Getting more work as a tradie without paying for leads

Paid leads have a way of pricing themselves: the more you depend on them, the more they cost, and a lead you paid for is still a stranger you have to win. The work below is slower to start and keeps paying. None of it costs money, and most of it is about making the work you already do easier to find and easier to say yes to.

Be findable where people already look

Before anyone searches for "plumber near me", they have usually asked a neighbour. Before they call the neighbour's plumber, they look them up. So the first job is to have something to find:

• A Google Business Profile, with your trade, your area, your hours and a few photos of real work. It is free and it is what the map shows.
• A page of your own that says what you do, where, and how to ask for a quote. It does not need to be a website you paid for. BizzMate gives every business a public page on the BizzMate Marketplace, free, with your services, licences, photos and a request-a-quote form that lands on your job board.
• Consistent details everywhere. The same business name, phone number and area on your profile, your page, your invoices and your van.

Answer every enquiry, fast

The enquiry you didn't see is the job someone else got. Most are lost not to a lower price but to silence: the email that sat under a newsletter, the message that came in while you were under a house. Two habits fix most of it:

• Acknowledge the same day, even if the quote comes later. "Got it, I'll come past Thursday to look" keeps the job yours.
• Have one place enquiries land. BizzMate reads your mailbox and turns each real enquiry into a job card with the urgent ones flagged, so the one that matters is at the top, not page three.

Quote the way customers decide

A customer with three quotes picks the one they understand. Send yours as a document they can read on a phone, with the scope in plain words, GST shown, and a way to say yes without printing anything. Then follow up once, politely, a few days later. Many quotes die of nothing more than being forgotten.

Turn one job into the next

The cheapest customer to win is the one you already have. On the way out of every job:

• Ask whether anything else has been bothering them. Half the time there is a second job standing right there.
• Offer the maintenance version of what you just did: the annual service, the gutter clean before winter, the termite inspection. A recurring job on a schedule is work you never have to find again.
• Ask for a review while they are pleased, and make it one tap: the link to your Google profile in your invoice email.

Make referrals easy to give

People refer tradies they can describe. "He did our switchboard, turned up when he said, left it clean" is a referral; "some electrician" is not. Everything on this list makes you describable: the name on the van, the quote they could read, the text that said you were on your way, the invoice that arrived the same day.

Where free leads fit

Marketplaces are not all paid. On the BizzMate Marketplace, people post a job and the businesses near them that do that work are told; you send an offer, and if the customer chooses you the job lands on your board with their details. During the pilot there is no fee for a lead or for winning one. Licensed work goes only to businesses that have given a licence number, so a plumbing job is not a free-for-all.

It is new, and in many areas there are not many businesses listed yet, which is exactly when it is easiest to be the one that is. Listing takes a few minutes and sets up your BizzMate account at the same time.

What this adds up to

None of these is dramatic. Together they mean the next job comes from the last one, the enquiry gets answered, the quote gets read, and the customer who liked your work can send you another one with a tap. That is a business that doesn't need to buy leads to stay busy.

General information This article is general information for Australian trades businesses, not legal or financial advice.