When Should You Fire Your SEO Agency?
We all want our websites to rank better, and to show up on maps. Once you have the budget, it CAN be a good idea to get a marketing agency to handle SEO for you. I made this move 7 months ago and just fired mine and I'll tell you why. First and foremost, I don't claim to be an SEO wizard. The Jobber podcast has had some amazing episodes on this over the last year, people giving hints on how to improve your rankings etc. I followed all their advice and was experiencing a steady level of traffic but I was ready to super charge my efforts. I hired a company that had a great reputation in another coaching group, and they seemed pretty legit. The promise - $1500/ month for 3 service pages, 5 back links, and meetings every month to go over progress. I thought it'd especially be important because we had just rebranded and I wanted to make sure our traffic stayed up. This was the result: From what I can tell, you have to give companies as least a few months to do their magic. Also, google took away the Call button which attributed to less phone calls. But although it made me feel secure to have someone "handling" our SEO, the results spoke for themselves. Much less traffic. From what I can tell, our high review traffic was doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Claude would analyze their work and the impact of the back links didn't seem to be there and we can make our own service pages with actual pictures vs the stock ones they were using. So we made the decision to move on and do the work ourselves with Claude. What have your experiences been with SEO companies? Have you had success with any? What were they doing?
What’s Actually Working for Marketing in 2026? 🚜📈
Trying to figure out what actually works for marketing a small service business in 2026 feels like throwing darts blindfolded sometimes. 😅 Facebook boosts? Marketplace? Reels? Before & after photos? Community groups? Google Business? Word of mouth? Door hangers? I run a veteran-owned rural property management company in New Brunswick, Canada, and I’m curious what’s genuinely bringing people, real customers lately — not just likes and views. For the people actually getting calls and booked jobs: • What’s been your most successful marketing approach? • What gives the best ROI for a small budget? • What completely flopped for you? • Are you finding people respond more to personality/branding or straight-up service ads and pricing? Would love to hear real experiences from other small business owners and operators. 🚜🔥
Short videos for getting more leads – what is working for you?
Curious how other home service businesses are using short videos for marketing. Before/after clips, quick walkthroughs of a finished job, or a 15-second "meet the crew" video seem to work well on Facebook, Instagram and Google Business Profile, but making them consistently takes time. Some owners are starting to use AI video tools to turn job-site photos and a short script into a video, for example Nereo. I think that can help with volume, but real footage of your own team probably still builds more trust with homeowners. What has worked for you: phone videos, hiring someone, or AI tools? And which platform actually brings in quote requests?
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?
Tips for collecting onsite social media content from my crew?
Does anybody have any tips to motivate/energize my crew to take photos, record videos, etc onsite that we can then use to create content for our social media pages? I haven't started asking them to do it yet, but I want to see if anyone has any success stories from their fields.Podcast discussion: Texted an old quote list and closed $100K
Do you have any thoughts, stories, or feedback after listening to the episode? Comment below what stood out to you most! 👀 🌟 Do you get better responses from text messages or emails when following up with leads? Why do you think one works better for your clients? 🌟 How long do you usually wait before following up on a quote? Have you found a ‘sweet spot’ for getting replies without being pushy? Episode Overview What if the fastest way to land new work was hiding in your old quote list? Daniel Dixon, CEO of SendJim, texted 270 leads who never followed through—and closed $100K in jobs. In this episode of Masters of Home Service, Daniel and host Adam Sylvester break down the follow-up strategy behind that massive win. You’ll learn what to say, when to send it, and why your best next customer might be someone who ghosted you last year. Show Notes: [02:09] What is SendJim, and how does it work for home service pros [02:36] The revenue you’re missing if you’re not texting your list [03:53] How to automate client texts with SendJim and Jobber [06:06] More smart ways to automate your customer texting [06:27] Long-term nurture texts to win back past leads [09:30] The #1 reason your clients forget you after two months [10:00] The best call-to-action to use in your client texts [13:42] What happens when a lead replies to your text [14:03] Should you offer discounts to win back lost quotes? [16:56] How to send mass texts and promote seasonal offers [19:07] How often can you text without annoying your clients [19:49] The texting laws every home service pro needs to know [21:45] Why following up on quotes is your biggest moneymaker [25:10] Clients aren’t ignoring you—they just need reminders [27:07] Why your marketing texts should come from a different number Never miss an episode of Masters of Home Service. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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?
