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In this episode of the Dominate Ductless Podcast, we sit down with David Sampaio—owner of Sum Zero Energy in Massachusetts—to explore how an accidental entry into HVAC led to building a thriving ductless-focused business. David’s unique background in sales and fitness training, combined with strategic business lessons learned from Dominate Ductless training, showcase how intentional marketing and protecting your bottom line can transform any HVAC operation.
[01:08] – From Personal Trainer to HVAC: David explains his accidental entry into HVAC after 5 years as a personal trainer and sales manager, where he learned scripted sales processes that would later serve him well.
[04:00] – Daily Operations & AI Integration: David details his 7 AM start time and how he uses Service Titan’s AI Sales Pro software to monitor sales calls without physically being present.
[06:18] – AI Tools for Business Growth: Discussion of Avoca AI chat features and how artificial intelligence is generating additional revenue through automated customer interactions.
[10:18] – Using NETR as Business Model: David reveals how Sum Zero Energy looked to NETR Inc. as their model business when starting out, with 83% of their jobs being heat pump installations.
[11:01] – The Framingham Training Event: David describes attending the Dominate Ductless class where only 5 out of 18 registered contractors showed up, giving him more one-on-one learning opportunities.
[15:09] – Google Clustering Marketing Strategy: David’s first major takeaway – learning about intentional marketing through Google clustering instead of “spray and pray” approaches.
[18:47] – Protecting the Bottom Line: Second key lesson about the critical importance of profit margins and intentional daily decisions to protect business profitability.
[22:12] – Professionalizing the Customer Experience: Third major insight on competing with larger companies through superior customer service, speed to lead, and professional presentation.
[24:08] – The Power of Professional Appearance: Mike shares real-world examples of how simple professionalism like booties and drop cloths wins jobs and beats big company competition.
[28:00] – Simple SOPs That Work: David discusses learning to create straightforward standard operating procedures with pictures and bullet points rather than overcomplicated processes.
[29:33] – Industry Profit Margins Reality Check: Discussion of the shocking 1-2% national average net profit for HVAC companies and why most contractors are essentially buying themselves jobs.
[31:17] – Ductless vs. Ducted Profitability: Analysis of the dramatic profit differences between ductless and traditional ducted installations, with ductless providing significantly better margins.
When David talks about the national average HVAC company making only 1-2% net profit, he’s highlighting the elephant in the room that most contractors refuse to acknowledge. These are business owners taking on massive liability, working 60-hour weeks, dealing with employee headaches, and essentially buying themselves minimum-wage jobs. That’s not entrepreneurship—that’s insanity.
But here’s what separates David from the pack: he gets that 83% of his business being heat pumps isn’t an accident—it’s a strategic choice. While other contractors are out there competing on price for low-margin ducted work, David’s building a business model that actually makes sense. He’s proving that when you focus on ductless technology and professionalize every aspect of your operation, you can compete with the big boys without sacrificing your margins.
His approach to AI integration and systematic marketing shows he understands that successful contractors in 2025 aren’t just good with wrenches—they’re business operators who leverage technology to scale efficiently. Most importantly, David demonstrates that continuous learning isn’t optional anymore. The contractors who show up to training sessions, ask questions, and implement what they learn are the ones who’ll thrive while others struggle to survive.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Mike: Welcome to the Dominate Ductless Podcast, where we tell the stories of entrepreneurs who are building businesses that are focused on ductless heat pumps. I’m Mike Cappuccio, the owner of Dominate Ductless, and I’m excited today to have a longtime friend and business owner, David Sampaio from Sum Zero Energy. Good morning, Dave.
David: Very good. How are you, Mike? Good to be with you.
Mike: Tell the audience a little bit about yourself, about your company and your day-to-day roles there. How did you get involved in this? Tell us the story.
David: Well, I fell into HVAC by accident. In my former life, I was actually a personal trainer and sales manager for a personal training business. I was fortunate enough to be mentored by the owner of the franchise—they had about 90 franchises in the state of Massachusetts. It was all about sales, sales, sales. Everything was scripted and recorded—cold calling, how the customer walks in, body language. Everything was scripted to elicit a certain response. Little did I know that would serve me well.
