Lessons from AHR: 9 ways to make sales training stick for your technicians

The AHR Expo at the Orange County Convention Center featured 500,000 square feet of exhibits and 1,878 companies showcasing the very best products in the industry, from fittings and fasteners to the latest technology and tools. 

It was an HVAC technician’s dream: so much to work with, hands-on. But the sensory overload of HVACR’s biggest trade show, with more than 50,000 attendees, raises a question: Can your business get the most out of any of it if your technicians can’t sell it?

We sought out some of the best in the industry and asked about sales training in the trades, and put together this list of nine ways to make the process more effective and the outcomes for contractors more concrete by getting technicians to actually use what they’ve learned when they’re in a customer’s home. 

A 30-year sales pro turned consultant, a financing expert, a business owner and a community college professor all agreed on one thing: It’s not easy. Technicians are more at home fixing today’s problem than offering a more permanent solution. 

But their suggestions provide a snapshot of the tools and tactics, some old-school and others decidedly new, contractors can use to build a sales engine within their technicians, starting with the biggest takeaway first. 

1. Have a standard sales process.

Chris Michel, the training director at Service Nation with 30 years of sales experience in the trades, describes a sales process within a contracting business as “guardrails for the technician.” His AHR education session was on leadership skills for contractors, but he said afterward that having a sales process is a big part of setting the leadership tone. 

He also emphasized that the plan needs to be holistic, with all the parts working together. “Ride-alongs are not enough, weekly training is not enough, the process itself is not enough,” he said. Instead, all of those elements and more have to work together.

2. Make sales a part of your broader technician training program.

Angie Snow, Principal Industry Advisor at ServiceTitan, trainer at Go Time Success Group and previous vice president and co-owner of Utah’s Western Heating, Air & Plumbing, said building sales training into a broader technician training plan is key. 

“It's not always just technical training,” she said. “There should be sales training. There should be communication training. There should be product training. And you don't have to do it all in-house either.”

Sometimes, Snow said, third-party training is more effective.  

“Even as a parent, your kids won't listen to you, but they'll listen to somebody else,” Snow said.

3. Align sales training with marketing. 

One way to multiply the benefits of sales training, Snow said, is to align it with marketing. 

“If I've got a big tune-up special going on, I make sure my technicians are trained on how to provide a great tune-up, but also, be looking for conversion opportunities and lead opportunities during that tune-up,” Snow said. “That's where I'm going to focus my training, because that's really the key to a successful outcome.”

4. Practice, practice, practice.

Both Leonor and Michel emphasized role-playing as an effective training method–and one that should be utilized more. 

“You just have to practice with them over and over again,” Leonor said, “But you have to do it in a unique way. You have to get all the jitters out. People get nervous about it, but you have to practice.”

Implementation of new concepts, which Leonor does with offering financing, takes time, she said. 

“You have to remember that it's not going to be an overnight thing,” she said. “Sometimes, it can take people two to three months to really feel like they can get the hang of something like that.”

5. Keep it fresh and fun.

Maintaining technicians’ attention can be a challenge, so switch things up to keep training fresh and fun, something Leonor called “super important.” 

“Making it fun, making it engaging, having prizes and rewards and motivation—you have to find out what motivates people,” Leonor said. “Loud music. PTO or whatever. Have some fun with it.”

Switching up the routine from the service manager teaching something every Tuesday can change the dynamic. And the engagement level.

6. Emphasize educating the customer. 

A technician who’s comfortable talking about the diagnosis of the problem, the range of solutions available to fix it, the financing options and more will create an informed, comfortable customer and get to “yes” more often, Snow said.  

Training, from technical to financial, is necessary to get the customer to that point, and give the customer the confidence to make the right decision.

“A confused mind says no,” Snow said. “If they don't believe in the product, or if they don't believe in the process, they're not going to do it. 

“You have to give the technician the training, the messaging, the sales tools, everything they need so that when they're talking to a homeowner they can feel confident.”

7. Include personal development training.

Leonor emphasized the importance of training going beyond getting better as salespeople, or CSRs, or in any other role to getting better as people. She described herself as a “personal development junkie.” 

“If (contractors) have personal development training, on having good habits, being healthy, all those kinds of things, that's going to directly impact the way (their employees) communicate with people, too,” she said. “If you feel better, if your mind is better, your body's better, you're going to perform better. It's really powerful, and it makes a difference.”

8. Do ride-alongs in your organization. 

Snow is a big proponent of ride-alongs with technicians, for everyone in the company, to understand the complexity of technicians’ jobs. 

But doing enough ride-alongs at a company the size of Western, Snow said, is difficult. So is giving every technician the kind of individualized training, on sales and otherwise, she’d like. 

“We've introduced a lot of new ideas to our technicians, but if we don't give them the tools and the practice, they won't feel confident doing it,” Snow said. “We've adopted some really great products and said, ‘Hey, this is going to be life-changing and make sure you do it.’ And then, I find out none of my techs are offering it. 

“When it happens, it’s a leadership problem. I haven't given them enough training.”

9. Ride-alongs are great, but … 

How much training is enough? Snow said she’s not sure anyone can get to enough with a traditional training program. 

“How do we get everyone else to do what that superstar tech is doing, because he or she is following the process?” Snow asked. “You can have a very specific process, but some technicians just don't follow the process.

“How do we know if we're not out there?”

One potential solution is through technology such as Sales Pro, a ServiceTitan product that records sales calls and uses Titan Intelligence, ServiceTitan’s AI solution, to analyze them and allow for feedback on every interaction.

Sales Pro helps assure technicians are on track and following your sales process every time so they can close more deals. It provides scorecards, analytics, and summaries for every call.

That feedback allows for more consistent, unbiased feedback.

“As human beings, we all want feedback,” Snow said. "How am I performing? How can I do better? And inherently, I think they want to improve, but it's difficult to be able to give that to them. Ideally, it would be a lot more often. 

“That's why we're looking for other tools.”