Boiler business

[Cole1]

Hi there, I run a boiler and central heating business. For around two years I’ve been using a boiler lead company paying roughly £35+ vat for a pre qualified lead which is also sold to two other companies.

I’ve found it’s gave a steady flow of work but I’d really like to cut out this middle man and try and generate the leads myself and increase our volume.

What would be the best way to do this? Google ads, Facebook ads etc ?

Thanks

[p4cks]

Find out where they’re getting the leads from and start there

[Cole1]

They have a dedicated landing page

https://www.boilerguide.co.uk/

[miniman]

What’s your cost per acquisition? In other word, divide your total spend on leads by the number of deals you through it?

[Cole1]

miniman said:

What’s your cost per acquisition? In other word, divide your total spend on leads by the number of deals you through it?

We spend around £1200-£1500 per week with them and generate around roughly £10k of work on average from that.

[Jap90s]

Cole1 said:

We spend around £1200-£1500 per week with them and generate around roughly £10k of work on average from that.

I hope that's £10k profit rather than work

Even then that seems a huge amount bearing in mind plumbers are in short supply

Have you looked into Check a Trade ?

Surely you should be getting a lot of referrals from previous customers by now - if not, why not ?

[Cole1]

Jap90s said:

Cole1 said:

We spend around £1200-£1500 per week with them and generate around roughly £10k of work on average from that.

I hope that's £10k profit rather than work

Even then that seems a huge amount bearing in mind plumbers are in short supply

Have you looked into Check a Trade ?

Surely you should be getting a lot of referrals from previous customers by now - if not, why not ?

That’s not profit unfortunately! We are in Glasgow in amongst a race to the bottom of absolute halfwits doing everything on the cheap!

Yeah we do have a lot of referrals but wanting to expand and get at least another 2 teams on board

[miniman]

£10k is, what, 4 or 5 jobs tops? So it’s costing you £300 to acquire each job through that site. Is there even £300 margin in a job?

[Cole1]

miniman said:

£10k is, what, 4 or 5 jobs tops? So it’s costing you £300 to acquire each job through that site. Is there even £300 margin in a job?

About 5 roughly and yes we have a good margin in a job

[lizardbrain]

Interestingly model they have, maybe it's common but it's the first time I've seen it, packaging up the classic 'get three quotes'

Quite smooth

[Sheepshanks]

Interesting, both from business and as a customer standpoint.

So you're typically quoting 38 jobs a week and winning 5 of them? Doing that many quotes must be onerous - unless you can bang them out easily. But then could it be people aren't taking them seriously?

Just seems a very odd situtation to those of us who've struggled to get tradespeople to do stuff. Mind you, it seems amazing Boxt etc can produce people to fit boilers next day.

[Cole1]

Sheepshanks said:

Interesting, both from business and as a customer standpoint.

So you're typically quoting 38 jobs a week and winning 5 of them? Doing that many quotes must be onerous - unless you can bang them out easily. But then could it be people aren't taking them seriously?

Just seems a very odd situtation to those of us who've struggled to get tradespeople to do stuff. Mind you, it seems amazing Boxt etc can produce people to fit boilers next day.

There is a hell of a lot of time wasters tbh

We don’t typically quote and do the job same
Week and obviously others take a couple of weeks to get back/book in etc

It’s a weird old world the boiler game here!

[marine boy]

From my experience of trying to get boiler fitting companies to do work, if you return a tel. call or email your ahead of the competition, if you can quote promptly, you'll be busy and if you turn up on time you'll always have more work than you can do

[Simpo Two]

marine boy said:

From my experience of trying to get boiler fitting companies to do work, if you return a tel. call or email your ahead of the competition, if you can quote promptly, you'll be busy and if you turn up on time you'll always have more work than you can do

I'd agree. I've been planning air conditioning and it came down to two companies. One bloke wanted a video walkaround then threw me a spec, price and fitting date. I had numerous questions but he either didn't answer them or didn't read them properly. He declined to visit saying the fitters would 'sort it out on the day'.

By contrast the other bloke has made two visits, answered all the questions sensibly and sent an electrician to recce. He was more expensive than the other, but agreed to match the price, well almost. I'm going to hire him because he's more interested in the job and has good attention to detail - and that's important when it's over £3K and involves making lots of holes in my house.

Edited by Simpo Two on Friday 29th August 22:48

[Sheepshanks]

Simpo Two said:

I'd agree. I've been planning air conditioning and it came down to two companies. One bloke wanted a video walkaround then threw me a spec, price and fitting date. I had numerous questions but he either didn't answer them or didn't read them properly. He declined to visit saying the fitters would 'sort it out on the day'.

By contrast the other bloke has made two visits, answered all the questions sensibly and sent an electrician to recce. He was more expensive than the other, but agreed to match the price, well almost. I'm going to hire him because he's more interested in the job and has good attention to detail - and that's important when it's over £3K and involves making lots of holes in my house.

That’s a lot of effort by the second guy to get a £3K job. He’ll probably go back to 9-5 on paye and all we’ll be left with is the first guy.

[LooneyTunes]

Cole1 said:

amongst a race to the bottom of absolute halfwits doing everything on the cheap!

