Financing Options for Service Industry?
Anyone out there offer financing options for their services. We are a house cleaning service and through our training center (we teach cleaning) we thought we would reach out to Affirm and sell our classes with financing option. When I spoke to Affirm they asked why not our cleaning services? Well, yes why not? Anyone has tried this? If you have what are some to dos and do nots have you learned?
What are you doing right now to make the phone ring for your business?
what is your go to advertisements or sales tactics to get lead generation? We have been in business for over 17 years now servicing the Tampa bay area and this year has hit us the hardest. I am an isa certified arborist and I do engage in networking and community events but despite our best efforts we are still experiencing a lack of leads. I don't want to just throw money at the wall but we are running out of options. what are some things that are working for you?At what point do you hire an agency?
I'm at the point in my business where I really need to not be doing stuff that I'm not good at and I have enough money to invest in different areas of the business to improve the operations. I'm actually rebranding as well so I'm changing our website then it got me thinking - My old website was good, I put a lot of work in to the back links, SEO optimizing it myself, but it does look a little DIY. I got to thinking, this would be a good time to do it correctly and potentially have a professional do it, and maybe I've been missing out on potential traffic because of the website. Has anyone hired an agency with success? What about failures? What things should I be thinking about when approaching this?Is your business showing up in AI search? 🔍✨
Have you ever asked AI something like “Who’s the best plumber in [your city]?” or “Find me a landscaper near me” just to see if your business pops up? If you appeared, what are you doing to make sure you maintain visibility? If not, PhilRisher has a few website tips that could help. 👇 In this Masters of Home Service episode, he covers website best practices that can help your business stay visible as search changes, from answering real customer questions to sharing pricing and local information and putting more work into your ‘knowledge base’. 👉 Want to put these tips into action? Download our free website optimization playbook for this episode. Never miss an episode of Masters of Home Service. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Marketing for a Growing Landscaping Company (When You’re Still Wearing All the Hats)
For those running small-to-mid size landscaping companies (especially maintenance-heavy businesses), how are you handling marketing as you grow? I’ve been managing ours in-house due to my convenient design background, but between operations and crew management it’s becoming unsustainable—especially when it comes to SEO and lead generation for higher-value projects (which I have less experience with) Are you outsourcing to a freelancer/agency, or hiring in-house? And at what point did that investment start to make sense for you? Do you have any recommendations for Canadian companies?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 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?Should you pause ads when you’re short-staffed?
I don’t think the answer is always to shut everything off. But running ads like normal when your team is already stretched can create a mess fast. More leads don’t help much if response times slow down, quality slips, routes get overloaded, or the owner has to jump back into the field to save the schedule. When we’re tight on capacity, I’d rather adjust the ads than pretend nothing changed. That could mean lowering the budget, keeping branded search on, focusing only on dense route areas, pushing new jobs further out, or temporarily stopping low-margin one-time work. Marketing should match capacity. If the ads are bringing in work the team can’t serve well, the campaign might look good on paper while the customer experience gets worse. But the other side is maybe this is the perfect time to hire and be over capacity instead of scrambling. When you’re short-staffed, do you pause ads, reduce spend, or keep leads flowing?
