Here’s a pattern I see in service businesses constantly.New leads come in. The team goes after them.By the time they work through the fresh pipeline, the week is nearly at it’s end. The leads from ninety days ago who said “not yet”? Still sitting.The past clients who trust the business and would buy again? Nobody
Twenty years.Same rates in 2024 that he charged in 2004.Materials up. Labor up. Cost of everything up. His prices: unchanged. He came to me because he wanted to grow his revenue so he could bring his son into the business. He was busy. He was in demand. He just wasn’t charging enough to make the
There’s a habit in my business I’ve built so completely that I stopped thinking of it as a strategy. I stay in touch with past clients. Not through automated campaigns or scheduled newsletters. Just genuine check-ins, notes when something makes me think of them, questions about how things are going. It generates business for me.
How many emails do you still have from leads who said “not right now”?If the honest answer is none, you’re not alone.And you’re losing real money because of it. The Canoe Problem Two clients I’ve worked with, completely different industries, had the exact same costly habit.One was a coach. The other ran a remodeling company.Neither
One of the most difficult client onboardings I’ve experienced took three months to resolve. The client was leaving a previous agency that refused to hand over logins, denied access to their website and ad accounts, and eventually stopped communicating altogether. I came in with almost nothing to work with. Three months later, after platform support
There’s a version of marketing success that everyone’s quietly chasing. One post. Ten thousand shares. The phone ringing for weeks. And while that sounds great, it’s almost never how lasting service business growth works. The businesses that build full calendars, loyal client bases, and strong local reputations do it through consistency. Not a spike. A
Read these two reviews. Review one: “Great experience. Very professional. Would highly recommend.” Review two: “Before I called, I had already gotten three quotes and was completely overwhelmed. I didn’t know who to trust. From the first conversation, everything felt different. They kept me informed at every step, delivered exactly what they promised, and I
Most service business owners have the same relationship with content creation. They avoid it. Or they binge it and burn out. Or they follow a generic template that sounds nothing like them and moves no one closer to hiring them. The problem isn’t discipline. It’s systems. Here’s the content batching system that produces two weeks
There are people in your market searching for your service right now.They have a project.They have a budget.They’re ready to call someone. And they’re not calling you because they can’t find you.This is the best-kept secret problem. And it affects excellent service businesses every single day. Why Visibility Breaks Down Most service businesses build their
The phrase “personal brand” makes a lot of service business owners uncomfortable. And honestly? That’s understandable. Because the version of personal branding that gets marketed to us looks like ring lights, color-coded content calendars and viral videos. It looks performative. It looks exhausting. It looks trying to be someone you’re not. Good News: That’s not
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