Alek from Alek Air Management Talks ServiceWhale & the American Dream

Not long ago, we sat down to talk one on one with Alek Ivanov, owner and operator of Alek Air Management. The Philadelphia area HVAC company has been the result of hard work and a vision to make the American Dream come true. It was a sincere pleasure to gain some insight into Alek, his company and his experience with ServiceWhale.

ServiceWhale: How did you get started as a contractor?

Alek Ivanov: After coming to the United States, I started out working as a helper on new construction in NJ.  I worked for my father painting and doing general construction for seven months, but it just didn’t work out. I was trying to find something to do when some people recommended that I talk to this HVAC contractor that was hiring. I went to see him and began working for him as a helper.

I had a goal to succeed and make the American dream possible. I’m almost there.

SW: Alek, I would say you are already there, you have a successful business! How did Alek Air Management get started?

AI: I started my business in the spring of 2006, so next year (2016) will be 10 years that Alek Air Management has been in business. As far as getting started, I was working on this new construction project and saw the builder so I asked him what I needed to do if I wanted to have my own crew and get the jobs direct from him. He told me that I needed to have my own company that was insured and had worker’s comp. So I said, “Ok Great”, then I went to see my accountant. She opened the business and I started a new construction installation company. We eventually went away from new construction to do more residential business.

SW: That’s really great! So for your company, how do you normally get jobs?

AI: For residential deals, it’s primarily word to mouth referrals. People who know us or have used us in the past and recommend us. We do some advertising as well but nothing significant. Most of our work comes from people referring us to their friends and family.

SW: What online / offline channels do you use for leads?

AI: We have worked in the past with lead generators but not anymore. I’ve worked with some popular online lead generators and some of the smaller companies for online bids; a few of them were pretty good but you have to sit there and watch to see if anything pops up. They weren’t automatic with leads and there was a subscription fee that you had to pay yearly. The process is that a customer adds the project online and then you approach the customer. Most of the home improvement lead generators were a waste of money – they would just send you price shoppers (people not even close to starting a project and those that have no idea what it costs) or some job that was really small and not necessarily HVAC project but more like a handyman job.

We’ve also used AdWords and worked with a company to optimize our AdWords.

SW: How did you hear about ServiceWhale?

AI: Dmitri approached me. I was really excited about the idea and 100% in favor of it.

SW: What is your typical cost to acquire a new customer?

AI: I would estimate it’s a couple hundred dollars. A lot of my web traffic wasn’t converting. The average click on Google was $15, sometimes more.

SW: How much time (hours) do you spend on acquiring a customer?

AI: Usually the tenth quote would convert. This was due to various reasons such as we weren’t available right away or they changed their mind. No one closes 100% of their leads.

SW: How is ServiceWhale different from the other lead generators you’ve used in the past?

AI: ServiceWhale is very different because we (contractors) don’t waste the time with empty estimates and phone calls – that’s a big difference. Also, the client knows what your price is upfront so there aren’t any surprises. This is important because many times you go out to give an estimate and when you give them a price, they are like “WOW, I didn’t expect it to be that much”. On ServiceWhale they see the various contractor’s prices right away and there are no false ideas of what the job will cost. If they like the quote and they are talking to you, it is very likely that you will close the deal.

SW: Can you us about a deal you that you have closed with ServiceWhale?

AI: Sure. One deal we closed was with Felix Kogan in Princeton. It was a straight forward project. He put in his information and got the numbers. He contacted me to come out for a measurement visit and at that time I was able to confirm that what he wanted to achieve was possible: to install a high efficiency furnace, the location of the unit, and the size of the equipment (that it was adequate for the size of the house). We basically shook hands and he knew the price – it was a good thing. There was very little time spent talking about the cost; rather, we spoke about the details of the job. Normally when a contractor goes out on an estimate (without ServiceWhale) the majority of the conversation revolves around the money and the selling points. There is very little attention paid to the installation itself. The visit with Mr. Krogen was extremely productive; we scheduled the installation right on the spot. After we did the work he paid; that was it.

SW: What advice you have for homeowners?

AI: A solid piece of advice I would give is about high-pressure sales. You know, when somebody is telling you something like “your heat exchanger is cracked and if you don’t replace it tomorrow morning, you will die” or “your life is in danger”. I would suggest spending an extra hundred dollars for a service call with another company to get a second opinion. I usually try to make a parallel by saying “If someone tells you that you need a surgery tomorrow morning and it’s going to cost you $100,000 would you go for a second opinion or you would just go under the knife.” Be cautious if somebody is going to sell you a $10,000 system and they tell you it’s in the shop, ready to go and you have to replace it right away, Call somebody else to come out for an emergency service call. Don’t tell the second contractor anything about the first contractor’s visit, just tell them that your unit is not working and ask them to diagnosis it. If the second guy tells you what the first one did, then I would consider it. I know what tactics some companies use and it’s not good business, but unfortunately these higher priced companies have to pay for their overhead.

That’s the best advice that I would give to homeowners shopping for an HVAC project.

SW: Thank you Alek, that’s some terrific advise. What about ServiceWhale, how can we improve in the future and help our contractors even more?

AI: I think its happening now. I think that ServiceWhale’s customer service centric approach is helping the process for homeowners and contractors significantly. A lot of times contractors are busy, especially the smaller guys, they don’t understand it but they are losing jobs. This is how I was when I was in the basement of someone’s home, I would get a call and tell them I would call them back but I was really concentrating on the job and what I had to do at that moment. I was stuck on the job and I had to finish. I couldn’t go out for an estimate or even an emergency and would lose business left and right. So I think if ServiceWhale could be a facilitator between the contractor and the homeowner, it would help contractors a lot and they will see 10 times more value in the service and understand it’s for real. People still have an uneasy feeling about shopping online for these types of projects, but when you know that there are real people that are there to help you – communicating with the client answering questions for you- its a real value and helps significantly. When we talk with homeowners through ServiceWhale, they have a lot of questions so it’s helpful that those questions can be answered for us by someone that has an understanding of the construction industry. That would definitely help.

Alek, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to speak with me and answer my questions!

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