Business discovery session
90-minute deep dive into your business: services, margins, service area, current marketing, competition, and goals. Preceded by a pre-call questionnaire so we use your time on strategy, not basic data gathering.
Service · Advisory
Marketing strategy & consulting for home service contractors.
A marketing strategy engagement for contractors who aren't sure which channels to use. We'll help you choose the right marketing mix and allocate budget where it actually works for your specific home service business.
- 16 years of US small-business marketing experience
- Channel-agnostic recommendations (we’ll tell you what NOT to do)
- Written strategy document delivered
- Optional ongoing advisory available
What’s included
Everything you need to make this channel work.
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Competitive analysis
Top 3–5 competitors audited across Google Ads (using SEMrush or SpyFu to see their keywords and ad copy), Meta Ad Library (current and past ads), GBP profile strength, and organic search rankings. You see exactly what they are doing.
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Current marketing audit
Review of your existing ad accounts (if any), GBP, website, and lead tracking. Specific findings on tracking gaps (most accounts we audit have at least one broken conversion). Prioritized fixes you can act on this week.
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Channel recommendation
Written strategy doc covering which 2–3 channels you should run, in what priority order, with a recommended budget split (typically 60/30/10 across primary, secondary, and test channels). Plus expected timeline to first results.
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12-month roadmap
Month-by-month plan with 30, 60, 90, 180, and 365 day milestones. What to launch when, when to scale, when to add channels. Budget escalation plan tied to performance thresholds (do not scale spend until cost per lead hits X).
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Strategy debrief + 2-week follow-up
60-minute call to walk through the recommendations, answer questions, and adjust based on your input. Plus a 2-week follow-up call after you have had time to act, so we can refine based on what you actually learned.
Scope boundary
What’s NOT included.
We’re explicit about scope so there are no surprises. These items are outside this service. Some are covered by other services we offer, some are not.
- Implementation of any recommendations (covered by our managed services)
- Ad account setup, campaign builds, or any execution work
- Ongoing consulting beyond the debrief call (optional $400/month retainer available)
- Custom proprietary research beyond standard competitive audit
- Legal, financial, or business operations advice
- Personnel decisions or in-house team management
Honest note: Strategy consulting only pays off if you actually implement the recommendations. If you’re looking for a strategy deck you can put in a drawer, this isn’t the right service. We work best with contractors who want to act on what we find.
Honest fit check
Is this the right service for your business?
Good fit if…
- Contractors who’ve been burned by previous agencies and want a no-strings second opinion
- Owners doing their own marketing who want expert guidance before scaling
- Businesses about to invest significant budget who want strategy before execution
- Multi-location operators planning expansion who need a marketing framework
Probably not if…
- Contractors who just want someone to "do the marketing" (use our managed services instead)
- Businesses looking for a free consultation (this is a paid engagement)
- Owners unwilling to share business and financial context honestly
How we’ll work together
What the first 60 days look like.
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Week 1
Kickoff
Discovery call, document collection, initial questions answered.
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Weeks 2–3
Analysis
Competitive research, current marketing audit, channel modeling.
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Week 4
Strategy document
Written 12-month strategy delivered with specific channel recommendations.
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Week 4
Debrief & refine
60-minute walkthrough call. Adjustments based on your feedback. Final document delivered.
Pricing for this service
Transparent, published pricing.
$1,200 one-time for single-location businesses. $2,000 one-time for multi-location. Optional ongoing monthly advisory available at $400/month after initial engagement.
A representative result
What this looks like in practice.
HVAC contractor · Pacific Northwest
Stopped wasting $4,200/mo on the wrong channels.
8-truck HVAC business was running Facebook Ads, Yelp Ads, and Angi simultaneously, spending $4,200/month with declining results. Strategy engagement identified that Google Ads + Local Services Ads + a focused review acquisition system would deliver 2x the inquiries at half the spend. They executed the plan themselves, saved $25,000+ in their first year.
Representative of typical engagements. Individual results vary based on service area, competition, and budget.
Monthly ad spend
$4,200
$2,100
50% lower
Monthly inquiries
~40
~85
2.1x volume
Common questions
Answers to what contractors usually ask.
Question not covered here? Send us a note, we’ll answer it directly.
Ask us anythingWhy would I pay for strategy instead of just hiring you to run my campaigns?
Sometimes you should just hire us. But sometimes you have an in-house team, or you want to learn the framework yourself, or you want an independent second opinion before committing to a long agency engagement. The consulting engagement is for those situations.
Will you try to upsell me into managed services?
No. The strategy doc tells you the right answer for your business, even if that answer is "hire a different agency" or "do this yourself in-house" or "you don’t need an agency at all." About 30% of our consulting clients implement the strategy themselves and never come back for managed services. That’s fine, we’ll have done our job.
How is this different from a free agency consultation?
"Free consultations" are sales calls. The agency’s job is to convince you to sign with them, so the "strategy" they give you always points to their services. A paid engagement removes that incentive. We get paid the same whether you hire us, hire someone else, or do it yourself.
What do you need from me to start?
Access to existing ad accounts (read-only is fine), your last 3 months of financials, a list of services with rough margins, your service area boundaries, and competitor names if you know them. We collect everything in week 1.
Do you sign NDAs?
Yes. Standard mutual NDA available on request before the discovery call.
What if I disagree with the recommendations?
We’ll discuss. The strategy doc isn’t final until you’ve had the debrief call and we’ve adjusted based on your input. The point is to give you a plan you actually believe in and will execute.
Ready to start?
Let’s talk about whether this is the right fit.
A 30-minute call. We’ll look at your specific business and tell you honestly whether this service makes sense for you, or what we’d recommend instead.
No pitch. No pressure. Just a real conversation about your business.