Choose the customers, services, and markets that are worth growing. A sharper focus helps you attract work your team can deliver profitably.

A full calendar can hide a poor mix of work. If most of your inquiries are for jobs you don’t want, or in places that cost too much to serve, better marketing starts with being more selective about what you promote.

Look at completed jobs before writing an “ideal customer” description. Which work was profitable, went smoothly, and left a customer you’d happily work with again? That is a more useful starting point than an audience description that sounds good in a planning document.

• Are you clear about who you want to reach, what you want to sell, and where you want to compete?

  Try This: Write a one-page brief covering your best customer, priority services, and profitable service area.

Your Market

• Have you clearly defined your ideal customer?

  Try This: Describe your best recent customers using job type, budget, location, and expectations.

• Have you clearly defined who is not a good fit?

  Try This: List the jobs and customer situations you routinely decline, and explain why.

• Have you clearly defined the areas you want to serve?

  Try This: Publish a realistic service-area list that your team can actually cover.

• Do you know which areas are your highest priority?

  Try This: Rank your markets by profit, demand, travel time, and capacity.

• Do you know which cities, neighborhoods, ZIP codes, or counties matter most?

  Try This: Build a short target-area list from completed jobs and real inquiries.

• Do you know which areas are the most profitable?

  Try This: Compare gross profit after travel and delivery costs for each area.

• Do you know which areas tend to create low-profit or difficult jobs?

  Try This: Flag locations where callbacks, travel, or collections regularly erode margins.

• Have you decided how far your team is willing to travel?

  Try This: Set a normal travel radius and a separate rule for exceptional projects.

Your Services

• Have you clearly defined the main services you want to be known for?

  Try This: Choose a short list of core services and use the same names everywhere.

• Do you know which services you want to grow most?

  Try This: Select one or two growth services that match your capacity and margins.

• Do you know which services bring in the most revenue?

  Try This: Review invoiced revenue by service over a consistent reporting period.

• Do you know which services make you the most money after costs?

  Try This: Subtract direct labor, materials, subcontractors, and travel from each service's revenue.

• Do you know which services lead to the most long-term customer value?

  Try This: Compare first-job margin with repeat purchases and relevant referrals over time.

• Do you know which services can lead to repeat or recurring business?

  Try This: Identify natural maintenance, renewal, or seasonal needs after each service.

• Have you identified services you don't want to actively promote?

  Try This: Remove unwanted services from active campaigns without misleading existing customers.

• Are you avoiding spending money to attract low-margin or difficult work?

  Try This: Exclude low-margin job types from targeting and qualification questions where possible.

• Do the services you promote match what your team can actually deliver well?

  Try This: Check promoted offers with the people responsible for delivering them.

Your Best Customers

• Do you know why your best customers choose you?

  Try This: Ask five recent good-fit customers what made them choose you.

• Do you understand the problems they are trying to solve?

  Try This: Record the outcome customers wanted in their own words.

• Do you know what usually causes someone to start looking for your service?

  Try This: Note the event that prompted each recent inquiry, such as a move or breakdown.

• Do you know what usually keeps them from buying?

  Try This: Log the reason behind each delayed or lost opportunity.

• Do you know what other options they consider before choosing you?

  Try This: Ask customers which alternatives they considered, including doing nothing.

• Do you know the warning signs of a bad-fit customer?

  Try This: Turn recurring red flags into clear qualification questions.

• Are you trying to attract better-fit customers, not simply more leads?

  Try This: Review qualified opportunities and profitable wins alongside total lead volume.

What You Want People to Do

• Have you defined the main action you want a new prospect to take?

  Try This: Choose one primary next step for each offer, such as requesting an estimate.

• Does that action fit the way your business actually sells?

  Try This: Match the CTA to whether the sale needs triage, an inspection, or a consultation.

• Do you know which other actions also matter?

  Try This: List supporting actions such as calls, estimate requests, and diagnostic completions separately.

• Can you tell the difference between someone who is ready to buy and someone who is just looking?

  Try This: Use qualification questions and conversation notes rather than assuming every visitor is ready.

• Does your team know exactly what the next step should be for a new prospect?

  Try This: Document who owns the lead and the next action after each inquiry type.

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Make it easy to verify who you are, what you do, and where you work. Your website, Google profile, and business listings should support the same accurate story.

Google says local results depend mainly on relevance, distance, and prominence; adding service areas is not a guarantee of rankings in those places. See Google’s local-ranking guidance and its business representation guidelines.

• Can customers and search engines clearly tell who you are, what you do, and where you work?

  Try This: Compare your website and listings against one approved business-information record.

Google Business Profile

• Is your Google Business Profile claimed and verified?

  Try This: Claim the eligible profile through Google and complete its requested verification.

• Does it use your real business name?

  Try This: Use the real-world business name; leave added service keywords out of the name.

• Is your address correct, if you show one?

  Try This: Only display an eligible customer-facing address; hide home addresses for service-area businesses.

• Are your service areas correct?

  Try This: Choose actual service areas rather than every city you hope to rank in.

• Is your main business category the best fit?

  Try This: Pick the most specific accurate category for your main business activity.

• Have you added other categories that truly apply?

  Try This: Add secondary categories only for services your business actually provides.

• Are your normal business hours correct?

  Try This: Compare profile hours with the team's real customer-facing availability.

• Are holiday and special hours kept up to date?

  Try This: Schedule a monthly check and update special hours before holidays.

• Is your main phone number correct?

  Try This: Call the listed number and confirm it reaches the correct team.

• Does your website link go to the right place?

  Try This: Open the website link on mobile and check the destination and HTTPS.

• Are all of your important services listed?

  Try This: Add the services you actively sell using clear customer-friendly names.

• Is all other business information on the profile accurate?

  Try This: Review descriptions, accessibility details, and attributes for accuracy.

• Have you added booking, appointment, estimate, or service links when available?

  Try This: Add the most relevant supported booking or appointment link when eligible.

• Do those links take people to the right next step?

  Try This: Submit a test inquiry through each action link and verify the handoff.

• Have you removed old or broken links?

  Try This: Replace outdated URLs and retest the destination after saving.

• Is someone watching for unwanted Google edits?

  Try This: Assign a profile owner to review change notifications and public information weekly.

• Is someone watching for verification, ownership, or suspension problems?

  Try This: Keep ownership records current and review Google's notices before making corrective changes.

Your Business Information Online

• Is your business name shown the same way on the important websites that list you?

  Try This: Compare your major listings with the approved real-world business name.

• Is your phone number consistent online?

  Try This: Use one approved main number, with documented tracking-number arrangements where needed.

• Is your address or service-area information consistent?

  Try This: Correct outdated addresses and avoid publishing a private address unnecessarily.

• Are your hours consistent?

  Try This: Update your most-used listings whenever customer-facing hours change.

• Are old phone numbers or addresses still showing anywhere important?

  Try This: Search the old details and prioritize corrections on prominent listings.

• Do you have duplicate listings that could confuse customers?

  Try This: Check ownership and eligibility before requesting duplicate merges or removals.

• Have old listings from former locations or owners been cleaned up?

  Try This: Keep a list of former locations and track each correction request.

• Are important industry directories accurate?

  Try This: Audit directories customers and industry partners actually use.

• Are your main social and business profiles accurate, even if you don't post there often?

  Try This: Review profile names, contact details, links, and service descriptions quarterly.

Your Service Area

• Does your website clearly tell people where you work?

  Try This: Put an easy-to-find service-area statement on relevant website pages.

• Do your service pages mention the areas you serve when it makes sense?

  Try This: Mention genuine coverage naturally where it helps someone decide whether to inquire.

• Does your Contact page clearly show where you are located or where you work?

  Try This: State your coverage clearly and explain whether customers visit you or you travel.

• Do important markets have their own useful location pages when they deserve one?

  Try This: Create a location page only when you have distinct, useful local information.

• Does each location page contain real, useful information instead of mostly copied text?

  Try This: Add local project examples, travel details, and service considerations that are actually different.

• Do you show real projects, testimonials, or customer examples from the areas you serve?

  Try This: Request permission to share relevant customer stories and completed local work.

• Are you avoiding dozens of nearly identical city pages made only to rank?

