Building a 90-day plan for an HVAC company

Step 1: choose the right quarter

The right quarter for a plan is the one with the most spare capacity in the office. For most Canadian HVAC companies, that means a shoulder season: roughly April to June, or September to early November, depending on where you are. In regions with a long heating season and short summers, the spring window is usually the better one. On the coast, where cooling demand is lighter, the calmer weeks may fall differently.

Mark your three busiest weeks of last year on a calendar. Don't start a plan in them, and don't schedule a check-in in them if you can avoid it.

Step 2: list everything, then cut to three

Start with every problem you know about, from your own observations, your staff or a self-review using our diagnostic checklist. Put an estimated yearly cost against each one. Then choose three, using two tests:

1. Is it expensive? It should be among the costliest items on the list.
2. Can it be finished in 90 days by people you already have? If it needs a hire who hasn't been found yet, it isn't a 90-day priority.

Everything else goes on a written "later" list. Writing it down matters, because people let go of ideas more easily when they know the ideas are recorded.

Step 3: write each priority properly

A priority has four parts: a target, an owner, a weekly measure and a finish line.

Weak: "Improve customer follow-up." Strong: "By [date], every replacement quote gets a follow-up call within 48 hours. Owner: [Name]. Weekly measure: % of the week's quotes followed up within 48 hours. Finish line: four consecutive weeks at 100%."

The strong version can be checked by anyone with access to the job software. That is the standard to aim for.

Step 4: choose weekly measures you can see

A good weekly measure is something your team can read directly from a system you already use, without waiting for a monthly report. Good examples:

• answered-call rate between 7 and 10 a.m., from the phone system
• quotes followed up within 48 hours, from the job software
• maintenance agreements renewed this week, from the agreement list
• jobs invoiced within 24 hours of completion, from accounting

Bad measures are vague ("customer satisfaction"), lagging ("annual revenue") or controlled by someone else ("Google ranking").

Step 5: set the check-in rhythm

Hold a check-in every two weeks, for 30 minutes, with the three owners. Use the same agenda every time:

1. Each owner reads out their weekly numbers since the last check-in (5 minutes each)
2. What is blocking progress, and who will remove the block (10 minutes)
3. Any change to a priority, recorded in writing (5 minutes)

Keep a one-page note after each check-in. Over a quarter, those six or seven notes become the history of the plan.

A worked example

A company with 11 technicians, 300 active maintenance agreements and a slow April chooses three priorities in late March:

The value is easy to estimate. If the morning window receives 600 calls a month and the answered rate rises by 20 points, that is 120 more answered calls. At a 50% booking rate and a $400 average ticket, that is about $24,000 a month in additional booked work at capacity, before counting any replacements those visits lead to. Treat it as an estimate and check it against real invoices at close-out.

Step 6: close out at day 90

The close-out is a single meeting with three questions for each priority: did we hit the target, what did it change in money or hours, and who keeps it running now? Write the answers down. Then look at the "later" list and decide whether a second quarter is worth planning.

Many owners skip the close-out because the work feels finished. Don't. Without it, improvements quietly slip back within a season.

Keeping the team on board

A plan written by the owner alone tends to stay the owner's plan. Spend twenty minutes at the start of the quarter explaining the three priorities to the whole office and the field leads: what is changing, why, and how it will be measured. Post the weekly numbers somewhere visible, such as a whiteboard in the shop or a pinned message in the team chat.

Recognise progress in public and problems in private. When the answered-call rate climbs, say so at the morning meeting. When a priority stalls, raise it with its owner one to one, and ask what is in the way before asking why it happened. Owners are often surprised how much faster a plan moves when the people doing the work can see the score.

Mistakes that derail 90-day plans

• Starting in a heat wave or a cold snap. The plan loses to the phones.
• Adding priorities mid-quarter. New ideas go on the "later" list.
• Measuring monthly. By the first monthly review, a third of the quarter has passed.
• Choosing measures you can't see. If someone has to compile it, it won't get compiled.
• No close-out. Gains fade when nobody is named to keep them running.

When to get help

Many companies run this method alone. If you'd rather have an outside adviser hold the rhythm, challenge the numbers and run the check-ins, that is our 90-Day Growth Plan. If you're not yet sure which three priorities to choose, start with the Business Diagnostic. And if you want the scorecard reviewed every month after the quarter ends, see the Advisory Retainer.