These are the questions HVAC and heating company owners ask us most often before deciding whether a fractional marketing manager makes sense. The short answers are above; below are the longer explanations of the points owners tend to worry about most. Anything we missed is worth a quick call, text or email.
One reminder before the details: HVAC.Management manages marketing and advises on business decisions. We are not an HVAC contractor, so equipment questions go to your own technicians.
Frequently asked questions
What is a fractional marketing manager?
A senior marketing manager who works for your company part-time. They own the plan, budget, vendors and monthly numbers, as a full-time manager would, but in the hours a growing HVAC company actually needs.
How much does HVAC.Management cost?
Engagements are priced on the HVAC.Agency plans: Starter $2,998, Growth $4,498 and Elite $8,998 per month, in Canadian dollars, plus GST/HST at your province's rate (GST and QST in Quebec). Ad spend paid to platforms such as Google is separate.
Is there a long-term contract?
No lock-in. The first seven days are a free trial, and we don't take a credit card to start it. Ask us to put the notice terms in writing before you begin so there are no surprises.
We tried an agency before and it didn't work. Why would this be different?
Often the agency wasn't the only problem: nobody set a clear target, tracked booked jobs or held them to a scope. A manager's job is to fix those things. If the numbers then show a vendor is the problem, you'll have the evidence to act.
Will you make us fire our current vendors?
No. We start by writing down what each vendor is paid to do and measuring them fairly. Good vendors usually do better with a clear brief. You decide whether anyone changes.
Who owns our website, domain and ad accounts?
Your company should, and we make sure it does. We work as users you can remove, never as owners. If an old vendor or employee holds ownership, the stack audit finds it and we help you recover it.
How soon will we see results?
Expect the first month to be clean-up: access, tracking and scopes. A reliable baseline usually exists by the end of month two, and spending decisions based on it start in month three. We don't promise a lead or ranking number.
What do the monthly numbers look like?
One page: spend, calls, booked jobs and cost per booked job by channel, plus answer and booking rates and a short list of decisions. You get it in the first week of each month, followed by a 60-minute review.
Do you need to be in our office?
No. We serve HVAC companies across Canada from Vancouver, and consultations run by video call or in person, as well as by phone, text, email and screen sharing.
Are you an HVAC contractor?
No. Our work stops at marketing and business decisions: plans, budgets, vendors and numbers. We never touch furnaces, boilers or heat pumps, and questions about equipment or codes belong with your licensed technicians and the regulator.
Can you work with our field-service software?
Usually, yes. We need a way to export jobs with a source or campaign field. If your software can't do that, we add a simple source tag at booking.
What happens when we stop working together?
You keep everything: accounts, data, the plan, the scorecard history and vendor files. We remove our own access and hand over notes so whoever comes next can pick up cleanly.
Is fractional management worth it for a smaller company?
It depends on how much you spend and how many vendors you juggle, not on how many trucks you run.
A rough test: add up everything you paid last year to marketing vendors, software and ad platforms. If that total is large enough that wasting a fifth of it would hurt, and nobody in the company is responsible for checking it, a manager usually earns their keep. If you spend very little through a single vendor you trust, start with a monthly review or nothing at all. Our guide on choosing between a hire, a fractional manager and an agency works through the numbers.
How do you avoid grading your own work?
We keep the management role and the delivery role separate, and we give you the raw data.
When delivery runs through our parent agency, HVAC.Agency, we tell you, and the scorecard uses the same call tracking and job data for every vendor, including that one. You can look at the ad platforms and call logs yourself at any time. That openness is the safeguard, and it should be standard with any manager you hire.
What do you need from our team?
Less than most owners expect, but a few things are non-negotiable.
- Admin access. Add us as users on the accounts listed in the stack audit.
- Job data. A monthly export from your field-service or CRM software with job type, ticket and source.
- A dispatcher or office lead. Someone who can tag job sources at booking and tell us what callers are asking about.
- One hour a month from the owner. The monthly review is where decisions get made, so the decision-maker needs to be there.
What if our numbers are a mess?
That's normal, and it's the reason the first month exists. Most companies we look at have at least one broken tracking number, a profile owned by the wrong account, or job sources that were never recorded. We fix the measurement before we judge anything. Our vendor management guide has a checklist you can work through yourself if you'd rather start alone.
How do you handle rebate and program claims in ads?
Carefully, because programs change. Rebate and financing programs across Canada open, change and close during the year, and an ad that promises a closed rebate can mislead customers. As part of managing your marketing, we keep a list of every program your ads mention, with its official source and the date we last checked it, and we ask vendors to update copy when a program changes. We link to administrators rather than interpret eligibility, and we don't give compliance advice. The region pages show the programs we track in each province.
Can we start small and grow into it?
Yes, and for many companies that's the sensible route. A common path is a free trial first, then a single stack audit to fix account ownership and tracking, then a few months of monthly reviews, and only then the full fractional role if the numbers justify it. Each step produces something you keep, such as an account custody sheet, a clean source field in your job software or a scorecard history, even if you stop there.
The opposite approach, signing up for everything on day one, tends to bury the owner in changes before anyone knows what's working. We'd rather earn the larger role with evidence.
More detail lives on the services and pricing pages, or call, text or email.