Is a Salesperson Different from the Person Who Makes The Quotes?
I had an interesting discussion with my mentor lately. Some background: I promoted a team member from carpenter to operations manager. I gave a base salary plus a percentage of gross profit above a certain mark. We didn't hit that mark so he basically just got his base salary for the quarter and was really disappointed, came in and just asked for a really high base instead. I was talking to my mentor about how our sales flow is structured and he mentioned I need to be thinking of the sales person as a lead generator, then the person who would be managing the execution as the person who needs to put the estimates together. That kind of blew my mind a little bit but the more he talked about it, the more it made sense. Keep in mind our projects are all custom essentially so there's different details for everyone, even if it's kind of the same thing. If I go and make the job walk, make the estimate then sell to the team, but then try to incentivize it based on a budget, it's not necessarily fair because the production staff had no part in making that budget. BUT if I'm able to create the "at bats", the foreman walks it with the client then assigns the amount of time and material it will take. Then there's less opportunity to miss details or something get lost in communication. I can give him a plaud unit to make sure to summarize everything. This would also solve the problem of clients treating me like the project manager even though I'm not supposed to be the project manager. I was the one that shook their hand and took their deposit so why wouldn't they send me the grout selections right? Anyway, if you read through all that - I'm curious what your opinion on this is.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?At what point does a “good customer” stop being a good customer?
I think when you first start a business, a “good customer” is pretty easy to define. They book regularly. They pay their bill. They don’t cancel all the time. They’ve been with you for years. But as we’ve grown, I’ve realized there’s a lot more to it than that. What if they’re a great recurring client, but your team dreads going to their house? What if they pay on time, but constantly question the bill? What if they’ve been with you for years, but expect exceptions to every policy because they’re a “long-time customer”? Or maybe they’re profitable on paper, but the amount of time your office spends managing them makes you wonder how profitable they actually are. I used to look at keeping a client for a long time as automatically being a win. Now I think WHO you retain matters just as much as how many clients you retain. There’s also the part that makes this difficult: you build relationships with people. Walking away from recurring revenue isn’t always easy, especially when the customer hasn’t done one huge thing “wrong.” Sometimes it’s just 100 little things that add up over time. For me, I think the line gets crossed when keeping one customer starts negatively affecting our team, our operations, or our ability to properly serve the rest of our clients. So I’m curious… At what point does a “good customer” stop being a good customer for your business? Have you ever intentionally let go of a long-term or profitable client because the relationship just wasn’t worth it anymore?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.
What’s something social media gets entirely wrong about entrepreneurship?
Online, everyone celebrates revenue milestones. Very few people talk about payroll, workers’ comp, taxes, recruiting, difficult conversations, or the emotional weight of leading a team. If you could erase one unrealistic expectation social media creates about running a business, what would it be?
How do I explain the value of my services without defending my prices?
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.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?
