The Ultimate HVAC Marketing Guide for 2026

We're talking about the ultimate guide to HVAC marketing in 2026. What's working? What's not working?

Things are changing in 2026. There's a lot of competition in the space. You have to be good.

For the most part, there's a lot of companies down year to date.

That's wild.

Like, what do you think in content marketing?

It's more important than ever because this is like the moment to do it.

Because social's driving the bus.

I think it's gonna become more and more important for you to have really good content. Your reviews that you get is going to matter more and more.

Hey, AI search is starting to be real. Socials are a big opportunity. I feel like that's like the summary of our 2026 That and I think they. Welcome back to Owned and Operated, a top 200 business and entrepreneurship podcast. I'm your host John Wilson, and on this show we talk about how to grow your home service company and the things that we're doing and experimenting inside my own home service company in Ohio. Today I'm joined by my good friend Sam Preston, the CEO of Service Scalers, and today. We're talking about the ultimate guide to HVAC marketing in 2026. What's working? What's not working? Sam, welcome back to the show.

Thanks for having me. I'm pumped about this episode. I got some stuff. Excited to talk. Excited to get through all the different things you can do from a marketing standpoint. And yeah, let's do it. Let's get in the nitty-gritty.

Hell yeah. This is continuing our conversation. We've been calling this series Clicks to Calls. Where we really like broken out a ton of different aspects of marketing inside home service. It's really one of the most frequently asked things we get is how do I market more? How do I drive more leads? Like, how do we grow? So this is just a continuation of that series. And what we're really trying to answer today is if you were starting an HVAC company today, where would you spend your first marketing dollar? So that's sort of our prompt. That we're running from, um, today. Now before we dive too deep into the content, Sam, I gotta— I'm gonna bore you for a sec. We are— our new— our next Breaking 5 is in September. If you've been listening to the show, we have, uh, been running a Breaking 5 series of workshops for a while now. This one's unique, this one's different, and we're pretty excited. We're bringing tons of operators far larger than our normal Breaking Five group to Northeast Ohio, September 15th through the 18th. And we're really throwing like a mini conference here in Northeast Ohio. So we're going to be sharing practical systems, leadership lessons, behind the scenes shop tour walkthroughs of Wilson. We're going to be having awesome speakers join us and share their journey of growing their business. Uh, so make sure you click the link in the description below. We're gonna be talking about it a bunch.

I'm actually going to be there. Uh, I've been told that I'm invited and I can come and I can talk about marketing. So, oh yeah, yeah. I hope this is the catalyst for so many different companies that, that are looking to grow and don't know how to, to make that leap.

Yeah. Yeah, I hope so too. And I think we're going to have like some of the speakers that we're starting to line up are pretty awesome. It's a bunch of like mid-8 figures and 9-figure entrepreneurs that are like going to be talking about their journey from like $10 to $100 million or, you know, wherever they are today. So it's going to be a really great group.

That's happening.

That's happening. Yeah, I'm pumped. Okay, so let's run this state of HVAC marketing in 2026. What do we think? How are we doing?

Yeah, I mean, things are changing in 2026 faster than pretty much any year ever. Your CPLs are getting way more expensive in LSA and PPC, you know, compared to what it was 2 years ago. It's getting to double.

And that means cost per lead.

Yes, thank you. Your cost per lead, uh, which just means that a couple things. One, it's harder to enter the market now than it was 2 years ago, uh, and 2, you have to be way better at handling those leads. Yeah, uh, they have to be way more valuable. You can't just, uh, be flippant about your speed to lead or how you handle that phone call. You can't just let something get to a missed phone call and not give somebody a really good experience because they're just going to find somebody else. There's a lot of competition in the space. You have to be good. And so there's a— it's very different from, again, 2 years ago and how you would enter the space.

