How Wowing Customers Led to $60 Million in Annual Revenue
Building a strong customer base is great, but building a referral fan base is transformative. Companies that master unforgettable customer service every time can see remarkable growth.
On this episode of Cracking the Code, Mary Jean “MJ” Anderson, retired president of Anderson Plumbing, Heating & Air, unpacks how wowing customers fulled a leading company built on trust, care, and consistency. Discover how you can implement genuine service and empower your team to go above and beyond to transform your customer base into your greatest asset.
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The customer is always right, even when they’re wrong. Our tagline is nobody wows clients like we do, and we lived by that.
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Welcome to Cracking the Code where we make Hvac success clear, simple, and stress free. I’m your host and contractor, University general manager David Holt. This episode is the latest of a 16 part series that introduces you to the awesome speakers you’ll see at epic 2026. If you don’t want to miss next week’s episode, please subscribe and turn on your notifications.
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And here’s a quick reminder. Your voice really matters. So please visit my contractor university.com to participate in our annual contractor survey for Hvac business leaders. You may even win a prize package that includes a two night stay at Bellagio and an all access pass to Epic 2026. In today’s episode, we’re honored to speak with Mary Jane Anderson, the recently retired president of San Diego based Anderson Plumbing, Heating and Air.
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A 47 year old business with over 300 employees and $60 million in annual revenue. Those amazing numbers place Anderson as the number one woman owned plumbing, heating and air business in the United States. Wow. Mary Jean, who is also known as MJ to her friends, is presenting a breakout session during our epic 2026 conference entitled leverage A Wow Customer Service Experience to Unlock Growth and Increase Profits.
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In her session, she’ll be sharing ways that her team lives up to. Their motto of nobody wows clients like we do, so let’s get cracking. So welcome to cracking the code, MJ. Thank you. I’m really excited to be here and I’m super excited about, February in Las Vegas can be a great meeting for us all. You know, it’s a it’s always a great event.
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It’s one of the greatest parties in, in the industry each year. And and having you on the, on the agenda is just a real blessing. So we’re super, super excited to hear about what you, what you have to say. So, you know, you’ve got a lot of little things that you’ve done over your years at, at Anderson.
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I know you were, very invested in the company over the years and have really grown this thing. So there’s a bunch of different ideas that you throw around out there that have helped lead to your success. I mean, are you kidding me? 300 plus employees, $60 million in sales in little bitty San Diego. I mean, that’s pretty good.
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So, so. And actually, I love San Diego, by the way. My dad was a Navy guy, so we’ve been in and out of there once or twice. One of the one of the things that that you mentioned has to do with really understanding the value of just a really awesome customer service experience. Tell us more about that.
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Well, first of all, say customer service is really a part of marketing and you have to have an experience in these days, incredible customer service to really, reduce your marketing costs, which are so expensive. Right. And for us personally, when we wrote our mission statement, we understood that up front. And we, you know, our mission statement, it said the customer is always right, even when they’re wrong.
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And even though that’s not necessarily the way that our that we handled our technicians, it’s what we truly believe and how we handle customer service. So, you know, it’s it’s all of that, our, our, our, tagline is nobody wows clients like we do. And you and we lived by that. And it reduced our marketing, you know, expenses drastically.
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And then of course, hit the broader that bottom line of profitability. So thinking about that, I mean, how does, how does a company’s customer service experience really impact their financial results? I mean, you hit it kind of high level right there, but what kind of what kind of numbers did you see in reduction of cost for marketing and, and increase in sales?
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Well, you know, you have to remember that, to get a client right now is really expensive. And when we had when we do epic, I will have the very specific numbers of today’s numbers. When I, you know, I’m retired now, but it used to be about, oh gosh, I’m going to say $237 to get that customer to call you.
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And so by doing by the superior customer service from the time the, the, client, you know, gets to the call center, the service they get there and then all the way down the line involves, a higher closing percentage and a retain customer, therefore reducing that, that customer’s, you know, the customer cost. So in our company we had a 98.8 retention rate a happy customers.