  Try This: Consolidate thin city pages rather than swapping place names in copied text.

• Can a visitor quickly tell whether you serve their area?

  Try This: Place a concise coverage summary near your main inquiry CTA.

Local Credibility

• Do your website, Google profile, reviews, and other listings all tell the same story about where you work?

  Try This: Check location claims across your website, profile, and major listings together.

• Are you collecting photos from jobs in the areas you want more business from?

  Try This: Ask crews to capture approved project photos with the service area recorded internally.

• Do you have customer stories from important markets?

  Try This: Document the customer's situation, work completed, and location with appropriate permission.

• Do you show meaningful local memberships, affiliations, or credentials when relevant?

  Try This: Show current, verifiable affiliations and explain what they mean to customers.

• Does your local presence reflect the markets you actually want to grow?

  Try This: Compare recent inquiries with your target markets before expanding coverage claims.

Back to the Checklist Contents ↑

Your website needs to be findable, usable, and connected to a real next step. Search visibility is useful only when the pages and inquiry paths actually work.

For page experience, the Core Web Vitals “good” thresholds are LCP at or below 2.5 seconds, INP at or below 200 milliseconds, and CLS at or below 0.1, assessed at the 75th percentile of visits. These are performance targets, not a ranking guarantee. See the Web Vitals definitions and thresholds.

• Is your website built so people can find what they need, trust what they see, and take action?

  Try This: Test the complete journey from finding a service to submitting an inquiry.

Website Structure

• Does your website have a clear homepage?

  Try This: Make the homepage explain your services, coverage, credibility, and next step quickly.

• Is there an easy way to see all of your main services?

  Try This: Create a useful services overview linked from the main navigation.

• Does every important service have its own useful page?

  Try This: Build one substantial page for each meaningfully different service you want to sell.

• Can people easily find those service pages from your menu?

  Try This: Use recognizable service labels rather than internal department names in the menu.

• Is the site organized in a way that makes sense to a normal customer?

  Try This: Ask someone unfamiliar with the business to find a service and request help.

• Do related pages link to each other in helpful ways?

  Try This: Link to related services, relevant examples, and the next useful action.

• Are any important pages buried too deeply?

  Try This: Make priority service pages reachable through prominent navigation or contextual links.

• Do you have useful pages that are difficult to find from anywhere else?

  Try This: Find orphan pages with a crawl and add useful internal links.

• Are old pages still hanging around that no longer serve a purpose?

  Try This: Review outdated pages before updating, redirecting, or removing them appropriately.

• Can Google Find Your Pages?

  Try This: Use Search Console's URL Inspection tool on a priority page.

• Can Google easily access your website?

  Try This: Check robots rules and server responses so public pages are accessible to Googlebot.

• Can Google include your important pages in search results?

  Try This: Inspect indexing status for your main commercial pages in Search Console.

• Are any important pages accidentally hidden from Google?

  Try This: Check for accidental noindex directives or access restrictions before requesting indexing.

• Are you clearly telling Google which version of a page is the main version when duplicates exist?

  Try This: Set appropriate canonical URLs and keep internal links consistent with preferred versions.

• Does your website give Google an up-to-date list of your pages?

  Try This: Submit the current XML sitemap and remove URLs that should not be indexed.

• Are search errors being monitored?

  Try This: Review Search Console indexing reports and prioritize problems affecting useful pages.

• Do you have duplicate pages competing with each other?

  Try This: Compare overlapping pages and merge them when they answer the same intent.

• Do old website links send people to the right new pages?

  Try This: Map old URLs to the closest relevant live page using permanent redirects when appropriate.

• Have broken or outdated pages been cleaned up?

  Try This: Fix broken destinations and remove links to obsolete content.

Mobile Experience

• Is your website easy to use on a phone?

  Try This: Complete a real inquiry from a phone using mobile data.

• Does it load quickly enough that people don't leave?

  Try This: Measure actual mobile loading and interaction performance before adding more plugins.

• Can people quickly see the most important information?

  Try This: Put the service, area, proof, and main action ahead of secondary material.

• Are buttons easy to tap?

  Try This: Give buttons enough space and test them with a thumb on a small screen.

• Are forms easy to fill out on a phone?

  Try This: Use clear labels, suitable keyboards, and only necessary required fields.

• Can someone tap your phone number to call?

  Try This: Use a working tel link and test it from a mobile device.

• Do you make important actions easy to find while someone scrolls?

  Try This: Keep the primary action visible without covering content or form controls.

• Are popups getting in the way?

  Try This: Remove intrusive overlays and make necessary notices easy to dismiss.

• Can a first-time visitor easily understand how to move around the site?

  Try This: Use straightforward navigation labels and show people where they are on the site.

• Does Everything Actually Work?

  Try This: Run a complete test from the page through to the team's notification.

• Do all website forms work?

  Try This: Submit a test through every public form and check the stored record.

• Do all booking links work?

  Try This: Test availability, time zones, confirmation, cancellation, and rescheduling in booking flows.

• Do all phone links work?

  Try This: Test each phone link on a real device and confirm the dialed number.

• Do form submissions reach the right person or system?

  Try This: Follow a test submission into the CRM and confirm its assigned owner.

• Does every important page make the next step clear?

  Try This: Give each page one clear primary action that fits its purpose.

• Does someone receive a clear confirmation after contacting you?

  Try This: Show a confirmation with an honest response expectation and a useful next step.

• Do new leads automatically make it into the right lead or customer system?

  Try This: Check whether submissions update existing records instead of creating unnecessary duplicates.

• Can you track when someone takes an important action?

  Try This: Test key-event reporting without counting ordinary page views as inquiries.

Service Pages

• Does every important service you want to sell have its own clear page?

  Try This: Map your core services to unique pages before creating more content.

• Does each page clearly explain the service?

  Try This: Describe the service in plain language before explaining your process.

• Is the page written to help a customer, not just to rank on Google?

  Try This: Use customers' questions and real examples rather than repeating location keywords.

• Does it explain what is included?

  Try This: List the deliverables, boundaries, and common options customers need to understand.

• Does it explain who the service is for?

  Try This: Explain typical use cases and the circumstances where another service is better.

• Does it explain pricing or what affects price when possible?

  Try This: Publish honest ranges or cost drivers without implying every project costs the same.

• Does it explain what happens next?

  Try This: Describe what happens after someone calls, submits, or books.

• Does it show proof that you can do the work?

  Try This: Add relevant project photos, credentials, testimonials, or a case study.

• Does it make the next step obvious?

  Try This: Place a clear CTA beside useful context and supporting proof.

• Have you avoided creating several nearly identical pages when one strong page would be better?

  Try This: Combine substantially overlapping pages into a stronger resource when appropriate.

Helping Search Engines Understand the Business

• Does your website give search engines clear information about your business?

  Try This: Use accurate business and article structured data that matches the visible page.

• Does your website clearly identify the company behind it?

  Try This: Publish clear business identity, contact, and service information in readable text.

• Does the information given to search engines match what customers can actually see?

  Try This: Compare structured data values with the business details visitors actually see.

• Are you avoiding unnecessary or misleading search markup?

  Try This: Use supported schema types only when the visible content justifies them.

• Is your core business information consistent everywhere on the site?

  Try This: Keep approved company details consistent in headers, footers, and contact pages.

Website Maintenance

• Is your website secure?

  Try This: Use HTTPS, maintained software, appropriate access, and tested backups.

• Are broken links checked and fixed?

  Try This: Run a link check after major updates and repair important broken destinations first.

• Are website forms tested from time to time?

  Try This: Schedule recurring real submissions to verify forms and notifications.

• Are important software and website connections kept up to date?

  Try This: Apply supported updates carefully and retest important integrations afterward.

• Is someone monitoring how the site is performing in Google Search?

  Try This: Review Search Console performance and indexing changes on a regular schedule.

• Does someone clearly own fixing major website problems?

  Try This: Assign an owner, severity, and deadline for each material website issue.

• Is the website tested after major changes are made?

  Try This: Retest forms, navigation, tracking, and mobile layouts after publishing changes.

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Help people understand their options before they are ready to call. Useful content answers real questions and gives customers a reason to trust your experience.