Google keeps getting more expensive and affiliate leads are getting worse, and somehow you're paying more for fewer, lower quality leads. And that's pretty much the game right now. So here's something that most operators are missing. Yelp. I know what you're thinking, but Yelp is way more than just a restaurant rating app. Last year, over 125 million home service leads were generated on Yelp, and almost 50 million homeowners are searching there every single month. Here's the real kicker, though. Their data powers answers across ChatGPT, Google AI, Apple Maps, and Alexa. Basically everywhere people are searching before they even know your company name. So instead of fighting over the same expensive Google clicks, you're showing up where customers are actually discovering and deciding who to hire. One company, Fuse Service, out in the Bay Area, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, does $20 million a year from Yelp alone. They're closing 75% of their Yelp leads, and about 70% of their entire customer base comes from the platform. So if you're serious about leveling up your lead gen, go to business.yelp.com /ownedandoperated and book a call. Yeah, no, I agree. I think what I've seen too, it's been pretty interesting. I'm curious how people's Junes are going, but we're actually— well, I'll talk more about this. I've talked about this a few times, but we're doing this like project, we're calling it Huge. And it's basically something that I find really interesting is I'm in all these group chats with all these entrepreneurs And everyone's just like, hey, how'd your month go? How'd your month go? How'd your month go? And like, for the most part, HVAC has really struggled again in 2026, very similar to how it felt in 2025. Like, that's just sort of like what I'm seeing from friends all over the country. But the reason I bring up my like little like project is we're— what we're doing is we're combining ServiceTitan data to get aggregate information from around the country from all these different businesses that we're connecting to. So it's gonna have things like close rate, average ticket, like revenue, like revenue to budget, and like per region, per market, per company. And it's really, it's starting to get kind of interesting 'cause we're just like starting to see more information as people like start hooking up their CRM. So I basically, I agree with you. And then the other big thing that I'm seeing, just because we're starting to see more data, is HVAC is struggling. Not like struggling like crazy, but for the most part, there's a lot of companies down year to date. So it's just not having a big banner year. So we'll see how June goes.

Another thing we're seeing in Meta right now, which is super interesting, is Uh, cost per lead is going down, um, while lead volume is going up. Um, and so this is interesting mix. I think a couple things what's happening right now is because of the way AI is working and people can just create graphics at an accelerated rate, I think a lot more graphics are getting into the market and we're just testing a lot more, a lot faster, but a lot of people are doing that. Um, and so I think what's happening is we're seeing significantly more people actually working in, uh, Meta, um, which I think is driving the lead quality down a little bit, but you're getting more leads from Meta. Um, and so, which is super interesting. Um, and it'll be interesting to see how this goes because it used to be— I mean, a lot since everyone's using Meta and this, you know, AI-generated images, you're starting to see like You're starting to like pick up like, yeah, that was made by AI kind of feeling. And everyone's using roughly the same thing. And so it'll be interesting to see like how that continues to go. But it's not as simple as like we were just significantly better than another company at image generation because everyone's using roughly the same thing. So I think uniqueness, I think videos are still one of those things that, you know, obviously AI's a part of video creation now in Meta.

Mm-hmm.

But I think people still haven't mastered that. And so I think that is gonna become more important as we keep going. And it's also interesting to see how people are connecting their Claude directly into Facebook. We are very careful with that because of how Facebook is really quick to suspend accounts. So we really don't wanna do that as much.

Yeah.

So we're being really careful with that.

That's interesting. But still, Yeah, I didn't have socials on here, but that's a good one. Yeah, I feel like socials is becoming— there's a few, at least what I'm noticing. We just had somebody from Yelp on the show a couple weeks ago, and she was talking about how Yelp, and what I suspect is Yelp, Thumbtack, Angie's, all those guys, have become the big— they're benefiting pretty big, I think, from the sort of AI search boom where they're taking on more lead volume because they're being referred it. Whereas I don't think that Claude or ChatGPT is referring that to Google where historically we would've searched. So it'll be interesting because I think, like, my quick take is the Google Business Profile is still like the maximum thing that you could be doing. But I think social and all these other lead gen channels are becoming more important because more search volume is going there away from what used to be on Google.

Yes, I would 100% agree, mostly because of the domain authority on those different sites. Think like Reddit and Yelp and things like that. People are like, when the AI is searching this, they're taking into consideration, like all these different platforms and pulling that into, hey, this is now what we want to show you from an AI perspective. And like stuff like we're starting to see Instagram and Facebook posts show up in your Google Business Profile. So making sure like your account is connected, which I know we have a whole episode coming up about that.

That's interesting.

Like keeping that connected so that you can, you know, again, getting more data. So like diving into socials is going to become more important. Like it used to be just like this thing you did for, uh, and just, um, brand authority. Uh, but I think it's actually going to start helping you grow your Google Business Profile, uh, and rank better. Um, but also just like how searches are changing, and I think it's going to continue to change. So when we're thinking of like an HVAC company entering the market and wanting to grow I think there's a big opportunity in GBP, which is funny because like we've always said that, but like still I think that that is like one of the best places you can start because of how much it's changing. Some of these bigger companies are going to struggle to be able to change as quickly as it is.

