Buying a heating company: the marketing handover checklist

Before closing: the marketing inventory

The single most valuable step is a full inventory of the seller's marketing assets before closing, while the seller is still motivated to help. Ask for each item in writing, and check each login yourself rather than taking a list on trust.

Phones

• Every phone number in use, including old ones still printed on stickers and invoices
• The carrier and the account holder's name for each
• Where each number appears: trucks, website, Google, directories, invoices, equipment stickers
• Any call-tracking numbers and the service that owns them
• After-hours answering arrangements

Google and search

• Every Google Business Profile, with its owners and managers
• Any duplicates or old listings under former names
• Search Console and analytics access for the website

Website and domain

• The domain name, the registrar, the account holder and the renewal date
• Hosting provider and account holder
• Admin logins for the website
• Any email addresses on the domain, and what depends on them

Ads and social

• Google Ads, Meta and any other ad accounts, with the payment method on each
• Social accounts, and the email addresses and phone numbers they are tied to
• Directory and listing services, and any paid listings with renewal dates

Customers and consent

• Where the customer list lives (field-service software, CRM, spreadsheet)
• How email and text consent was collected and recorded
• Maintenance-plan customers and their renewal dates

Why consent records matter

A heating company's customer list is valuable for maintenance reminders and seasonal offers, but you may not be free to use it the way the seller did. Canada's anti-spam law requires consent for commercial electronic messages. ISED's guidance on consent explains that implied consent from a purchase or inquiry is time-limited, and that senders should be ready to prove consent.

Privacy law also applies to the customer information you acquire. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner explains that PIPEDA covers most private-sector businesses, while Alberta, BC and Quebec have their own laws for businesses operating entirely within those provinces. Ask your lawyer how both apply to your deal before sending anything.

Day 1: take control, change nothing visible

On the day you take over, aim for full control with zero visible change. Customers should notice nothing.

1. Transfer ownership of every Google profile to your company account; keep the seller as manager briefly if helpful
2. Move the domain to your registrar account and set auto-renew
3. Take over hosting and website admin; change passwords
4. Change payment methods on ad accounts; pause nothing yet
5. Start porting phone numbers to your company's telephone account
6. Add the acquired branch to your call routing number register

Leave the name, logo, website design and ads as they are. The worst outcome in the first month is a drop in calls because something visible changed too early.

Months 1–3: "now part of"

Once accounts are secure, tell customers gently. Add a line such as "[Acquired name] is now part of [Your brand]" to the website, the profile description and invoices. Keep answering the phone with the familiar name, perhaps followed by the new one. Meanwhile, measure: calls and booked jobs on the acquired numbers each week, compared with the same weeks last year if the seller can provide them.

This is also the time to bring the acquired location under your branch marketing standard: review requests, offer wording and approvals.

Months 3–9: the staged rebrand

When call volumes are stable, move in stages. The order matters.

1. Signs and trucks. Real-world branding changes first.
2. Google profile name. Updated to match the new signs, once they are up. Google's guidelines say the name should reflect the real-world name and that chain locations should use a consistent name.
3. Website. Move content to a branch page on your main site, with page-by-page redirects from the old domain. Keep the old domain registered and redirecting for years, not months.
4. Phone answering. Switch the greeting to your brand.
5. Ads. Rebuild campaigns under your brand, with the acquired branch as its own location.

Keep the phone numbers throughout. Changing a number that customers have used for years is a choice to lose some of them.

Merging two branches in one town

Sometimes the acquired company sits in a town where you already have a branch. Then you have two profiles, two numbers and two websites competing for the same searches.

Options, roughly in order of caution:

Whichever you choose, map every number, profile and page to the surviving branch, and track calls weekly through the change.

Measuring the handover

Three measures tell you whether the marketing side of the acquisition worked:

• Call retention: calls on the acquired numbers in months 1–6 against the same months in the prior year
• Booked jobs by source for the acquired branch, in your branch report
• Review continuity: the acquired profile's review count kept, with new reviews still arriving

Common mistakes

• Closing without checking who owns the Google profile
• Letting the acquired domain lapse after moving the website
• Changing phone numbers to "clean up" the brand
• Emailing the whole acquired list on day one
• Renaming the profile before the signs change
• Judging the acquired branch in month two, when customers are still adjusting

HeatingConsultants.ca is a marketing and business consulting service, not a heating contractor, and we give no legal, tax, securities or real-estate advice. Our new branch and acquisitions service covers this work, and the contact page explains how to reach Ali before you close.