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Now think about that. We went to 100 customers homes and 98.8 of them wanted to use us again. So what does that do? Take that 200 or whatever it is today. Because costs are insane, right? Marketing costs. So you take that to the bottom line. And then obviously, you know, the client, when they’re your existing customer and I’ll have the exact stats, at epic, but it’s, the closing percentage is something like 95% versus an average closing percent, depending on the ticket, Hvac can be 40 to 50 for us, you know, a sale, have equipment and made me for a service call 80 something percent.
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And again, I’ll have those numbers for you. But you think about the cost savings right there by retaining your customers. So right off the bat you’ve got profitability to the bottom line, right? Absolutely, absolutely. And you know I can resonate to that. When I was running my dad’s heating and air business here in Georgia, we focused 100% on delivering what we called the ultimate service experience.
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Right. Same kind of concept. And we sold ultimate indoor comfort systems. So we didn’t even sell heating and air. We sold Ultimate indoor comfort systems. So we were we were private labeling, if you will. We were branding the same way that people are talking about doing today, as if it’s a new idea. But we were doing it in the 90s.
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And, and smart companies have been doing it before us and long after us, for sure. But the, you know, our closing rate in dealing with existing customers maintenance agreement customers primarily was 82%. And I thought we were doing good, but it sounds like you’re doing a whole lot better. That’s awesome. Well, I mean, you know, it’s it’s, you know, our brand was built on wowing the client.
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And once you wow that client and you lock them in is yours. And then, of course, having the raving client, the client that loves you and spreads that word, it really is, you know, you’re way to double digit profitability. Got to clean up other things in business. But it’s why are we one of the most important parts if you think about it.
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That’s why I was excited that I got to speak on customer service, because that was the foundation of our company. And and it really has to be right. Because and with all the new technology and everything else that’s going on, I just got off of call just a little while ago with, with a contractor out in Washington, and he’s complaining about cost of generating leads, and he was complaining about, you know, CEO this and CEO that and all this crap.
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I said, you know what? Here’s the reality. The reality is this is a people to people business. And if you treat people right, they’ll treat you right. Right. You teach them that you you demonstrate to them that you as a professional organization, are going to just do a tremendous job of taking care of them, and they’ll return the favor by recommending you to their friends, family, neighbors.
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I mean, and it’s a beautiful thing because as a sales guy, I’d much rather go on a referral call than a CEO lead. Call that somebody just trying to, you know, get a price. Absolutely. And so important because that rating, you know, the client, the whether it’s a man or one thing, the client really wants to feel loved, so safely cared about.
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And who who better to build that before you ever walk into the door is a friend or a review or something like that that says, gosh, Anderson came out and I loved them. They were so honest. They’re so ethical. There’s resale, there’s resale. So that’s why I always say, I mean, I’m a marketer by trade, too. I love marketing, that’s my thing.
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Guess what? The number 1%. My better thing going on here, this was a wife. The number one marketing tool is it’s client service. It really is. And you’ve got to think about it that way, you know, and I’m real sensitive to words and and I want everybody else to pay really close attention to something that MJ has been saying over and over and over.
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She doesn’t call them customers. That’s intentional, isn’t it? It is. Yeah. There are clients. Yeah. And so what’s the difference between a customer and a client? I feel like a customer is someone that walks into 7-Eleven. And I feel like a client is somebody retain that you continue to give service to over and over again. That would be my definition.
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You know, lots of companies. And this is sad. They treat service almost as a necessary evil and a cost of doing business. But you turned it into a profit center. How do you how do you recommend it? Contractors make that same shift. You know, it goes to something I’ve always said. That I think is important is to hire your weakness and, to be successful in business in general, I think you have to really know who you are and what your attributes are.
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And realize that you don’t have all, you don’t have it all. None of us do. None of us have it all. I mean, you realize what your weaknesses are, you’re able to, hire that person. So let’s say customer service, it’s really the most important part. As, you know, retaining the customer and profitability. We’ve we’ve already discussed that.
