How Star Heating and Cooling Built Trust Through The Right Technology Partner
Sarah Wallace, Operations Manager at Star Heating and Cooling, represents the evolution of modern business leadership. Starting as the “paperwork girl” twelve years ago at her father’s HVAC company, founded in 1987, Sarah has transformed into a strategic operations leader overseeing a team of over 20 employees across heating, cooling, and plumbing services. Her journey illustrates a critical challenge facing business leaders today: recognizing when technical expertise should be delegated to focus on core competencies and relationship building.
The foundation of Star’s successful technology partnership with COVI wasn’t built through traditional vendor selection processes, but through years of relationship development in their local BNI networking group. This personal connection became the bedrock of professional trust, demonstrating that in an age of digital transactions, human relationships remain paramount. Sarah’s decision to outsource IT management came from a clear realization: “I don’t want to work on computers. I want to sell furnaces and air conditioners.” This clarity about the core value proposition enabled Star to invest in best-in-class solutions like Service Titan while ensuring their technology infrastructure could support field operations without becoming a daily operational burden.
The strategic shift from reactive to proactive technology management has created the breathing room Sarah needed to return to relationship building—the work that energizes her most. By partnering with experts who understand both the technical requirements and the human impact of technology decisions, Star has positioned itself for continued growth, including plans for a second location. The lesson for business leaders is clear: the right technology partnership doesn’t just solve problems—it creates capacity for leaders to focus on what drives their business forward while building the infrastructure necessary for sustainable growth.
Episode Summary:
Sarah Wallace from Star Heating and Cooling shares how her family’s HVAC business scaled from a one-person operation to a comprehensive comfort solutions provider while maintaining their relationship-first approach.
Key Topics:
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Strategic delegation frees leaders to focus on relationships and growth instead of technical tasks
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Building trust with technology partners requires time and relationship development outside of business transactions
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Proactive IT management prevents crisis situations and enables better budget planning
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The right software platforms automate mundane tasks so teams can focus on customer service
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Redundancy in technology systems is critical for field teams and customer experience
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Episode Transcript
The COVI Way - Episode 11
Featuring Cody Lents and Sarah Wallace
Welcome to The COVI Way, the podcast where we break down the intersection of people and technology because IT shouldn’t just be about fixing problems. It should be about enabling people to do their best work. I’m Cody Lents, the VP of sales at COVI. And today we’re discussing the human beings behind the hustle that deliver excellent customer experiences with Sarah Wallace, the operations manager for Star Heating and Cooling.
Now I’ve had the privilege of knowing Sarah and the Star team for nearly a decade. And what you’re about to hear is a masterclass in authentic growth. When we first met in 2015, Star was already a solid family owned HVAC company that had been around since 1987. But what Sarah and her team have built over the last decade, that’s something special. They’ve evolved from a traditional heating and cooling company into a full service comfort solutions provider, adding in plumbing, and becoming one of less than 3% of contractors nationwide to earn Carrier Factory authorized dealer status. But here’s what really sets them apart. They’ve scaled without losing their soul. While most companies chase growth at any cost, Star has maintained their no-pressure, education-first approach that actually builds trust.
Cody: All right, well, Sarah, thanks for coming today. I think this is your first time filming a podcast.
Sarah: It is.
Cody: On a level of one to seven, how nervous are you?
Sarah: Five.
Cody: Five. That’s pretty nervous. Yeah, that’s all right. We will make sure to mess you up as often as possible so that you can blame it on us. Okay, all right. Awesome. I don’t actually know how long you’ve worked for Star, but I know your dad started in the 80s, right?
Sarah: Yes. So tell me why, if you know why dad started the organization and then how you got involved.
Cody: Okay. Well my dad taught heating and air for 25 years at Ivy Tech, ITT.
Sarah: Oh wow.
Cody: Yeah. And he decided to just, he self taught himself before he got started teaching. And then he always had a business on the side fixing people’s air conditioners when he wasn’t teaching, and then he just grew into a business. Yeah, instead of a one man show, he outgrew it.
Sarah: Yeah. That’s cool. And August 25th is my 12 years at Star Heating and Cooling.
Cody: Ah, so you would have started at what, 12? So 2013. You’re gonna say mid 2010s? 2013. That is when I started at COVI. Oh, cool. August or September, I think I came in on a 1099 contract. Okay, so cool. That’s pretty neat. Yeah, we have a similar timeline. Yes. What was the first role you had?