Five years into that, I did construction on the side. I always liked to work. I had some construction knowledge, but I thought I wanted to go that career path. I ended up leaving that industry—it’s a very tough industry to be in. I got burned out, you don’t get paid very well, and I was looking for any sales job really, and I fell into HVAC. One guy gave me a chance, I shadowed him, took a lot of training courses and certification courses so I could actually learn and know what I’m talking about and selling. I did that for a little while and fell in love with the industry. One day I said, “You know what? I think I can do this better.” So six years later, I founded Sum Zero along with my business partner Ilya.
Mike: Once you get into this HVAC stuff as a young guy, it’s very hard to get out. It consumes you. Here I am, 64 years old, I’ve been doing this for 44 years now. I sold my business and here I am, still working every day—probably more now than when I owned my business. What are your day-to-day roles now?
David: I’m on top of operations and sales mostly. I usually get in early morning—7:00, 7:30. I like to get a little exercise in the morning just to clear my mind, give me some energy for the day. I overview the boys coming in, the installers, making sure my install manager is all set for the day. Checking in on our dispatcher, call boards, seeing if they need any help or guidance.
Then it’s a lot of managerial tasks—checking in on sales numbers, listening into sales calls, making notes where I can coach them. We use an AI tool called Service Titan—it’s their Sales Pro software. It’s a great tool that gives me access to ride along without physically being there. Sales is everything, as you know. Looking into numbers, data, numbers are everything. Checking in on operations, holding meetings with production crews—it’s a lot of checking in, following up, accountability.
Mike: I’m seeing AI more and more in the HVAC industry. Do you find that helpful?
David: I do. We’re actually getting into a couple other AI tools. One is called Avoca—it’s an AI chat feature on your website. You teach it things about your business, what you offer, what you don’t offer, prices. Basically it responds for you so you don’t have to have a human respond—much cheaper than a human, by the way. It can even do some outbound texting, checking in, and we’ve experimented with some and actually has helped us generate some additional income because of it. I think it’s the new wave and it’s a good thing.
Mike: I truly believe artificial intelligence is going to change the way we do marketing in the future. When did we first meet?
David: Well, our business really looked at NETR as sort of the model business when we started because we wanted to lead with ductless heat pumps. That’s what we led with. So much so that 83% of our jobs are heat pumps. That’s who we are. We found out about that company through Google searching—seek and ye shall find. The more you look, the more you popped up and NETR, and of course your videos on YouTube.
I’ve met you a couple years ago at an ACCA New England event, but most recently was the Dominate Ductless class where I think there was about 18 people signed up, only five of us showed up. Which worked well to my advantage because I got to ask you more questions.
Mike: That was at the Framingham Sheraton in Massachusetts. Some of those meetings where you get 18 people signed up and only five show up are the best meetings because the guys that are really focused can get a lot out of it. How did that training help you? Why did you go and what did you get out of it?
David: It was presented by our vendor—one of our main major supply houses. A lot of times, to be honest, these events are really just an excuse for HVAC owners to get a free lunch or drink, and you don’t really learn much. But when I saw that your name was associated with it and it was specifically to teach business owners and managers on how to run the business, it really interested me.
Showing the agenda was what got me—that was the hook. Showing marketing, training, team, the financial component. I really loved the agenda. I saw your name and said, “Oh, this must be good.” Why I went is because I want to learn. I want to be surrounded by people that know more than me so that I can learn and glean from them. When I can get close to you and you’ve been there and done that—experience is everything—that’s what I wanted to learn from.
Mike: Two high-level topics that you pulled out of that training—what were those things that made you say, “This was worth coming to”?
David: One was the intentionality in marketing. That Google clustering—I had never heard of that concept before. You mentioned that and how you went about it, and I was asking you a ton of questions. It was beautiful to see how you manipulated the marketing and how it all works. It’s like an ecosystem that has to work together. We were operating on what I call “spray and pray.” That’s not good marketing.
Mike: I call that sporadic marketing.
David: That doesn’t work. Since then, we’ve made a couple lead magnets, we’re creating funnels with your Google clusters. It was really eye-opening. Marketing is the first gear that turns. I’d rather spend $5,000-$10,000 a month building content that I own. You don’t own pay-per-click—you pay for pay-per-click. You own your content.
Mike: You could spend Google five grand—what happens next month? Where’s the five grand?
David: Gone. And so that was huge. Marketing is the most important piece that gets everything else, all the other gears turning.
The second thing that stood out most was how important the bottom line is. The bottom line is everything in the business. If you don’t have profit, you might as well be working for somebody else. How intentional you have to be in the day-to-day to protect your bottom line—because it’s everything.