00:10:32:07 – 00:10:55:23
We get that, but it’s, more about are you the person that can do that? Because, and get that message out there and get people to do that, you might not be. So think about this. You know, there’s a lot of very successful CPAs who are, are in our industry and they’re numbers people, which is fabulous, you know, but they might not be people, people.
00:10:56:00 – 00:11:20:07
And our very first customers are our call center, the people that answer the phones and our technicians. Right. They’re a very first customer. They are most important customer because they have to be so happy and proud of who they are and love what they’re doing and love our clients. And they’re the ones that go out on the second level and turn our customers into clients.
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Make sure. So so yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So we have internal customers and we have external customers. And if we don’t have our internal folks, if we don’t have our teammates on board with the mission, it doesn’t work. I have firsthand experience there, too. I wound up when I went to work for my dad, we had a bunch of people that were less than committed to delivering the safest, healthiest, most comfortable and energy efficient systems possible.
00:11:46:16 – 00:12:04:19
They were just trying to make eight, right? Just make eight hours and get on about their day. They didn’t really have the same attitude that that we had as a as an organization. And so we had to trim some fat and and get the right people in. So hiring the right people is the first part right for sure.
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Yeah. And also training the people, I mean, there’s some people that that can’t change. But you know, when they came into our company and they read our mission statement, they write or understand that this we’re really proud of who we are. And this is what we do. We do outstanding customer service. This is the number one goal. A lot of times we would hire people who had that in their hearts, and then we would train them to do a job that they, you know, had me coming here, you know, things that they really hadn’t even, had any idea how to do.
00:12:35:14 – 00:13:11:19
You know, we put them through our school because we realized that we really wanted people that cared. And I want to go back to make sure people that are listening to this understand that, you may not be that person. I want to really emphasize how important that is, but you need to hire your weakness. So if you’re more of a numbers guy and you’re more of an operations guy, and it’s hard for you to deal with with, you know, your, your technicians and your call center and motivate them and constantly instill in them how the customer’s always writing when they’re wrong and how they are the most important person in our in our
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entire company. Then you have to hire that person because you’ve got to have that person there. Because I just got to make that point that the marketing of your company, the number one marketing tool, is over the top customer service. That’s right, that’s right. And that has to be delivered not by technology that’s delivered by real, live human beings.
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Exactly. And that’s what people want, and that’s what people need. Well, that’s what they deserve to. That’s the way we are. Absolutely what it is. You know what what what is your what does your homeowner deserve? Well, they deserve the very best in us that we can deliver to them at a price that’s affordable to them and provides appropriate profit.
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So I can pay you and the rest of the team appropriately. Right. So and I love the idea of hiring your weaknesses and, and of course, most of us knucklehead contractors, which you stand out like a beautiful sore thumb, maybe a rose. Sorry. Because, you know, you’re in a primarily dominated male industry and your your compassion comes across on even on the camera here for what it is that you love, which I know you love your fellow man and you’re trying to help them be better tomorrow than they are today.
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And you’re trying to help your people be able to deliver that on a consistent basis. But a lot of us knuckleheads, we want to do everything ourselves. How is that, you know, how is that turn into like a really dangerous trap? And how do you know when it’s time to kind of set your pride aside is really what it comes down to, right?
00:14:53:06 – 00:15:14:01
Set your pride aside and bring in that complimentary talent. Yeah. You know, you’re going to see right in your ear now in reality, you know you’re going to see it. Are you not bringing in enough sales? Are you not collecting enough money? You know, you know, hi. Accounts receivable. You’re going to see it playing out.
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It’s going to tell you right there. And, or you’ll see it in losing, losing good technicians because they want to go elsewhere for whatever reason. Typically it’s because they’re not happy, you know, with the company and what the company’s providing to them, which is, again, love, respect and training it. That’s what a world is built on no matter what anybody says.
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And the only thing you really have to think about slightly off talk topic, but super important is that, over 78% and I’m going to get the statistics to include, you know, the updated statistics, but over 78% of the that homeowners that are making the decision are women and women as women. That’s what we want. We want to trust and we want respect and we want to be wowed.
