Read the brief like a hire

In this lesson

Restate Priya’s goal, capacity constraint, and what would be a vanity plan
Name three ways an HVAC shop differs from a used-car lot: seasonality, capacity, emergency vs planned

Read it like a hire, not like a quiz

A hire writes the brief back before they spend a dollar. Goal: 40 booked service or estimate appointments next month — not sessions, not “leads,” not form fills. Owner: Priya Shah. Budget: $4000. Shop: Cedar & Stone HVAC in Hagerstown, MD, 14 people, 8 techs on the road plus 2 overflow. Valuable action: a dispatched job or a written estimate on the calendar. Vanity plan: a keyword map that could sit on a dealer site, a national awareness video, or 200 form fills the two overflow techs cannot run.

Service vs dealer — three differences that change the plan

Seasonality: a used-car lot sells inventory year-round. An HVAC shop sells fall maintenance and emergency heat when summer ends, then AC when heat arrives. A plan that ignores the calendar is a dealer plan with the logo swapped. Capacity: Dana can sit more buyers in cars than she has closers if she stretches Saturday; Priya cannot invent a ninth truck. Eight techs plus two overflow is a hard ceiling — 40 bookings is the goal because the calendar is the constraint, not because 40 is a pretty KPI. Emergency vs planned: a CR-V shopper can wait until Saturday. A no-heat call cannot. Your channel mix, offer, and SLA must split planned tune-ups ($129 online) from same-week emergency-heat response. If you write one funnel for both, you will fill the form with “how much does a new AC cost?” and miss the driveway that is cold tonight.

Capacity, area, leads, site, offer, ticket, competitors

Eight techs on the road, two more who can take overflow. Priya will not sell more than 40 booked appointments next month if the calendar cannot hold them. Saturday morning is already tight. Hagerstown plus about 25 miles: Williamsport, Funkstown, Smithsburg, and the I-70 corridor toward Frederick. She will not dispatch to Baltimore. Last month: 22 booked appointments, 9 no-shows, 61 website form fills (many “how much does a new AC cost?”), 14 Google Business Profile calls that went to a shared cell with no logging. Nobody can say which form became a job. Five slow pages: Home, About, Services, Financing, Contact. The contact form asks for name, email, phone, address, and a long comment. No click-to-call sticky bar. No online scheduler. The “Services” page lists 14 items with no prices and no next step. Fall maintenance plan $129 online, same-week emergency heat response inside the service area, and a written estimate before any replacement. She will not advertise “lowest prices in Maryland” or guaranteed same-day installs. Average completed ticket is about $380. A new outdoor unit can be $6,000–$9,000. Fall tune-up is $129 if booked online. Two national franchise vans run radio. A cheap Facebook page (“Hagerstown Cheap Heat”) undercuts on price and invents five-star reviews. Priya’s edge is licensed techs, a real shop on Dual Highway, and written estimates.

Do not recycle Northfield

This is a service company, not a used-car lot. Recycled Northfield work fails on sight: a CR-V keyword map, a $3,000 Search architecture, Dana Cole’s 48-hour test-drive offer, a VDP event model, or a Frederick inventory SRP. If your plan could be pasted onto Dana’s dealer with a find-replace (CR-V → furnace, $3k → $4k, Frederick → Hagerstown), it fails. The valuable action is a booked service or estimate appointment the two overflow techs can actually run.

Priya has $4000 and two overflow techs. A plan that generates 200 “leads” the calendar cannot hold is a failure, even if CPL looks pretty. Eight techs on the road, two more who can take overflow. Priya will not sell more than 40 booked appointments next month if the calendar cannot hold them. Saturday morning is already tight.

Exercise

Rewrite the brief in six lines

Without looking back, write: (1) the valuable action, (2) the number that proves it, (3) the capacity ceiling, (4) the service-area fence, (5) the seasonal offer you will lead with this month, (6) one artifact that would be recycled Northfield and therefore fail.

Deliverable: Six labeled lines. No CR-V, no Dana, no $3,000 dealer budget.

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