This Doctor Crushes HVAC Using Systems She Learned in the Operating Room | Deborah Jenkins

Deborah Jenkins is a retired physician and anesthesiologist who co-owns Doc J’s Heat and Air in Oklahoma with her husband Julius. In this episode of TradeOps Radio, she covers how medicine trained her to communicate with every personality type, why technicians are often a business’s best salespeople, the four content pillars her company uses on social media, and the automation principles that keep the business running without sacrificing human connection.

Deborah Jenkins did not plan to be in HVAC. She planned to be in medicine, and she was, for years, working as an anesthesiologist, then doing medical outreach with the French version of Doctors Without Borders in West Africa. She had seen infectious disease in the developing world. She had seen people die of conditions most American doctors would never encounter. Adaptability was not something she had to develop. It was already built.

She reconnected with Julius, her high school boyfriend, 40 years after they went their separate ways, through Facebook in 2014. He was an HVAC contractor. His dream was to build his own company again. She was going to help. That was how it started, in the fall of 2019, right before COVID.

“I really had kept that attitude at the beginning that this was something I was going to help with. But I got to tell you that I was fascinated with the science part.” She had tutored adults in math and science after retiring. When Julius needed to prep for the updated contractor exam, she was running 5 AM review sessions on capacitors and basic electronics. “Capacitors? That’s just a holding place for charge to give you an extra boost. I knew that.” What was painful for most contractors to study was genuinely fun for her.

Doc J’s Heat and Air is based in Oklahoma. Eighty percent of their business comes from existing customers and word of mouth. In this episode, Deborah covers what medicine taught her about HVAC customers, and how that shapes everything from sales conversations to social media content.

Medicine trains you to communicate under pressure with people who are scared, distracted, or in pain. The patient across from you might be an engineer who wants every detail of the procedure explained. Or they might be someone who is so anxious they will not hear a word you say until you calm them down. You learn, quickly, to read the room.

That skill transfers directly to the service industry in a way Deborah did not initially expect. “You often got a short period of time where you’re trying to explain something to someone and you don’t know if they got the engineer mind, the artistic mind, or the ‘oh my god, what are they about to tell me’ mind.” That third category is significant: customers who are so nervous about what the diagnosis is going to cost them that they are not actually processing what you are saying.

She identifies four broad customer types that show up in HVAC:

The process and systems person responds to facts and logic. They want timelines, averages, failure rates. Tell them the system is 30 years old, the average lifespan is 15 to 20, the refrigerant is obsolete. That is all they need to make the decision.

The caretaker thinks about everyone else first. They need to know the new system will keep the kids more comfortable. They respond to security, warranty, and knowing the investment will hold. “Mommy, when is it not going to be so hot anymore? I can’t even have any kids over.” That is the language of the caretaker’s real concern.

The engineer or gadget type wants SEER2 values and technical specifications. They have probably already researched your equipment online. Give them the technical depth they are looking for and they feel comfortable.

The action type does not want any of that. They want to know when you can put it in, how long it will take, and when they have to pay.

The key point Deborah makes: “Your personality is going to be the primary way that you approach other people.” If you are a process person, you will default to explaining systems to everyone, even the action type who already made the decision and just wants you to start. The conscious work is learning to meet each customer in the language they are actually using.

Multi-channel communication is part of the same philosophy. “If you’re trying to get a hold of someone, you can call them, text them, and send them an email. You don’t say, ‘Why should I try three different ways?’ Because communication is important, so just do it.” Medicine does not fight this logic. Neither should home services.

One of the most specific and actionable things Deborah says in the episode is about silence.

“You always want to pause because you really want to make sure those people are comfortable. If you don’t allow time for pausing, you’re not going to hear the truth. The truth comes when people are comfortable to be able to speak.” The service industry is full of people rushing to the next call. When a CSR or technician finishes their explanation and says “any questions?” and then immediately moves on before the customer can actually formulate a question, the conversation has failed regardless of how technically correct the explanation was.

Patience in the moment is free. It costs nothing and it produces trust.

On technicians: “Don’t always dismiss that your technicians can’t be your best salespeople.” This is counterintuitive to most HVAC owners who assume that introverted field techs cannot sell. Deborah’s framing is more precise. Technicians are introverts who are comfortable being in one-on-one situations and they are caretakers by nature. They are also the most trusted person in a customer’s home. “When you let somebody in your house, you have allowed them into your space. It may be a shabby little house but that’s their kingdom.”

The problem is when companies push product-of-the-month pressure onto technicians. That destroys the trust that makes them effective in the first place. The tech knows what the right solution is from the diagnosis. Let them bring it to the customer from that place of expertise. “Allow them to take good care of the customer, but also understand that always doing a repair may not be in the long-term best interest of the customer.” When the technician is operating from genuine care rather than a sales quota, customers feel the difference.

Finishing the visit with “is there anything else I can do for you today?” and then actually waiting for the answer surfaces real needs. Financing options handle the final objection. “That makes it much more reasonable for people to be able to figure out how to pay for things.”