00:16:03:22 – 00:16:23:22
And that’s what makes the women decide what they’re going to do. You know, what direction they’re going to go. So, yeah. And I love the fact that you said, look at your pal statement, look at your profit and loss statement and see what’s going on. Look around you and look at your retention rate on your employees and see what’s going on.
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Again. Why is it that every time we hire a service tech, we lose a service tech? Why is it that 2 or 3 of them disappear at the same time? Why is, you know, why are these things happening? And I figured out what you’ve already said here. I figured out that we weren’t doing what we needed to do to train them.
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We definitely weren’t doing what we needed to do to love them, and we definitely were not respecting them. I mean, we just weren’t as a business. You weren’t servicing your client. And who is your client? Your technician is and your call center. I mean, it’s just it’s so important. And and that’s why I say, you know, I’ve been really successful with women managers.
00:17:04:00 – 00:17:33:10
And you just said something. You said that, when you came in from software industry, you really didn’t know, you know, the, the, trades. Right? Well, that’s okay, because you can be a great manager, a manager of people and not understand the trades. Right. So, I think that’s super important. And, and I think that our, that our industry has to start looking at women in all areas.
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When you send a woman out to the house. And I learned this from my daughter. She was the first woman in the field many years ago, 20 something years ago. She was and she said, you know, mom, when I go out and it’s a woman I identify, she share the highest closing percentage of the company and still holds that record, by the way, 27 years later.
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And she said, when I go, I don’t think it’s a woman. I just identify them and I know I’ve got a sale. And she said, and when it’s a man, they seem to let their guard down like they don’t have to know everything. They don’t have to understand things, and they just let their guard down. And they let me explain.
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And it’s another really easy sale. I said, well, who do you think you sell best to? You know, this is our discussions. And she said, man, I can sell to both. But men are easier sale to women. Now think about that for just a second. You know this has changed. You see it obviously automotive industry. You now see it in our industry.
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And you’ll see that if you saw our stats, you would see that our women salespeople had higher closing percentages in general than the men did. There was exception to that rule. Now why is that just what I said? It’s that connection that we have to train on. It’s the customer service we provide, and the customer service is the connection of quality, safety, honesty, ethics with your client.
00:18:59:00 – 00:19:24:04
When you’re in front of your cart. So I’ve had really good experience hiring women in sales and purchasing from women as well. And so many, many underline many contractors missed the mark when they’re communicating with women in the home. What mistakes do you see most often, and how should we as dumb men change the conversation? What should we do differently?
00:19:24:06 – 00:19:49:03
I think I go back to that book, I can’t remember. Men are from, women are from Venus and men are from Mars, South Orange, you know, and I think you it’s all about, understanding the language that people need and then training on that, you know, and I’m not going to say it’s like, I don’t want to say it’s, you know, you’ve got to go out and just women, women are much better than men.
00:19:49:03 – 00:20:19:07
I’m not trying to say that again. And going back to what I said from the very start is hire your weakness. And so, you know, when that person’s out in the field, those are the communication skills they need. And, and it can be a man or a woman, but you’ve got to look, I started doing psychological profiles in the 90s before anybody ever knew what they were when I hired someone, because I really understood that, that people had to be on the right seat on the bus.
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And if I said, what is your look? I said, what? What is one of the most other important things you could offer me listening today? I would say it’s so important to have the right person on the right seat on the bus. So you have to hire for what that job needs. Perfect example. My, I was not good at negotiating.
00:20:38:12 – 00:20:58:01
I always said I didn’t have a man negotiate because they were going to be tough. And I hired this gal who was our county controller, who eventually moved up to CFO. She was so good at negotiation, so good at collection, so good at my weakness, that that was another thing that really helped our company, grow, because she was on the right scene on the bus.
