Grow your business

The cheapest customers are the ones who already found you once. Start with free visibility, then retention, then paid advertising.

1. Claim your free listings

• Google Business Profile — the most important free listing for local businesses. Fill in categories, hours, service area, photos and services, and post updates.
• Apple Business Connect and Bing Places — feed Apple Maps, Siri and Bing.
• Industry and local directories — keep your name, address and phone number identical everywhere.

2. Earn reviews (the right way)

• Ask every satisfied customer, at the moment the job is done, with a direct link.
• Reply to every review, especially negative ones — calmly and briefly.
• Don't buy reviews, reward only positive reviews, or post reviews for yourself. The FTC treats fake reviews as deceptive.

3. Local SEO basics

• A simple website with one page per service and the areas you serve.
• Your city and service in page titles ("Pressure Washing in Tucson").
• Fast, mobile-friendly pages and click-to-call buttons.
• Real photos of your work.

4. Keep the customers you have

• Recurring service plans and reminders.
• A short follow-up message after each job.
• Referral rewards for existing customers.

5. Set a marketing budget

Decide what a new customer is worth over a year, then cap what you'll pay to acquire one. The marketing ROI calculator shows your cost per customer and the close rate you need to break even.

6. Hiring and expansion

Before adding an employee or location, check the true cost with the employee cost calculator, model space with the lease calculator, and re-run your break-even.