Doc J’s Heat and Air runs four types of content on social media, and the framework is more intentional than it might appear from the outside.

Customer appreciation. A testimonial is not just a Google review. It is a photograph of the cookies a long-time customer baked specifically for the day the techs came to do the tuneup. It is the sweet tea that appeared when it was hot outside. It is the handwritten note a customer sent after a service call. A couple of rural customers raise chickens, and a dozen fresh eggs becomes the thank-you at the end of a visit. “When our customers give us cookies, we show the cookies.” The visual proof that customers genuinely care about the company does more for trust than any written review statement.

Contractor Corner. Educational content. Do I really need a tuneup? Have the refrigerants actually changed? Is the SEER rating they’re quoting you even accurate anymore? This bucket answers the questions customers are quietly wondering about but do not always ask.

Celebrations. “Contractors think some of this celebration stuff sounds kind of hokey. People go to social media to feel good.” HVAC Technician Day, Women in Construction, National Plumbing Day (which they use to show their plumbers some love), Support Local Business Saturday. The practical effect of Support Local Business Saturday is that Doc J’s can tag and shout out other local businesses, building those relationships visibly in front of the community.

Holidays become community resources. “If you’re going to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, don’t just put up a happy Cinco de Mayo post. List all the places in town that are going to have the face painting for the kids, the art exhibit, where they’re going to be doing some Latino dancing down at the green.” That post now serves the community rather than just the company. It tags other local organizations. “You don’t even have to say we’re local because big national companies don’t make it a point of supporting local business.”

Voice-over on photos. For companies that do not have time to produce video, recording a voice-over on a static photo turns it into video content. Deborah does this herself. For St. Patrick’s Day, she attempted an Irish brogue that she freely admits did not quite land. It was funny regardless, which was the point. “People don’t want to do that unless they’re having fun. And your customers know that.”

The Doc J bobblehead video became their most-talked-about piece of content. The company had its vehicles wrapped, including a bobblehead mascot in a white doctor’s coat. The techs filmed a chain where each one appeared and claimed to be “the real Doc J,” miming the words. Julius, the last one in, struck a fashion model pose next to the bobblehead. “I had no idea what he was going to do, but people kept saying, ‘Hey, Doc J, I saw you on Facebook, I can’t believe you did that.'”

Social media also functions as a reputation-building and recruiting channel. “You get your best people by attraction.” When potential employees see a company that is having fun, celebrating people, and clearly cares about its team, they are drawn in before they ever apply.

Women are 2% of HVAC technicians. Deborah is not surprised by that number but does not accept it as fixed.

She connects this to what she calls “pink collar poverty” the administrative and support roles where women get stuck without a clear advancement path. “You never want your job description to be ‘the gal in the office.’ Unless you can break into sales or something like that, advancement is not really there for you.” The trades offer a way out of that cycle with faster access to middle-class income.

For women considering the trades, her advice: start in residential HVAC rather than commercial. Often a woman answers the door, which creates immediate trust with a female tech. “Prove that you’re competent. Get that reputation.” Owners quickly notice that the conversion rate with a trusted female tech is strong.

For companies looking to hire more women: show them in your marketing. “I’ve never even had a woman apply.” Well, you have never shown a picture of a woman on your marketing. The HouseCall Pro Lady Pro Facebook group is a resource she specifically names for sourcing authentic photos of real female technicians in the field. “Make your outreach look like the people you’re willing to accept into your fold.”

Advertise for characteristics rather than experience. “You can teach the trade but it’s sure hard to teach people how to show up for work on time.” If the candidate has patience, adaptability, and good people skills, the technical knowledge can be built. The traits that make someone excellent in the field cannot.

She found one of her most promising future hires at a hamburger restaurant. A young woman who had worked there for three years, handled difficult customers with grace, and was clearly going nowhere in terms of advancement. They had been gently signaling interest for a while. When she finally said “I’m sick of this, I’ve been here three years, I’m making $13.50 an hour, I have to get out of here,” they were ready. “We’ve been waiting for her.”

On operations: get a CRM from day one that you can grow with, and build the marketing automation into it from the start. Automated reminders cut same-day cancellations significantly. Pipeline management through the CRM keeps follow-up from falling through the cracks. “There are hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost opportunity sitting in most businesses just from lack of follow-up.”

But automation has a clear limit. “When it’s really important and when it’s sensitive, you better pick that phone up. There is no substitute when you have a problem. Stop this silly emailing back and forth. It only creates more misunderstanding.” Oral communication solves problems that written communication makes worse. “We are oral communicators. And if you can actually Zoom with the person when there’s a problem, be in front of them.”

The permission-based follow-up approach she uses with estimates: if a customer says they want to get another quote, ask what day that is happening. “Would it be okay to call you in the afternoon?” That call becomes a chance to address any comparison concerns directly rather than losing the deal to silence.

Doc J’s Heat and Air is at docjsheatandair.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn under Deborah Jenkins. Book a free TradeOps strategy call to work through how any of these systems apply to your business.

Related: Facebook ads for HVAC companies.