How to Build Team Buy-In for Your Maintenance Club Program

Culture is the make-or-break factor for maintenance programs, and if your team isn’t excited to offer your membership, the offer won’t move no matter how good the pricing looks. I’m riding solo to talk through how to build team buy-in for maintenance clubs and any new initiative you’re launching, especially in home services like HVAC, plumbing, and pest control where great technicians aren’t always natural promoters. The goal isn’t to turn people into pushy sales reps, it’s to give them the tools to explain real value with confidence. 

We unpack why maintenance memberships matter beyond predictable recurring revenue: they improve customer retention, increase lifetime value, reduce seasonality, and help you become the homeowner’s trusted go-to. I share practical ways to tighten up your maintenance program structure and branding, make the benefits easy to say out loud, and connect the program to personal wins for your team like consistent hours, job security, and more opportunity in homes where trust is already built. 

Then we get tactical: where your maintenance plan should show up (website, invoices, social media, CSR scripts), how to use simple numbers and projections to set clear goals, and why role playing is the fastest way to build confident language for real customer objections. We also talk incentives and recognition, plus small “pep rally” moves that bring energy back to the shop without blowing your budget. If you want your maintenance club to grow, it starts with leadership, standards, and culture. Subscribe, share this with an owner who needs it, and leave a review with the one buy-in challenge you’re trying to solve.