Google’s guidance favors useful, people-first content with clear experience and purpose. Helpful writing does not guarantee inclusion in search or AI answers. Read Google’s people-first content guidance.

• Are you creating useful information that helps the right people discover you before they are ready to call?

  Try This: Start with real customer questions and connect each article to a useful next step.

What Customers Search For

• Have you written down the questions prospects ask before contacting you?

  Try This: Collect questions from calls, search queries, forms, and customer conversations.

• Have you written down the questions customers ask during the sales process?

  Try This: Ask salespeople to record repeated questions after consultations.

• Do you know the biggest questions people have about price?

  Try This: Explain the main cost drivers and what a quote includes.

• Do you know what options people compare?

  Try This: Compare relevant options using practical tradeoffs, not unsupported superiority claims.

• Do you know what problems they type into Google before they know which service they need?

  Try This: Write down the symptoms customers describe before they know your service name.

• Do you know the common “Is this worth it?” questions?

  Try This: Explain who benefits, likely tradeoffs, and when the purchase may not make sense.

• Do you know the common maintenance or ownership questions?

  Try This: Turn recurring care and ownership questions into practical reference guides.

• Do you know which questions are unique to your local market?

  Try This: Address local weather, housing, access, and regulations only where you know the facts.

• Is Your Content Actually Helpful?

  Try This: Ask a prospective customer whether the page answers their question clearly and usefully.

• Does your content truly answer the customer's question?

  Try This: Answer the actual question early, then give useful detail and examples.

• Does it reflect what your company actually knows from experience?

  Try This: Have the person who does the work check the article's advice.

• Are you sharing lessons learned from real work when possible?

  Try This: Explain what happened on a real job without sharing private customer details.

• Does your content include your own point of view instead of repeating everyone else?

  Try This: Add your own process, examples, or observations instead of rewriting generic summaries.

• Is the information accurate?

  Try This: Verify technical claims against current primary sources or qualified subject experts.

• Do you update old information when things change?

  Try This: Set review dates for advice affected by pricing, products, or policies.

• Does the content help someone make a better decision?

  Try This: Give readers enough context to compare choices and identify a sensible next step.

• Does it sound like your company instead of generic internet content?

  Try This: Read the draft aloud and replace language your team would never use.

• Have you removed unnecessary filler?

  Try This: Remove repeated introductions, empty claims, and paragraphs that do not help decisions.

• Do you make complicated ideas easier to understand?

  Try This: Define necessary terms and use a concrete example before adding more detail.

What You Teach

• Do you explain your important services?

  Try This: Create helpful explanations for the services you actively want to sell.

• Do you have helpful buying guides where they make sense?

  Try This: Build buying guides around suitability, cost drivers, process, and common tradeoffs.

• Do you answer common questions?

  Try This: Answer recurring questions in a searchable FAQ or relevant service page.

• Do you explain price or what affects price?

  Try This: Explain why prices vary and what information helps produce a reliable estimate.

• Do you teach people about common mistakes?

  Try This: Show the mistake, its practical consequence, and a realistic prevention step.

• Do you explain how your process works?

  Try This: Outline the stages customers experience from inquiry through completion.

• Do you compare different options when that would help?

  Try This: Compare options using the same criteria and disclose meaningful limitations.

• Do you share real projects and customer stories when useful?

  Try This: Document the customer's starting point, work performed, and verified outcome.

• Do you use photos or video when they make something easier to understand?

  Try This: Use original visuals when they clarify a process, condition, or result.

• Do you address common reasons people hesitate to buy?

  Try This: Answer objections with evidence and explanation instead of pressure.

• Do you help customers prepare for what happens next?

  Try This: Publish preparation steps for the customer's next appointment or project milestone.

Being Found Beyond Traditional Google Results

• Is your content written clearly enough for both people and modern search tools to understand?

  Try This: Use clear headings, direct answers, and consistent business information.

• Do you clearly name and explain the services and topics you're talking about?

  Try This: Name each service accurately and explain unfamiliar terms near their first use.

• Do related pages connect to each other?

  Try This: Connect articles to related service pages and other useful guidance.

• Are helpful photos placed near the information they relate to?

  Try This: Place each relevant image beside the explanation it supports.

• Do your images have simple, useful descriptions?

  Try This: Write concise alt text describing meaningful image content; leave decorative images empty.

• Is it clear when information comes from someone on your team with real expertise?

  Try This: Identify the author or reviewer and describe relevant real experience honestly.

• Is important information available in writing instead of only inside videos, images, or PDFs?

  Try This: Provide a readable web version of important guidance alongside video or PDF formats.

• Is it easy for search and AI tools to understand what your company actually knows and does?

  Try This: Make your expertise explicit through specific explanations and verifiable examples.

Content Discipline

• Does every piece of content have a clear purpose?

  Try This: Write the audience, question, and desired next step before drafting.

• Can you connect each piece of content to a service, customer question, stage of the buying process, or Market Driver?

  Try This: Assign each article to a customer question, service, journey stage, and driver.

• Are you avoiding posting just because you feel like you have to “put something out”?

  Try This: Publish when you can add useful information, not merely satisfy a calendar.

• Do you have a repeatable way to turn what your team knows into useful content?

  Try This: Interview team members and turn repeated explanations into reviewed resources.

• Can useful content be reused in emails, sales conversations, FAQs, and follow-up?

  Try This: Reuse the same accurate answer in relevant follow-up and sales materials.

Back to the Checklist Contents ↑

Explain why your business is a sensible choice for the right customer. Clear positioning connects the service, the customer need, your evidence, and what happens next.

• Does the right customer quickly understand why your business is a good fit for them?

  Try This: Ask a new visitor to explain your offer after briefly viewing the homepage.

Clear Message

• Can someone understand what you do within a few seconds?

  Try This: Lead with the service and customer outcome in plain language.

• Can they quickly understand who you help?

  Try This: Name the customer types and situations you serve best.

• Can they quickly understand where you work?

  Try This: State your genuine service area near the main offer.

• Can they quickly understand the problem you solve?

  Try This: Describe the customer's immediate need before listing features.

• Can they quickly understand what to do next?

  Try This: Give the page one obvious primary CTA with an honest expectation.

• Is your message clear instead of vague?

  Try This: Replace broad slogans with specific services, customers, and outcomes.

• Does your message say something more meaningful than “quality, service, and integrity”?

  Try This: Explain observable differences in your process rather than unsupported quality claims.

Speaking to the Right Customer

• Does your message speak directly to the kind of customer you want?

  Try This: Use examples and language your best customers recognize.

• Does it help obvious bad-fit prospects realize you may not be right for them?

  Try This: State project minimums, exclusions, or service boundaries where appropriate.

• Is the level of service you provide clear?

  Try This: Explain the scope and support included at your normal service level.

• Do you set realistic expectations?

  Try This: Describe realistic availability, lead times, and responsibilities before the sale.

• Can customers tell whether you are premium, budget-focused, specialized, urgent, consultative, or something else?

  Try This: Show the experience and tradeoffs that support your pricing and delivery model.

• Does the experience you promise match what customers actually receive?

  Try This: Check promises with the team that must fulfill them.

• Why You?

  Try This: Choose differences that matter to your best customers and that you can demonstrate.

• Can you clearly explain why someone should choose you over another good company?

  Try This: List the meaningful differences customers actually mention after choosing you.

• Are those differences actually true?

  Try This: Remove claims you cannot demonstrate or consistently deliver.

• Do those differences matter to the customer?

  Try This: Connect each differentiator to something the customer values.

• Do you back up big claims with real evidence?

  Try This: Place relevant evidence close to any substantial claim.

• Do you explain any unique process you use when it matters?

  Try This: Explain the useful steps of your process without inventing a proprietary label.

• Is the way you deliver the service clear?

  Try This: Outline who does the work and how communication happens.

• Is there something meaningfully different about your customer experience?

  Try This: Identify a customer-experience advantage your team can reliably repeat.

• Do you clearly explain any real guarantees or commitments you make?

  Try This: State genuine guarantee terms, exclusions, and the process for getting help.

• What Happens Next?

  Try This: Explain the first contact, assessment, proposal, and delivery stages clearly.

• Does someone know what will happen after they contact you?

