First job won in week three
Everything you need to know about how fast this can move
Every owner asks the same thing before they spend a pound: how long until I see something. It's a fair question, and most agencies answer it with a number they can't control.
Here is the honest version. We control the front half. Once the campaign is running we generate the interest, and the leads, the appointments and the surveys build from there. What we cannot control is the half that happens after a lead reaches you. That half is what decides whether your first job lands in week three or month three, and it is worth more than any budget increase.
Kealan had never advertised. This was the position before we ran an ad.
- No campaign of any kind, ever — the first ad we ran was the first ad his company had run
- A small budget, well under what most people assume is the entry point
- No CRM, no follow-up system, no one whose job it was to chase a lead
- Work coming from the same word-of-mouth pool as everyone else in his area
What Happened
He filmed with us on a Tuesday. He was two months in when he recorded this.
"We got our first win within four weeks, three weeks of putting up the ad, which was really our main goal."
"I didn't think we'd win a job so fast."
Nothing clever happened. There was no special budget and no trick creative. He answered his phone, he made himself available, and he got in front of the customer while the customer was still thinking about solar.
The Part You Control
This part is ours. Someone has put their hand up because they are thinking about solar right now. That is the whole window, and it does not stay open.
The company that gets a real conversation first is usually the company that ends up quoting. Not the cheapest one, not the biggest one. The one that was there.
A survey booked in the diary beats a quote sent by email. Being willing to go out and sit with them is the part most installers skip when they're busy.
Most people don't sign on the first conversation. The ones who do sign later are the ones somebody stayed in touch with.
None of that is marketing. It's the difference between your quote and somebody else's.
Another of our clients' sales managers, on where the work actually is.
“"The leads are good. It's more just trying to get the people to kind of nudge forward and actually close the job is the thing."
"He pre-qualified most people coming in and it was just great. It just made it a bit easier on me to know exactly what type."
Volume was never his problem — he counted "41 leads this month and it's only the 14th". Getting to them was the job.
You Need Somewhere To Put Them
Speed only survives if there's a system behind it. A fast first call and no follow-up is just a faster way to lose the same lead.
An owner running a sales team on the same setup.
“"You do need to have a solid CRM in place. You need to have someone who's tracking."
"I need to be able to log on wherever I am and see what's going on… the sales guys, they're the ones who are looking at the portal more than me. And I can literally just go to them and say, right, what's the statuses? What's our numbers?"
Brian doesn't work the leads himself. He doesn't need to. The system tells him where every one of them is, and his people work them.
What Kealan Actually Said About Us
"Working with the lads has been great so far… They were very professional. They turned up on time. They spent a full day. They were never in a rush."
"There's no bullshit out of them. It's all work, really."
WHAT IS IMPORTANT FOR YOU
- We generate the interest. You close the job. That split is the honest one. Nobody can make a customer sign before they're ready, and no budget fixes a lead nobody rang back.
- Speed to lead is the biggest lever you own. Same ad, same budget, same leads — the owner who gets to them first is the one who ends up quoting.
- Be available, in person. Kealan won in week three because he made himself present for a face-to-face conversation, not because his budget was big.
- A sales process beats a bigger budget. Somewhere to put the lead, someone tracking it, and a follow-up that doesn't stop at "I'll think about it".
Satisfied Contracting and Trades Businesses