How Climate Engineering Expanded Its Services Footprint With Atlas

A Scattershot Approach

Co-owner and sales manager Eric Bindner has one thing in mind: help his reps be the best they can be to increase maintenance sales for the company. Previously, Climate Engineering’s team of maintenance sales reps (MSRs) would use a data provider to narrow down a list of businesses in a given area before hitting the pavement. Armed with a map on the mobile phone and a stack of business cards, prospecting for new customers became a time consuming chore, requiring knocking on multiple doors with multiple conversations to uncover a viable prospect. Too often leads might then linger, with scattered notes making it difficult to systematically track followup activity across early stages of the sales funnel. From a management perspective, this created lots of variability and uncertainty about the health of the team’s pipeline—putting quota attainment at risk.

New Processes Lead to New Markets

Atlas provides the property insights and activity management needed to transform the way Climate Engineering fills the top of its sales funnel. Built specifically for the commercial services sector, Atlas streamlines the ability to find the right buildings to target at the right time, while an integration with Salesforce creates a seamless view from initial prospecting efforts all the way to booking the business.

Salesforce sync for success. MSR Branden Jovaag uses Atlas to research prospects and build a targeted sales campaign within minutes: “I can customize my search, target a specific group of buildings, and then quickly move on.” Capturing notes and follow-up tasks directly in Atlas makes it his one-stop shop for prospecting activity. “With Salesforce, there’s no way to find and track my prospects. With Atlas, I can build a citywide map of where I’m going after and, because it syncs with Salesforce, I have all my account details in one click.” This also helps MSRs run priority campaigns like a Closed-Lost win-back effort. Climate Engineering uses Atlas to highlight current and lost customers, making it simple to create a list of targets for a quick check in.

With Atlas, I can build a citywide map of where I’m going after and, because it syncs with Salesforce, I have all my account details in one click.”

Branden Jovaag

Maintenance Sales Rep

Expanding into new territories. Climate Engineering had long considered moving into an adjacent region but lacked the data to justify whether there was sufficient business in the area to warrant a rep devoting effort to hunt for new business. Atlas flipped this scenario on its head.  Without leaving the office, the team used Atlas’ map-based approach to filter buildings in the area that met their qualification criteria, yielding 50+ leads in a matter of minutes. No cold calls needed—as Branden notes, “the data from Atlas gives me a talking point on the first contact” as part of a targeted campaign to book first appointments.

On the same page. When looking to expand the customer base, organization is key. Climate Engineering’s team uses Atlas to create a single view of the pipeline across reps and managers. “It brings more accountability and more awareness to what’s going on,” Branden notes. The real-time visualization of what the pipeline looks like serves as the focus point for coaching sessions and allows the team to proactively address potential headwinds, like too few first appointments, before they become problems.

Results: A Growing Pipeline

Using Atlas helps Climate Engineering reduce the time and increase the accuracy of its prospecting efforts—all while tracking leads in a way that aligns directly to the sales motion. Eric notes that “a big piece of what we were missing before was an easy visual of what the sales funnel looks like. Atlas makes it quick and easy to see this and that’s a big help.”

And the impact extends to a growing top line. To date, Branden alone has tracked 1250+ qualified prospects, 140+ first appointments, and 10+ proposals via his Atlas campaigns. “I’ve found buildings I would never have come across if not for Atlas, especially when pushing into a new territory. On another deal I’d had outdated information and was stuck at a dead end—Atlas gave me the information needed for the conversation to take off. The timing was perfect.”

About Climate Engineering

With a service territory that extends throughout Colorado, Climate Engineering has been working alongside building owners to proactively maintain air conditioning and mechanical systems at commercial and industrial facilities for more than 50 years.

• Headquarters: Colorado
• Service Area: Regional
• Industry: HVAC
• Employees: 30+
• Affiliation: ABM Linc Franchise (2018-present)