  Try This: Describe what happens after the specific CTA on that page.

• Is your buying process easy to understand?

  Try This: Show the buying steps in a simple sequence with named responsibilities.

• Do you explain normal timelines?

  Try This: Use realistic ranges and explain what can change the schedule.

• Do you explain any steps you use to qualify a customer?

  Try This: Tell customers what information you need and why you need it.

• Do customers know what to expect from a consultation, estimate, inspection, or booking?

  Try This: Explain the purpose, preparation, and expected outcome of the appointment.

• Do customers understand what happens after they say yes?

  Try This: Send a clear next-steps message after approval or payment.

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Let genuine customer experiences build confidence before the first conversation. Consistent, fair review practices and thoughtful responses matter more than a one-time ratings push.

Google prohibits fake engagement, incentivized reviews, and selectively soliciting positive reviews. A request should invite an honest account of a genuine experience. Check Google’s review content policies.

• Does your online reputation give people confidence that they can trust you?

  Try This: Review the accuracy, freshness, and substance of your reputation across important platforms.

Getting Reviews

• Have you decided when customers should be asked for a review?

  Try This: Choose a consistent request point after a genuine customer experience.

• Does every eligible customer have a fair chance to leave one?

  Try This: Use the same neutral eligibility rule regardless of expected review sentiment.

• Are review requests automated when that makes sense?

  Try This: Trigger an honest review request after the relevant service milestone.

• Can your team also ask manually when a personal request makes more sense?

  Try This: Give staff a short neutral request they can send personally.

• Do you ask while the customer's experience is still fresh?

  Try This: Ask soon after the experience, allowing for the service's normal completion process.

• Is it easy for a customer to leave a review?

  Try This: Use a direct review link and avoid unnecessary forms or logins you control.

• Does your team know how and when to ask?

  Try This: Train staff on timing, wording, and the platform's review policies.

Keeping Review Practices Clean

• Are you avoiding only asking happy customers for public reviews?

  Try This: Remove any satisfaction screen that sends only happy customers to public review sites.

• Can an unhappy customer still choose to leave a public review?

  Try This: Offer public review access consistently rather than hiding it from dissatisfied customers.

• Are you avoiding rewards or discounts in exchange for Google reviews?

  Try This: Do not offer payment, discounts, or prizes for Google reviews.

• Are you avoiding purchased reviews?

  Try This: Reject purchased review offers and document your policy with vendors.

• Are employees, friends, or insiders kept from leaving misleading reviews?

  Try This: Avoid conflicted reviews; check each platform's rules for employees and insiders.

• Are you avoiding fake or AI-created customer reviews?

  Try This: Never fabricate a customer's identity, experience, or testimonial with AI.

• Does your team know your rules for requesting reviews?

  Try This: Give the team written rules and review request examples.

Review Activity

• Are new reviews coming in consistently?

  Try This: Review recent review volume alongside the number of eligible completed jobs.

• Do you have enough reviews to compete in your market?

  Try This: Compare your review recency and substance with relevant local competitors.

• Have customers reviewed you recently?

  Try This: Set a consistent request process rather than chasing a one-time review spike.

• Do your reviews cover the services you want more of?

  Try This: Request honest feedback across the services you actually perform.

• Do your reviews reflect the kinds of customer experiences you want to repeat?

  Try This: Look for recurring customer experiences that match your intended positioning.

What Your Reviews Say

• Do customers mention the actual services they received?

  Try This: Ask for honest feedback about the experience without scripting keywords or a rating.

• Do they mention the results they cared about?

  Try This: Notice which outcomes customers value and reflect them accurately in your messaging.

• Do they mention team members when appropriate?

  Try This: Let customers choose whether to name team members; never pressure them.

• Do reviews show that you are responsive, professional, trustworthy, or easy to work with?

  Try This: Turn recurring praise and complaints into concrete service improvements.

• Are you paying attention when the same complaint appears more than once?

  Try This: Investigate recurring complaints with the person responsible for the underlying process.

Responding to Reviews

• Do you respond to positive reviews?

  Try This: Thank customers specifically without revealing private job or account information.

• Do you handle negative reviews professionally?

  Try This: Acknowledge the concern calmly and offer an appropriate private resolution path.

• Do your responses strengthen the brand instead of creating arguments?

  Try This: Remove defensive language and arguments before publishing a response.

• Do you respond in a reasonable amount of time?

  Try This: Set a response target your team can maintain during normal business hours.

• Do you avoid sharing private customer details?

  Try This: Keep payment, health, address, and other private details out of public replies.

• Is there a clear process for serious complaints?

  Try This: Route serious complaints to an authorized owner and document the response.

• Do you report reviews that clearly break platform rules?

  Try This: Report policy violations through the platform, without promising removal of legitimate criticism.

Watching Your Reputation

• Are you keeping an eye on reviews across the important platforms in your industry?

  Try This: Assign ownership for monitoring the platforms customers actually consult.

• Do you track your overall rating?

  Try This: Check your main rating and material changes on a regular schedule.

• Do you track how often new reviews come in?

  Try This: Compare review requests with newly published reviews over the same period.

• Do you know what percentage of review requests turn into reviews?

  Try This: Use request and response counts from consistent periods and explain tracking limitations.

• Do you investigate meaningful drops in your rating?

  Try This: Investigate a rating drop before assuming it is caused by fake reviews.

• Do customer complaints lead to real operational improvements?

  Try This: Assign a process fix when feedback reveals a repeatable service problem.

Back to the Checklist Contents ↑

Show evidence of the work and experience you claim. Relevant projects, credentials, and customer stories should help someone judge whether you can handle their situation.

A photo of a finished project proves that a project happened. It may leave the customer wondering whether you can handle their project.

Add a little context: what the customer needed, what made the job difficult, what you recommended, and what the finished work achieved. A landscape lighting project with careful fixture placement tells a different story from a gallery of night shots with no explanation. Use genuine details and the customer’s permission.

• Can you show real evidence that you know what you're doing and deliver good work?

  Try This: Match your strongest evidence to the doubts customers have before committing.

Capturing Proof

• Are you regularly taking original photos of your work?

  Try This: Build an approved photo checklist into job completion.

• Are you taking before-and-after photos when appropriate?

  Try This: Capture comparable before-and-after views without misrepresenting lighting or scope.

• Are you collecting video testimonials when useful?

  Try This: Ask willing customers for a short account of their experience in their own words.

• Are you collecting written testimonials?

  Try This: Keep the customer's approved wording and record permission to use it.

• Are you documenting measurable results when possible?

  Try This: Record the starting point, final result, time period, and measurement method.

• Are you documenting your strongest projects?

  Try This: Document scope, constraints, process, and outcome while the project is fresh.

• Are you capturing useful customer stories?

  Try This: Interview the customer and team about the problem and what changed.

• Do your best examples become case studies?

  Try This: Turn suitable projects into short case studies with evidence and limitations.

• Are your team's qualifications documented?

  Try This: Keep current role-relevant qualifications in an accessible internal record.

• Are important certifications documented?

  Try This: Verify certification status and renewal dates before displaying badges.

• Are required licenses shown where relevant?

  Try This: Display required license information accurately and link to official verification where useful.

• Are real awards and memberships documented?

  Try This: Show only genuine, current awards or memberships with their actual scope.

• Is your experience represented accurately?

  Try This: Use correct dates, roles, and project descriptions when describing experience.

• Are you capturing behind-the-scenes photos or videos that show how you work?

  Try This: Capture real processes with permission and appropriate site-safety precautions.

• Is gathering proof part of the normal job instead of something someone remembers afterward?

  Try This: Assign photo and story collection to a clear job milestone and owner.

Keeping Proof Organized

• Is there one place where your team can find your best proof?

  Try This: Create a shared evidence library with clear permissions and naming rules.

• Can you quickly find proof for a specific service?

  Try This: Tag assets by service so the team can find relevant examples quickly.

• Can you quickly find proof from a specific market or location?

  Try This: Tag approved examples by market without exposing private customer addresses.

• Can you quickly find proof for a specific type of customer?

  Try This: Group examples by the customer situation they help explain.

• Can your team find what they need without searching through random folders and phones?

  Try This: Move approved assets out of personal devices into the shared library.