Yeah.

So it's just a great place to like go and own. And same with SEO. SEO is wildly different now, and it's going to be even more different in 12 months because of the amount of content that's getting pushed right now, because you can push out content faster. It's becoming compressed, but also people aren't doing it well. They think they are, but they're not. And so again, there's just like this opportunity to get into SEO right now, whereas 12 months down the line, I don't know how I don't know about how different it's going to be or how much harder it's going to be, 'cause these companies are going to catch up onto the right actions and techniques to show up in there. So I think this is a really unique time to push into both of those marketing channels.

All right, so GBP, still fundamental, still highest ROI, totally agreed. I think starting to care about some of your other profiles as far as ranking. We haven't personally cared a ton, but I think they're getting dragged into AI search more and more. So I think you should care about them. And then photos, posts, and responsiveness. I think we've talked about that a lot, but like it's supposed to be— we just had Big Reputation on and it's, it's like 2 photos a week. I don't remember how many posts and I think you want to respond quickly. But those do count as far as how to react. So for SEO, I mean, GBP is kind of a big part of SEO, right?

Mm-hmm.

But SEO, your take is that Yelp, Angie, all those guys have high, strong SEO, high domain authority, so they're showing up in AI search more, and that makes sense. To me, so that would make SEO still worth like pursuing, which I think for a lot of people is a question mark. Like, is is it is it worth it or not? Yeah, it seems worth it. Now I do. I thought I heard that Google was getting rid of like search, like their conventional search. Am I is was I right about that? They're like going to like ChatGPT-based search.

Yeah, like right now if you go to like Google to search, you can select the AI overview. Google has made the comment that within the next, uh, by the end of the year, that's going to be the main mode. Like you can still go to search, but like their main mode will be the AI overview. Um, I don't know how true that is. I think, you know, Google has slow played this a little bit compared to other searches, chat. Or, you know, perplexity or something like that. But yeah, I think that is the near future. So where you would go, hey, I want to— I've got a keyword HVAC near me and we want to rank for that. That is still obviously going to be true today, 2027, 2028. That's still going to be true. But we're also going to start looking at the queries that chat is, the long tail keywords, which is no longer long tail. It's like long, long tail keywords.

Yeah.

And like all the ways people are like communicating in chat and they're writing query, you know, answers to those questions in a way that AI can pick up. So we don't, we definitely want our blog style the same, but we wanna make sure that there are like quick, like, oh, here's the answer to that one question and how Google can take that question, answer it, And then obviously, hopefully people click on that and go to your site to get more information.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. What do you think about Google Ads, like PPC, like working, not working 2026?

Yeah, I mean, Google Ads is still working and it's actually one of the things that, you know, LSA continues to— the cost per lead continues to go up. And so we're seeing people use Google Ads to drive that cost per lead down. because you have way more control over it.

Yeah.

I wonder if, you know, and this is just my hypothesis, is that Google Ads will become simpler to run, maybe like an LSA that, you know, you're running. I could see it completely going away and changing at some point again, because the only place Google Ads is happening is within Uh, the old search, like that's not happening within, uh, or as much in your, your AI overviews. Oh yeah, but that, like, that will be the place to be.

Well, it's about to have to happen because I know ChatGPT just opened up advertising, right?

Right, right.

So like, it'll be interesting to see how they do it because, I mean, my expectation would be however they decide to do it is whatever happens with, uh, Um, like Google.

The other one I'm interested in is Reddit ads. Like, so far that's never been like a thing, but I wonder if you're running Reddit ads, um, if that will help you in the AI search. Um, I don't think so yet.

That's interesting. Yeah, but Reddit is really— Reddit's interesting. I, I would, I would say that like This feels ridiculous, but Reddit has become my app of choice as far as like, I actually don't have any of the other ones on my phone, but like, and it's just because it shows up so consistently in my search of like, this exact question was asked in this Reddit thread. So then I just end up on Reddit. And no, I agree with you. I think it's kind of interesting. I made that observation to someone the other day of just like, A year ago, I was never on Reddit, and now I'm on Reddit every day because whatever I search sends me to Reddit, which I think— I'm sure there's a lot of bots and stuff on there, but I do think something that I currently believe about Reddit is a lot of it for the moment is still human. So it is like someone answered this question, whereas you don't really know if someone answered this question anywhere else on the internet.

