How Elite HVAC Companies Win on Customer Experience
What actually makes one HVAC company unforgettable while another blends into the background? It’s the experience you deliver at every touchpoint, from the first phone call to the final walkthrough.
On this week’s episode, Jason Walker, President of Royalty Heating & Air and Founder of HVAC Masters of the Hustle, breaks down how top-performing contractors are building brands that command attention by creating “magic moments” that turn customers into advocates. Jason shares how to win on customers on experience and execution. You’ll hear how small details — from service interactions to install presentation — create premium value, drive reviews, and fuel long-term growth.
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00:00:00:01 – 00:00:20:02
It first starts with branding and brand recognition. I have to compete with all these big, massive companies implementing processes and procedures and holding them accountable to a higher standards.
00:00:20:04 – 00:01:00:11
Welcome back to Cracking the Code in our special epic 2026 speaker series, where we’re spotlighting the leaders who will take the stage this February at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Today, we’re joined by Jason Walker, president of Royalty Heating and Air out of Rocklin, California, one of the most innovative HPC businesses serving communities northeast of Sacramento. In his spare time, Jason also leads HPC Masters of the hustle, a training organization dedicated to helping people succeed to the next level.
00:01:00:13 – 00:01:34:00
I got a question about that, too. Jason, that’s pretty crazy. Who’s got spare time these days? So at epic 2026, Jason will be presenting his breakout session, Differentiate or Die How to Set Your Business Apart from the Sea of Sameness. On Friday, February 13th at 9:30 a.m.. In today’s conversation, you’ll get a preview of what he’ll share on stage from building an unforgettable brand to becoming the employer of choice in your area.
00:01:34:01 – 00:01:59:04
It all comes down to differentiation. So let’s get cracking. So, Jason, welcome to Cracking the Code, Mr. Jade dub moneymakers in-house. What’s up Dave? How are you doing sir? It’s an absolute pleasure to be here. And, anything that I could do to any of the members out there with contractor, university or anything, I love to be a part of the growth.
00:01:59:06 – 00:02:24:13
And that’s really what I’m passionate about. Man, I appreciate that. And I literally had to stand through your epic 2025 breakout session where you talked about selling to the younger generation homeowners. That place was packed. You did a great job, man. We’re glad to have you back again. Thank you. I mean, it’s it’s always kind of nerve wracking, you know, before you present in breakouts because you don’t know who’s going to show up.
00:02:24:14 – 00:02:51:08
There’s multiple other great speakers and presenters and, you know, to be able to have a packed room where everyone was not just sitting but standing also. Is an absolute honor and absolutely says that I got to be doing something right. Right. It’s that reassure. That’s exactly. That’s exactly right. So speaking of what you’re going to be talking about this time and standing.
00:02:51:10 – 00:03:15:04
How do people differentiate or for you see business to help them stand out from the crowd? Great question Dave. It first starts with branding and brand recognition. With royalty heating and air. We’ve only been in business for upcoming a year and a half when the event starts. And so what we had to do in Sacramento, right.
00:03:15:04 – 00:03:47:06
We have a massive market of Hvac. I mean, there’s multiple companies doing over 100 million. There’s multiple companies doing over 50 million. The small companies, I mean, they’re just everywhere as well. So what do you have to do when you’re doing a startup company? Right. I have to compete with all these big, massive companies. And so, right when I started, I said, we have to make sure that we have a great brand, a logo, and we understand what our core beliefs are, right?
00:03:47:11 – 00:04:08:20
Our mission statement. Our core values. All of those go into building really the pillars and the foundation and the Bible of what your company is and what separates you from everybody else in your market. So true. So you work with contractors all over the country. I mean, you’ve been I’ve been following you and you, you’ve been all over the place.
00:04:08:22 – 00:04:42:23
And that’s really cool to see. So why do you think some contractors struggle to break even while others enjoy double digit net profits year after year? What I find is it’s really the people, right? Implementing processes and procedures and holding them accountable to a higher standards. You know, I think that’s what really separates the elite contractors that I go out rather than the companies that are just, you know, not making money and just working, working, working or just hitting the bottom line.
00:04:42:23 – 00:05:07:14
Right. And then also understanding your numbers, your KPIs, your numbers. Yeah. Your net profit. Your gross profit. What your overhead is and really dialing in those numbers. So you’re actually going to be keeping your doors open, right? A lot of I feel like smaller mom and pop shops, they just like to satisfy the homeowner based off the price.
00:05:07:19 – 00:05:28:18
Right. And there’s so much more that you could do by delivering higher value, which you don’t have to drop your price and you don’t have to close your doors. Yeah. Funny thing is, you know, pricing everybody always talks about how, you know, I got to be competitive with what’s going on in the market. And I’m like, well, do they know anything about what it cost you to run your business?