• Do you have permission to use customer photos, stories, or testimonials when needed?

  Try This: Record the approved uses and any limits on customer-provided material.

• Are files named and organized in a way your team can understand?

  Try This: Use readable filenames with service, project reference, and date.

• Are outdated or poor-quality assets removed from regular use?

  Try This: Archive outdated assets so they do not get reused by mistake.

Using Proof

• Do your service pages show proof related to that service?

  Try This: Add the most relevant approved example to each priority service page.

• Do you place proof near important calls to action?

  Try This: Place evidence beside the decision or CTA it supports.

• Do campaign and landing pages include proof?

  Try This: Match landing-page proof to the actual offer and audience.

• Do you use proof when following up on estimates or proposals?

  Try This: Send one relevant example that addresses the customer's outstanding concern.

• Can salespeople easily use proof during conversations?

  Try This: Give salespeople a small organized library rather than an unfiltered asset dump.

• Do your emails use real customer proof?

  Try This: Use approved, relevant examples instead of unsupported success claims.

• Do reactivation campaigns use proof when helpful?

  Try This: Choose proof that fits the person's original need and current situation.

• Do prospects see relevant proof before booking or committing when it would help?

  Try This: Share a relevant project or explanation before asking for a large commitment.

• Can people easily find your strongest case studies or examples?

  Try This: Make approved case studies easy to find from services and navigation.

• Do you show proof before asking someone to make a major decision?

  Try This: Place substantive evidence before the booking or proposal decision where useful.

• Is the Proof Relevant?

  Try This: Check that each example answers a real customer doubt and matches the service you are discussing.

• Does the proof match the service someone is considering?

  Try This: Check that each example reflects the service the customer is evaluating.

• Does it match situations like theirs?

  Try This: Choose comparable project types, constraints, and customer needs.

• Does it answer common doubts?

  Try This: Pair each common doubt with the strongest relevant evidence you have.

• Is it specific enough to feel real?

  Try This: Include meaningful project detail while protecting customer privacy.

• Can prospects see that you've successfully handled work similar to theirs?

  Try This: Explain the similarities and important differences between the example and their project.

Back to the Checklist Contents ↑

Answer the questions that make customers hesitate. Good education reduces uncertainty about price, process, fit, preparation, and the decision they are making.

• Do you answer the questions people need answered before they feel comfortable buying?

  Try This: List the unanswered questions that make a customer hesitate before saying yes.

Common Customer Questions

• Do you answer the questions your sales team hears over and over?

  Try This: Collect repeated sales questions and assign a concise reviewed answer to each.

• Do you explain price or what affects price?

  Try This: Explain cost drivers, scope, and common options rather than hiding every price question.

• Do you explain how long things usually take?

  Try This: Publish realistic time ranges and the factors that can change them.

• Do you explain what is included?

  Try This: Describe the deliverables and service boundaries in plain language.

• Do you explain what is not included?

  Try This: List important exclusions before someone books or approves work.

• Do you explain how your process works?

  Try This: Explain the stages, responsibilities, and normal communication points.

• Do you tell customers how to prepare?

  Try This: Send a short preparation checklist before the appointment or project.

• Do you explain important risks or tradeoffs?

  Try This: Describe meaningful limitations and tradeoffs without burying them in fine print.

• Do you explain common mistakes?

  Try This: Explain common mistakes and how a customer can avoid them.

• Do you explain the different options available?

  Try This: Compare appropriate alternatives using the same decision criteria.

• Do you help people understand how to compare providers?

  Try This: Give customers a short list of practical questions to ask any provider.

• Do you explain who is and is not a good fit?

  Try This: Explain the situations where your service is suitable and where another option is better.

Common Objections

• Have you written down the most common reasons people hesitate?

  Try This: Group common objections by price, timing, fit, risk, and trust.

• Do you have a good way to address price concerns?

  Try This: Explain value and scope, and offer realistic options without inventing discounts.

• Do you address timing concerns?

  Try This: Clarify scheduling choices and what delaying may reasonably affect.

• Do you address trust concerns?

  Try This: Use relevant evidence and transparent process details to reduce uncertainty.

• Do you reduce the risks people may feel?

  Try This: Explain genuine protections, responsibilities, and support without overpromising.

• Do you have a useful way to follow up with people who say, “I need to think about it”?

  Try This: Ask what remains unresolved and send the resource that addresses it.

• Can salespeople send helpful information instead of explaining the same thing from scratch every time?

  Try This: Create a short answer library with links to accurate supporting resources.

Before the Sale

• Do prospects receive helpful information before a meeting, appointment, or consultation?

  Try This: Send the agenda, preparation, and expected outcome after booking.

• Does that information reduce uncertainty?

  Try This: Answer the most common uncertainty before the person needs to ask.

• Does it set clear expectations?

  Try This: State location, timing, preparation, and whether there is any charge.

• Does it help more people show up?

  Try This: Use useful reminders and an easy cancellation or rescheduling path.

• Does it help weed out poor-fit prospects?

  Try This: Explain fit requirements before people invest time in a meeting.

• Does it make the actual sales conversation easier and more useful?

  Try This: Review common pre-meeting questions and improve the preparation resource.

Connecting Education to Sales

• Can your sales team quickly send the right educational resource during follow-up?

  Try This: Link the relevant resource in follow-up instead of sending a generic brochure.

• Are your best FAQs reused on your website, in emails, in proposals, and in team training?

  Try This: Maintain one approved answer and reuse it consistently across channels.

• Do customer questions help decide what content you create next?

  Try This: Add repeated customer questions to the next content review.

• Do sales objections help decide what content you create next?

  Try This: Use real lost-sale reasons to identify the next useful explanation.

• Does your customer service team's knowledge make its way into your content?

  Try This: Ask service staff which questions or misunderstandings create avoidable problems.

• Do you update educational materials when prices, policies, or processes change?

  Try This: Assign an owner and review date to materials affected by changes.

Back to the Checklist Contents ↑

Give every genuine opportunity a reliable place to land. Calls, forms, bookings, and referrals need consistent records and a person who can act on them.

Email and SMS have different permission and opt-out requirements. For US commercial email, review the FTC’s CAN-SPAM guidance; it does not establish permission to send marketing texts. Apply the rules relevant to your channels, audience, and jurisdiction.

• Does every real opportunity make it into a system where someone can act on it?

  Try This: Submit test inquiries through every major channel and follow them into the CRM.

Where Leads Come From

• Are website form leads captured?

  Try This: Submit every website form and confirm the right record is created or updated.

• Are inbound calls captured?

  Try This: Check call records and connect relevant calls to the correct contact.

• Are missed calls captured?

  Try This: Create an actionable callback record for missed sales calls.

• Are online bookings captured?

  Try This: Verify bookings create the contact, appointment, and appropriate opportunity.

• Are website chat leads captured?

  Try This: Test chat submissions and confirm ownership and follow-up.

• Are estimate requests captured?

  Try This: Send a test estimate request and check its source and destination.

• Are consultation requests captured?

  Try This: Check consultation forms and booking links from the actual public page.

• Are referrals captured?

  Try This: Give staff a simple way to record the referrer and the customer's need.

• Are leads from paid advertising captured?

  Try This: Test each ad form or landing page rather than assuming integration is working.

• Are leads from your Google Business Profile captured when possible?

  Try This: Check supported profile links and call reporting without assuming every interaction is identifiable.

• Are leads from third-party websites captured when relevant?

  Try This: Document how each relevant third-party lead source reaches the team.

• Can staff easily add a lead manually?

  Try This: Give staff a simple manual lead-entry process with required essentials.

• Can walk-in leads be added when relevant?

  Try This: Use a quick intake form for walk-ins when they are genuine opportunities.

• Are you preventing leads from getting stuck in personal phones or email inboxes?

  Try This: Require relevant business inquiries to be recorded in the shared system.

What You Know About Each Lead

• Do you capture the person's name?

  Try This: Ask for a name in plain language and avoid unnecessary identity fields.

• Do you capture their phone number when needed?

  Try This: Collect a phone number only when it supports the chosen contact process.

• Do you capture their email when needed?

  Try This: Collect an email when it is needed for replies, records, or requested resources.