Mike: You gotta keep your eye on the ball. You can’t hit the ball if you don’t have your eye on it. Compare from last year to this year. Understand your income statement. That’s usually what puts the small guys out of business.
David: You’re right. Let me ask you that question—think about your first two years and you look back. What would you have done differently that now six years later you’re saying, “Boy, I wish I did that four years ago”?
Mike: Focus on marketing. Focus on marketing and protect the bottom line at all costs.
David: It’s your money. You’re the owner. It’s your money. I think it’s very hard for employees to see that big picture. They don’t understand business.
Mike: Sales, you have high-level sales, now learning operations.
David: The whole other beast. With people comes personalities. That’s hard to do.
Mike: What would be the third high-level thing you got?
David: The third one, which I thought was beautifully put by you, was professionalizing the experience. In a world today where we have guys in vans competing on cheap price, we’re competing with PE companies who have more money than God, and we have e-commerce people with flashy online tools. How can you compete? You can compete by doubling down on professionalizing the experience.
Getting back to customers on time, speed to lead, providing a quote right then and there, listening to the customer—don’t talk, listen—and offer them solutions that fit their wants and needs. Having an extreme focus on giving a great customer service experience, not just good, but great. Professionalizing that experience gives us a chance to compete with these other guys.
Mike: Professional experience starts with just how you look. I’m looking at you right now—I like this guy. He looks good, he’s clean cut, top button’s buttoned, he’s showing me his company name, he can speak professionally, he can provide me with a price. Those common sense items will bring you so much more business because every one of those good experiences, people tell people about.
I’m dealing with it right now—I called for people to have garage cabinets put in down here in Southwest Florida. Out of four people I filled out forms online with, not one called me back. I’m still waiting a month later. A small company guy came in, I called the number, the owner answered the phone. He said, “I’ll be there in an hour.” He showed up, was dressed nice, I liked him, and I gave him the job.
David: Speed to lead is so important today. All you have to do is pick up the phone, call people back, and show up.
Mike: A pair of booties and a drop cloth goes a long way.
David: Oh yeah, I’ve won many jobs just for wearing my booties.
Mike: My wife wouldn’t let you in the house without them. Do we really know that these big companies are actually being professional? You’re a lot smarter than some of those guys. You have to beat them, but you don’t have to lower your price. In reality, they’ve given you a lot of net profit.
David: Some practical things were your SOP, which was very simple for the installation process. You had a picture, you had a title, and you had a few bullet points—simple, easy. I had never thought about it that way. Just making it simple. We always wanted to do it but thought, “This is a huge elephant, how do we tackle this daunting task?”
Mike: It’s a daunting task, but does it take that long when you start creating programs and processes and meet for an hour and get the point across?
David: Exactly. That’s how I read yours and said, “Wow, this is great.”
Mike: If you were to recommend to other contractors around the country, what would you tell them about getting on the heat pump bandwagon or just what you’d recommend to contractors in business today?
David: I would recommend number one, signing up with you for a class in their local area. But I would say we’re not in this business to buy yourself a job—you want to have a business, and a business needs to make money with certain rules. HVAC is an industry that is old and hasn’t been really challenged much. Doing things just the way it’s always been done is not necessarily good, because the national average net profit for an HVAC company is 2%.
Mike: Sometimes zero, but the national average is 1-2%.
David: That’s the national average, meaning there are people in the negative. The trades are not easy. It’s not an easy business. You have different types of headaches every day. So we’re going to do all this, take all this liability, for you to make 2% if you’re lucky? I don’t think so.
You need to learn. What can we do to help that? We can price jobs correctly and let’s start installing more ductless, because you can get way more bang for your buck. For us, we’re a young company, but our net profit has been padded really well because of the nature of our installations. You see the major discrepancies between a ducted job versus a ductless job—it’s not even close.
Mike: It almost put me out of business when I bought that ducted company. It was a horror show—so much liability and risk. At least on day two of a ductless job, I’ve got labor on the job, but at least my boxes are more expensive than the ducted job. If I can get out of a ductless job in two days with 3-4 zones, you’re making a ton of money.
David: Exactly. If you’re not making money and you have no net profit, it’s better to work for somebody. At least you’ll get a paycheck and you can go home. Some of those guys don’t even go on vacation—they don’t have any money, they can’t.
Mike: Numbers are everything. Your bottom line is everything. Ductless just makes sense—it’s not even close.