Assume you have most of these already sorted to position yourself away from the bargain basement halfwits?

Decent branding
A decent website, with a page specifically for landlords
Liveried vans, with mention of boilers being a speciality?
An email address on the vans that isn’t gmail?
A phone number on the van that isn’t only a mobile?
Guys who look smart (logo polo shirts etc)?
Service/installation stickers that include your company name?

Any sort of referral bonus for recent clients? (E.g. £50 if someone they refer goes with you)

All of the above is what the firm I use has been doing: they seem to have been growing nicely over the past few years. They were very fair with the first job they ever did for me and because they’re reliable and well presented I know I can send them to any of my properties without issue.

Are you proactively asking for Google reviews? One firm I used recently, not for plumbing, had the chap leave a nice printed card, with iirc a QR code, and asked politely if we’d consider leaving a review: I suspect the lads got a bonus for good reviews. Cost for the card is peanuts in the grand scheme of things but if xxx positive reviews improves your conversion rate then that’s money well spent.

[technodup]

Cole1 said:

Jap90s said:

Cole1 said:

We spend around £1200-£1500 per week with them and generate around roughly £10k of work on average from that.

I hope that's £10k profit rather than work

Even then that seems a huge amount bearing in mind plumbers are in short supply

Have you looked into Check a Trade ?

Surely you should be getting a lot of referrals from previous customers by now - if not, why not ?

That’s not profit unfortunately! We are in Glasgow in amongst a race to the bottom of absolute halfwits doing everything on the cheap!

Yeah we do have a lot of referrals but wanting to expand and get at least another 2 teams on board

Why? To make more money. But WHY?

We're in Glasgow and spend about the same and pull in a lot more (similar but different business). Your sales process must be ste, so don't be taking on more guys until you've sorted that. More guys equals more problems and not always more money. It's better to sort your processes and make £100k profit from £400k than make £150k profit from £700K (for example). I've seen so many 'expand', take on all sorts of extra costs and end up making as much as their staff if they're lucky. We had a guy leave us to start himself, he sells more than we do but because of guys, premises, vans etc he's back doing jobs for us on the weekend cos he's skint (and stressed out to fk).

I'd be absolutely maxing out what I could do myself/with a partner before I even thought about more guys. Better set up, more/better leads, better conversion rate, demonstrating value (i.e. why they should pay you higher price), better referral systems etc. I sell to people in Glasgow, it's not true everyone wants cheap, so fk the race to the bottom stuff, that's garbage. Some do, and some think they do, until they're told why they don't. And gas work should be one area where it's piss easy to show them why they don't want to go with the cheapest guy/boiler.

Is it just me or does that site reduce the brightness on the screen? I like it bright so it's really noticeable and a bit weird, makes it harder to read for me.

[Cole1]

technodup said:

Cole1 said:

Jap90s said:

Cole1 said:

We spend around £1200-£1500 per week with them and generate around roughly £10k of work on average from that.

I hope that's £10k profit rather than work

Even then that seems a huge amount bearing in mind plumbers are in short supply

Have you looked into Check a Trade ?

Surely you should be getting a lot of referrals from previous customers by now - if not, why not ?

That’s not profit unfortunately! We are in Glasgow in amongst a race to the bottom of absolute halfwits doing everything on the cheap!

Yeah we do have a lot of referrals but wanting to expand and get at least another 2 teams on board

Why? To make more money. But WHY?

We're in Glasgow and spend about the same and pull in a lot more (similar but different business). Your sales process must be ste, so don't be taking on more guys until you've sorted that. More guys equals more problems and not always more money. It's better to sort your processes and make £100k profit from £400k than make £150k profit from £700K (for example). I've seen so many 'expand', take on all sorts of extra costs and end up making as much as their staff if they're lucky. We had a guy leave us to start himself, he sells more than we do but because of guys, premises, vans etc he's back doing jobs for us on the weekend cos he's skint (and stressed out to fk).

I'd be absolutely maxing out what I could do myself/with a partner before I even thought about more guys. Better set up, more/better leads, better conversion rate, demonstrating value (i.e. why they should pay you higher price), better referral systems etc. I sell to people in Glasgow, it's not true everyone wants cheap, so fk the race to the bottom stuff, that's garbage. Some do, and some think they do, until they're told why they don't. And gas work should be one area where it's piss easy to show them why they don't want to go with the cheapest guy/boiler.

Is it just me or does that site reduce the brightness on the screen? I like it bright so it's really noticeable and a bit weird, makes it harder to read for me.

This is very valid point!

To be honest I quote the jobs myself and my process is quite slick, but finding we are being undercut by every man and his dug!. This is my issue we do get quality leads through the site we use at the minute but by the time two other guys who have been out with probably less costs than I do the customer is already thinking about going with the cheaper option.

This is why I want to try and generate my own leads as I know I’ll be able to convert them a lot better.

What is it you do if you don’t mind me asking ?

[lizardbrain]

Have you tried spending the same budget on Google ads to drive traffic directly?

[Cole1]

lizardbrain said:

Have you tried spending the same budget on Google ads to drive traffic directly?

I’ve never done google ads, not got the first clue where to start and don’t want to employ an agency that will talk to me about something I’ve no clue about and charge me a fortune!