THE AGENCY SCORECARD

Score each prospective agency from one to five across seven areas: HVAC or contractor experience, evidence from relevant work, clarity of scope, account ownership, measurement plan, first-90-day plan, and communication fit. Add a note beside every score. A total is less useful than the reason an agency earned or lost a point.

You are not looking for a perfect score. You are looking for gaps that could create expensive confusion after the contract is signed. If an agency cannot explain a score, keep the question open.

THE OWNERSHIP CHECKLIST

Confirm who owns the domain, website files, Google Business Profile, advertising accounts, analytics, call tracking, CRM configuration, creative, content, audiences, and reporting data. Ask who has administrator access today and how access will be transferred if the relationship ends.

Keep the answers with the signed scope. It is much easier to protect an asset before work starts than to rebuild it during a transition.

THE FIRST-MEETING AGENDA

Bring the jobs you want more of, the markets you serve, crew capacity, current lead sources, sales process, common call outcomes, and your best available revenue data. Ask the agency to repeat back what it heard. If it cannot describe your business simply, it is not ready to prescribe a campaign.

Then ask three direct questions: what should we do first, what would make this plan fail, and what will we know after 90 days that we do not know today? The answers show whether the agency is thinking about operations or only about channels.

EVIDENCE TO REQUEST

Ask for a named or permissioned example that resembles your work. You do not need a glossy success story. You need enough context to understand the business, starting problem, work performed, reporting method, period measured, and limits of the result.

If a case study uses a percentage or a cost number, ask what it means. Was it a call, form, booked job, sold job, or collected revenue? What changed in the business during the period? Clear answers are more valuable than a large headline number.

MAKE THE FINAL CHOICE ON FIT

A proposal can be technically sound and still be a poor fit. Consider approval speed, who owns the relationship, how the team handles bad news, how it will work with your office, and whether the plan respects your capacity.

Use the scorecard to make the decision concrete. Keep the agency accountable to the specific work you agreed to, and keep your own team accountable for the information and follow-through the work requires.