• Do you know what service they are interested in?

  Try This: Use a short service-interest field with clear choices.

• Do you know where they are located when that matters?

  Try This: Ask for a ZIP code or service address only when needed to assess coverage.

• Do you know where the lead came from?

  Try This: Keep the original source and record later touchpoints separately where possible.

• Are you collecting permission to text or email when required?

  Try This: Record channel-specific permissions and the wording shown at collection.

• Do you prevent the same person from being added over and over?

  Try This: Use consistent email or phone matching with reviewed duplicate-handling rules.

• Are incomplete leads identified so someone can fill in the gaps?

  Try This: Flag missing essentials and assign a person to complete the record.

Clean Lead Records

• Does every new lead create or update the right customer record?

  Try This: Test that each integration updates the correct contact rather than creating duplicates.

• Does every real sales opportunity get tracked?

  Try This: Create a tracked opportunity for a genuine new sales need.

• Are duplicate sales opportunities kept under control?

  Try This: Define when a repeat inquiry updates an existing opportunity or creates a new one.

• Does everyone use the same basic information fields?

  Try This: Standardize field names and definitions before connecting more tools.

• Does everyone use the same lead-source options?

  Try This: Use a controlled source list with a clear option for unknown sources.

• Do your forms collect information consistently?

  Try This: Align form choices and field mappings across your main entry points.

• Are you only requiring information that is truly needed, instead of making forms unnecessarily long?

  Try This: Remove required fields that are not needed for the next step.

• Can You Reliably Reach People?

  Try This: Test whether valid contact details and permissions survive every system handoff.

• Are texting permissions handled correctly?

  Try This: Keep consent records and suppress texts promptly when someone opts out.

• Are email permissions handled correctly?

  Try This: Record appropriate email permissions and honor channel-specific unsubscribes.

• Do you honor STOP and unsubscribe requests?

  Try This: Test STOP and unsubscribe handling across every connected sending tool.

• Do you stop sending to bad or bounced email addresses?

  Try This: Suppress hard bounces and investigate repeated delivery failures.

• Do you check phone numbers when practical?

  Try This: Validate number format and confirm the preferred contact method when practical.

• Can you identify bad email addresses?

  Try This: Flag invalid formats and review persistent bounce or verification failures.

• Is your email sending set up properly?

  Try This: Check the sending domain, authentication, and provider guidance before increasing volume.

• Is SPF set up correctly?

  Try This: Verify SPF authorizes your actual senders without creating multiple SPF records.

• Is DKIM set up correctly?

  Try This: Enable DKIM for each legitimate sender and verify signatures on received tests.

• Is DMARC set up?

  Try This: Publish DMARC, review reports, and align policy changes with your legitimate mail sources.

• Do you regularly clean up bad or outdated contact information?

  Try This: Review stale contacts, duplicates, bounces, and opt-outs on a recurring schedule.

Back to the Checklist Contents ↑

Turn a raised hand into a useful response and the right next step. Fast acknowledgment helps, but clear ownership and meaningful human follow-up finish the handoff.

This is a place where automation can make a report look better than the customer experience. A message that says “We received your request” may arrive immediately. The customer can still be waiting the next day for someone who can answer the question.

Keep those events separate: acknowledgment, a useful response attempt, and the next agreed step. Then make the timing fit the work. A homeowner with a failed air conditioner may keep calling providers while they wait. A custom-home inquiry needs a thoughtful qualification conversation and clear expectations about when it will happen.

• When someone raises their hand, do they get a fast response and the right next step?

  Try This: Measure the time from a real inquiry to acknowledgment and useful human follow-up.

Immediate Response

• Does every appropriate new lead hear from you right away?

  Try This: Send a prompt acknowledgment for appropriate inquiries without implying a human has reviewed them.

• Does the first message clearly confirm that you received their request?

  Try This: Confirm receipt and repeat the relevant request accurately.

• Does it tell them what to expect next?

  Try This: State a realistic response expectation and who will handle the request.

• Does it explain what they should do next?

  Try This: Explain the next useful action without presenting several competing choices.

• Does it include an easy next step?

  Try This: Use one relevant link or instruction that works on mobile.

• Does the response match where the lead came from and what they asked for?

  Try This: Match the message to the service, source, and intent of the inquiry.

• Are urgent requests handled differently from non-urgent requests when needed?

  Try This: Define an urgent-request path with a genuine staffing and escalation plan.

Human Follow-Up

• Have you decided how quickly a real person should respond?

  Try This: Choose a measurable target and assign a responsible team or person.

• Does that response time change based on the type of business or lead?

  Try This: Use separate targets for emergencies, routine service, and consultative projects.

• Does your team know how quickly they are expected to respond?

  Try This: Document response expectations where the team manages new leads.

• Can you tell whether the team is meeting that goal?

  Try This: Compare actual response timestamps with the agreed target.

• Is there a plan for leads that wait too long?

  Try This: Escalate unclaimed or overdue leads to a named backup owner.

• Does every lead have a clear owner?

  Try This: Assign a lead owner immediately, including a backup when unavailable.

• Are staff alerted quickly when a strong lead comes in?

  Try This: Send timely internal alerts containing the information needed to act.

Getting Leads to the Right Person

• Are leads sent to different people based on location when needed?

  Try This: Route by the actual service area and location responsibilities.

• Are they sent to different people based on service?

  Try This: Send service-specific requests to staff qualified to handle them.

• Are urgent leads handled differently?

  Try This: Use an explicit urgent flag and a tested escalation route.

• Are leads routed based on staff availability when needed?

  Try This: Check availability before assigning work that needs an immediate response.

• Are good-fit and bad-fit leads handled differently?

  Try This: Offer an appropriate alternative or polite decline for out-of-scope requests.

• Are current customers recognized and handled differently from new prospects?

  Try This: Recognize existing customers so support requests do not enter new-sales campaigns.

• Are unusually valuable opportunities given the right attention?

  Try This: Define high-value criteria without leaving ordinary good-fit inquiries unattended.

• Are after-hours inquiries handled differently from daytime inquiries?

  Try This: Use separate after-hours ownership, timing, and messaging rules.

Missed Calls

• Does every missed call have a follow-up process?

  Try This: Create a callback task with an owner and reasonable due time.

• Does the caller get an immediate message when appropriate?

  Try This: Use an appropriate acknowledgment only where messaging permission and the context allow it.

• Is someone assigned to call them back?

  Try This: Assign callback responsibility rather than sending an alert to everyone and hoping.

• Is the right staff member assigned?

  Try This: Route the callback to the team that can address the caller's actual need.

• Does the missed call become a tracked lead when it should?

  Try This: Create or update a sales lead when the call represents a real opportunity.

• Are repeated missed calls flagged?

  Try This: Escalate repeated misses and investigate staffing or routing problems.

• Do you know how many missed calls you recover?

  Try This: Define a recovered call and compare completed callbacks with missed sales calls.

• Do you know what percentage of incoming calls your team answers?

  Try This: Calculate answered calls divided by relevant incoming calls for a consistent period.

After Hours

• Are your business hours clearly set in your systems?

  Try This: Keep office, calendar, messaging, and routing hours consistent.

• Does your after-hours message tell people what to expect?

  Try This: Give a realistic next-business-day expectation when no live support is available.

• Are emergencies treated differently from routine requests?

  Try This: Explain which requests qualify for the genuine emergency process.

• Are you careful not to promise immediate help if nobody is actually available?

  Try This: Remove claims of immediate assistance unless a staffed process supports them.

• Are after-hours leads followed up with first thing the next business day?

  Try This: Prioritize appropriate overnight inquiries in the next opening-hours queue.

• Is there a true on-call process when your business provides one?

  Try This: Document the on-call person, backup, contact method, and escalation limits.

Clear Next Step

• Is the right next step obvious for every type of lead?

  Try This: Match each type of inquiry with its own sensible next step.

• Can people book directly when booking directly makes sense?

  Try This: Offer direct booking only for appointment types that can be scheduled without prior review.

• Can they request an estimate when an estimate is the right next step?

  Try This: Use an estimate request when scope or site conditions must be assessed first.

• Can they book a consultation when needed?

  Try This: Explain the consultation's purpose, duration, preparation, and any cost.