Like one of the things I'm looking at doing is like, so you go to like a Reddit forum and maybe someone's like looked for, hey, does anybody have any HVAC companies in this area that they would recommend?

Yeah.

You can pull that, you know, you go to that URL, you, and at the very end of it, you hit .json and pull on that JSON file down, throw that into your AI of choice, and then start creating answers to all of those questions, all those, you know, things that people are talking about and then throw that on your blog, throw that on your website. So again, when AI is searching for answers to his question, like you have these. And I also have this idea and obviously this is, you know, please somebody go take this and run with it. We haven't done it yet.

Mm-hmm.

But I love the idea of, you know, on TikTok, you know, you have stitches. So somebody will like say a question and then you'll answer it. And that's just like the style of reactions type of content. I love this idea where you have a Reddit post and in your answer to that, you're literally linking back to that Reddit post with it in and like, hey, I want to answer this question on my blog to this Reddit post, kind of like a stitch.

Yeah.

And just see how well that performs. Again, haven't done it yet, but someone take that and run with it and tell me how that goes.

So that's sort of like next one, like content marketing, you feel like becoming more important, less important? Like what do you think in content marketing?

I think it's, it's more important than ever again, because this is like the moment to do it.

Because social is driving the bus.

Social is gonna be driving the bus. It is gonna be interesting as a marketing company. I don't, I don't know how we will handle that, um, because in the past we really haven't dealt with socials. Like our whole stick has been like, we're gonna turn, you know, organic traffic, people that are looking for intent, people that are looking for your services already into clients or into leads for you. But now that's like, that is a part of the equation. And so we're even looking at like, oh, how do we get into that game? Because its whole ecosystem is all driving whether you show up in those answers and whether you get those leads. So. Yeah, it's— I think it's gonna become more and more important for you to have really good content, unique content, because everyone is just, oh, I want to just show up so I can just throw, you know, 100 pages within the next couple weeks. But then like Google's reading that and they're indexing it and they're going, well, you literally just copy and pasted this answer from these 4 blogs. So why do I need to show your content up versus these 4 blogs? And so what you have to do is you have to make that content unique. And so creating all those questions and then creating your own unique answer to those questions so that when Google is reading your content, they're like, oh, this is different, this is interesting. Okay, cool, I would show this.

How are you thinking about brand building versus lead gen? Because most of our stuff so far, I guess content marketing would be brand building now, but how are you feeling about that?

Yeah, I think it's going to be interesting how that goes. I think your brand's going to matter, your reputation's going to really matter. I think we've talked about this a lot, but like your reviews that you get is going to matter more and more. They're going to influence how everyone is marketing. You know, one of the things you can do now is pretty easily find the gap of what's going to resonate with your clients or your, your, your audience. So taking your— the reviews that are being left on all your competition, all of your reviews, the negative, the good, the bad, and finding the specific things people are saying and communicating to you about what they like and they don't like, and then leveraging that as your offer, I think is super interesting. And so I think your brand, the way you look and feel is going to matter. And then the copy, how you are creating offers that resonate with your audience is going to matter. So I think brands that are doing that early on now which like, I know you're saying, hey, HVAC has had like kind of a tough summer and it's been like 2 years of that. But like, I think if you don't do those things in 2 years, you're going to look back and go, oh man, we really messed that up versus getting in that now and investing in that now. I think it's going to be— I think you're going to be able to take space. It's kind of like, you know, TikTok didn't exist and then it became a thing and people were like, oh, well, it's just another app. And suddenly it's a major player in how people are driving traffic, how brands are growing. I think this is kind of that opportunity in the same way.

I feel like the companies that I know that are struggling the hardest are the ones that their brand budget is greater than 50% of their marketing. They're just not driving leads. So I think I would be thoughtful about that as you think about like brand versus lead gen. I think the answer is probably some version of both. But I think it should be like 70% leads, 30% brand or something like that. Maybe even greater to leads.

Yeah. I mean, specifically early on, like you're starting an HVAC company, like you need leads. That's the main thing you need is phone calls. So that's where I'd be spending—

I'm even talking about big businesses. Like I know guys in the mid-8-figure range that the big budget going towards brand every year. And it just doesn't— it's not moving their needle.

Yeah.

So I don't know what they're going to do about it, but I think they need to pivot over to more leads.

