I had a call this week with someone from one of my networking groups. He’s a fractional CMO who works with home service companies: HVAC, plumbing, contractors, the trades that live and die on repeat calls and word of mouth. I always like to learn more about what each industry is dealing with, so I asked him what his clients struggle with the most. He named four, and all four happen after a lead’s already in the door.
After years helping businesses build an online presence and systems that help them get leads and turn them into clients, this wasn’t a surprise for me. Almost every industry deals with the same things.
1. Build a follow-up you don’t have to remember
The one he mentioned first was lack of follow-up, and it is the one that costs the most deals to these businesses. A prospect books a call, has a good conversation, gets a proposal, and then the thread goes cold because nobody sends the next message, and they end up working with whoever did.
When we suggest where to start, we literally start with a process on paper, mapping out what happens step by step from the moment someone books a call:
- What you do to prepare
- What you say on the call
- How you summarize it afterward
- When you follow up, and how many times
Once that process exists, you can build it into whatever system you use, a CRM, a project tool, even a simple calendar with reminders, so the follow-up happens whether you remember to do it or not.
Once you have the process, you can use the same logic for other areas in business, networking, and for new leads. All require the same steps, same system, just a different starting point. I wrote a related piece on turning a discovery call into a proposal in an hour that walks through the same kind of process for the sales side specifically.
2. Put your CRM to work
Nearly every business we work with already pays for a CRM. Almost none of them use it the way it’s built to be used. Nobody owns it, nothing is segmented, and it logs contacts nobody ever follows up with.
Usually, the solution is simple:
- They need a person who owns it
- A plan for who gets what message and when
- Someone checking now and then whether it’s still working
Build it once, and improve it as you learn what your clients respond to.
3. Keep your Google Business Profile current
For a local business, this is critical. A Google Business Profile that’s been set and forgotten, wrong photos, outdated services, no reviews coming in, service areas that were never updated, sends a weak signal to the exact tool people use to find a business nearby. These days, the people researching a local company are just as likely to start in ChatGPT or Gemini as in Google search.
- Keep the description accurate
- Add real photos
- List every service you offer
- Cover the right zip codes
- Ask for reviews, then respond to them
Google’s own Business Profile guidance walks through most of it, and none of it needs a developer.
4. Say what makes you different before the website
A business can fix its follow-up, clean up its CRM, and get its Google Business Profile in shape, and still lose the deal at the price comparison, because the website never told the prospect why to pick them over the other three quotes on the table.
If a stranger can’t tell what makes you different from the next business in one look at your homepage, they’ll compare you the only way they can, on price. Is it:
- Your approach?
- Your speed?
- The specific people who do the work?
- A guarantee nobody else offers?
You have to know the answer before the website gets touched. That’s brand work, and it has to happen first.
The pattern underneath all four
We tend to think that one industry has it easier than others. We like to blame the market for low sales, and even getting leads, when most of the time it is a lack of these systems built well, used, and made better regularly.
I wrote about the seven moments in a client journey where trust is won or lost if you want to see how early follow-up and clarity matter, earlier than most businesses plan for.
If you’re not sure which of the four to fix first, that’s exactly what a free Strategy Call is for. Or if you’d rather get one useful thing like this in your inbox each week, The Clarity Letter is what I would recommend.