• Can someone with an urgent need call you quickly?

  Try This: Make urgent contact options obvious when your team can support them.

• Have you removed unnecessary steps?

  Try This: Remove redundant forms, repeated questions, and unnecessary handoffs.

• Does your main call to action fit the way your business actually sells?

  Try This: Choose the CTA by the customer's need and your actual selling process.

Back to the Checklist Contents ↑

Keep each opportunity moving toward an honest outcome. Your team should be able to see the owner, stage, next action, and reason an opportunity won, paused, or was lost.

• Does every opportunity have a clear path from first contact to final outcome?

  Try This: Review open opportunities for an owner, stage, next action, and outcome history.

Your Sales Pipeline

• Does every opportunity have a clear stage?

  Try This: Require each active opportunity to have a clear current stage.

• Does every opportunity have an owner?

  Try This: Assign one accountable owner and a backup process.

• Does every opportunity have a clear status?

  Try This: Use consistent open, won, and lost definitions.

• Does every opportunity have a next step?

  Try This: Set the next action and due date before ending a sales conversation.

• Does your pipeline match the way customers really buy from you?

  Try This: Use your real assessment, estimate, approval, and delivery steps.

• Does everyone on your team understand the stages?

  Try This: Write a one-line entry and exit rule for each stage.

• Is the pipeline simple enough that people actually use it?

  Try This: Remove stages the team cannot clearly explain or use consistently.

• Are there extra stages that create confusion without adding value?

  Try This: Merge stages that do not change the next action or responsibility.

• Is everyone clear about what counts as a won or lost opportunity?

  Try This: Define won and lost using observable business events, not optimistic judgment.

• Do you close out lost opportunities instead of deleting them?

  Try This: Record the lost reason while preserving the contact and opportunity history.

Moving Opportunities Forward

• Does something real have to happen before an opportunity moves to the next stage?

  Try This: Specify the evidence needed to enter the next stage.

• Are opportunities updated quickly?

  Try This: Update the record promptly after the actual customer interaction.

• Does your team know exactly when to move them?

  Try This: Teach the transition rules using real examples from recent work.

• Are stages updated automatically when that makes sense?

  Try This: Automate clear events such as booking or approval, with exception handling.

• Can you look back and understand what happened?

  Try This: Keep notes and a dated activity history that explains decisions.

• Can you easily find opportunities that haven't moved?

  Try This: Use an aging view to identify records without recent meaningful activity.

• Are old opportunities prevented from sitting in an active stage forever?

  Try This: Close or reschedule stale opportunities after a documented review.

Following Up With New Leads

• Is there a clear plan for leads who don't respond?

  Try This: Set a finite sequence with timing, owner, purpose, and exit rules.

• Do you use the right mix of phone, text, and email?

  Try This: Use only appropriate, permitted channels for that contact and situation.

• Are messages spaced out in a reasonable way?

  Try This: Space contacts around the urgency and normal buying cycle.

• Does automated follow-up stop when someone responds?

  Try This: Test that an actual reply stops the relevant follow-up sequence.

• Does it stop when the person completes the next step?

  Try This: Stop prospecting when the person books, buys, or completes the intended conversion.

• Does a real person step in when automation is no longer enough?

  Try This: Escalate meaningful replies and exceptions to a responsible person.

• Does the amount of follow-up match how valuable and urgent the opportunity is?

  Try This: Use proportionate follow-up rather than treating every lead as equally urgent.

Appointments and Consultations

• Do customers get a confirmation after booking?

  Try This: Send accurate date, time zone, location, and preparation details.

• Do they receive reminders?

  Try This: Use useful reminders at reasonable intervals and honor communication preferences.

• Is there a clear process when they cancel?

  Try This: Update the appointment outcome and offer the appropriate next action.

• Is it easy to reschedule?

  Try This: Provide a working reschedule link or clear contact route.

• Do you follow up with people who don't show?

  Try This: Send a helpful rebooking option and record the no-show outcome.

• Do you educate people before the appointment when it helps?

  Try This: Share preparation or decision guidance that helps the meeting be useful.

• Does the sales process continue after the appointment instead of ending there?

  Try This: Record the next sales step after the appointment rather than marking every meeting won.

Estimates and Proposals

• Can you see which estimates and proposals are still open?

  Try This: Keep sent estimates visible with owner, value, and current status.

• Do you know when each one was sent?

  Try This: Record the sent date and any later revisions.

• Is the dollar value recorded?

  Try This: Use the actual quoted amount and distinguish estimates from collected revenue.

• Is there a clear follow-up plan?

  Try This: Assign a relevant follow-up date and a clear next action.

• Is there a deadline or expiration date when one makes sense?

  Try This: Use honest validity periods tied to real pricing or capacity constraints.

• Can you tell whether someone opened or viewed it when your system allows that?

  Try This: Treat view tracking as a signal, not proof that a decision-maker read the estimate.

• Can you quickly find estimates that have gone quiet?

  Try This: Filter estimates by age and last meaningful contact.

• Do you record why an opportunity was lost?

  Try This: Record the specific reason an estimate was declined or deferred.

• Can old estimates be followed up with again later?

  Try This: Revisit appropriate estimates after checking timing, relevance, and contact preferences.

Where Revenue Leaks

• Can you find leads that nobody ever contacted?

  Try This: Filter for genuine leads with no completed human contact activity.

• Can you find leads your team contacted but never booked?

  Try This: Review contacted leads without a booking and record the unresolved next step.

• Can you find people who booked but never showed up?

  Try This: Track no-shows separately from cancellations and completed appointments.

• Can you find estimates that were never approved?

  Try This: Review outstanding estimates by age, owner, and response history.

• Can you find proposals that are stuck waiting for a decision?

  Try This: Ask what is preventing a decision and record an agreed follow-up date.

• Can you find people who took a tour or trial but never joined?

  Try This: Use a relevant check-in after the trial, respecting the person's preferences.

• Can you find insurance claims that stalled?

  Try This: Identify the actual next step and responsible party without promising a claim outcome.

• Can you find memberships that were canceled?

  Try This: Record cancellation reasons and follow up only where appropriate.

• Does every major leak have a clear recovery plan?

  Try This: Assign a recovery action to the largest fixable leak first.

Automation Quality

• Does an automation stop once it has done its job?

  Try This: Add explicit exit conditions for replies and completed conversion events.

• Are people protected from receiving two conflicting follow-up sequences?

  Try This: Use mutual exclusions so a person cannot enter conflicting sales sequences.

• Are duplicate texts and emails prevented?

  Try This: Use duplicate checks and one-execution rules where appropriate.

• Are staff tasks only created when someone can actually act on them?

  Try This: Create tasks only when a named person has enough information to act.

• Do automated messages use the correct customer and business information?

  Try This: Test merge fields, missing-name fallbacks, sender identity, and business details.

• Are automations tested regularly?

  Try This: Run periodic tests of entry, routing, stop conditions, and notifications.

• Does your team know what to do when something unusual happens?

  Try This: Document a short exception-handling process and escalation owner.

• Is there a clear process for fixing a broken automation?

  Try This: Keep an issue log, disable harmful sends when necessary, and retest the repair.

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Keep the customer journey connected to reliable business numbers. Useful reporting shows the next action to take and distinguishes activity, opportunity value, and actual revenue.

Be careful with the word “revenue” on a dashboard. An open estimate is potential work. A signed job is a commitment. Collected revenue is money the business has actually received. Your reports should make those distinctions easy to see.

You can start with a modest set of numbers if they’re reliable: qualified inquiries, booked conversations, wins, collected revenue, and the cost of delivering those wins. Trace a few real customers through the records before trusting the totals.

• Can you see where leads came from, what happened to them, and where money is being lost?

  Try This: Connect the original lead source to the opportunity and verified business outcome.

Lead Sources

• Do you know where each new lead originally came from?

  Try This: Preserve the first known source rather than overwriting it with each later visit.

• Can you tell the difference between Google, paid ads, referrals, direct traffic, calls, and other major sources?

  Try This: Use consistent source categories and record unknowns instead of guessing.

• Can you track specific campaigns when needed?

  Try This: Use documented campaign identifiers and verify that they reach the CRM.

