Are You Selling Your Service… or Selling the Experience?
Customers have more choices than ever. Sometimes the difference isn’t just the service you provide, but how you make people feel from the first interaction to the final follow-up. What are some ways your business creates an experience that keeps customers coming back?Any tips for making YouTube videos that actually bring in customers?
If you're creating videos for your business (or thinking about it), what's one thing you've learned that makes a difference? In this Masters of Home Service episode, Jacob Palmer (Palmer Electrical) talks about how simple YouTube videos became one of his biggest lead generators. He shares practical advice on filming real jobs, building trust before the first phone call, and using video content to win more local customers without relying on paid ads. Never miss an episode of Masters of Home Service. Subscribe on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Are discounts teaching customers to wait instead of buy?
I’ve been thinking about this more as we use more offers during slower seasons. Discounts can work. I’m not against them. We’ve used first-cleanup offers, prepayment offers, reactivation offers, seasonal promos, and different incentives to get people moving. Sometimes a discount gives the customer the little push they needed. It can help fill routes and bring back past customers. It can create cash flow and get someone to finally say yes after sitting on the quote. The problem starts when discounts become the main reason people buy. If customers only take action when there’s a deal, you may be training your market to wait. They learn your normal price is flexible and that your urgency is artificial. That can hurt your business over time. For a recurring service business, this matters even more because the first sale is only the beginning. If someone signs up because of a discount, you need to know whether they actually value the service at the regular price. A discounted customer can still become a great customer. But if the discount attracted someone who was never going to pay full price, you may have created a churn problem instead of a growth win. I’ve had to think about this with our own offers. When we send a first-month discount or a reactivation offer, I don’t want the message to sound like: “We’re cheap right now.” I want it to feel more like: “This is a reason to take action now.” That’s a big difference. The offer should support the value, not replace it. For example, I’d rather tie a discount to a clear situation: First cleanup when starting recurring service Prepaid months Seasonal restart Route opening in a specific area Past customer reactivation Limited schedule availability Add-on bundle That feels different than randomly cutting the price because leads are slow. Random discounts can make the business look desperate. Structured offers can still protect positioning. The other thing I think about is who the offer is for. A discount for a loyal customer who prepays is different than a discount for a brand-new price shopper who hasn’t shown any commitment. A discount to reactivate a past good customer is different than chasing someone who ghosted 5 follow-ups and only responds when the price drops. Those are not the same lead. I also think discounts need boundaries. How long is it available? What service does it apply to? Does it require recurring service? Does it require card on file? Does it require prepayment? Does it apply to add-ons? Does it stack with anything else? Without boundaries, the discount becomes negotiable. And once customers learn your price is negotiable, some of them will keep negotiating. That creates problems for the sales process and the brand. The goal is to use discounts without damaging the perceived value of the service. If your service is reliable, professional, well-communicated, and priced correctly, the discount should not be the strongest part of the offer. The strongest part should still be the outcome the customer wants. For us, that means a clean yard, waste hauled away, gate photo after every visit, clear communication, and one less thing the customer has to worry about. The discount may get attention. The service has to justify the full price after that. Have discounts helped your business grow, or have they trained customers to wait for a better deal?
How are you building your local contractor lists?
I’ve been looking into how home service companies and marketing teams find new opportunities. A lot of people are using Google Maps to research local markets, but the challenge is usually: Finding the right businesses in a specific area Keeping contact information organized Identifying companies with growth opportunities For example: “HVAC companies in Texas” You can quickly build a list with: Business name Website Phone number Email Address Reviews & ratings Business category This can be useful for: Local SEO research Market analysis Competitor research Sales outreach I’m testing different ways to collect and structure local business data and would love to hear how others in the home service space are doing this. Curious: How do you currently find and research local contractors in your market?
Let’s Talk Pricing
What's one service that customers consistently underestimate the value of? For me, it's often the planning, preparation, and experience behind the work—not just the labor itself. How do you educate customers on the value you bring without feeling like you're defending your prices? I'd love to hear how others approach these conversations.
Is Angi Worth It For Home Service Business Owners?
