October at a glance
This month in one paragraph
A good October, and the heating season has barely started. Revenue came in at $216,500, up 9% on September, from 312 completed jobs at an average ticket of $694. Furnace repairs overtook AC in the second week, right on schedule. Google Local Services is now your cheapest source of booked work at $57 a job, so we moved the Angi duct-cleaning money there. Two things cost you money this month: 23 calls rang out after 5 p.m., and $14,200 of invoices are more than 30 days old. Both have a fix underway.
What we are doing next
- 1Switch on the “heat not working” ads the evening before the first cold snap (forecast Nov 9). The copy is waiting for your approval under To do.
- 2Start the answering service trial Monday, Nov 9, so no after-hours call rings out. 23 missed calls is roughly $9,900 of repair work.
- 3Put the financing page live by Nov 16. 48 quotes worth $168,000 are open, and a monthly-payment number helps people say yes to a new system.
Jobs by week
What this means
The blue line is the bread and butter: 298 repair and tune-up visits in October. The red line is the 14 new-system installs, which are few but brought in 46 cents of every revenue dollar. Week four (Oct 22) was the first cold week, and you can see it. The last point is only three days, Oct 29 to 31, so it looks like a drop; it is not.
Where booked calls came from
- Google Maps and search92
- Repeat customers and members88
- Local Services Ads74
- Referrals and Nextdoor43
- Angi, Thumbtack, website32
- Google Ads9
What this means
CallRail tags every call with where it came from, and ServiceTitan tells us which calls turned into a booked job. More than half of your work came in free: Maps, repeat customers and referrals. That is why the Google Business Profile and the review replies get as much attention as the ads. Google Ads looks small because it only runs for new-system installs, and nine installs is a lot of money.
Connected sources
Why this is here
So you know where each number comes from. If a source ever stops syncing, the card turns red and the numbers that depend on it get a warning rather than silently going stale. The sync runs at 2 a.m., so what you see each morning is through yesterday.
When calls come in
Why this is here
Monday morning is the storm: 70 calls between 9 and noon, mostly people whose system misbehaved over the weekend. That is when the second phone line matters and when a tech should not be scheduled on a long install. The after-5 p.m. row is the one that costs you: 102 calls across the month, and 23 of those were never answered. The answering service covers exactly that row.
Jobs by service line
| Service line | Jobs | Revenue | Per job |
|---|---|---|---|
| New-system install | 14 | $98,700 | $7,050 |
| Furnace repair | 96 | $41,300 | $430 |
| AC repair | 58 | $24,900 | $429 |
| Water heater | 14 | $20,500 | $1,464 |
| Maintenance tune-up | 112 | $18,500 | $165 |
| Duct cleaning and sealing | 18 | $12,600 | $700 |
What this means
Tune-ups are a third of the visits and a tenth of the revenue, and that is fine: they are the membership promise, and 11 of October's 14 installs came from a tech spotting a tired system on a tune-up. Furnace repairs doubled from September as the heat went on. AC repair will keep shrinking until April. The table adds up to the $216,500 on the Money tab.
Revenue by town
- 1Huntington$48,200
- 2Smithtown$39,600
- 3Commack$34,100
- 4Northport$31,800
- 5Dix Hills$28,400
- 6Melville$20,700
What this means
Six towns make up 94% of your revenue, and all six sit inside a 20-minute drive of the shop. Melville is the one to watch: it has the most houses with 15-year-old systems and the least of your work. The Nextdoor posts and the Local Services service area are being pointed there for November.
Tech utilisation
What this means
From ServiceTitan timesheets and the truck GPS. Above 80% is excellent; below 65% means the schedule, not the tech, needs attention. Kevin started in September and is riding along on installs, so his number should climb through the winter. Ray's week is split by a long drive to Melville on Tuesdays and Thursdays; the dispatcher is grouping those jobs from Nov 9. Each point of utilisation across six techs is worth about $1,400 a month.
Average response time
What this means
Thirty minutes faster than September, and the same-day promise was kept on 97% of repair calls. The gain came from grouping jobs by town so trucks stop criss-crossing the island. Reviews mention speed more than price, so this number is worth protecting when the cold snap hits.
Quotes outstanding
What this means
A quote nobody follows up on wins about a third of the time; one that gets a call within three days wins closer to half. Slide to see what a week of follow-up calls is worth. Twenty calls at 44% is about nine jobs, and at the October average quote that is around $31,000 of work. The list of open quotes, oldest first, is in ServiceTitan under Follow-ups; we tag the ones to call first.
Quotes in October
What this means
“Same-day quotes” is the share sent before the tech left the driveway. It went from 55% to 63% over the quarter and the win rate followed. When a monthly payment was on the quote, seven of nine install quotes were accepted; that is the reason the financing page is next on the list.
