Your goal is set; you envision it happening. You faithfully say your positive affirmations each morning. Then you go and work your heart out all day long. You feel like you're getting somewhere. And you really think you're going to reach your goal.

Until you don't. Without fail, you look back months later trying to figure out what went wrong. What gives?

Many home service companies start with a goal in mind: "I want to be at the top of Google." Or "I want to double my jobs this month." Or "I want to sell 1,000 home service plans."

But what they fail to do is start with the end in mind. They fail to work backwards. Let me explain.

Let's start with a hypothetical goal: "We need to sell 1,000 home service plans." (A great way to keep your cash flow steady and your techs busy during the off-season, by the way.) Let's take a step back from there. To sell 1,000 home service plans, how many potential buyers need to be made aware of your offering? Let's say 10% of your market would buy your plan.

Epiphany #1: You don't need 1,000 qualified prospects. You need 10,000. So now you're marketing your plan to 10,000 people. These are qualified prospects who may one day need a home service plan, can afford it at your price point, and understand why your plan is the preferred plan. But wait. Only a fraction of those who are exposed to your product would actually be a candidate to consider it.

Epiphany #2: You're marketing to 100,000 people to find 10,000 qualified leads. Holy $#!%! How do you get in front of 100,000 people who are possibly willing to pay for your service plan? Better find some marketing tactics that work!

Epiphany #3: You have no way to reach 100,000 people. You don't have 100,000 people listed in your CRM, so you need to go find them. Fortunately, you have options. You have the broad reach of paid advertising, the prevalence of a web presence, the viral nature of social media. The magnetic properties of SEO. But where to start, and what will yield the best results?

Epiphany #4: You have to start somewhere. Building one bridge to completion is better than building two incomplete bridges. So, after thorough research and analysis, maybe you determine paid advertising should be the first bridge you build. You need clear, compelling messaging, an attractive offer, and a brand identity to boot. Go build it. If SEO will best reach your audience, you need a killer-fast, secure website along with an updated Google My Business account, and a plan to build authority through content and links. Get 'er done. If social media is where your customers live, work and play, go social. Start developing your social presence with share-worthy content.

Epiphany #5: You don't know where to start! This is where planning comes in. And research. And analysis. This is the hardest part-- but the most fruitful. The work you do here will dictate your success in every phase of your business going forward. With a plan, you will confidently know which direction you're going, and you'll know when you're meeting all the milestones you've set for yourself along the way. If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

Epiphany #6: Wait-- what does success even mean? You want to define what success means to you before you even lift a finger. This part is called strategy. This is a definition of what success looks like. This is where you determine your metrics. The why and the what comes long before the how. Most home service companies skip right past this part because they think the strategy is clear: sell 1,000 home service plans! That is not the strategy; it's the endgame.

So, if you were to reverse the course, here's what you'd end up with:

1. Strategy
2. Plan
3. Build
4. Execute
5. Optimize
6. Goal

When you work backwards from the goal, your home service business has more clarity and purpose.

THE BACKWARDS MARKETING PLAN™

At HVACmarketing.com, we provide a plan that goes through these steps. We help you:

• Understand your marketing strengths and weaknesses
• Bring clarity to your marketing and sales goals
• Provide a clear step-by-step plan on what it will take to tackle those goals.

This is free, right? Yes, but that doesn't mean it's cheap. We've see a lot of other agencies charge upwards of $2500 or more for the same kind of analysis that we will be doing for you. So why offer this for free? It goes to one of our core values-- give first. Plus, you get to experience a bite-sized sample of what it's like working with us.

Here's a quick peak at some of the analysis that will be included in your report: