Lead generation for tradesmen

Lead generation for tradesmen

There are two ways to get enquiries. You can buy them from somebody who sells the same one to three other firms, or you can generate your own and be the only person ringing.

What you are buying from a lead portal

A portal sells the same enquiry to several firms, because that is the business model. It is not dishonest and it is not hidden. It does mean that by the time you ring, the homeowner has two other quotes coming and has already worked out that the cheapest one wins.

You are competing on price before you have spoken to anybody, on a job you paid to be told about. Some firms make that work on volume. It is worth being clear that it is what you signed up for.

What an exclusive enquiry changes

If the advert is yours, the enquiry is yours. Nobody else has it. You ring while they are still on the page they filled in, and the conversation is about the work rather than about who is cheapest.

The trade is that you carry the cost of finding them, and that cost is not fixed. A portal charges a known price per lead. Your own advertising costs whatever it costs that month, which is higher some weeks and lower others.

Whose account is it

This matters more than it sounds. An ad account learns: which audiences respond, which images work, what an enquiry costs. That knowledge is worth real money and it lives in the account.

If the account belongs to the agency, you leave with nothing and the next firm starts you from zero. If it belongs to you, you keep it. Ask this before you sign anything, with anybody.

Speed decides more than the ads do

The single biggest difference between firms that make advertising pay and firms that do not is how fast the phone gets picked up. Not the creative, not the targeting, not the budget.

An enquiry answered in five minutes is a conversation. The same enquiry answered on Thursday is a voicemail to somebody who has already booked somebody else. If nobody can answer during the day, the honest thing is to fix that before spending anything on ads.

How this works here

The ad account is opened in your name and stays yours, including the day you stop working with me. Your budget goes straight to Meta from your own card. Every enquiry comes to you and only you.

One setup fee, then eight per cent of the work the ads win. No retainer, so a quiet month costs you nothing.