Well, we were talking about this, like how everyone has like a wrapped truck and that's just like table stakes now, but like it's no longer made you special. And so that's— it's just going like content now is literally like that doesn't make you special anymore. Like everyone has content. And so continuing to find things that differentiate you is going to be important, but also like just focusing on what is driving you leads and then ultimately getting that review, that 5-star review is so important. So making sure you have a good review system and making sure that you are focusing your budget on what actually drives you leads. You know, is more and more important. So yeah, 100%.

Yeah. I think my biggest takeaway from this so far has been socials, which I agree. I think I told you this the other day. I'm finding more and more businesses and I feel like they're kind of sleepers, but they've blown up out of nowhere. And socials has been the driver, like mid-8 figures. There's a 9-figure business where they're growing like 30% year over year and have been for 5 years. Meta is their primary channel.

Yeah.

It's wild. And, um, yeah, it's, it's a pretty— it's pretty interesting to like watch. It's pretty interesting to watch. So I think, I think you're right. Socials is becoming the larger, uh, play every day.

Yeah, I saw this the other day where Meta is now allowing you to pay for organic reach. Um, so it's not an ad.

Oh yeah, what's that?

You're not trying to drive leads. You're, you're literally just trying to get people to like and engage with your content, trying to build that audience, um, which obviously if you're a different type of product, that might like work better. So I haven't seen anyone in the HVAC space yet play around with that. Um, would love to know if anybody's doing that. Throw that in the comments.

So is that sort of like just impression marketing? Like you're just driving more impressions? Is that—

yeah, impressions, likes, um, audiences. Now the question will be like, how does that influence your your rankings organic, uh, or organically?

Yeah.

Like, does the fact that you have a post that has 10,000 views and, you know, 1,000 likes, like, does that actually influence your ability to show up when someone's looking for a good reputable HVAC company near me? I don't know yet. This is such a new, um, new thing going on. Uh, I I gotta imagine it does. And so I know you just said, hey, don't spend too much money on your brand, but that one feels like an interesting test, specifically if you have the budget for it, to see how that goes. And again, Reddit, those are the type of things that I want to— Yeah, there's just so many things changing right now, so many opportunities that a couple years ago it was just like, hey, just do your SEO, just do your GBP, just do your LSA, just do your PPC. You'll, you'll grow with just these factors. Now there's a lot of opportunities that people haven't even touched and are not thinking about that could influence how you rank on all of those.

Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I totally agree. What are the marketing metrics that you think owners should be paying attention to? Like, what should we be watching every week?

I mean, how many phone calls are you getting? How many leads? That's got— that's always that. And then how many of those are turning into booked appointments? Because ultimately that's the 2 metrics that, you know, from a marketing standpoint matter. Did you get leads? Did those turn into appointments? And ultimately, like at the end of it, did you make a return off of that? And so those are still the 3 that I would continue to look at.

Homeowners want your services, but they do need a better way to pay for it. And I'm hearing more and more contractors talking about Comfort Connect. Comfort Connect gives your team access to powerful payment options all in one place. It includes traditional financing, lease-to-own options, and their Premier Program, which bundles everything from equipment maintenance and covered repairs with ongoing support all wrapped into one predictable monthly payment for the customer. Contractors using the platform are seeing higher close rates, bigger average sales, and stronger long-term customer retention because homeowners stay connected to their brand long after installs. So stop treating financing like an afterthought and start using payment options your customers need as a part of your sales strategy. We, um, I think I've talked about this on here, the stuff that we look at if you have the capability. Uh, so we look at, you know, number of calls, book rate, number of outbound calls, Um, and then for every lead channel, we have this like ROI spreadsheet that lets us track number of leads from that channel. How many did we book? How many did we sell? How many canceled? Uh, that's actually kind of an important one. Um, how much revenue came from that? Like how much sales, how much revenue?

Mm-hmm.

And then, oh, I think cost per lead's on there too, but honestly, I don't know that we care that much about that. And then We have ROI at the end, so just like okay, how much did we spend on this channel? And then what was ROI? So that that's been the big one for us. I think I would just be careful on the cost per lead. I've said this on here before, but like cost per lead is a part of the equation. But the most important part of the equation is is the channel profitable? Cost per lead is only one number. Uh, that's like saying 1+ 1 equals, or 1+ X equals, and you like, you're missing a part of the equation. So you gotta, gotta have it all. Any dashboards people are like using? We're like, uh, we're trying to figure— we, we start— we've been using Google stuff and we started using Claude to build like an automated thing. It connected to Google, which is kind of cool, but I don't know how to like I don't know. I think there's just a lot. So anyways, we manually attribute everything and we manually track everything, which is a lot. I think it's 2 full-time people now. So we're trying to figure out how to smash it together. Anything you can think of?