Sarah: Paperwork girl. Back office specialist. Yes. He was struggling with, he was working, installing, doing all the things. And so he needed someone to do the paperwork.
Cody: That is usually the first, what is it? Non-technical hire is get my invoices out the door, get my quotes out the door because I need to go tinker. Yep, totally get it. I know now you do operations for the whole thing, which is much bigger than one or five people. At last I checked, I think we were well over 20 and you wear like a million hats. I do, a lot of operations people. So tell me a little bit about like what you love and what you hate about the hustle that is required to juggle hats all day.
Sarah: What I love is that every day is a different day. So it’s never boring. What I hate is that I get sidetracked very easily, very often. Squirrel, you know, so.
Cody: Why do you think that is, the sidetracking?
Sarah: I think that it’s just the line of business that we’re a part of. It’s the line of business. It seems like everyone that works at Star has a little ADHD. And then the nature of the business kind of inflames that. Yeah. So a lot of the things on fire. So somebody got in an accident.
Cody: Oh man. And so it’s not even just like, again, breaking what the fourth wall, Star does all of Cody’s HVAC and a lot of my plumbing. And so it’s not just me calling and being like, Hey, my split units got a drip. What do I do? It’s also, Hey, Vince ran into a car at the stoplight.
Sarah: Oh, I didn’t even think about that. I guess we probably have that problem that I don’t know about too.
Cody: Right. That’s crazy. So what does a typical day look like for you? I know it’s going to be really different, but in generalities, what, is it typical?
Sarah: Well, now that we’ve expanded our office and I have a great group of people right now, I’m trying to empower everyone to do the things and not me do the things. Successful delegation. I’m gonna summarize that for you to be succinct. And that’s been very hard for me.
Cody: Although I’m also a really bad delegator. Yeah. We probably align more with timelines. Yeah. Than just timelines. But I’m finding like somebody came to me this morning and was like, I’m having a problem with the AIA billing. And I’m like, okay, I’m trying to get these jobs over here, figure it out. And inside of you, how does that make you feel?
Sarah: Well, it’s getting easier because I can’t, I can’t do all the things. I want to do everything, but I can’t. Cause time, time. Yeah. Like you have the skillset, but not the time. Yeah. And plus I have the people. So why not let the people do the things?
Cody: So have you reached the point where you’re starting to see a return on that investment? Like the people are starting to self-serve?
Sarah: We have a great group of people. I’m, I’m kind of just like I don’t have to be there till five o’clock. For example, I should be able to come and go as I please. It’s not that I’m out drinking margaritas, but unfortunately. Right. But I should be able to come here and do this podcast, go to meetings and not affect the day-to-day operations. So. Yeah.
Cody: Yeah. Cause you’re the strategic operations leader, not the tactical operations component. To work on the business, not in the business. I know that, I think it was probably 2021 or 2022 or both, is when you guys kind of, I think you paid a consultant and revamped your operations from the bottom up or top down or whatever that perspective was. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Sarah: Yes, we partnered with BDR, their HVAC specialist. They helped us get our books in order. Just helped us see a lot of things where efficiencies were lower, where we need to increase efficiencies to increase profit. And it’s been very good for us. Yep. It’s given us some structure.
Cody: Yeah. Did you always do commercial or did that kind of align in the same?
Sarah: We’ve always done commercial.
Cody: Yeah. Between your residential and commercial business, what is the most rewarding like for you?
Sarah: Good question. Yeah. Producing a product that everyone’s happy with. So it’s a good feeling when the job’s done and we can look at the job, whether it’s residential or commercial, and we have a satisfied customer. You know, I think the thing I love about it is the building of relationships. So that’s good. You know, we can build them with homeowners, everyday people, or we can build them with general contractors and owners.
Cody: Do you still get to do that?
Sarah: We have a big meeting today, so I’m excited about that. I haven’t been, but I’m getting back in it because that’s what I like.
Cody: Yeah. So that gives you the energy.
Sarah: Yeah. Yes. That’s good.
Cody: During the operations revamp or whatever we want to call it, calibration. I think that COVI came in to help right on the tail end of that. Yeah. Can you provide some insight or just like an example of how the technology and the IT things were impacting you and you are still kind of the main person in control of all that or responsible for all that.
