even ask for a copy of your business license. Depending on what type of business they are, they want to make sure you're legit.

They're going to ask for a number of things and one of those could be business licens. Next, you're going to need an EIN number and this is basically the number that you're going to attach to your bank account, which we're going to talk about later in this video. It's going to be separate. You need to have almost a whole separate set of everything for your business.

And when I say everything I mean bank accounts and EIN numbers and taxes. And everything needs to be separate from your personal stuff. Your social security number is not your EIN and you don't want to be handing that out to other businesses when they ask for your EIN and so on. Some of these businesses are going to be asking for a W9 or some other forms to be able to do business with them and you want to be able to write the EIN number on there instead of your Social Security number.

and I'll put a link down in the description of this video of where you need to go to get that Ein in number. Next, you're going to need an SEC number. An SEC number is separate from your EIN number. It has nothing to do with taxes and you have to have it to be able to operate a business in the country.

I'm not going to pretend to know all the ins and outs of all of this stuff, but it is something that you need to know and I'll put a link to where you need to go to get your SEC number down in the description of this video. and so we've gone through a few steps. so far as we go through the rest of this list. I'll tell you that we have some growth groups that might help you and for a short amount of time limited time.

I'm going to open it up. We already have groups for CEOs and business owners. We have groups for guys that are somewhere in the middle like service managers and really good service techs. But I'm going to open it up to guys that are just starting out.

We've got a couple new groups starting where if you're either starting out you haven't started the business yet or you've already started it. but you're only in your your first couple years first three years or so. I'm going to put a link to our growth groups down in the description of this video. Check that out and even if that window closes, maybe you know, just keep an eye on it.

if we do more groups in the future, we'll open that up again. So if you see this video in the future, just keep an eye on it. We're going to start a couple new groups for you guys that are starting out. Let's get back to the list next.

You'd need a trade license. So in a lot of States you're going to need a license that says that you know what you're talking about. You can't own a heating and air business without knowing how to do heating and air. or at least employing somebody that knows how to do heating and air.

You might know if somebody that owns a heating and air business, but maybe they don't necessarily have the license. Well then that means they have to hire someone that has that license. However, it's done. You have to have someone working there in Most states to be able to do a lot of these trades.

And in addition to that, the next one would be you need to have a Contractor License In my state, Yes, I've got my Tradesman license. but then in addition to that, if I want to be a cont, contractor, an actual business that does contracts and and goes to customers, houses or businesses and does business, then I have to have a Contractor License Just realize the rules may change a little bit depending on what state you're in. Make sure you're crossing your teas and Dot in your eyes when it comes to this issue. in some states, if you're doing unlicensed work, you could face big penalties including jail time.

Now that's not true in all states, but you do put yourself at risk at least of being sued or developed a bad reputation at the very least. We see all the time people put licensed and insured on their business cards and they're not actually licensed and insured. Make sure you're not one of those folks and are doing everything right and that leads right into we'. We've now gone over six things.

Number seven is your insurance. I Believe you should have several types of insurance, but the main one is general liability insurance for your business. So in case you do mess something up, you know I know you're really good at your job and you probably won't, but in the event that you do or even if you didn't but someone is accusing you of doing it, you want to have insurance in place to protect you and protect that customer. But in addition to general liability I Think you want to have Commercial Auto If the business owns any vehicles or equipment, you want to have workers comp.

In some states, depending on the state, you might need to have workers comp even if it's just to hire a helper to help every now and again. I Think workers comp might be something good for you to carry even if it's just you at your company and are working self-employed and depending on your business structure and how you're operating it I would get property insurance for the business and you might say well. Josh I I haven't purchased a property yet I'm I'm operating out of my garage or my basement I'm just starting out I Have heard horror stories where insurance companies won't cover certain things because you were operating a business there. So they Tred to make a claim on their homeowners insurance like a fire or something like that and the insurance company comes in and says we're not paying for this because this should have been covered under a business insurance policy.

and again, I'm not an insurance agent I Don't claim to be an expert in all of this I Just think these might be some things you want to talk to your insurance agent about. Make sure you're doing everything right and protecting yourself as well as your customers. The last thing I would recommend getting is maybe check out an Eno policy errors and Emissions I'm not going to dive too deep into what that is and why you might want it. Talk to your insurance agent might be a good idea for you to have I Feel like we've only talked about paperwork up to this point.

