For the person running the business.

The pieces below are written for the American market. The trade is the same and so is the thinking; the certificates, the prices and the regulators are not. British editions are being written.

• The first contact

  “Just a few things from the basement.”

  Customers cannot estimate volume, so they undercount honestly. Ask for a photo taken from the doorway with a chair or a person in it — that gives you a scale you can price against.

  10 min read

• Your website

  Give him the verdict before you give him the quote.

  Your customer decides between repair and replacement twice in his life, with no way to judge it. The site that teaches him to read the date off his own nameplate, before he calls, is the one he believes afterwards.

  11 min read

• Your website

  Nobody searches for an electrician. They search for what the house is doing.

  Households search the symptom, not the trade: a tripping breaker, a warm outlet, a dead circuit. The electrician whose site answers symptoms owns the call. Then prove what cannot be seen: license linked to the state lookup, tidy panel photos.

  12 min read

• Your website

  The customer picks a material before a company. Meet them there.

  Fence buyers decide the material before the builder, so the site that compares wood, vinyl and chain link honestly, downsides included, writes the spec the other two quotes must answer. Add the neighbor questions nobody else touches.

  11 min read

• Your website

  Your best photo is a year old. You have not taken it yet.

  A landscaping site sells pictures, so take the one nobody takes: the job twelve months on, grown in. Give maintenance its own door instead of a line, let the site move demand into fall. The return visit sells the contract.

  12 min read

• Your website

  Fresh paint always looks perfect. That is the painter’s whole problem.

  Fresh paint hides the gap between careful and cheap for a year, so sell the preparation: photograph washing, sanding, priming; put products and coat counts in writing; help pick the color. The cut-rate bid cannot show prep it skipped.

  11 min read

• Your website

  Show them the shut-off valve. You get the call to fix the pipe.

  A plumber’s site serves two people who share nothing: the 3 a.m. caller with water running and the family planning a bathroom. Give the first a thumb-sized number and the shut-off valve; give the second the process and the prices.

  12 min read

• Your website

  Storm chasers knock. Local roofers get searched.

  A roofing site serves two visitors, the leak-now household and the twenty-year planner. After a storm it is your proof of being local: years, street address, license, insurance, roofs by name. The clipboard at the door cannot copy that.

  12 min read

• Your website

  Word of mouth is not broken. It stopped being the last step.

  Sometimes no: a full book you do not want to grow, one loyal builder, or retirement in sight. For everyone else — a referral now starts a search. 97 % read your reviews; more than half then check your site.

  9 min read

• Your website

  A website has two prices: money and evenings. Every seller hides one.

  Builders run about $18 a month plus your evenings, and the evenings do not end. Agencies charge $2,000 to $5,000 for a small build. Price both parts, money and hours at your own rate, before choosing.

  11 min read

• Your website

  When free is a trap, and when it is just arithmetic

  Free is a trap when the money hides in lock-in: a domain you do not own, a contract behind the build. It is honest when it is sales cost turned into work, and you can test which with four questions.

  11 min read

• After the job

  You did a good job. You have four reviews.

  Asking feels like begging when you ask for a favour, days after the feeling has faded. Ask at handover, in person, for one specific thing to mention — and you get a review that answers the next customer’s worry.

  13 min read

• The quote

  There is always somebody cheaper. Matching him costs you twice.

  Do not match it. Dropping to his number says your first one was invented, and you still have to do the work. Name what is in yours that he cannot claim without lying — then let them choose.

  9 min read

• The first contact

  Nobody hires you on the phone. They only decide whether to stop calling.

  In the first ninety seconds they are deciding whether to call the next number, not whether to hire you. Say you do this, here; say roughly when; then ask about the job; then give them a time.

  10 min read

• Getting paid

  The invoice is not where you get paid. The quote is.

  Most late payment is friction, not refusal. It is decided when you write the quote — milestones they can see, a date, and how to pay. Ask at handover, while you are standing in front of the work.

  9 min read

• Pricing the work

  Your hourly rate is right. Your hours are wrong.

  Only the hours you can invoice pay for anything, and they are fewer than the hours you work — travel, quoting and buying are not billed. Divide by those, not by a full week.

  10 min read

• Getting found

  Everybody’s fence looks good finished. Photograph the hole.

  A finished job proves nothing, because every finished job looks finished. The photos that sell are of the parts nobody can see afterwards — the footing, the base, the joint — and they exist for about an hour.

  9 min read

• The quote

  Three quotes on the table, and yours said the least.

  Three quotes that all say the same thing leave the customer one thing to compare: the number. A quote gets accepted when it answers the questions they were too embarrassed to ask — dates, exclusions, clean-up, payment.

  11 min read

• After the job

  The cheapest job you will ever win is the second one.

  The people who paid you once are the only ones who have proved they will. Writing to them costs nothing — but the message has to be about their fence, not about your empty diary.

  9 min read

• The first contact

  They are getting a few quotes. That is not an objection.

  It is not a price threat. It means they cannot tell three tradesmen apart. Ask what made them call you, and what they are worried about — then write the quote so it answers that, by name.

  10 min read

• When it goes wrong

  The mistake will be forgiven. The silence afterwards will not.

  The damage is almost never the mistake. It is the gap between them noticing and you answering. Answer the same day, fix it before deciding whose fault it is, and it becomes the story they tell.

  9 min read

• Getting found

  You are on page one. The phone still is not ringing.

  Ranking gets you seen, not called. Four checks sit between the search result and the phone: is this near me, do they do my exact job, are they open, can I reach someone. Any one of them ends it.

  10 min read