00:05:28:20 – 00:05:52:16
Your competitors, do they know? It’s like, why do you care what they’re charging? Develop a process in your employees where you’re delivering above and beyond, or you’re delivering a premium product, and then you can earn a pretty premium price, right? 100%. I mean, you nailed it right there. When you go out there and you deliver exceptional value and service.
00:05:52:16 – 00:06:15:19
And that’s what I always say is I tell companies when I go on site, what is those magical moments within your technician going out there and doing a service or a diag. Right. What are those magical moments within your company or that connection with that client? You got to ask yourself those questions because there’s a reason why Disney is so successful, right, is because they have magical moments.
00:06:15:19 – 00:06:44:18
There’s a reason why Universal Studios is successful is because they have magical moments. So you got to ask yourself, what is that engagement experience like with the client between every department? Also, and when I travel and train, what I find is there’s departments and there’s division, okay. You should never divide your departments or division, and you should always be passing the baton off and act like the baton is the customer’s experience, right?
00:06:44:23 – 00:07:14:13
Sometimes you overextend promises or under extend delivery and you drop the baton and you can lose the race. So I always look at things like that as well as hyper focused on relationship before business. So, so true. Because, you know, one thing. Well, let me back up. I was running my dad’s business back in the 90s. And, you know, people say, well, you know, you used to buy yellow page ads, man, we got this thing called a website, right?
00:07:14:13 – 00:07:48:20
And and I didn’t have a website, not in the 90s. So one thing that hasn’t changed, even since my granddad started his business back in 1956, is it’s still a people business. Right. And you just mentioned the idea of customer experience. So what are some great examples of customer experiences that you’ve seen and or employee engagement approaches that you’ve seen on your travels, without necessarily outing any particular contractors?
00:07:48:20 – 00:08:09:13
Names are just, you know, what are some great examples you’ve seen? Absolutely. Great question. One of the examples that we actually now implement here at royalty is when you go to a Hvac company or trades company, right? They get out of the car. Usually they grab their ladder, their tools. And what happens is that experience starts with work.
00:08:09:18 – 00:08:36:12
Okay. What we’ve adapted here at royalty is the experience starts from the Dornoch introduction. Well, it starts from the phone call. But when our technician goes out there, they don’t go out there with their tools. Immediately. Okay. Because what we want to do is we got to understand that we’re strangers walking into their house, usually. And 70% of the time I say we meet with the woman of the home 30% of the time the kids are there.
00:08:36:14 – 00:09:01:16
So what I want to do is I want to involve them with these magical moments. And when I start, I teach my technicians to get to the table so we could go through our comfort survey. But while we’re going and, dialing our comfort survey, we also created a coloring book. And so what our coloring book is, it talks about, King Air, who’s our mascot, and it talks about what up right now we’re in heating.
00:09:01:16 – 00:09:21:16
Tune up. It talks about what the process of our heating tune up is. It talks about one of the coloring pages being our tools that we use with King Air. Right there. One page talks about, the, dust, dirt dragons. Right. And there’s a picture of a dirty filter where dust dragons coming out of it.
00:09:21:18 – 00:09:44:03
And then what we do is we make it fun for the kids as well. And we hold a coloring contest every single month with every service called diagnostic and install and any of those coloring that we get that when our technicians on site, they bring back in once a month, we do a raffle or not a raffle, but we choose which ones the best, and then that child or that family gets 100 bucks.
00:09:44:03 – 00:10:09:11
So it’s that just being different experience, right as well. And it was a great way to get those kids engaged and quiet while you’re trying to talk to their mom. That’s awesome man. To kind of just piggyback off of that too. I was really impressed because you say, how do you stand out? Right. So we actually did a home show about two months ago with royalty.
00:10:09:13 – 00:10:28:18
And every home show I’ve done, I’ve always catered to the adults. Okay, this home show, I wanted to cater to the kids. And I said, how do we get kids inside of our booth? But then when we get them inside of our booth, how do we keep them there? Because if we could keep the kids there, the the parents are going to follow.
00:10:28:20 – 00:10:55:00
So what I did was I didn’t hook up a Hvac system as a sample. I didn’t hook up our testimonial videos. What I did was I hired a professional face painter and a balloon maker, a balloon animal maker, and I promise you, we had a line of 30 kids waiting to get their face painted. We had a coloring contest section where they were coloring, and then we had a balloon section.
00:10:55:01 – 00:11:12:06
Each face painter or a kid, right, sat down for five minutes. So that means me and my team have five minutes to do our elevator pitch to inform and educate who we are, the impact we want to make, and then see hopefully that we’re the right fit for them, for their family to bring comfort back to their kingdom.
00:11:12:06 – 00:11:33:20
Right? So I think 2026, my marketing plan is going to be targeting more towards the kids. When I do like my billboards and radio ads and things like that. You know, that’s a great idea. And if you think about it, as a parent, we do things for our kids long before we ever do them for ourselves. So.