00:20:58:01 – 00:21:19:03
Right. And it can be a man. It can be a woman. It can be men in the field. There’s no doubt that men do a really good job. And, you know, if you look at our industry as a whole, probably there are a lot more men. Some of the top salespeople are, are men. So I’m not saying that it’s just getting that right person, right seat on the bus.
00:21:19:05 – 00:21:41:09
It’s so important to do. And you can do that by the different there’s so many different, programs that are out there now these days where you can I like color code is one I use. I mean, there’s several that I used to use, but and I sometimes I run t tests on someone when I was really considering them for a position because I really understood, and it was so important to get that right person.
00:21:41:14 – 00:22:05:08
You know, I do, and it’s it’s extremely important to, to fully understand because you can’t understand, like you mentioned a minute ago, you got gotta be able to speak their language and understand what they’re saying to and, and get that. So you mentioned an individual that you hired that kind of unlocked some hidden gold really is what it comes down to.
00:22:05:08 – 00:22:28:09
And would you consider that like the biggest leap forward time type of hire? And how can contractors actually identify their kind of missing piece and then recruit for that to fill that gap? I would say, you know, it’s such a and I can’t wait to again to be to do this, class at epic because there’s, it’s so deep.
00:22:28:09 – 00:22:51:20
There’s just so, so much I’d probably say in marketing is what is most essential to grow a successful business. Most successful. Let me give you one more example. I was struggling and it was affecting the bottom line. I couldn’t get to double digits, on sales, and, you know, cost cut. I think it’s over 400. It might hit me 500.
00:22:51:20 – 00:23:13:14
I’m going to check that out now. But to get a lead for a new client in Hvac sales, right. Guess you’re marvelous at doing flips, which we’ve got good at, but, I we didn’t have the right training, and our people just weren’t closing. So what do you do? You hire your weakness. I couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t have my company that could figure it out, so I did the research.
00:23:13:16 – 00:23:30:08
It’s kind of. I connected with Gea originally, and I found welding law, so I was big enough at that point that I could bring him in as a trainer. So he came in once a month and did ride alongs, and then he started twice a month and then once a month, and then once every other month till we weaned off.
00:23:30:10 – 00:23:55:11
But he started doing our training. The guy is a genius. He’s freakin phenomenal. And so he just completely lit us on fire in that one area. Again, hire your weakness. You know that advice I was given early on and we all are humans. We all have egos. We think we can do everything. We cannot. We can’t. You really want to grow and you want to increase that profitability.
00:23:55:13 – 00:24:13:22
God hire your weakness. And it might be a weld and long, you know, it might be an accounting person. It might be a marketing, you know, having an incredible market. Like I’m going back and forth in my head as I’m talking to you, is it marketing or is it training? You know, what really is the most important part that brought us there?
00:24:13:22 – 00:24:33:22
And again, I believe a huge part of marketing is customer service. So there you go, MJ. That was fantastic. A lot of really good nuggets that you just provided us, and I personally am looking forward to seeing exactly what you have to deliver for us at the Epic conference. It’s going to be great to see you there and great to hear you.
00:24:34:02 – 00:24:56:20
We’re looking forward to having you. So any last thoughts before we cut loose? I’m just super excited about being there too, and I’m looking forward to meeting the people that might be watching this video. My goal has always been to help people become the best that they can be. That’s my excitement in life and and helping people become the best that they could be is what really launched our business to places I never thought it would be.
00:24:56:22 – 00:25:24:03
So I’m excited about meeting you. If you’re listening, I’m excited about helping you become the best you can be and enjoying your life on a kind of an easier road because you get there eventually. For more about MJ’s breakout session, visit the epic 2020 6.com website and check out the agenda for Thursday at 11 a.m.. If you haven’t already registered for the conference, make sure you do so soon as it will surely sell out as it has in years past.
00:25:24:05 – 00:25:59:14
Click Register Now at Epic 2020 6.com so you don’t miss out. Also, please do us a favor like and share this episode so we can help more Hvac contractors improve their business. Thanks for watching! Cracking the Code where we make Hvac success clear, simple, and stress free. See you next time!
