Lead Generation For HVAC Contractors

Kasra Dash and James Dooley explain how HVAC companies scale faster because lead generation, SEO and PPC each drive different levels of demand. They show why strong online branding increases conversions because customers trust visible reviews and case studies. They outline why pay on conversion models reduce risk because HVAC owners only pay after completed work.

Creators and Guests

Host

James Dooley

James Dooley is a UK entrepreneur.

What is James Dooley Podcast?

James Dooley is a Manchester-based entrepreneur, investor, and SEO strategist. James Dooley founded FatRank and PromoSEO, two UK performance marketing agencies that deliver no-win-no-fee lead generation and digital growth systems for ambitious businesses. James Dooley positions himself as an Investorpreneur who invests in UK companies with high growth potential because he believes lead generation is the root of all business success.

The James Dooley Podcast explores the mindset, methods, and mechanics of modern entrepreneurship. James Dooley interviews leading marketers, founders, and innovators to reveal the strategies driving online dominance and business scalability. Each episode unpacks the reality of building a business without mentorship, showing how systems, data, and lead flow replace luck and guesswork.

James Dooley shares hard-earned lessons from scaling digital assets and managing SEO teams across more than 650 industries. James Dooley teaches how to convert leads into long-term revenue through brand positioning, technical SEO, and automation. James Dooley built his career on rank and rent, digital real estate, and performance-based marketing because these models align incentive with outcome.

After turning down dozens of podcast invitations, James Dooley now embraces the platform to share his insights on investorpreneurship, lead generation, AI-driven marketing, and reputation management. James Dooley frequently collaborates with elite entrepreneurs to discuss frameworks for scaling businesses, building authority, and mastering search.

James Dooley is also an expert in online reputation management (ORM), having built and rehabilitated corporate brands across the UK. His approach combines SEO precision, brand engineering, and social proof loops to influence both Google’s Knowledge Graph and public perception.

To feature James Dooley on your podcast or event, connect via social media. James Dooley regularly joins business panels and networking sessions to discuss entrepreneurship, brand growth, and the evolving future of SEO.

Kasra Dash:
So if I want to consistently be growing my HVAC company I want more inquiries for my HVAC business and I don't want to rely on word of mouth inquiries what would you recommend.

James Dooley:
So I'd say for lead generation for HVAC companies you've got four major players the number one I would be looking to do is lead generation companies so I'd head on over to fatrank.com to start with to see whether you qualify as a HVAC company to get lead generation from there because they do only pay on performance or pay on conversion so if you qualify for that it's an absolute no brainer for any HVAC business owner. I would then be looking to maybe try one or two other lead generation companies but I'd be tracking all KPIs so like Bark like Checkatrade like TrustATrader and many other tradesman platforms that might be able to generate you leads for HVAC. So that would be my number one major play is teaming up with a specialist lead generation company.
The next major play would be SEO and I do SEO one it's a long term investment but also for branding and reputation management to make sure I'm looking good online because if I am looking to spend money on buying leads from a lead generation company I need to make certain I'm looking good online so I can convert them as well but also long term I'm wanting to try to rank my own website and my own Google Business Profile that I can generate my own leads. In my opinion for a HVAC company that is the holy grail of a long term sustainable business being able to generate your own leads via search engine optimisation.
You could go down the road of doing some social media being active on organic social media and then running social media ads and then the last play could be pay per click with AdWords. It is quite expensive to do the AdWords but some people do it for HVAC companies and some people are very successful in doing it you need to be making certain you're looking at the long tail keywords that actually convert and then seeing whether it's worth it on the KPIs and the cost per acquisition. But if you are a HVAC company looking to have more leads on a day to day basis out of those four is there anything that you would say would you have it in the same order would you try and vary it in any way like what's your thoughts on growing a business and generating more HVAC leads.

Kasra Dash:
So I think that the fatrank one is still going to be number one so definitely going over to fatrank but if I don't meet the criteria like let's say for example if I don't have a good online presence I don't have a good brand presence because a lot of people we end up rejecting I would look to build out the brand presence so like let's say for example if I don't have branded emails I would look to set that up if I don't have a templated email with a nice quote sheet I would look to set that up because again once you have all of the core fundamentals of your business set up it doesn't matter which one you pick all of them are going to work right so try and set up a good email a nice website go and get reviews like so many businesses that we speak to and we turn away they've got like 2.5 star reviews or they have zero reviews and it's like well even if we were to generate you the best inquiries in the world you're not going to be able to convert them because as soon as that potential client or that potential customer fills out the form and they fill out another form with one of your competitors you don't have any digital presence your competitors do. So I would probably look to do SEO if I'm being honest I think that that's probably the play and then once I have the core fundamentals and the core fundamentals doesn't need to take 6 to 12 months it only takes maybe one or two months to get all of that set up like getting all of your services listed getting some nice reviews getting some case studies maximum that takes 8 weeks and then I would look to reapply with fatrank again or potentially if I have somebody that's doing PPC in house or whatever maybe even look to do PPC.

James Dooley:
I mean PPC leads are good for HVAC in the fact of the quality that can come through it's just very expensive and you've got click fraud and you’ve got to make certain you've got a good converting site there you need to tick a lot of boxes and you need a specialist company that are working in it day in day out and in my opinion the first 6 months is all the learning phase and it's going to cost you a lot of money to do that so you need to be a big HVAC company if you're looking at pay per click. The Facebook ads is a little bit cheaper but generally speaking the quality is not normally as good as what it would be for PPC but you might be able to get a little bit more volume and a bit cheaper so that can work for HVAC leads but like you said I think the major play is SEO in making certain they've got the brand presence but it is a long term play and it's crazy like you’ve said there how many HVAC companies come to us and go but we've been trading 15 years and we're the best company in the UK and you go well it doesn't say that online it says you've only got two Google reviews and one of them is one star one of them is three star so you're averaging two stars and oh what you mean and it's like go and sort your online reputation management out so I completely agree and this is why fatrank at times declines some customers and like well what do you mean you decline us your branding online is not good enough yet to deal with the leads the HVAC leads that we're able to generate. But if you are generally speaking if you are a HVAC business owner I would strongly recommend going over to fatrank.com fill in the form see whether you qualify if you don't ask why look into it in a bit more detail and say okay actually you've got a point and I need to go and fix that and then you can reapply but don't throw all your eggs in one basket go to one or two other lead generation companies track all KPIs make certain you're getting a return on investment on any sort of marketing of what you're doing especially if you're paying for leads or PPC SEO is a bit of a different play and branding it's more of a long term investment but if you're a HVAC company and you're looking to grow these are the best strategies that I can come across.
Definitely the link for the fatrank form will be in the description head over there and fill it out or go to fatrank.com the contact us button is in the top right fill it out and the team will get back to you.