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Transcript

Solo Intro And The Core Idea

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What's up, Lemonheads? Welcome to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I'm Crystal, and today I'm riding solo, and I'm gonna talk about how you can work really hard to build team buy-in around your maintenance program and any honestly anything new that you have coming out for your business. Because listen, culture eats strategy for breakfast. And so we're gonna talk about how to build a culture, how to build excitement all around maintenance programs and other new things that you have coming out in your business. Let's do it. Let's zip eliminate. All right. So I thought today we would talk a lot about Team Buy-in. And I'm gonna tell you, we all know that's one of the hardest things to do is build a team that is accepting of new ideas, new concepts, and being pushed outside of their comfort zone. Many of us just have good people on our team that are good plumbers, good pest control technicians, good HVAC people, good installers. They are not built to uh sell, if you will, and promote. And so what we have to do is really build a lot of value with our own team on how they can internally feel good about what you're launching. And so we need buy-in and we need excitement and we need motivation around our programs. So specifically for the month of May, we are focusing all on maintenance programs. So, what a better time for us to talk about specifically building that with maintenance clubs. So, you know, we all know that maintenance clubs are designed to create predictable and reoccurring revenue for us. Also, they are there so that you now are kind of locked in with that homeowner, right? They understand that you are their whatever. So their pool guy, their HVAC guy, their plumbing guy, their plumber, right? Their pest control guy. And so it's about community. Maintenance clubs is a fan fancy way of saying you want to build community around your brand. Um, and right now, guys, there are so many, so many cool things that you could be doing to reinvent your maintenance program using cool technology to have eyes on their equipment without having to roll a truck every time. Um, there is private label programs. There's all kinds of cool things that you could be doing right now to really make the most of your maintenance programs. But again, it's designed for predictable and reoccurring revenue. And so how we do this, how we implement this with our team really can increase customer retention and lifetime value because we want them to, like I said, stay with us because we are who they trust. And then also building up lifetime value. So, you know, if they've used you when their system is six years old, now you're right in the prime of when they're coming of age. And you just want to keep that system in your database and keep working it, right? Keep making the most of it so that we really understand when they need a new system, when they need new IQ, when there's an issue, you are who they call. And that is the whole strategy behind maintenance programs. Now, listen, I'm an OG, I'm from back in the day when we launched an ESA agreement, a Texas Tough agreement at our business back in the 90s. Uh, Carrier came out with Texas Truck, Texas Tough. We launched it and we were like hot dog. We were doing two, two, I think it was like$9 a month or something. And we were doing this, going out and building these programs. And guys, it was a game changer for our business. But we also were really good at making sure that the technicians understood the goal here was every time we were out on a problem call, we were asking them, Are you a Texas tough customer? Every time we were making, we did social media was not a thing then, but when we were talking to our customers along the bottom of our two-ply or three-part uh invoices, right? Shout out to people that did actual handwritten invoices that were, you know, that I had to decipher every Monday morning. Um, but down there it said, you know, ask us about our ESA program. And so we were doing cool things before cool things were cool, but what this did was it was always in our clients' uh faces that it was an opportunity to join our community and join our program. And so I think right now what you get is with a strong play on buy-in for your team and with a strong maintenance program in itself. So it takes both. We've got to have a well-organized, structured, and branded maintenance program that your team can answer into why it's good. Right. So it would be like, you know, I used to work for Coca-Cola and we would launch products all the time. So we would launch full throttle energy drinks, we launched tab energy, vitamin water, right? We launched all these things and I would drink it, be like, this is not for me, right? I'm a Dr. Pepper girl, but this is not for me. And so I would go through there, but I would go find the good things about the product, and that's what I would talk about when we were doing product samplings. And so it's the same thing here. You really need them to get to know and find the value in the maintenance program so that they can authentically and naturally present it on calls. That is important to this. Um, but also just emphasizing to your team that how it reduces seasonality instability, how they can have a more stable workload utilizing maintenance style programs. This is not rocket science. This is literally how we utilize maintenance programs to bridge gaps, but also build community. We want to make sure that we are building strong followers to our company, raving fans, I call them. Just I want them to be raving about our products and our services. And the best way to do it is to get them on your monthly maintenance plan and then feed them content every single month, whether it's a newsletter or whatever you want to do there. Give them little um, hey, for our membership only, you get this, you get that. You need a whole strategy around your membership programs, right? Um, and so I think you have to connect it to the technicians and the CSRs and your plumbers, whichever it is, to their personal benefit. Why do I, as a technician in your company, need to sell more of this maintenance program? So, you know, explain to them it's job security and consistent hours. So it is how I keep you busy and keep the lights on in this place during shoulder season, right? It does also lead to more sales and more opportunities. So, you know, you're going back to a home, you start building up some rapport, and then you've been trying to sell them the new IEQ that you're pushing or an upgraded filter or anything like that. And it is just more opportunities already with a lot of trust and authority in that space. So they already trust you to be on their program. You're already the authority for them. Now, as you present other options that are good for them, they're more inclined to take them, right? And then also, I mean, selfishly here, you know, you have really good potential for bonuses and commissions and spiffs or whatever you call them. But as an owner, it has to be a motivator. Trust me, those of you that get in your feelings about this, nobody's getting rich off that$25 that you're giving them for maintenance clubs. So we can probably take a few steps back, settle down about that.