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Win-Back Campaigns: How to Reactivate Customers You Haven't Seen in 2 Years
Somewhere in your customer list are hundreds of people who used you once and never came back — not because they were unhappy, but because life moved on and you fell off their radar. A win-back campaign reactivates them, and it’s some of the cheapest revenue you’ll ever earn. Here’s how to run one.
How to Build and Price a Maintenance Plan That Sells Itself
A maintenance plan is the closest thing a service business has to recurring revenue — predictable income, loyal customers, and a pipeline of work in slow seasons. But most plans are priced by guesswork and sell poorly. Here’s how to build and price one that practically sells itself.
Teaching Techs to Upsell Without Sounding Salesy: A 5-Step Framework
“Upselling” makes most techs cringe — they don’t want to feel like a used-car salesman, and customers can smell a pitch. But recommending the right additional work is a service, not a scam. Here’s a 5-step framework that helps techs raise the average ticket while building trust, not resentment.
Good-Better-Best Option Selling for Service Techs (With Examples)
Presenting a single price forces a yes-or-no decision — and “no” is easy. Presenting good-better-best options changes the question from “should I buy?” to “which one?”, and it reliably raises your average ticket. Here’s how to build and present option-based pricing, with examples.
NPS for Small Businesses: How to Run It Without a Research Team
Net Promoter Score gets treated like a big-company metric that needs a research team and a fancy dashboard. It doesn’t. A one-question NPS survey is one of the simplest, most useful loyalty measures a small service business can run — and you can start this week. Here’s how.
CSAT Surveys After Every Job: Questions Timing and Benchmarks
You can’t improve what you don’t measure — and “I think customers are happy” isn’t a measurement. A short CSAT survey after every job gives you a real number, surfaces problems before they become public reviews, and shows you exactly where to improve. Here are the questions, timing, and benchmarks.
CSR Phone Script: Turn More Calls Into Booked Jobs
The phone is where marketing dollars turn into booked jobs — or get thrown away. A great customer service rep (CSR) can book 80%+ of qualified calls; an untrained one lets half walk. A solid phone script is the difference. Here’s one you can adapt for any home-service business.
Your Price Is Too High: 9 Objection-Handling Responses for the Phone
“Your price is too high.” Every contractor hears it, and most respond by either caving on price or getting defensive — both lose. The right response reframes the conversation around value and keeps the door open. Here are nine objection-handling responses you can use on the phone and on site.
Flat Rate vs Hourly Pricing for Service Businesses: Which Makes More Money?
Charge by the hour, or charge a flat price per job? It’s one of the biggest pricing decisions a service business makes — and it changes how much you earn, how customers feel, and how your techs behave. Here’s the honest comparison, and why most successful service businesses land on flat rate.
How to Build a Flat Rate Price Book From Scratch (With Formulas)
A flat rate price book turns your pricing from a nervous on-the-spot guess into a confident, consistent, profitable number every tech can quote. Building one from scratch sounds daunting, but it comes down to a formula and some discipline. Here’s how to build yours, step by step.
Job Costing for Contractors: Track Labor Materials and Real Profit
You can’t know if a job made money until you know what it truly cost — and “revenue minus parts” isn’t it. Job costing is the discipline of tracking the real cost of each job so you know your actual profit, not a guess. Here’s how to do it and why it changes everything.
How to Calculate Your Labor Burden Rate (Free Formula + Example)
If you price your labor at what you pay your tech per hour, you’re losing money on every job — probably a lot. A tech who earns $25/hour actually costs you far more once you add everything up. That real number is your labor burden rate, and calculating it is the foundation of profitable pricing. Here’s the formula, with an example.
A 13-Week Cash Flow Forecast Template for Small Contractors
Profitable businesses go under all the time — not because they aren’t making money, but because they run out of cash at the wrong moment. A 13-week cash flow forecast is the simple tool that keeps that from happening to you. Here’s the template and how to use it.
Get Paid Faster: Invoicing Rules That Cut Days Sales Outstanding
The job’s done, but the money isn’t in — and every day it sits unpaid is a day your cash is working for the customer instead of you. Slow-paying invoices strangle cash flow, especially as you grow. Here are the invoicing rules that cut your Days Sales Outstanding and get you paid faster.
Deposits and Progress Payments: How Much to Ask For (By Job Size)
Should you ask for money before the work is done? For small repairs, usually no. For larger jobs, absolutely — a deposit protects your cash flow and filters out non-serious customers. The real question is how much to ask for, and when. Here’s a practical guide by job size.
Chasing Late Payments: A Collections Sequence That Keeps the Relationship
Chasing late payments is nobody’s favorite job — it feels awkward, and you don’t want to torch a customer relationship over it. But unpaid invoices are your money, and letting them slide teaches customers they don’t have to pay. Here’s a collections sequence that gets you paid while keeping the relationship intact.
Can You Add a Credit Card Surcharge? State-by-State Rules for SMBs
Tired of watching 2–3% of every card transaction disappear to processing fees? You may be able to pass that cost to customers with a surcharge — but the rules are a legal minefield that varies by state and card-network policy. Here’s how surcharging works and where it’s allowed.
Offering Customer Financing: How It Changes Your Average Ticket
A $9,000 system replacement is an easy “no” when the customer has to write one big check — and an easy “yes” at “$150 a month.” Offering customer financing changes the question from “can I afford this?” to “which option?” and it can meaningfully lift your average ticket and close rate. Here’s how it works and what to weigh.
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