Sarah: I would say that when I realized, first of all, I don’t want to work on computers. I want to sell furnaces and air conditioners. You know what I mean? So I think when it became, when it became more of a, you know, if I was going to fix a computer, it would take me all day probably. You know, when I started realizing the value of my time. And then I would say going into COVID, that really signified the need for a company to take care of our IT. Because that was rough and we were, we got that going.
Cody: Yep. And I know you had kind of the bare minimum version of IT help before we came in.
Sarah: Yeah, it was very slow. They didn’t understand if our CRM was down, we were stuck. I don’t think they got that. This was, we’re losing money here.
Cody: Yeah, and that’s what I was gonna ask is through that operations elevation and starting to outsource different parts of your technology. And I think you also like adopted a new phone system. And shortly after you went to a new software, Service Titan. Yeah, I’m gonna ask you about Service Titan in a little bit. But when you were getting into that, it’s like you’re giving over an entire third of your organization to somebody else. So what’s the like trust component of that?
Sarah: I made that 33% up there, but I just, I know that like technology is the keys to the kingdom. And like you said, if it doesn’t work, then we don’t work. And so how did you evaluate how to trust someone to take that over?
Cody: Well, I would have to say that I put a lot of that into BNI. The networking group. The networking group and that’s where I met you and I listened to you week after week and just the trust started building there.
Sarah: Yeah, I think we talked. We talked many times before we even signed. Yeah, I think we talked specifically about IT for Star like two years before we really started talking about IT for Star and then in between it was just casual conversation. But at that time, that became more, I don’t have time to do IT. It was a delegation piece. Like, okay, I need to do this. I get frustrated when I have to work on computers. I’m happy to say call somebody.
Cody: Between you and me then, we built trust basically because we had a relationship outside of the professional space. Technically BNI was professional, but we weren’t exchanging dollars or anything at that time. But I do think there’s an element of the personal relationship for me, BNI, if I like you personally, then I’m probably going to trust you with my business. You know?
Sarah: Can you describe either before we were helping you out as COVI or after whenever it happened, when you really felt like you made the right decision and like, like the trust was real and that like our expertise was something that was going to be helpful. And it wasn’t just the sales guy at the network event talking about what they did.
Cody: Well, I will tell you, you did say one thing to me when we first signed and you said you’re going to hate us for a year. And after that, and I did, I did not agree with that. I changed it now. Cause I, cause I felt immediate relief.
Sarah: So yeah, I usually, so I used to say you’re gonna hate us for the first year and then you’re going to love us and I’m going to ask you for a hundred referrals. Now I’ve changed that to, Hey, you’re probably going to like us pretty quick. Like the first month or so. But, and you can hold us to our standards that we’ve talked about right away, but don’t judge us by that standard for 180 days, because we still have to get to know you a little bit better before we’re going to be able to hit a stride.
Cody: Right. I think your feedback is what had me changed that. So thank you. Yeah. Do you have any examples or like a good story of where we’ve helped navigate like a crazy IT crisis or a plan?
Sarah: Oh, I don’t even know this. Okay. So Monday I signed up. I’m trying to learn how to work on WordPress websites. Who, fun? We pay marketing company a lot of money and I’m like, I’m going to learn how to do this myself. So I signed up for a WordPress class. And you have to download all these things and all this thing. And in the middle of class, I had to contact IT. I called and it was like, hey, I need help. I can’t, you know, I think it was Brandon.
Cody: Yeah. Brandon’s awesome.
Sarah: Brandon was on the training. He was in the class with me basically in my computer for a long time, trying to help me get this up and going. And that was very helpful. He’s awesome.
Cody: And it was, it was probably our cybersecurity controls that were keeping you from being able to do whatever they were asking you and you didn’t have any notice. Normally we would do that in administrator access. Yeah. That’s good. I don’t know that we would always be able to be that real time responsive in that scenario. I’m really glad we were.
Sarah: Yes. I know you can’t, everyone understood my, my gosh, I’m in this class. I can’t do anything. So it was great.
Cody: That’s, I would say a proud father moment if you can call me a father in this context, but a point of pride that for a team of highly technically minded people. The COVI crew is really focused on understanding and empathizing and executing in the best way possible. And that is something we do train, but it is also something that just is in our people’s DNA.
