Over the past few weeks many contractors have contacted me needing to raise cash quickly. I found it interesting that NONE of those plumbing or HVAC contractors have a large maintenance agreement base. Reality says that you can’t instantly grow your maintenance agreement base. So what do you do?

Here are five things you can do:

   1. Go through your database of clients. Call every client who does not own a maintenance agreement and offer them a check of their air conditioning or plumbing. The incentive? It’s free with a grocery or gas rebate. (Send me an e-mail if you are interested in using the rebates.

   2. Go through your database of clients who own extended warranties. They should be on a maintenance agreement program to keep their warranty in effect. Give them an option of one-, two, five-, or 10- year maintenance plans. A few will take the five- and 10-year plans. When sending the letters, put them in a colored envelope, hand address them, and put a stamp on the envelope. They will get opened.

   3. Go to your commercial accounts and ask whether you can offer their employees a spring air conditioning or plumbing check up. Assuming you have a great relationship with your commercial clients, they should be willing to do this. After all, it is an employee benefit to them (especially if you give them an incentive to have a spring check) where the commercial company does not have to invest any dollars.

   4. Go to your church, synagogue or place of worship and offer the same as in No. 3.

   5. Review every proposal that hasn’t closed. Call the potential client. Your reason for calling: With the tax credits and rebates available, now is the time to buy. If, when you call, you discover the client has purchased from another contractor, ask whether you can call back when the warranty period is up. You’d be interested in maintaining his system on a regular basis. Some will say yes.

Here are activities so that you won’t end up in a cash crunch again. 

   First, commit to building a maintenance agreement program. Maintenance agreement programs build client loyalty. The more agreements you have, the larger your client base. The more agreements you have, the more service and replacement work you’re going to get. Service technicians actively believe in them and talk with clients about their benefits. Each service technician performs the maintenance on his own home. If he lives in an apartment, the owner of his company lets him service a close relative’s home. This way when at a client’s home, the technician can truthfully say that he performs maintenance on his own home and believes in what he is talking to the client about.
   You also have to commit to the long term. Plan marketing activities for the year and execute the plan during the year. Track results and evaluate what has worked and what hasn’t. Do the same things week in and week out; whether or not you’re busy. You can outsource the creation of the mailing pieces and the mailings themselves. Execution takes discipline; especially in the slower times when you might not get as good a response rate as busier times. The key is to look at the overall response rate each year rather than have a “knee-jerk” reaction when it is busy or slow.
   Talk with your clients 30 days after a job is completed. They are usually surprised when someone calls. During the call, make sure they were happy with the work that was done. Handle any problems immediately and resolve them to the client’s satisfaction. Ask for referrals. When clients are happy they’re usually willing to be on a reference list and may know people who have the same needs as he did. Without asking the referral question, you’ll never have the opportunity to speak with potential new clients. 
   Keep your employees happy. Although this isn’t a marketing activity it affects marketing and sales. A happy employee will answer the telephone in a positive manner. A happy field employee will be more pleasant on the job. Clients can sense whether an employee is happy with his job. And, happy employees lead to happy customers.
   Raise cash now for the short term. However, put the actions in place to build a good maintenance agreement base and loyal clients.