Campaigns
| Campaign | Spend | Result | Cost per booked job |
|---|---|---|---|
| “Furnace repair” · Google Local Services | $4,200 | 118 leads → 74 booked | $57 |
| “AC install financing” · Google Ads | $2,600 | 31 calls → 9 installs | $289 |
| “Maintenance plan” · Meta | $900 | 19 new members | $47 per member |
| Angi + Thumbtack · lead fees | $950 | 37 leads → 10 booked | $95 |
| Review drive · ServiceTitan texts | $0 | 152 asked → 47 reviews | $0 |
| “Duct cleaning” · Angi Paused Oct 14 | $380 | 11 leads → 1 booked | $380 |
What this means
“Cost per booked job” is the ad money behind one job on the schedule. $57 for a furnace repair worth $430 is excellent. $289 for an install sounds high until you remember an install averages $7,050. The Meta campaign buys members, not jobs: $47 for someone who pays $228 a year and calls you first when the system dies. The duct-cleaning row is included in the Angi total above it; it stays on the table for a month so you can see why it was paused.
Calls by week
What this means
From CallRail, which records every call that comes through a tracked number. Missed calls stayed around 10% all month even as volume rose, which means the office is coping; the misses are concentrated after 5 p.m. and in the Monday rush. We listened to a sample of 40 recorded calls: 36 were booked or correctly not booked, 4 were quotes given over the phone that should have been visits. The office has the four to listen to.
The three habits
Why this is here
Google ranks Local Services listings partly on how fast you answer, so the first bar protects the cheapest leads you have. The second is the share of customers who leave a review after the tech's thank-you text; 31% is very good (most companies see 10 to 15). The third is one email: half of your list opened it and it booked 64 tune-ups, about $10,600 of work, for the cost of an afternoon's writing.
Best Nextdoor post
| Seen by | Reactions | Recommendations | Calls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2,140 neighbours | 38 | 11 | 6 |
What this means
Nextdoor is where people ask “anyone know a good HVAC guy?”, and recommendations are the answer. Useful posts that are not selling anything get recommended; the two that mentioned the maintenance plan got a quarter of the reach. November's posts: what a $19 tune-up catches, and how to read your thermostat's error codes.
Google Business Profile
What this means
6,840 people searched for a heating or cooling company and saw your listing; 486 tapped the phone number without visiting the website. That is the biggest single source of booked calls on the Overview, and it costs nothing. We keep it fed: new photos monthly, hours updated for holidays, every review answered, and the service area matched to the six towns on the Jobs tab.
Revenue by week
What this means
Last year is the fair comparison for a seasonal business, and you are 15% ahead of it for October. The gap opened in the cold week of Oct 22, when the ads were already running and the trucks were already grouped by town. The last point is three days. The lines should stay apart through November; if they close, we look at the install pipeline first.
Revenue by service line
- New-system installs$98,700
- Furnace repair$41,300
- AC repair$24,900
- Water heaters$20,500
- Maintenance tune-ups$18,500
- Duct cleaning and sealing$12,600
What this means
Fourteen installs were 46% of the month's revenue; that is normal for October and it is why the install quotes on the Jobs tab get followed up first. Over 90 days AC repair is the second-biggest line, which it will not be again until spring. Tune-ups look small but 11 of the 14 installs started as a tune-up visit.
Break-even day
What this means
Fixed costs (office payroll, trucks, insurance, rent, marketing, the loan) run about $84,000 a month. Gross profit reached that on Oct 24; everything after that date was profit, about $19,900 before tax. Four days earlier than September. In a slow February the break-even day can fall after the month ends, which is exactly what the membership income is there to soften.
Costs that moved
- 1Parts and equipment+$6,100
- 2Overtime+$2,300
- 3Truck repairs+$1,900
- 4Marketing+$1,150
- 5Fuel−$640
What this means
Parts went up because installs went up (14 against 11); that is good cost. Overtime was the cold week of Oct 19 to 25 and is expected. Truck repairs is van 4's transmission, a one-off. Marketing rose because we raised the Local Services bid when it was clearly working. Fuel fell because drive time per job fell; the GPS routing is paying for itself.
Owed to you
| Customer | Amount | Due | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hillside Builders Corp. · 2 rough-ins | $7,800 | Sep 19 | Overdue 42 d |
| Harbor Point Property Mgmt. · 4 units | $4,100 | Sep 26 | Overdue 35 d |
| Oak Lane Homes · water heater | $2,300 | Sep 30 | Overdue 31 d |
| Everyone else · 61 invoices | $31,600 | Nov | Current |
What this means
Homeowners pay on the day; builders and property managers pay on their own calendar. All three late ones are commercial. Reminders went out Nov 2 from QuickBooks, and the bookkeeper calls Hillside on Nov 6 if nothing lands. From January, commercial jobs over $2,000 get a 50% deposit through Stripe, same as installs.
From the bookkeeper
Gross margin held at 48% even with 14 installs, because the equipment was bought on the manufacturer's fall rebate; that rebate ends Nov 30, so any install quoted this month should be ordered before then. Net profit before tax came to about $19,900, 9% of revenue, which is where a company this size should be going into winter. Three things to keep an eye on: the $14,200 that is over 30 days (all commercial, reminders sent), the van 4 repair (one-off, but van 2 is at 140,000 miles), and the fourth-quarter estimated tax of about $11,000 due Jan 15, for which we are moving $3,700 a month into the tax account. Payroll for the six techs plus office ran $71,400 including the cold-week overtime. Cash on hand at month end, not counting the $38,400 in customer deposits, was $96,200, about five weeks of costs.