Sarah: I think it’s in our people’s DNA too though. We get that. So we drive.
Cody: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I couldn’t imagine working for a technical organization that didn’t have so many emotionally in tune people. That’s probably the way to say it. Or just emotionally prioritized people. Right. Read the room.
Sarah: They read, they know to read the room and care.
Cody: Yes. It’s the give a damn factor. I’ve heard a few times from different clients is a big thing that they appreciate. And, I, again, those are the types of pieces of feedback or kudos or whatever you wanna call it that makes me really excited every day. Like I really enjoy these big complex financial puzzles and solution consulting and all of that, but it feels great when that happens.
Sarah: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, helping people.
Cody: I know that it took us a couple of years because we had to unwind some crazy clunk that you inherited on your mobile devices. But after we got through that, can you tell me how technology impacts your field team? It doesn’t have to be what COVI’s doing. It’s just in general, how your team uses technology and how that impacts your client experience.
Sarah: Well, we use Service Titan. So everyone, everything is done on Service Titan. The technicians, when they’re out on a service call, they do everything electronically. Their phones and tablets have to be working or it is very frustrating. The customer sign off on it. We do everything with Service Titan and everyone is in Service Titan every day. So it’s very important.
Cody: So have you had a problem with that before? I don’t remember one. I’m just asking.
Sarah: Yes. Well, yes, we couldn’t manage our if someone, if an employee left and they came and brought me their phone and it was black, I couldn’t get in the phone and tablet. I had to call Apple. It was, it was a nightmare. So but that didn’t impact the clients. So the stuff were it was really just the turnover of staff.
Cody: Yes. That’s good. I mean, that’s sort of staff part. No, the client part. And so since then, that’s what that two hour or two year project that we thought was going to be about three months. That is where we got access to all of those devices, your phones and your tablets and got them integrated into the Apple business system. And then now we can help or even sometimes you can self serve in the portal to get access to those things. Is there a main challenge or point of contention for the field team with technology where it trips them up?
Sarah: They’re used to spinning screws and running pipes. They’re just not as… It’s kind of, you think that the technical transfer, but it doesn’t. No, it’s not the same. They just don’t, if they don’t have any patience, if something goes wrong. Yeah. And they’re out there. So I can’t, I’m not with them. I can’t look at it. You know, so that’s probably the biggest frustration.
Cody: We had to experience that very often since we were able to elevate the mobile phone and tablet huge kinks still from that, yeah. I’ll have to get the iron out. Yeah. So we can get this. Now it’s like, don’t touch it. It’s good. That’s the old school. Yeah. Put a server in the back room for 10 years and hope everything works. Right. Yeah. I know that we’ve turned a lot into proactive since we first came in. Like we usually know I do. That’s another thing I would say as an attaboy for COVI is that the proactive piece. We’re not waiting for things to fail. We’re talking about them and you know, I, I even though maybe we’re not making moves right away that we can, but I know it’s there.
Sarah: Yeah. We usually try to budget a year in advance for it. I know like we were just talking about taking your server to the cloud. We were going to do that recently and then we decided we were going to wait till next year because we had some more life in the server and some time to get there. It just helps me to know if something does happen with the server. I know this is going to cost a lot of money. Even though I don’t know exactly how much, I know that it’s going to be an oh shit moment.
Cody: Regardless of it being an oh shit moment, sorry for cussing, but it is one though. I’m pretty sure that we have the parental advisory sticker on our thing. You might be the first one that broke the wall though. It literally would be an oh shit moment, but I know what’s going to happen. So just being able to know and plan ahead.
Sarah: It was good. Yep. And I believe our team and I actually think it’s in my inbox right now has scoped a plan for how to handle that crisis and an estimate of what it would cost. You haven’t seen it yet because I think it’s on my list for our next meeting. The best way is for us to do it proactively on a pre-scheduled plan and know what that investment looks like a year in advance, depending on hardware changes and then execute it. But when you’re expanding a whole division like you guys did in the plumbing and we decided to allocate funds that direction. And we do have some life in the server that we can run it through. Warranty’s expired. Instead of leaving you with the shit moment, we wanna make sure that you have a, hey, this is what oh shit looks like and this is what makes it oh poop instead. And so that’s something you haven’t got to see fully. I know we’ve talked about it quite a few times, but you’ll get to see that data here in our next meeting.