We've talked about licenses and insurances and all these different things you need to get as far as papers that you need to put in place and little cards you're going to put in your wallet and so on. Now let's talk about some more nitty-gritty things that I think you need to have if you're going to start a heating and air business. the next thing is you need to have tools and equipment even if you don't necessarily run out tomorrow and buy a nice brand spanking new beautiful van to keep all your parts in and everything. I do think you got to have some tools in place? You got to have some equipment I Can tell you when I started my business I borrowed some at first there were a few jobs that I was just starting out.

I didn't have a lot of money to go and invest in all these things I Remember my first scale for refrigerant. There wasn't a lot to it. It was pretty cheap little scale I had gotten. I Remember borrowing a hammer drill to get a job done from another contractor.

Whatever you've got to do to get the job done, but you're going to need some tools and equipment to get the job done. and I would even say starting out, you're going to want to keep your profits that you're making from these first few jobs. You're going to want to invest those back into the business and start getting you some more tools and equipment as you start to grow this thing you're going to need your own vacuum pump and recovery machine and all the things that you need to have to do a good job. The next thing I think you need number nine is you need to have a good distributor.

You might want to approach a couple different distributors I Remember when I started my business I thought well the last company I worked for they sold this brand. so I'll just approach them. Well, that brand told me we're not selling to you, you're not big enough yet. a couple Brands said even worse things to me I took it very personal you know and I even said to them back then when I was starting out I said I'm going to remember this as I grow and I build this business I'm going to remember how you treated me when I was just starting out.

In their defense, they don't know who's going to make it and who's not. They just see some guy that's just starting out. he's working out of a Ford Pinto and he's just trying to make ends meet and they're just like I Don't know if we really want this guy to be a dealer for our products, right? They're allowed to say no. But regardless, you need to have a good distributor.

You need to have a place you can buy equipment from that you can sell their equipment you can get parts from and I would even argue as you start to grow. You're going to want to have relationships with multiple different distributors because there's multiple Brands out there. At the very least, you're going to want to have a cood account where you can use a credit card to buy those parts and just realize when you're starting out a lot of these Distributors they're going to ask you for some of the things things we have already talked about in this video. They're going to want to make sure that you're legit, not all of them.

Some Distributors will sell to any Tom Dick or hairy. They don't care if you're a licensed Pro in our industry, they'll just sell to you, right? But if you're going to be working with any of the really good brands, a lot of the Distributors are going to want to make sure that you know you're doing everything on the up and up and they're going to ask for these certifications and licenses. We've already talked about. Number 10.

You're probably already overwhelmed. Don't be overwhelmed. A lot of these things are just one step at a time. Even if you're working a job now and you're trying to get this business started on the side, just do one step at a time.

Don't get overwhelmed. But we're almost done. We're almost through our 15 and now we're to number 10. I Think that you when you're starting out, you're going to want to hire some people.

And and I'm not just talking about employees. We'll talk about employees in just a moment. But in addition to your insurance agent I Think you're going to want to hire a CPA You might want to call a few of them, vet them a little bit, tell them what you're doing, maybe get a little advice from them, see what they have to to say about your bookkeeping and your taxes, Maybe check prices. I Can tell you from experience, some CPAs are not very upfront about how their pricing structure works.

Some of them don't really have much of a pricing structure. I had a CPA that would just adjust pricing willy-nilly and I had to switch because of that. and I think in addition to the insurance agent, the CPA and a few of these other people were about to talk about: you want somebody that's going to want to grow with you a little bit? You don't want someone that's going to impede your growth, that they're going to see that you're starting to grow and raise their prices even though there's no extra work on them. But you've got to get this stuff figured out.

so you're doing everything on the up and up. The next person I Think you're going to want to hire is a lawyer. You're going to want to find a good lawyer that can help you set up some sort of structure that protects you. Maybe an LLC maybe some other type of organization, but something separate from you personally.