00:11:33:20 – 00:12:01:06
So what do you think about, you know, how does a how does an awesome customer experience, kid experience and employee experience translate into massive success? I mean, it just dials in the full circle, right? So when you’re a business owner, what you’re hoping is the full customer service at the end, you get a Google review, you get a testimonial, and then you get a referral.
00:12:01:08 – 00:12:24:06
Right? So if you could dial in those three things for the customer experience, I think you’re doing pretty well. One thing that we really strive at royalty is only being in business for less than a year, and a half. Our Google business account didn’t get approved, and I’m really excited about this. And, Google got approved February 28th and 2025.
00:12:24:07 – 00:12:50:16
So roughly about seven months ago. And if you look at our Google reviews, we hyper focus on that white glove customer experience, magic moments, and we are five stars with over 270 reviews in seven months. So we got to be doing something right. Right. And it’s being able to have the opportunity to go to companies like you were saying and dialing in.
00:12:50:16 – 00:13:16:12
What I’m seeing is working and what’s not working. And really delivering a great culture, because as I travel and I train right, I had to let go. And a lot of times I feel like business owners, it’s hard to let go, especially a startup company. I had no choice but to hire the right people. So when I’m traveling and training, they know what my standards and processes and procedures are.
00:13:16:14 – 00:13:41:15
Absolutely right. So knowing what you know now, this is a trick question since it’s not that long ago, what would you have done differently starting royalty? Oh, the great question. For the first summer, last summer, I subbed all my installs out because I started June 1st is the first month that we started operation. Everyone was already at their home base.
00:13:41:17 – 00:14:13:13
So by subbing installs out, you don’t get the right quality of the standards that you want. When you pay the installers, they’re already have their foot in another company. So if there’s a red tag or anything for them to come back to do it after you paid them is really hard. So once the season of summer was over, you know, rolling into 2025, we were able to hire a couple solid installers that, you know, had really, really good skills.
00:14:13:15 – 00:14:38:01
But when we look at installs, I want to be different. You talk about being different than your market. The sea of sameness, right? Well, right. When you look at marketing in trucks and truck wraps, my installs, I want to look at a piece of art as well. So when you look at royalty, you know, if we have a closet unit, we’re bubbly, bubble wrapping, the whole entire closet inside.
00:14:38:03 – 00:14:59:05
We’re making sure that when we’re doing our gas, our gas lines and we’re taping and we’re doing our mud and everything, we use tape, and we tape the lines and rip it off. So everything, even on the gas pipe, is all nice and straight when you see the blue. Also, we 3D print, this is something that we in-house.
00:14:59:07 – 00:15:25:18
It doesn’t matter what manufacturer it is. What we do is we 3D print, our royalty clips to fit any manufacturer. So we kind of, in our own sense, private label the systems. On top of that, what I think is something that I found from, a gentleman I did a on site with in Mississippi, which stood out to me was he did LED lights on all of his installs.
00:15:25:19 – 00:15:49:01
So we wrap our catwalks with LED lights in attics. Our closets are our garages. And it’s just to be different, because if you have ten contractors and you’re looking at all their installs and they might be amazing installs, right. But what’s going to separate you? I guarantee you my logo on the system with lights and bubble wrap and everything is really going to pop compared to everyone else.
00:15:49:06 – 00:16:14:12
Yeah, it’s no doubt about that, man. That’s one of the things I love about you. You think way outside the box, man. And that’s that’s good stuff. Give us one big zinger things people can look for coming to your session at Ed Epic. One thing that I know I’m going to deliver is high energy. And first off and foremost, I am a trainer that is extremely passionate about what I do.
00:16:14:14 – 00:16:48:07
And I know for a fact K talking to you out there that’s struggling right now, paying your last cents or credit card, maxing it out to go to the event. I understand what it feels like to be that individual in the seat strap stress and not knowing what to do. And I promise you guys and girls, if you attend my breakout session, I will leave you not just amped up and motivated, but the tools to separate you from everyone else in your market so you guys could pop and be the number one company.
00:16:48:07 – 00:17:05:23
Because I’ll leave you with this. If you want to dominate your market, what do you have to do? You have to dominate one neighborhood at a time, and that’s what you have to hyper focus on. Isn’t the end result but the now result. I was awesome, so thanks J dub, I look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas.
00:17:05:23 – 00:17:39:06
Thank you! I’m excited. Take care y’all! I’m super stoked to see you all in the breakout. So guys, if you ever struggled to stand out from the crowd and create a culture that leads to a very successful future, Jason Walker can help you get there. Here, Jason, go even deeper. Make sure you join us at Epic 2026, February 12th and 13 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, where he’ll present Differentiate or Die How to Set Your Business Apart from the Sea of Sameness.
00:17:39:08 – 00:18:06:14
On Friday, February 13th at 9:30 a.m.. You can learn more and register now at epic 2020 6.com. I’m David Holt and this has been cracking the code. Brought to you by EGI, a contractor university where we help you run a more profitable, more sustainable and less stressful contracting business. Until next time, keep on cracking.