Cody: The other thing that you changed when you outsourced your IT stuff off your plate, I think it wasn’t right away, but within a year or so after you also switched to the best in class software you’ve mentioned a couple of times, which is Service Titan. What led to that decision?
Sarah: They’re just the best of the best and they’re expensive. And so that was, I mean, that was a cost that we had to think about, but there’s no, there’s no, they’re the top. There’s no going, going back. Is it worth the investment? It’s worth it. Okay. Yeah. We do have a girl on staff that is our Service Titan champion. We would not been able to do all the things she knows it inside and out and has learned it. And thank you really have to have someone on staff to do that because we were barely scratching the surface.
Cody: Yeah. That’s why there’s a lot of things. That’s what we were elevating at the end of the year last year. Right. It was you were asking us for a few things to make your Service Titan work better on our end, which was email related. I remember right. Can you give me an example of what is so much better, just one thing that is so much better now in Service Titan than it was before with whatever solution you used?
Sarah: Service Titan can communicate with the customer, the technician all at one time. It sends reminders out about maintenance, it emails them different options if they have quotes, it sends follow-ups on the quotes. The other programs didn’t do that. We had to manually do it.
Cody: Yeah. So it’s automating your kind of mundane, repeatable tasks that aren’t really interacting much with that are very time consuming if you’re doing it manually. So then you go back to the now I can connect with humans again.
Sarah: Right. That’s cool. And I know a little bit about service. When you got I joined the Facebook Service Titan group, but I’ve obviously never used it. So I don’t know. But I get to see it as a consumer.
Cody: Yeah. No, I’m thinking of like the text I get and like the emails. Like when I forget to sign a quote. Right. So, yeah, no, it’s great because I would just keep forgetting because I’m checking my COVI inbox a lot more than my Cody inbox. So what’s next for Star or Sarah or both?
Sarah: Well, we would love to have another location.
Cody: Oh, what’s the what’s the purpose of that?
Sarah: Well, Google, you know, Google, Google’s, you know, you search HVAC near me, you know, and on our street currently, we have just have Mr. Quick moved at the end of our building. Oh, Peterman has an office down the road and we have Action here. Everybody wants on Britain Park Road. So now when people search near me about options, which I mean, options aren’t bad, but it’s, it sounds like based on your air quotes, that some of this is strategic decision-making and not so much operational efficiencies for my lead generation perspective.
Cody: We are going to need more space too. You know, so it’s like killed two birds with one stone. And I think a lot of your team travel from all over the city. So it’s not like you’re, you’re centered in the North side and restricted to that. It’s just, that’s where the office is.
Sarah: Right. That’s cool. So anyway, I see some IT things in the future.
Cody: Yeah. Well, that sounds like grunt work of moving and expanding, which is, is not, difficult strategically, like you, I couldn’t imagine doing something like that without an IT company. You know? Yeah. And turning this podcast into a slight meeting, meeting moment here, we’ll probably try to align your server cloud initiative with the move because it’ll, it’ll maximize your investment. Right. So being able to spend the same amount of hours on two different initiatives at the same time. Right. That leads me to my tech tip. And so based off what you’re talking about with the field guys and now you’re moving, so you have multiple offices. One of the things that we like to mention, especially to our construction organizations that have field teams is that redundancy is really important. So if your entire customer experience relies on a phone, it might make sense for you to make it rely on a tablet. So your phone is your backup device, or if your entire organization runs on Service Titan, we better make sure that you have multiple internet connections so that your office can access those, or you have a plan to go home and access it from your home internet or pull out your hotspot from your phone. But the point is, is having redundant connections and redundant devices and redundant plans or plans for redundancy is vital to make sure that your field team isn’t just sitting there idle while your customers are getting frustrated.
Sarah: Well, Sarah, thanks for coming today.
Cody: Yeah, you’re welcome. Was it as scary as you thought?
Sarah: No.
Cody: Oh, good. Thanks.
Today’s conversation shows the technology, cybersecurity and operational excellence doesn’t have to be a black hole of stress and unpredictable costs. For leaders balancing it all, trusted partners become more than a vendor. They’re a safeguard for your culture, your cash flow, and your customer’s experience. The right support builds in breathing room and gives you space to lead and for your team to use their tools to be successful.