$25 for every membership club that they sign up, but celebrate those every month. Like our membership master for the month of May is, you know, Jaden, and he did a fantastic job. He sold 10 new maintenance club members this year. What you celebrate gets replicated, right? So, and it say, hey, you know, he's walking away with an extra 100 bucks this month or whatever it is. And listen, you want to look like a real hero? Say, you know what, because you're our maintenance club master for this month, I'm doubling it. Here's$200. Y'all, this is not rocket science. You're not gonna go broke spiffing and bonusing maintenance clubs. What it does is you've got to build company culture. And if you do not have the right people on your team where everybody is negative, Nancy, negative Ned, um, and they are cancerous to the ones that are trying to be positive. If you have zero engagement, I hate to break it to you, but you don't run the company they do. You're not running the company if they can tell you what they are and are not going to do, and you allow it. And you allow it. So if you need a better approach to selling maintenance clubs, what is your leave behind? Are your CSRs teeing it up? Is it on your website? Do you talk about it on social media? Is it on your uh invoices? Where are all the places that we have it's clear as day your maintenance program and the value? So the next thing I would say is use simple numbers with them to show them projections, right? So, like, hey, here's your average ticket, here's your retention rate, here's our revenue per member. This is how we stay busy. Show examples, even sometimes, of other companies using subscription programs. You know, say raise your hand. How many of you have a Hulu subscription, a Netflix subscription, a Disney Plus subscription? How many of you have a subscription where people come by and wash your car every month? And what you're trying to prove here is the point that basically subscription life is the way people are going, but they're also cognizant of not having too many subscriptions. So you have to build up the value of how we are here as their go-to for anything. Now, those of you that have multi-service friends, you are missing the boat of being their home manager, their home comfort manager. We have so many options there. And then forecast how many members and celebrate. We want to add another thousand members this year. Um, so that's us doing a conversion rate of 25%. We're converting. That's easily, easily accomplishable. But celebrating it, if you're if you're expecting it, you need to talk about it. Even when it gets rough, we sold no memberships this month, right? We've got to have some goals. And then I want you to clearly explain some things to them. Like explain to them the program itself. Not just like, here's a flyer. Explain to them why you built the maintenance program that you did. Explain why it's priced. Explain how they could present the benefits to the customer. Give them simple language, give them branded language, but more than anything, get empower them with the skills. Y'all hate this, but role playing is the best way to do it. And listen, owners, if you're not the first one jumping in here to role play, that's on you. Everybody else can role play, but not me, absolutely not. But it should look something like this. Hey, Jaden, let's talk about how you can present maintenance clubs in the home. So when you get in the home and you've checked out the system, hi, Miss Williams. I was able to check out the system. A couple of things that I found, these are your options. Also, I noticed you're not a member of our maintenance program. Is there a reason for that? Have we ever not shown it to you? Uh well, yeah. Oh, you know, I just never thought about who needs maintenance. Well, some of this probably could have been prevented if we were doing ongoing maintenance for you, or if we were to put in our sensor equipment onto your system. Our team at the office actually monitors that, and we could have seen that you were leaking refrigerant. We could have seen that your system was running for long periods of time. We could have seen these things and been able to help you. And so we have packages as low as$9 a month for that, you know, security, that peace of mind. We call it our watchdog program. Um, does that work for you? I can get you signed up today. It's reoccurring, it comes out every month. Um, but actually, it's basically a lifeline to us at any moment, and we're monitoring the output of your system. And so what happens is you're modeling for them literally all the time. You're modeling how to present it, how to overcome objections. But if you're not willing to model and get out of your comfort zone, they sure won't be, right? And last but not least, I think you have a little pep rally, right? I'm from East Texas. Friday night football is our jam. And so one of the things that we do a lot of is some pep rallies, get everybody pepped up and excited. So, what do you do to get your team excited? I don't know about you, but do you have a couple of hundred dollars to give everybody a new shirt with the name of your maintenance program on it, or a new hat, or can we take them all out to breakfast, or can we feed them breakfast, or can we bring the dirty soda truck over there? Can we bring the red wing truck over there? What can we do to just bring a little life and energy back to our team? And if you don't have time to think about these things all the time and you get stressed out and worried that you're just missing the boat somewhere, odds are this is where you're missing it. Culture is your issue. It is not your maintenance program. It's that you, as the owner, won't do what you need to do to make sure they understand that this is not up for negotiation. You are going to give them every tool they need to be successful at promoting your maintenance program. You are gonna invest in branding and structure. You are going to invest in coaching and role playing, but you are doing the heavy lifting for them. You're just asking them to come along. You've built the train, you're just asking them to get on it. So this was just a little reminder that you can motivate your team. You just have to literally put some parameters around it. Sounds weird, but it is what it is. Put some, uh, put some respect on your maintenance program. Encourage your team to love what they do. Remind them how good it is. Side note, give them all a free maintenance program on their own home if they own it. If they own their home, give them a free maintenance program as long as they work for you. Right? And if your team doesn't love maintenance, you're not showing them opportunity. Show them opportunity and how that works. Show them how you're able to keep them busy. So we can't love every aspect of our job every single day. Right? So this is my encouragement speak up, put parameters and run your company, all while using maintenance programs to build long term customer cultivation and lifetime value increases and grow your company. Best of luck. Good luck for the rest of May. Listening about all about maintenance programs.