Well, I guess my question to you would be, you guys are using ServiceTitan. Is that the layer that you are using for attribution or do you have anything between that to help With attribution?

I don't know. I know we have WhatConverts, but I think that's just for our website. And I don't know.

Yeah. I mean, I think you're talking about having a person in there.

The only one that comes to mind— I think Evoca's in the middle.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because I think we get a lead from an aggregator, it goes through Evoca, it hits ServiceTitan. So Voq is in the middle, and I think that's a big part of the attribution process. I'll ask, I'm curious now.

Yeah, you should. I mean, the only other thing I would just really encourage you to do is making sure that all that data is readable by AI.

Yeah.

And in your system, because ultimately what's going to happen within the next couple years is you're just going to have that data layer with all that information, and you're going to have AI agents in there. that are telling you what's going on. And so you want to make sure that all of it is being read within a database that is all centralized. So whether that information's in, you know, your conversion apps or your ServiceTitan or your LSA, wherever that is, Yeah. it's centralized in its own database that can be read by AI, because you're going to want to be able to send something in there and go, hey, We are having way too high of cost per leads with not enough booked appointments. What's going on? And it needs to be able to read that data. So making sure that all of your data lives inside of some sort of AI system to be read.

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. All right. What are some big common mistakes that you're seeing right now in 2026? My big one I think is overemphasizing branding spend like radio, TV. I'm sure there's someone out there that's absolutely killing it doing it, but I think you got to do a mix. Um, I feel like 60/40 or 70/30 or something like that's a good mix, a friendly mix.

Yeah, I mean, I think that, um, big mistakes are obviously just the not worrying about AI search yet, uh, or doing AI or search, uh, SEO in the same traditional way, uh, that it's been done is obviously a big mistake. not doing Google Business Profile content. Like we see this all the time where people are losing rank and they're like, well, what's going on? And it's like, you're not posting. And, you know, that, that is posting on your Google Business Profile or posting in your socials.

Yeah.

You know, I think those are obviously just like it's, it's becoming table stakes that you need to be to do that. And not just to grow, but to like maintain because other people are doing it. And this is like if you're entering the market and you want to take advantage of this, this is the type of stuff that you can do is posting regularly. You know, I think a lot of our clients, a lot of our clients have figured out like unique, you know, images matter. But also we get a lot of clients that are still won't give us images. You know, and so they're like, oh, just create your own image. And the problem with that is like everything is searchable now. And so like it's not unique content. The more unique, the more real it is, the better.

So like the big mistake you're saying you're seeing is like just sitting on your hands. So like, hey, there's change happening and like we're not chasing it.

Yeah. And, you know, for a lot of clients, like we will— they're like, hey, we're not going to give you images, so we have to go create that. And so your 2 choices are AI image or stock image. AI images, I think slightly better than stock because it's not used by everybody else. Everyone.

Yeah.

But like the next layer is that like raw, super ugly, poor lighting picture of the HVAC system that's like, this is what it looked like and now this is it. And it's kind of like the uglier, the messier, the more real and gritty it is, the kind of like the better it performs because Yeah. It's flooded with AI. Um, but yeah, I think that's a— it's a mistake. And so we, you know, we let our clients know, hey, like, you could get better results if we could get this. Um, and some people are just too busy, and that, that makes sense, right? Like, something is better than nothing. Um, but I think that that's just one of those things where it should be in your SOPs, where your techs are seeing this and they're taking pictures. Um, even if you don't get the job, Right? Like, your tech's out there looking at problems. A simple, here's a picture of this and here's a comment about what is breaking. Because then when people are searching, hey, I have this issue with my HVAC system, ChatGPT, walk me through it. Okay, well, now it's pulling this content from John's tech that was out at another site with the same exact HVAC.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know the name. It's H-E-I-C, Heic. Is that how you say it? Like a hike system? Correct me. And this is the issue that they fixed. Oh, this is it. Okay. Well, like, obviously I need to get somebody out here. I'm already looking at the information from the Wilson Company's, you know, comments. I'm just going to have them come and help me out because they've obviously already done this problem.