Why this is here
The numbers above come from QuickBooks automatically. This paragraph does not; it is written once a month after the books close, by a person who has read them. If something here surprises you, reply to the monthly email and we will go through it on a call.
Google rating
- 5 stars40
- 4 stars5
- 3 stars or below2
What this means
4.8 on 612 reviews is the number people see next to your name on Maps, and it is a bigger reason they call than any ad. The two low reviews in October were both about scheduling on the cold week (a 4-hour window that ran to 6). Both got a call from you and one was changed to four stars. Replies to the low ones matter more than the high ones; the next person reads them.
What people said
Why this is here
These three say what the ads cannot: showed me the part, quoted the number and stuck to it, measured the house. Those lines go into November's Local Services profile and the financing page, in the customers' words. We pick three a month that each say something different.
Words people use
What this means
People are telling you what they are buying: punctuality and a straight explanation. Price comes third and it is “fair”, not “low”, which means there is room in the ticket if the service holds. “Explained everything” is the phrase that separates you from the big franchises in reviews of their work, so the techs' habit of showing the part is worth keeping as a rule.
Reply time
Why this is here
Google shows reply time to the business, not the public, but people notice a reply that lands the same day. Anything three stars or below pings us and you at once, and the draft reply is in your inbox within the hour for a yes or a change. Five-star replies go out on a 6-hour delay so they do not read like a robot.
What we reply
Why this is here
Every reply names the tech, answers anything the customer asked, and gives a reason to call again. No “we appreciate your feedback”. For a low review the reply says what went wrong, what was done about it, and offers a phone call; it never argues. You see every draft before it goes; after three months of approving them unchanged, most owners let us send them straight away. Your call.
Technicians named in reviews
- 1Mike31
- 2Luis24
- 3Danny19
- 4Pete12
- 5Ray9
- 6Kevin7
Why this is here
A tech who gets named is a tech who is asking, and the thank-you text goes out under his name. Mike runs the most calls so he leads, but Kevin has seven mentions in two months on the job, which is a good sign for a new hire. Read these out at the Monday meeting; it does more for the review count than any script.
Waiting for your OK
- Cold-snap ad copy · “Heat not working? Same-day repair, Long Island, 6 trucks.” For Local Services and Google Ads, ready to switch on the evening of Nov 8.
- Financing landing page · “A new system from $118 a month.” The page install quotes will link to; goes live Nov 16 once you OK the wording and the rate.
- November tune-up email · “Last call before the holidays.” To the 2,140 contacts who are not members and did not book in October; sends Nov 12.
How approvals work
Each item has a preview in the email that came with this dashboard, and the approve button here is the same as replying “yes”. Approve nothing and nothing changes; the ads stay off and the page stays in draft. Edits: reply with the change and a new version comes back the same day.
Questions for you
- Saturday hours on Local Services? 115 calls came in on Saturdays. Showing 8 to 2 would put you in more Saturday searches; it also means a tech on call.Needs an answer
- Membership price for new members from January: keep $19, or $21? The 420 existing members would stay at $19.Needs an answer
- Tech photos on the website. Mike, Luis and Danny said yes. Pete, Ray and Kevin have not answered; are you OK with us asking them directly?Needs an answer
- Add Bay Shore to the service area? 14 calls from there in October that you turned down. It is a 30-minute drive from the shop.Needs an answer
Why this is here
These are decisions about your business, not marketing, so we do not make them. Each one sits here until you answer; reply to the monthly email or say it on the call. The defaults if we hear nothing: no Saturday hours, $19, no photos of anyone who has not said yes, no Bay Shore.
The next four weeks
| Date | What | Who | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun Nov 8 | Cold-snap ads switch on in the evening if the forecast for Monday holds under 35°F | Samia | Needs your OK |
| Mon Nov 9 | Answering service trial begins, 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. and weekends, booking into ServiceTitan | Office + Samia | Set up |
| Tue Nov 10 | Same-day quote template goes to all six techs; 10-minute walkthrough at the Monday meeting | Samia | Ready |
| Thu Nov 12 | November tune-up email sends to 2,140 non-members | Samia | Needs your OK |
| Mon Nov 16 | Financing page live; install quotes link to it from this date | Samia | Needs your OK |
| Wed Nov 18 | Nextdoor post: what a $19 tune-up catches (with Luis's photo of a cracked heat exchanger) | Samia | Written |
| Mon Nov 23 | Thanksgiving-week hours on Google, website and the phone greeting | Samia | Scheduled |
| Mon Nov 30 | Manufacturer fall rebate ends; any approved install must be ordered by today | You + office | Hard deadline |
| Thu Dec 3 | November books close; this page updates with the month's numbers and the bookkeeper's note | Bookkeeper | Scheduled |
| Fri Dec 4 | Monthly call, 20 minutes: what worked, what we stop, what we try in December | You + Samia | In the diary |
Why this is here
So you know what is coming and nothing arrives as a surprise. “Needs your OK” rows depend on an approval above; everything else is done unless you say stop. The rebate deadline is the only hard one, and it is yours.