If you were to get sued, you want to be protected in that fashion, and as you start to grow, you may want to even have a good lawyer on retainer. You want to make sure that if something happens, if you've got to set up a contract, you want to get the wording right on that if you're about to do a deal with somebody. maybe a good lawyer for that. And God forbid if you sue somebody or someone sues, you have a good lawyer that's got experience dealing with contractors and some of the challenges that they're up against.

Hopefully you never need it, but it's something you might want to have next. I Think you're going to want to hire a financial planner at some point and a lot of people hear financial Planner I'm guilty of this Years ago I Used to think, well, they're going to help me plan my all my finances, they're going to sit down and help me balance my checkbook, and they're going to just do all my financial type stuff. and I think there might be a little bit of that, but a lot of these financial planners. Let's just be honest.

they're salesmen. They're selling you products, but some of these products might help you as you grow and you're starting this business, they might be able to offer you a few things that as you're starting out help you grow and then as you start to establish yourself and grow this business, they can help you put some things in place that will set you up for success for the future. Things like retirement and other. Investments As you start to hire employees, this financial planner might be able to put some things in place to help you and them for their long-term goals.

Things like IRAs 401ks and all kinds of other programs that might help you to grow your business but also help your employees. I Think anybody that is going to take the responsibility of hiring employees and that's actually the the last final thing I have is hiring employees. I Think you can look at it two ways. you can look at it as being somebody that's going to take advantage of these people.

Oh, you're going to come work for me. Let me get every little last bit of effort out of you. or you. can look at it as you're bringing on someone on your team to help you grow this thing, your baby, your business and I will say I you know as I started my business.

one thing that surpris me is the connection you start to have with some of these people. Some of these people, it's just a job, but some of these people as they come on and they become a part of what you're doing, they start to take a little ownership in it as well and you start to develop almost. you know a connection with them I don't want to say they're as close as family I Think that that's a little disingenuous when people say oh, at my company we're all like a family I love some of my employees but I would never say that I love them as much as I love my daughter or my wife right? But as you start to do this one thing I just never pictured or realized is some of these employees. when they start to have personal struggles and ups and downs in life, you become a part of that.

You become sensitive to that. So anyway, just something that I would throw out there as you start to hire these different people, your lawyer, your insurance agent, and so on. you're also going to be hiring employees to be a part of all of this number 11. We kind of mentioned it before, but You're going to want to get a bank account totally separate from your personal finances.

And when I say separate I mean separate. It needs to operate separately. Even if you're the sole proprietor owner of this business, you need to have this everything separate. You need to pay yourself as an employee.

even if you're just paying yourself directly out of the account. Keep it all separate. You don't necessarily have to fill out a W4 and give yourself a W2 and all of that. You might have to depending on the structure that your lawyer sets up for your business.

but even if you're just sending yourself a check to your personal account from the business, you want all the money coming into that business to go into that account and all the money going out of that account to pay for things overhead for the business to all be coming out of that account. It's going to help with bookkeeping, but it's also going to help with you not putting yourself at risk with taxes and all of that. Have a separate account. Do everything on the up and up.

And finally, the last four of these steps are things that I think that you do need if you're going to start a business. but they're not necessarily Necessities in the sense that if you're doing unlicensed work, you're putting yourself at risk. In that point, let's talk about a few. Maybe number 12 in our list is thank that.

I would call. Maybe maybe you should have some social media presence? Maybe you should have a good website put together? Maybe you should do some things to have some backlinks to that website. and I'm not going to get into SEO and all the different things that it comes with marketing and websites and such. But maybe you should go on a few of these third-party websites like Yelp and Angie's List and even Google business and make sure that you have a presence there.

When people are searching for different businesses you maybe you want to show up in that right? Maybe you want to go make sure you have a profile and Better Business Bureau and look into that? Maybe becoming a part of their accreditation program? Maybe you want to go to a couple different websites like Google Voice or Grasshopper get a separate phone number. This is something you might want for the long term, you might say? Well, Josh I Don't care if they call me directly and you may feel that way now, right? But what about the future? What about when you start hiring employees and you want that phone number to go to someone else at the company? Some of these websites can help you have a program that will send that phone number to wherever you need it to be sent, and then finally, maybe you want to get some additional training. Maybe you want to get Nate certified or become a part of that program and have continuing education. On some standpoint, all these things are maybe.

