Selling Techs vs. Service Techs: Who Should You Hire First?
Short answer: A service tech diagnoses and fixes the problem. A selling tech fixes it and helps the homeowner choose the right option, up to and including replacement. A comfort advisor (an install or replacement salesperson) mostly runs sales calls. Which one to hire first depends on your call volume, how many replacement opportunities your techs are leaving on the table, and who's running your sales calls today. Very few techs are great at both fixing and selling, so test before you trust the title.
The three seats, defined
- Service tech: runs repair and maintenance calls. Diagnoses, fixes, explains what he found, and recommends next steps. Paid mainly for technical skill and reliability.
- Selling tech: a service tech who can also present options (repair vs. replace, good/better/best) and ask for the decision. Paid for technical skill plus sales results.
- Comfort advisor: a salesperson who runs replacement and system-design calls, often after a tech flags the opportunity. Many shops call this seat install sales or a sales tech.
Plumbing and electrical shops have the same three seats under different names: service plumber vs. selling plumber, service electrician vs. sales electrician.
Why most "selling techs" aren't
On The War Room, longtime HVAC salesman Andy Hobaica, who told Tim he closed over $12M last year, explained why he prefers a tech-to-advisor handoff over expecting every tech to sell:
"I like a technician going up to a certain dollar amount and then flipping it to a comfort advisor because the comfort advisor knows how to talk to a customer."
— Andy Hobaica, The War Room (02:08)
His reason is practical. The tech has more calls waiting, and the advisor has time to spend with the homeowner:
"They got six more calls to go to. It's 115 degrees outside. If a comfort advisor comes in, that might be his only call for the day."
— Andy Hobaica, The War Room (02:44)
Tim summed up the difference in the same conversation:
"A comfort advisor can sell and they know how to communicate with the customer and help them where a selling tech's more technical."
— Tim Oyler, The War Room (03:12)
Andy's estimate was that only a small share of techs can truly do both. He said "like 8% of the industry." That's his opinion from years in the field, not a measured statistic. Either way, the point holds: don't assume a great tech is a great closer.
The most common failure Andy described is the tech who gets too technical. He walks the homeowner through static pressure readings when they just want to know why the back bedroom is hot. The homeowner gets confused, and confused homeowners don't buy.
Five signs you need a selling tech or comfort advisor now
- Your techs keep repairing systems that should be replaced. Old equipment, repeated repairs, and no options ever presented.
- The owner is still running every sales call. If you're the only one who can close, your growth stops wherever your calendar does.
- Replacement leads sit for days. Hot leads cool off while you wait for someone free to run them.
- Your average ticket is flat while call volume grows. You're busy but not making more money per call.
- Your best service tech wants more money and a new challenge. A path into a selling seat can keep him, if he has the skills (see the next section).
If none of these sound familiar and your problem is that calls aren't getting run at all, hire a strong service tech first. A closer can't close calls that never get run.
How to spot a selling tech in an interview
Résumés and close-rate claims are easy to inflate. A role play is hard to fake. Andy's test: put the candidate in a role play in front of a room. In his words, "Put him in front of 20 people in front of a room in role play" (03:24). If he falls apart there, he'll fall apart in front of a homeowner.
Run these three objections in every selling-tech or comfort-advisor interview:
- "I need to sleep on it."
- "I want to get another bid."
- "I need to talk to my wife first."
What to look for:
- He asks before he pitches. Hot rooms, allergies, high bills, how long they plan to stay in the home. Andy calls this collecting "ammo" for the close.
- He explains things in plain words. No jargon dump.
- He doesn't fold after the first no. Andy put it this way: "I have 15 answers for every single objection… People give up too easy" (23:08). Being persistent is different from being pushy. A good candidate stays calm, helpful and respectful.
- He builds rapport fast. Andy said the top trait is becoming the customer's friend. Tim's summary: "If you become a friend with somebody at the house, they know like, and trust you, it's really not selling them because they like you" (05:29).
Then use the peer-reference loophole. Ask for two or three references from other sales techs or advisors at or above his level. Good closers know other good closers, and you just got three more names.
Pay plans for selling techs: principles, not numbers
Every market and shop is different, so this page doesn't give pay numbers. The principles that tend to hold:
- Pay for what you want more of. If you want options presented on every call, reward that, not just closed tickets.
- Make the plan easy to understand. A tech who can't explain his own pay plan won't trust it.
- Protect the service side. Commission shouldn't push a tech to skip diagnostics or oversell. Your reviews and callbacks will show it if it does.
- Spell out the handoff. If techs flip big jobs to a comfort advisor, decide in writing how the tech gets credit for the lead.
Training: turning a good service tech into a selling tech
Some of your best selling techs will come from your own service bench. It takes reps. On his War Room episode, Joe Crisara of Service MVP described a four-step loop: "learn it, repeat it back by saying it, then get a person to do it with so you can actually practice," and then use it in the field (27:48). His summary:
"Every single day is like batting practice."
— Joe Crisara, The War Room (28:06)
Andy said he role-plays with each member of his team twice a week (24:34). Tim's view from the same episode:
"You got to train. Most of these guys just don't, they don't role play it, they don't study it, they don't train."
— Tim Oyler, The War Room (46:02)
Hire better, fire faster applies here too. Give a new selling tech a clear 60-to-90-day scorecard: options presented, ride-along feedback, reviews, callbacks. Coach weekly. If it isn't happening, move him back to service or move on. Don't leave a struggling closer on your best leads.
Recruiting selling techs who already have jobs
The best closers are busy and well paid, so they won't answer a job post. Recruiting them is a sales process. Find out what they don't like about their current setup (lead quality, no CSR support, a pay plan that changes every quarter, no path to sales manager). Then show them, with specifics, why your shop is a better place to sell. Pre-fill your bench with two or three closers you'd hire the moment a good lead source opens up.
How Thirty Madison Ventures helps
We recruit both service techs and selling techs, including comfort advisors, for HVAC, plumbing and electrical owners. We go after people who already have jobs and sell them on your shop. From our homepage, word for word: "We deliver your first qualified candidates within 14 days of our kickoff call." And: "Every placement comes with a 60-day replacement guarantee."
Tell us the seat (service or selling) and the city. Book a call →
Watch: Andy Hobaica on selling techs vs. comfort advisors
Watch on YouTube: The War Room with Andy Hobaica (selling techs vs. comfort advisors, 00:46)