How to Sell Maintenance Agreements Without Sounding Like a Salesman

To sell maintenance agreements, offer a simple program, not a perfect one. Spell out what members get, such as priority service, a yearly inspection, and member perks. Ask every customer. If the first handful say no, check your price and your positioning before you quit. Pay your techs a spiff to sell it, and keep improving the program as you learn.

You know the agreement base is what carries a company. You have probably known it for years. And you keep putting it off until the program is ready: the right name, the right visits, the right price, the right paperwork. It is never ready. In our experience, a plain program that launches beats a perfect one that never does. Here is how we teach it, from what to put in it to how to get your crew to sell it.

How to Sell Maintenance Agreements: Start With a Simple Program

Mike Agugliaro says the reason most owners fail at this is simple:

People fail because they think it's forever.

They try to perfect the program before a single customer has seen it. His advice in one of our Marketing Power sessions was to stop doing that: "literally today just do a program." And do not overfill it. In his words, "just say we have a membership."

That is also the answer to the worry about sounding like a salesman. You are not pitching a product. You are telling a customer that you have a membership, what comes with it, and that you would like them to be in it. Every customer hears the same short offer. There is no pressure, no trick, and nothing to memorize.

One sentence of context on order. Mike teaches a package first, then a membership: "after you master a package then you master a membership." This post is about the membership, so we will leave the package for another day.

A note on words: we say membership, maintenance agreement, and service agreement almost interchangeably. What matters is what the customer gets, not the label on the page.

What Members Get

You do not need a long list. In the same session, Mike described a starter program with four pieces:

• Priority service. Members get moved up the schedule, so long as they give you a little notice.
• Discounts off service. A reason to stay in the program beyond the first year.
• A welcome package. Something small that shows up when they join.
• Member perks. Mike's example was a set of savings the member can pass along to family.

Mike's examples came from a business outside the trades, so here is our translation for a service company. Priority scheduling for members, a discount on repairs, a small welcome gift, and a perk that makes the customer feel like part of something. That is a starting point, not a template.

What your yearly visit covers is yours to define: the tune-up, the safety check, the drain and fixture inspection, the panel and device check. We are not giving you a universal list, because an HVAC visit, a plumbing visit, and an electrical visit cover different work, and you should write the list from your own trade. Write down what the member gets in plain English.

Use a Yearly Inspection as the Hook

The strongest idea in the session is also the simplest. When Mike started his electrical company, he sold a yearly home inspection as the membership. As he described it, nobody was doing electrical memberships then. He did not stack it with extras. The member got a 22-point inspection once a year, and that was the offer.

The first version of the paperwork was not fancy. By his telling, it was a simple sheet with 22 boxes on it, drawn by hand, and then cleaned up by someone who was good with a word processor and printed. That is the lesson. The first version of your program can fit on one sheet of paper.

An inspection works as a hook because it gives the customer something concrete to say yes to, and it puts a tech in the house on a schedule you set. That visit can also lead to the next repair or changeout conversation without a hard sell from anyone.

What to Charge: Test It, Do Not Guess

Owners stall here more than anywhere. The honest answer is that we do not have a price rule, and we are not going to make one up. Mike's story is a method. He started low, noticed that people said yes too fast, and wondered out loud if the price was too cheap. So he raised it, watched how many still said yes, and adjusted again. In the session he gave the sign-up figures from his own tests. We are leaving them out because they are one company's numbers, and yours will be different.

The lesson to take is the test itself. If almost everyone says yes right away, the price may be too low. If you ask a handful of customers in a row and they all say no, look at your positioning and price instead of deciding that customers do not want it. Mike's rule of thumb in the session was five. After five people say no, it could be positioning, price, or something like that, and you just keep going.

Pricing the agreement is one piece of how you price all of your work. If that is a mess too, start with our walkthrough on how to price work in a trades company and then come back to the membership.

Ask Every Customer and Read the Answer

Ask everyone. That is the whole tactic. A membership that only gets offered when the tech feels like it will never build a base. If a customer says no, do not argue. Read it. Mike's own reaction to a no was to wonder if he was missing something, and then to keep offering.

Keep the ask short and normal. The customer is already on the phone with a CSR, already at the table with a tech, or already looking at an invoice. A membership offer is one more sentence in a conversation that is already happening. You are offering the person who just trusted you with their house a reason to keep calling you.

Pay the Techs to Sell It

If your techs do not know what is in it for them, they will not sell it. Mike's version of this is a good question: he asked himself, "I wonder if my guys would sell it more if I gave them a spiff on it." So he gave them a small spiff, and by his account the crew started trying to sell the program to old customers. The amount and the results are one company's story, so we are not publishing them.

The principle is what matters. Tell your crew what they get when a customer becomes a member. Make it simple enough to explain in one sentence at the truck. And make sure the first customers they offer it to are the ones who already know them.