Hi there! I know some folks have seen me here, so I pose a question. Does anyone utilize Angi for leads? Is it worth it? Or is the percentage they ask for to much? I have heard a lot of good about the service, but also, I've heard a lot of bad as well. Truth be told, I cant help but turn it down because I want my clients to pay me. Not be looped in to a service that charges me, after charging the client to find my services. It makes no sense to me.. anyone else feel the same?Are reviews more useful than a marketing agency?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. A good marketing agency can absolutely help a business. They can help with creative, targeting, campaigns, landing pages, reporting, and getting ads in front of the right people. But before you pay someone to write your message, it’s probably worth asking: Have you actually studied what your customers already said about you? Because your reviews may be one of the most useful marketing assets in your business. A lot of owners look at reviews as proof. 5 stars. Good testimonial. Nice thing to put on the website. That’s useful, but it’s only the surface. The better part is the language. Customers will tell you exactly why they hired you, what they were afraid of, what they noticed, what made them trust you, what almost stopped them from buying, and what made them stay. For us, reading through our reviews changed how I thought about our marketing. Customers kept repeating things like: “worth every penny” “one less thing to worry about” “like clockwork” “they text before they come” “they send a picture of the closed gate” “they take the waste with them” “I was embarrassed” “my last company left the gate open” “there aren’t enough hours in the day” That language is better than anything I could have guessed from sitting at my desk. It showed me the real buying triggers. Some people hired us because the yard got away from them over winter or they're busy families who didn’t have time. Others had health issues, pregnancy, injuries, or physical limitations. A small handful switched from cheaper competitors because they were tired of missed visits, poor communication, or gates being left open. Those details matter. If I only market the task, I sound like every other company. “We scoop dog poop.” That’s true, but it doesn’t explain why someone is willing to pay a premium. The reviews showed us what people actually valued: Communication. Reliability. Thoroughness. Gate safety. Waste hauled away. Professional scheduling. No judgment when the yard is bad. A clean yard without having to think about it. That becomes ad copy, website copy, quote follow-up language, sales training, social proof and also helps with pricing objections. When customers repeatedly say “worth every penny,” “more than fair,” or “I’d pay twice as much,” that tells me price is not the full story for the right buyer. It tells me I need to explain the value better, not panic and discount the service every time someone asks about price. A marketing agency can miss that if they don’t understand the business deeply enough. They may write clean copy, but clean copy doesn’t always match the customer’s internal conversation. Your reviews give you that conversation. They tell you what people were already thinking before they bought or what made them feel safe enough to hire you. They show you which parts of the experience matter more than you realized. For us, gate photos became a bigger marketing point because customers kept mentioning them. Hauling waste away became a bigger marketing point because customers kept comparing that to companies that leave it in their trash can. Communication became one of our strongest selling points because people brought it up over and over again. That’s the kind of information every business owner should be paying attention to. Before you rewrite your ads, rebuild your website or hire someone to "fix your marketing", read your reviews. Print them out. Tag the repeated phrases. Look for patterns. Group them by pain point, objection, trust factor, and reason they stayed. Then use the customer’s language in your marketing. Your best customers are often telling you exactly how to sell to more people like them. Have you ever gone through your reviews and pulled out the exact phrases customers keep repeating?Is your follow-up helping you close, or annoying your leads?
This is one I had to learn the hard way. Speed-to-lead matters. If someone fills out a form, asks for a quote, or reaches out with interest, the business that responds fast usually has the advantage. A fast response can be the difference between closing the job and losing the customer to the next company they call. Quote reminders matter too. People get busy. They forget. They compare options. They need a little nudge. A good follow-up system can recover a lot of sales that would have gone cold. But there’s a point where follow-up stops feeling helpful and starts feeling pushy. That line matters. I learned this lesson from my only 1-star Google review. It wasn’t because of the service or because we did a bad job scooping. It came from a lead who didn’t want to receive any more messages, and because of technology issues with our automations, messages kept going out after they should have stopped. That one stung because it was preventable. It also taught me that automation can make you look organized when it works, and careless when it doesn’t. A follow-up system should never make someone feel trapped in your sales process. If a lead says they’re not interested, asks you to stop, or opts out, that needs to be respected immediately. No excuses. No “just one more reminder.” No system glitch that keeps poking them after they already said no. For us, that means paying closer attention to: how many quote reminders go out how close together they are what the wording sounds like whether the lead has a clean way to opt out whether the automation actually stops when it should whether a real person needs to step in before another message goes out The goal of follow-up is to reduce friction, not create resentment. A good reminder should feel like: “Hey, just checking in in case life got busy.” A bad reminder feels like: “Why won’t you answer me?” That difference affects your brand. Especially in local home services, where trust matters. People may not remember every detail of your quote, but they will remember if you made them feel pressured, ignored, or annoyed before they even became a customer. I still use automation. I still believe in follow-up. I still think most businesses lose money because they don’t follow up enough. But now I also think your follow-up system needs brakes. It needs opt-outs. It needs timing rules. It needs limits. It needs someone checking that the customer experience still feels human. Because closing more jobs doesn’t matter if the process damages your reputation with the people who don’t buy. How many times do you follow up on a quote before you stop? And do you have a clear opt-out process for people who don’t want more messages?
