How to find customers as a contractor
Google Business Profile, reviews, referrals, partners and fast replies: what brings customers to a contractor, without an advertising budget.
Your Google Business Profile first
When someone looks for a plumber or an electrician nearby, the first results they see are often business profiles, with their rating and reviews, before any website. A complete profile, with your hours, your service area, photos of real jobs and a number that gets answered, is a contractor's first customer acquisition tool.
It is free, and it thrives on one thing: activity. Photos added regularly, a reply to every review and up-to-date information show that the business is alive.
Reviews, your best advertising
Between two unknown contractors, customers pick the one with more recent, positive reviews. Yet happy customers almost never leave one unless someone asks.
Make a habit of asking for a review at the end of every successful job, in person and then with a direct link sent the next day. And reply to every review, especially the negative ones: the reply is read by every future customer.
Encouraging word of mouth
Word of mouth cannot be ordered, but it can be made easier. A satisfied customer gladly recommends you when prompted: leave two business cards instead of one, and simply mention that you are taking new customers in the neighborhood.
The neighbors of a job site are potential customers too: a marked truck, a clean site and a polite note left in mailboxes before noisy work often do more than an ad.
Partners who send you work
Some people see a steady flow of needs: real estate agents, property managers and HOAs, architects, and pros in other trades. An electrician on good terms with a plumber and a painter gets their referrals, and sends them referrals in return.
Introduce yourself with a clear offer: your area, your usual lead times, a person who can be reached. What these partners want above all is someone who answers and keeps appointments.
Stop losing the customers who already reach out
Before looking for new contacts, look at the ones you lose: calls missed during a job, messages read too late, estimates never followed up. Every lost request already cost the effort of bringing it in.
Replying within the hour, even briefly, and following up every estimate three times is often the most profitable move of all. That is exactly what Standin takes care of while you work.