What do you think? I guess, like, closing this out, the rest of the year, Sounds like, just to summarize, we're gonna be focusing on like, hey, AI search is starting to be real.

Mm-hmm.

Google's prepping to look like ChatGPT. So, you know, we gotta optimize for more AI search even through Google. Um, ad spend's gonna potentially get wonky. Socials are a big opportunity, which I agree. Uh, take advantage of the fringe, like things that AI references. So like Reddit, socials, Yelp, Angie's, like make sure your profiles look good, you're getting reviews everywhere, and don't sit on your hands. I feel like that's like the summary of our 2026 marketing.

That, and I think that PPC still works. You know, I, I think that you still continue to push money into that. Um, you know, it will change, but it's—

It'll actually be interesting to see. I, I wonder if it'll be more effective inside like a ChatGPT search style It's going to be interesting to see a redesigned Google with ads. You know, like we've had the same Google for 20 years. Like, it'll be interesting to see a new— like, what's this going to look like?

Yeah, I mean, there's so many different ways this could go. I think it's going to become more real. So someone searches for a, hey, my HVAC system is breaking. How do I fix this? Okay, so ChatGPT gives you an answer. and says, hey, based off of the, you know, let me, let me talk you through something. What's wrong with this? Okay, then my thermostat's, you know, not working. Or, you know, it walks you through the processes.

Yeah.

Okay, well then this is the answer. And if you want, you can book a, book an appointment with the Wilson Company right here in this paid ad, and they'll come check it out for you. But like, because of all this information that's already been given, Like, your tech is gonna be walking in with like photos that the person's taking. Like, hey, this is my, you know, I don't know what to call it. You're gonna laugh, but like, my thing is frozen over. Okay, I figured it out 'cause I've unscrewed it.

Yes, yeah.

And get somebody out here. Or obviously a lot of people aren't gonna jump in their attic to figure out how their HVAC system is actually working. So like, I think there's gonna be a lot more like, I have an actual issue. The answer is provided. So from an ads perspective, we might have to figure out, oh, these are the questions people are asking where we want to show up in these ads. And it can't just be the normal ad. It's going to be, this is the actual answer and we can come fix it. You just book an appointment right here.

We bought a business last week and it's kind of a funny business. Yeah, and literally another one. Uh, it was our 4th one this year.

Hit that button.

Yeah, I know, I know. And I think we're gonna do 6 this year. Like, I think that's what we're pacing for. We might even do 7. Um, so yeah, so we— anyways, we bought this one and they were kind of— they were kind of a funny one because they were almost the exact opposite. Now granted, they haven't grown So that's the trade-off is you have no growth at all, zero growth in 5 years, same revenue 5 years.

Mm-hmm.

But what is really interesting is they've produced strong profit for 5 years.

Mm-hmm.

They spend $0 on marketing, which is, again, no growth. So there's the trade-off, but they also, they're busier than hell. It is kind of wild. And I, it's 'cause I intellectually know that's not scalable.

Right.

Like you need, you need like, and they haven't scaled. So like, no, you know, duh. But it's just, it's funny to watch compared to like what you know is real versus like what you can see in front of your face. Like I know that this isn't scalable, they know it's, but yet at the end of the day, like it's still millions of dollars a year. going through this business that has never marketed once ever. And it's just printing with a 30-day backlog for service. It's funny. It's funny.

That's funny.

So, I don't know. I almost wonder if there's going to become a K-shaped version of home service where one is very tech-enabled. And I bet you can start growing 9-figure home service businesses faster than ever, Like, hey, it used to take 10 years and now it takes 5 or 3 or whatever. And so I bet that's going to be real. And I bet there's also businesses that like do absolutely nothing and they're just like owned by like a boomer and they're just still printing. I don't know. It'll, it'll be funny to watch. It'll be funny to watch.

Yeah. I mean, my hot take on all this is that AI is going to create a lot more millionaires. And it's going to be harder to actually scale. But like the Joe that wants to just run all his business through AI is going to be able to get to $1 million, but is going to also struggle to get past that, which is for people that want to buy businesses and help those people scale, that's a phenomenal opportunity.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, I think, I think that is going to create a lot more millionaires.

Yeah, I think so too. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on today.

My pleasure. Uh, I'm excited to see where this goes. You'll have to keep us updated on that, that business goes. Don't just leave us hanging.

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