Good Neighbor Podcast: Fort Collins

E78: Big Enough to Serve, Small Enough to Care

• Nick George • Season 1 • Episode 78

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What does it take to build a local service business with over 2,300 Google reviews and a nearly perfect 4.9-star rating? Glenn Frank knows the answer, having transformed Fort Collins Heating and Air Conditioning from a one-man operation into a thriving family enterprise with more than 90 employees.

Glenn's journey began in 1996 when he purchased tools and equipment from his retired grandfather. Despite witnessing the struggles his father and grandfather faced in the trades, Glenn's entrepreneurial spirit led him to create something remarkable—a business now poised to pass to the third generation, with three of his sons already working alongside him.

The conversation dives deep into the misconceptions plaguing the HVAC industry. Glenn addresses how some companies exploit customer ignorance and explains his zero-tolerance approach to such practices. With refreshing candor, he breaks down the economics of service calls, explaining why quality HVAC service costs what it does—from paying skilled technicians $40+ per hour to maintaining professional vehicles that "don't leak oil on customers' driveways."

Perhaps most compelling is Glenn's openness about the hardships he's weathered. From periods when he couldn't pay himself to surviving embezzlement during the housing crisis, he shares how creative solutions (including having employees drive company trucks through town during rush hour just to increase visibility) helped his business survive and eventually thrive. The turning point came with strategic rebranding, radio advertising, and a memorable jingle that transformed the company's fortunes.

Today, Fort Collins Heating and Air Conditioning has expanded beyond HVAC to include plumbing and electrical services, leading to the launch of a second brand—Origin Plumbing, Heating, Cooling and Electrical. Unlike many competitors, Glenn proudly maintains local, family ownership with no plans to sell to private equity firms. His company's tagline—"big enough to serve, small enough to care"—perfectly captures the balance he's struck between growth and personalized service.

Ready to experience the difference integrity makes in home services? Connect with Glenn's team through their websites and discover why thousands of Northern Colorado residents trust this local, family-owned business with their homes.

Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Nick George.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of a heating and air conditioning company that's in Fort Collins and has 2,300 Google reviews that lead up to 4.9 stars, which is not easy in this industry? If you're looking for something like that, one might be closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, glenn Frank, with Fort Collins Heating and Air Conditioning. Glenn, how's it going?

Speaker 3:

It's going great. Thanks, Nick.

Speaker 2:

Good we're excited to learn all about you and your business. We're excited to learn all about you and your business.

Speaker 3:

Tell us about your company. Yeah, so, fort Collins Heating and Air Conditioning. I purchased some equipment and tools from my grandfather in 1996, and he had retired and kind of let his business retire as well. And so I approached him and told him I wanted to start my own business and I bought some equipment and tools from him and started in 1996, and just by myself, and then grew it to today. We're 90 plus employees right now.

Speaker 2:

So Wow, and how did you get into wanting to do heating and air conditioning altogether If you didn't completely just answer that question?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no. Well, I grew up in the business, in the trades. You know I grew up around it. I did see some of the struggles that my father had and my grandfather had. They had some success, for sure, but not without a lot of challenges and struggle and stress. And so originally I thought I would go in a different direction and maybe I was an entrepreneur spirit. But I thought, well, maybe I'll do something else. But the money was always good and I just ended up staying in the business and it's been very good for me and it's allowed my sons to follow in my footsteps. And so we've got I've got three sons working in the business currently and they plan to stay in the business and we've got plans for them to succeed me in leading the company. So I'm excited about that.

Speaker 2:

Nice, what are some myths or misconceptions in your industry?

Speaker 3:

What could be more specific Myths and misconceptions? I'm not sure.

Speaker 2:

So in heating and air conditioning. Is there anything that maybe gives it a bad rap?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, okay, well, that helps me out. Well, there's some bad players in the industry for sure that play off of consumers' ignorance. I think sometimes, when it comes to things and it's, it can be easy to take advantage of customers if you're that type of company or that kind of a person. But I can tell you that my core values and my ethics have you know, I have a zero tolerance for that behavior. We are very careful on who we hire, vet them out and you know we yeah, we lead our, we serve our customers with the utmost integrity and honesty.

Speaker 3:

And you know, we don't try to sell things that aren't necessary and believe in bringing honesty and integrity to the customer.

Speaker 3:

You know so, um, the other misconception might be is, um, that so it is expensive to deploy a vehicle to someone's house.

Speaker 3:

You know, and and um, so, as a consumer myself, um, you know, I do realize that that things have have gone up in price over the years and we work really hard to keep our prices as low as we can while we still make a profit.

Speaker 3:

However, I know the consumers look at, you know, the service industry and probably think that, uh, you know that we're raking it in and making a lot of money unnecessarily, or that our prices are high sometimes. But I can tell you that to find good employees and pay them 40 plus an hour and have a nice truck that doesn't leak oil on their driveway and looks nice pulling up to their house and as well as, um, you know, inventory, there's a cost. To just just to roll a truck up to a house is, you know, a couple hundred dollars. You know so, um, that that might be a little bit misconception. Uh, in our industry, that it that we're overpriced, but, um, we are very competitively priced, I believe, you know, in our industry. So, and we deliver, we work to deliver the highest value that we can deliver.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, just just. What you just said about looking out for people's perfect aesthetics in their driveway is not something that a company that's just working on commercial applications is concerned about. So there's definitely a learning curve there that you're past, and I asked you before we started if you preferred commercial or residential, and you said both. So I'm going to ask you this question in front of everybody who are your target customers and how are you best attracting them right now?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so our primary revenue volume in our niche is in the residential direct to consumer market and in the service and replacement market. So we do not do any new construction really to speak of. We do a little bit for, you know, a small number of people, but we don't do large volumes do any new construction really to speak of. We do a little bit for a small number of people, but we don't do large volumes of new construction business. It's all either business to business or business to consumer directly. So the commercial side is about probably 25% of our business. 75% is residential. Does that answer your question?