but let's be honest, if you want to grow a successful business, some of these are not. Maybe number 13 I think that you need an attitude of going for it and what I mean by that is Yeah, you need to have some sort of motivation to want to do this, but I've talked to guys that started their own business. they become a part of our growth group sometimes and they'll say it's just not working out and how do I get the phone to ring and all these things and I'll start telling them some things they need to do to get that phone ringing. A lot of them want to just spend a little bit of marketing dollars, put themselves out there a little bit and expect the phone to start ringing and when that doesn't happen, when I tell them some of the things they can do like cold calling, networking, things like that, they say ah, you know I'm not I'm not going to do any of that and it almost makes me cringe because I'm like are you willing to do what it actually takes to build this business from the ground up? You might have to do some things that aren't fun to do that.

I Always call it hobnobbing. My wife makes fun of me because I always say well I'm not much of a hobnobber I'm not a guy that goes golfing with somebody with the intent of trying to get a business deal done or goes to these events where you know people will get together and have a drink and maybe make a connection or two. I've just never been much of a hobnobber, but I've almost had to kind of force myself to be at times I've had to force myself to go to some networking events, go talk to a few folks and try to put myself out there a little bit and then finally doing the cold calling deal. calling Realtors other contractors, apartment complexes.

whoever you've got a call, you never know when that phone call. Yeah, you might have to make a hundred calls to get one person that is willing to try you out and give you an opportunity to do business, but that one person could change your business forever. We've got one customer at my company that they've been our best customer for years and alls it was was. We had a day where things were a little slow and I popped by their business and handed them a card and a candy bar.

Was that fun to do? No, it was not. but by gosh I'm glad I did it, We're almost done. Number 14 is I think that you need to have an end a goal in mind in all of this and maybe you might say, well, my end goal is just to build a big business and be rich Josh I'm not talking about that I'm talking about how will you grow? What are some systems and programs you can go ahead and put in place Now as you're starting out to get this thing off the ground, how will you be different? What will your Niche be? What will you specialize in? What's different about your company or your maintenance program? You want to have some sort of maintenance program right? When customers find you and they say oh, I actually like this guy I Want to have him taking care of my heating and air equipment I Want to have him maintain maining it and being the guy I call when I repair it. You want to have programs in place to help those customers.

You want to have programs in place to take their money right? You want to be able to accept credit cards. You want to be able to offer financing. You want to be able to do all the things that businesses need to do to be able to grow and operate. Even if you haven't even gotten a business license, you haven't even got your Tradesman license.

I Think right now, even from the very beginning, it might be a good idea for you to visualize where this is all going, what this could all be. Why are you different? Maybe even work on getting a logo put in place to be honest with you, that was the first step for me. I'd already got my Tradesman license but I had not gotten my contractor's license or insurance or any of that. My first thing I did after I got my Tradesman license and I knew that this was something I was going to start was late at night one night.

my wife and I just playing with different things and I made my first logo begin with that end in mind and the future is bright. The last thing I Think that you need to start this business and or at least should consider getting that I wish I would have started out with and I did not and that is some sort of CRM tool some sort of software that offers customer relationship management. We call them Crms. There's a bunch of them out there.

some are more expensive than others. I would recommend checking multiple ones out. Some of them will grow with you so they'll be less expensive now as you're starting out with just one or to users and then as you grow they'll grow with you but have some sort of CRM in place where you can keep track of all of this stuff. Some of these Crms you can put the customers in there.

You can invoice the customers, You can accept payment from the customers including credit cards. You can schedule employees as you start to grow through it. and best of all, you can look back at history. So as you grow this company, you're going to want to look back.

Hey, you know how many times have I been here in the last five years? What were some of those problems? is this problem I'm seeing today Something we've seen before some of the Crms. You can save pictures in there of certain things at the customers home or business. All good things. Definitely check those things out and I'll wrap up with this.

That's my 15 15 things that I think you need to put in place to start and or grow your business. Things that I wish someone had told me I wish you the best. Check out our growth groups if you want to grow and last of all, check out that series that we're doing for heating and air technicians. If you like this video I Think you'll like this one even more.

It's where I toured the largest HVAC facility in North America Thanks for watching Hit that subscribe button. We'll see you next time.