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Lessons from an HVAC Legend

Lessons from an HVAC Legend

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John Wilson
December 12, 2025

Hello home service operators,

I recently sat down with Ken Goodrich, a former HVAC owner who scaled his company from $11M to $250M.

As an entrepreneur who has launched and sold eight companies, you can imagine how much knowledge he shared. Keep reading for more of his insights, including the five lessons I took from him.

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What I Learned From Ken Goodrich

I spent time talking with Ken Goodrich, a legendary home services operator, turnaround specialist, and former CEO/Chairman of Goettl Air Conditioning & Plumbing, and one theme came through clearly.

You do not scale a home service company because you are great at the trade.

You scale because you understand how to build a real management system and because you surround yourself with high-caliber talent that can carry the business further than you can on your own.

Here are the five biggest lessons from Ken.

Lesson 1: Systems Beat Skill

Ken grew up in HVAC. He was holding a flashlight for his dad at age ten. He bought his first business at twenty five. He knew how to fix systems and he knew how to sell systems, but he did not know how to run a business.

That reality caught up to him fast. The IRS showed up. Payroll taxes were unpaid. His bank accounts were garnished. Trucks were taken. His employees quit on a Friday.

The turning point came when he opened The E Myth Revisited. He realized he had been operating without any structure. The book forced him to see the business as a prototype that needed systems, processes, documentation, innovation, and quantification. That shift allowed him to rebuild the company and eventually partner with Michael Gerber to co author the E Myth HVAC Contractor.

Ken is blunt about it. Technical skill is not what scales a company. Systems scale a company.

Lesson 2: A Management Cadence Is Non Negotiable

Ken’s entire career changed once he learned how to manage through routine. He chose a system called MAP, but he believes any structured management framework works if you commit to it. MAP taught him leadership functions, supervisory skills, metrics, and how to run vital factors meetings. It also taught him how to create a daily rhythm the entire company lived inside.

When Gettel scaled, the cadence was everything. Twice weekly performance calls. Clear metrics for calls, conversion rates, average tickets, and revenue. Every manager understood the numbers. Every department had expectations. Nothing slipped because the routine did not allow it.

Even during chaos or growth spikes, the cadence held the business together. That is how he took Gettel from 11 million and losing money to 250 million with eleven locations and more than one thousand employees.

Lesson 3: Efficiency Matters Most When Times Are Good

Ken has lived through every HVAC cycle imaginable. His perspective is simple. When leads are abundant, most companies become lazy and inefficient. When the weather shifts or demand cools, those bad habits get exposed.

He trains his teams to operate with a scarcity mindset even in peak seasons. In Phoenix and Las Vegas, the first heat wave creates a rush of calls, but the moment rain hits the city goes quiet. Many companies panic and think something is wrong with their phone system. What is actually wrong is that they were never efficient to begin with.

Ken insists that every opportunity is gold. Every call needs tight scripting, tight booking, and tight follow through. He believes most struggling shops could fix their business by sitting in the call center for six months and listening to the breakdowns. When the market tightens, efficiency is the only advantage that keeps you alive.

Lesson 4: Hire People Who Are Smarter Than You

Ken’s growth accelerated once he learned to recruit outside talent. He tells a story about meeting a Harvard MBA who had run a five hundred million dollar region for Otis Elevator. Ken decided on the spot that he wanted that level of talent on his team. He recruited him and it completely changed how the company operated.

That hire brought new thinking, new systems, and new structure. It also gave Ken the confidence to hire people who had deeper skills than he did in finance, operations, and management.

He believes most owners are intimidated by high level talent because they came up as technicians. His mindset is different. He reminds himself that he is the owner. The company is his creation. His job is to fill it with the best team possible. When he did that, everything scaled faster and with far fewer mistakes.

Lesson 5: The Goal Is a Self Sustaining Leadership Layer

Ken has built and sold eight companies. In every case, the real breakthrough happened when he stopped being the center of the business.

He built teams with real CFOs, real controllers, real VPs of sales, and real COOs. Once those layers existed the business could scale past fifty million, then one hundred million, then two hundred million. It freed him to focus on vision, growth, acquisitions, and strategy instead of firefighting.

He says the best size to run is the size where you can afford a complete executive team. At that point every idea can be executed by the people best equipped to make it happen. That is why Gettel became his opus and why he was able to eventually step out of HVAC entirely and build a new platform in standby generators.

Your company will only grow as far as your leadership structure allows. If everything flows through you, the business stops at whatever level you can personally control. If you build a real leadership bench, the ceiling disappears.

Watch our entire conversation here:

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Go read those five lessons again. Which one could have the biggest impact on your business?

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👊 John

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