Speaker 2:

It does. We know that marketing is the heart of every business. I looked at your website briefly. I didn't see videos, do you?

Speaker 3:

have videos on your website. We should have some videos on our website, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Very good, yeah. Have you ever done podcasting before?

Speaker 3:

uh, I've been on on one other podcast not too long ago, so um, but no, I haven't done a lot outside of work.

Speaker 2:

What do you do for fun?

Speaker 3:

oh, I got grandkids and my wife and I like to travel, go camping and hunting and we've got three hunting trips planned this year. We've got we were able to go to the Kentucky Derby this year and the Indy 500. So like, we like to travel and do things like that and give back to the community, volunteer with different things. So, yeah, those are the things we like to do.

Speaker 2:

Let's switch gears. Can you describe a hardship or maybe a life challenge that you overcame and how it made you stronger?

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah, lots of them, but I don't know we want to land on one or the other. But 30 years in business, I've been through a lot and it tests your resilience and I think as entrepreneurs and business people we have to be, you know, and I think as entrepreneurs and business people we have to be kind of geared for that, the grit that it takes to push through and persevere. But probably been close to bankruptcy once or twice, I suppose not really that close, but it seemed like it where I wasn't able to pay myself for a while, you know, and you know, scrape by, but yeah, it's, you know, it does form.

Speaker 3:

Who we are today, you know. But now, at this point in my career, I'm very blessed, very fortunate. We've got the marketing that we've done has paid off. There was a turning point at one point, probably back during the housing crisis and around there. It was not long after I'd gone through an embezzlement as well that I was up against the ropes pretty hard and we rebranded, we committed to some radio advertising and we produced a jingle that really helped us and we, we just rebranded a little bit and with our trucks and our wraps, and, um, there's days when we had nothing to do, uh, I had nothing to do for my staff and I'd call them in in the morning, uh, and I'd give them a route to drive through town with our trucks in the morning during rush hour, and then also again in the evening during rush hour, just so people could see our trucks driving around. That didn't last too long, uh, fortunately. But, um, you know, we just, you just do what you have to do sometimes to to make it, you know gl.

Speaker 2:

Please tell our listeners one thing they should absolutely remember about Fort Collins Heating and Air Conditioning and the other business.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So Fort Collins Heating and Air Conditioning. Our tagline is big enough to serve, small enough to care, and we've embodied that tagline from the day I started and when I wasn't big enough to serve more than one person at a time, but certainly small enough to care, till now. We're certainly big enough to serve and we work every day to be small enough to care. We've served the Fort Collins and immediate surrounding communities for a long time, you know 25, 30 years.

Speaker 3:

And the next step is we've just launched two years ago or, yeah, just a little over a year ago, going on two years another company branded Origin Plumbing, heating, cooling and Electrical and we're branching out. It better brands all the services that we offer, because I started out just offering HVAC but we now offer plumbing and electric as well as HVAC. So that brand better describes that Brand better describes that and it also allows us to expand into other markets and towns without having a town name inside of our business name. So origin plumbing, heating, cooling, electric we're making a push to enter into the Loveland and Greeley markets more.

Speaker 2:

That answers a lot of questions that I probably should have asked. How can our listeners learn more about either company online? Where do you want to direct customers online, not just the website, but any social media channels that you also have?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, either one. We have a website for Fort Collins Heating and Air Conditioning and we market Fort Collins Heating and Air Conditioning, and Origin Plumbing, heating, cooling, electrical is originphcecom. They're going to see more and more of that branding as we move forward, but I think what I want consumers to really know is that we have not sold out to private equity, which is happening a lot in our industry right now. We do not have plans to sell out to private equity. There's rumors that our origin company is private equity coming in and it's not, it's just me, it's just another brand, another arm of our business.

Speaker 3:

And, um, so, yeah, same family owned and operated company, uh, here to here to serve people and, uh, locally owned and operated. So, um, you can count on that, that same uh service that that customers have come to experience for years. Nothing's changed. And so, um, I was mentioning to my staff I'm so proud of my staff lately we, we, to be able to scale to the size that we are and still deliver the level of service that I strive to deliver. When it was just me, um is, I'm very proud of my team for being able to do that, because that's something that's hard to do as you grow and scale is to deliver that same level of service that you strive to deliver. And we are getting, as you said in the beginning, reviews left and right and that's a testimony not to me but to the staff that I've hired and what they're delivering every day to the community.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I haven't seen that volume and that high an average with any of the businesses that I've interviewed. Well, glenn, I really appreciate you being on the show and we absolutely wish you and your business both of them the very best moving forward. Well, thank you.

Speaker 3:

It was a pleasure.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPFortCollinscom. That's GNPFortCollinscom, or call 970-438-0825.