We are not handing you a tech pay plan here. Spiff structure, commissions, and what to do when the crew freezes up are your decisions, and they depend on your numbers and your market. If the crew is where the program stalls, our Fix Your Sales page is the place to start.

Keep Members Engaged With a 12-Month Maintenance Calendar

Selling the agreement is half of it. The other half is giving members a reason to hear from you between visits. At Gold Medal, Mike said, every customer got a 12-month calendar of what to check around the house each month. He built it to fill the gaps in what customers bought across the year, the stretches people call shoulder seasons, by promoting what made sense in each month.

His examples were everyday checks: smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, and making sure nothing is lodged in the outdoor air conditioner. Mike said each season had about 12 to 15 items. For a trades company, think about what a homeowner can safely look at in each month, and where a visit from your tech would be the natural next step.

Then came the follow-up. His outbound callers rang customers, walked through the month's check, and asked if they had done it. If not, the next question was simple: "would it be easier if we just set up an appointment to do it for you?" The customer was not being sold. They were being helped. That is how it kept going.

One design detail from Mike is worth stealing. Use check boxes, not bullet points. In his words, a box says "I need to check it off and do it," while a bullet point is just for awareness. He also left a couple of blank boxes so the customer could add their own.

Why a Membership Matters When the Economy Turns

Mike's argument for building this is not the monthly number. It is what the base does when things go bad. In the session he said, "you don't know how valuable a membership program is until there's an economic downturn." He credited his own membership with keeping his company alive through a downturn, and he explained why: "your loyal customers always buy and they always buy from you." Customers who are not loyal go shopping.

That loyalty also changes what a company is worth. Mike said "subscription and membership programs are what raises the value of an organization." A company with a base of members who keep calling is easier to run and easier to sell one day. We are not putting numbers on that here. The idea is enough to start building.

Test a New Member Perk Before You Build It

Say you want to add something to the program, like a new service or a new benefit. Do not build it first. Mike's advice in the session was to test it on social: post that you wonder if anybody would find value in it, and ask what is missing from the list. People who say yes will tell you what they would put on it. Then message them and ask what they would budget for it. Once enough people say yes, go sell it.

Where This Fits in How We Coach Owners

A maintenance agreement is not really a sales problem. It is a leadership and a systems problem: deciding what you offer, writing it down, getting your crew to ask, and following up the same way every time. That is the work in our rooms, and it is why we start owners on the leadership mistakes that keep the program on the shelf in the first place. We have run trucks and crews, so we know how easy it is to put the program on the shelf while the schedule fills up. Our job is to help you move it from the shelf to the truck.

Ready to Get the Program off the Shelf?

Want to learn how to grow and scale a home service business backed by $500 million worth of results?

Mike Agugliaro spent thirty-plus years in the trenches, scaled his own companies past $500 million in sales, and walked away with a successful exit. We built our rooms to hand owners that playbook, including how to build a member base your crew will actually sell. Results are not guaranteed and depend on your execution. Straight up, no pitch: let's talk business owner to business owner.

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FAQ

How do you sell maintenance agreements?

Offer a simple program and ask every customer. Spell out what members get, such as priority service, a discount on repairs, a welcome gift, and a yearly inspection. If the first handful say no, check your price and positioning before you quit. Tell your techs what is in it for them, and keep improving the program as you learn.

What should a maintenance agreement include?

Start with what the member gets: priority scheduling, a discount on service, a small welcome gift, member perks, and a yearly inspection or tune-up. Write it in plain English, not contract language. The exact contents of the visit depend on your trade and your company, so build the list from the work you do on service calls.

How do you price a maintenance agreement?

Test it. We do not have a price rule. Mike Agugliaro's method was to start low, notice when people said yes too fast, raise the price, and watch the response. If a handful of customers in a row say no, look at your positioning and price. Your numbers depend on your market, so start with a price you can defend.

Are maintenance agreements worth it for a trades company?

Mike Agugliaro says a membership builds loyalty, and loyal customers keep buying from you. He credits his own membership with keeping his company alive through a downturn. He also says subscription and membership programs raise the value of an organization. For an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical company, a base of members is steadier work and a company worth more.

How do you get technicians to sell maintenance agreements?

Tell them what is in it for them. Mike asked whether his guys would sell more with a spiff, gave them a small one, and they started offering the program to old customers. Keep the offer short enough to say at the truck, and have them start with customers who already know them. Spiff and pay structure depend on your company.

How do I keep maintenance agreement customers engaged?

Give members a reason to hear from you between visits. Mike's company sent every customer a 12-month calendar of what to check each month, with check boxes, and had callers follow up. The calendar filled the quiet months and gave customers an easy yes to an appointment. Build yours around what a homeowner can safely look at each month.

FuDog Group helps home-service owners in boots build Life, Business, and Wealth By Design. Results depend on your market, execution, and follow-through. No guarantees, no fairy tales.