The heating company launch checklist

Phase 1: Decide what you're building

Goal: two clear answers, what you'll sell and where. Every later step, from the name to the ads, depends on them.

1. List the services you'll offer in year one. Be specific: gas furnace repair and replacement, hot-water boiler service, ductless heat pumps, oil furnace maintenance. Fewer is better at the start.
2. Draw your service area by drive time. Mark the communities you can reach within a reasonable time on a winter morning. That's your real market, whatever the city limits say.
3. Look up what your province requires for those services. Find your trade safety authority and trade certification body on your provincial page. If you hold a Red Seal endorsement, remember that the Red Seal Program sets a national standard but not every trade is designated identically everywhere. Confirm requirements with the authorities directly.
4. Check your own capacity. How many jobs a week can you do alone? When will you need a second person? Your marketing should never promise more than you can deliver.
5. Rough out your numbers. Average job value, expected closing rate, and how much cash you can set aside for marketing in the first year. The first-year budget guide shows how.

Common mistake: choosing services based on what competitors advertise rather than what you're licensed, trained and equipped to do well.

Phase 2: Set up the business and the brand

Goal: a registrable name and the basic tools of a real company. Some of this is paperwork you'll do with registries and professionals; some is marketing.

1. Shortlist names and check them. Search your provincial business registry, look for a matching domain, and search Google Maps for similar names nearby. The naming guide walks through each check.
2. Register the business. Do this with your provincial or territorial registry, or through a lawyer or registry agent. The registry for your province is linked from your provincial page.
3. Buy the domain in the business's name. Not your web designer's, not a relative's.
4. Set up a dedicated business phone number that can receive texts. Decide now how missed calls will be handled: voicemail, call forwarding, or an automatic text reply.
5. Create a business email address on your domain, such as owner@[yourdomain].ca. It looks more established than a free webmail address.
6. Commission a simple visual identity: logo, colours and a van layout. Don't order the wrap until the name is registered. See naming and brand.
7. Handle insurance, workers' compensation, accounting and tax setup with the right professionals and your provincial workers' compensation board. These aren't marketing tasks, but your marketing shouldn't go live before they're done.

Common mistake: printing vans, shirts and cards before the name is registered and the domain is secured.

Phase 3: Get findable and trustworthy

Goal: a stranger can find you, check you out and reach you. This is the phase people rush, and it's the one that makes advertising work later.

1. Launch a small website. Five to seven pages: home, one page per main service, service area, about (with your real name, photo and trade background) and contact. Call and text buttons on every screen. See the launch website service.
2. Create and verify your Google Business Profile. Use your registered name, a real service area and accurate hours. If you work from home, hide the address rather than inventing an office. See the local launch service.
3. Add real photos everywhere: you, your van, your tools, your work. Stock photos make a new company look less real, not more.
4. Set up measurement. Website analytics, Google Search Console and, if you'll advertise, call tracking. You want to know where every call comes from.
5. Write down your prices or price ranges for common work, and how you'll present them. The Competition Bureau warns against drip pricing, where advertised prices leave out mandatory fees, so whatever you publish should be the real price.
6. Plan your customer communications. If you'll send reminder emails or texts, learn the consent basics under Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, and handle customer information in line with the privacy laws that apply to you.
7. Prepare your review request. A short message with a direct link, sent the same day as each job.

Common mistake: launching with "coming soon" pages, an unverified listing or no reviews, then wondering why ads don't convert.

Phase 4: Get calls

Goal: a steady flow of calls from people who need heating work in your area, at a cost you can afford.

1. Ask every early customer for a review. This is the highest-return marketing a new company does.
2. Tell everyone you know. Former colleagues, suppliers, neighbours. Referrals from people who've seen your work are the warmest leads you'll ever get.
3. Start capped paid search for your main services and your service area only. Set a monthly maximum you could lose without hurting the business. See the first-year lead plan.
4. Answer the phone, or text back fast. A new company that answers wins jobs that established firms miss.
5. Review the numbers monthly. Calls by source, booked jobs and cost per booked job. Adjust from there.
6. Plan your first autumn. In most of Canada the first cold weeks bring a surge of searches. Be findable, reachable and staffed before then.

Common mistake: judging marketing after one or two weeks. Early numbers are noisy. Give each channel a fair test.

A realistic timeline

The marketing timeline below assumes you work on it alongside your paperwork. Registration, licensing and insurance times are set by others and can be longer.

Your one-page checklist

Copy this and tick it off:

• ☐ Services listed (year one only)
• ☐ Service area drawn by drive time
• ☐ Provincial authorities looked up and requirements confirmed directly
• ☐ Name checked: registry, domain, nearby competitors, phone test
• ☐ Business registered
• ☐ Domain in the business's name
• ☐ Business phone with text and a missed-call plan
• ☐ Logo, colours and van layout
• ☐ Insurance, workers' compensation, accounting set up with professionals
• ☐ Website live with call and text buttons
• ☐ Google Business Profile verified
• ☐ Real photos uploaded
• ☐ Analytics, Search Console and call tracking set up
• ☐ Price presentation decided, with no hidden mandatory fees
• ☐ Review request message ready
• ☐ Paid search capped and tracked
• ☐ Monthly numbers review booked in your calendar

If you'd like help with any part of phases 2 to 4, see our services or get in touch.