• Can you tell where someone booked from, even if they originally found you somewhere else?

  Try This: Record the booking touchpoint separately from the original source when possible.

• Do manually added leads still get a source?

  Try This: Require staff to choose a source or mark it genuinely unknown.

• Can you identify who sent you a referral when possible?

  Try This: Add a referrer field or note using information the customer chooses to share.

Conversion

• Do you know what percentage of leads take the first important step?

  Try This: Divide unique people completing the action by the matching eligible lead cohort.

• Do you know what percentage of those opportunities become customers?

  Try This: Compare won customers with the same lead cohort, allowing for the sales cycle.

• Can you see how well each stage of your sales process converts?

  Try This: Track stage-to-stage movement using consistent definitions and dates.

• Do you know your no-show and cancellation rates?

  Try This: Use booked appointments as the denominator and separate no-shows from cancellations.

• Do you know what percentage of estimates or proposals are accepted?

  Try This: Compare accepted estimates with the appropriate sent-estimate cohort.

• Do you know how many people become members or recurring customers when that applies?

  Try This: Track enrollment or recurring-service starts separately from one-time sales.

• Do you know how well your reactivation campaigns convert?

  Try This: Measure actual responses, bookings, and wins from the reactivation cohort.

Revenue

• Do you record the expected value of an opportunity?

  Try This: Record realistic expected value without treating it as booked revenue.

• Do you record the actual value of won work?

  Try This: Update the opportunity with the verified final sale amount.

• Can you connect revenue back to where the customer originally came from?

  Try This: Carry the source through the sales record to the invoicing or revenue system.

• Can you see revenue by service?

  Try This: Use consistent service categories when recording completed sales.

• Can you see revenue by salesperson or location when useful?

  Try This: Assign the correct location and salesperson before comparing their results.

• Can you tell the difference between the estimated value and the final sale?

  Try This: Show estimated and actual values in separate fields or reports.

• Do you track recurring revenue when it applies?

  Try This: Track active recurring revenue and cancellations with consistent dates.

• Do you understand customer lifetime value when it is useful?

  Try This: Estimate lifetime value from observed customer history and label uncertain assumptions.

What Owners Can See

• Can leadership easily see how many leads came in?

  Try This: Count genuine unique leads and separate spam, duplicates, and support inquiries.

• Can leadership see which leads need attention right now?

  Try This: Show overdue next actions and unassigned opportunities prominently.

• Can leadership see how much open opportunity value exists?

  Try This: Sum realistic open values without counting duplicate or closed opportunities.

• Can leadership see where opportunities are getting stuck?

  Try This: Review stage age, volume, and movement rather than only total pipeline size.

• Can leadership see lost opportunities?

  Try This: Keep lost opportunities visible with useful loss reasons.

• Can leadership see how quickly the team responds?

  Try This: Measure acknowledgment and meaningful human response separately.

• Can leadership see how many calls are being missed?

  Try This: Track relevant missed calls and whether a callback was completed.

• Can leadership see when follow-up is not happening?

  Try This: Flag overdue follow-ups using the actual next-action date.

• Can leadership see how much revenue was won?

  Try This: Use verified won or collected revenue with the reporting basis clearly labeled.

• Can leadership see how much revenue came from reactivation?

  Try This: Tag the reactivation cohort and connect its wins to revenue.

• Which System Owns What?

  Try This: Write down the system of record for contacts, opportunities, schedules, jobs, and money.

• Does everyone know where customer contact information should live?

  Try This: Choose one authoritative contact record and clear duplicate rules.

• Does everyone know where sales opportunities should be tracked?

  Try This: Choose the pipeline system the sales team actually maintains.

• Does everyone know where scheduling should happen?

  Try This: Keep appointment availability and time zones consistent in the scheduling system.

• Does everyone know where the actual job or service is managed?

  Try This: Keep job delivery in the appropriate operational system rather than forcing everything into CRM stages.

• Does everyone know where invoices and revenue are recorded?

  Try This: Use the invoicing or accounting system as the authority for actual revenue figures.

• Do the systems that need to work together actually connect?

  Try This: Test the integrations that connect essential customer and business events.

• Have you eliminated conflicting versions of the same information?

  Try This: Resolve conflicting fields and define which system wins each update.

• Can your team trust the numbers they see?

  Try This: Reconcile sample records across systems before trusting summary dashboards.

Reviewing Performance

• Does someone review the business numbers every week?

  Try This: Review lead flow, response, open opportunities, wins, and obvious exceptions weekly.

• Do you have a deeper performance review each month?

  Try This: Review margins, cohorts, source performance, and customer trends more deeply each month.

• Do meetings use numbers to make decisions instead of simply showing reports?

  Try This: Require each discussion to end with a decision, owner, or follow-up question.

• Does every important number have a clear meaning?

  Try This: Document the definition, denominator, time period, and source of each key number.

• Have you kept meaningless vanity metrics out of your main dashboard?

  Try This: Keep impressions and opens secondary to qualified opportunities and revenue outcomes.

• Do you investigate unusual changes?

  Try This: Check source data and business context before reacting to a sudden change.

• When a number shows a problem, does someone get assigned to fix it?

  Try This: Assign a named owner and due date to the improvement decision.

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Reconnect with appropriate people and opportunities you already know. A useful reactivation message reflects their original need, current timing, and communication preferences.

• Are you following back up with people and opportunities you've already paid to acquire?

  Try This: Start with a relevant segment of past opportunities and a legitimate reason to reconnect.

Old Leads

• Can you find old leads that never became customers?

  Try This: Find non-customers using recorded opportunity outcomes rather than contact age alone.

• Can you group them by what they originally wanted?

  Try This: Group by the need described in the original inquiry.

• Can you group them by service?

  Try This: Use service-interest or opportunity data rather than guessing from a name.

• Can you group them by how long ago they contacted you?

  Try This: Segment by time since inquiry and the service's normal buying cycle.

• Do you have a planned way to follow up again later?

  Try This: Use a bounded follow-up plan with opt-out and conversion exclusions.

• Does the message reflect what they originally wanted?

  Try This: Reference the genuine original need without pretending the person recently asked again.

Old Estimates and Proposals

• Can you find expired estimates?

  Try This: Filter estimates by their actual validity date and current outcome.

• Can you find proposals that went quiet?

  Try This: Find open proposals with no recent meaningful customer interaction.

• Can you identify people who delayed because the timing wasn't right?

  Try This: Record deferred timing and revisit near the agreed date.

• Can you identify people who delayed because of budget?

  Try This: Record the budget concern and offer only genuinely suitable options.

• Do you follow back up with the right people later?

  Try This: Check the original need and contact preferences before sending a new message.

• Can you easily update or refresh an old estimate?

  Try This: Review scope, pricing, and availability before reissuing an old quote.

• Do you stop contacting people when continued follow-up no longer makes sense?

  Try This: Stop after a reasonable sequence, a clear decline, or an opt-out.

Missed Opportunities

• Do you follow up with people who didn't show up?

  Try This: Offer a useful reschedule option after a genuine no-show.

• Do you follow up with people who canceled?

  Try This: Distinguish a cancellation from a request to stop all contact.

• Do you revisit consultations that never turned into customers?

  Try This: Review the original consultation notes and unresolved decision before reconnecting.

• Do you follow up with people who completed a tour or trial but never joined?

  Try This: Use a relevant trial follow-up rather than an unrelated sales blast.

• Do you revisit stalled insurance opportunities when appropriate?

  Try This: Check the actual claim context and permissions without promising insurer decisions.

Past Customers

• Can you identify past customers who haven't used you in a while?

  Try This: Filter past customers by the service they bought and its normal repeat timing.

• Is “inactive” based on the normal buying cycle for your service?

  Try This: Use the typical service cycle rather than an arbitrary universal cutoff.

• Do you reconnect with customers who are overdue?

  Try This: Offer a useful reminder to customers whose genuine service interval is approaching.

• Do you follow up with canceled members?

  Try This: Check cancellation reasons and only offer a relevant, appropriate return path.

• Do you follow up with paused members?

  Try This: Respect the agreed pause and contact the customer at the right time.

• Do you remind seasonal customers at the right time?

  Try This: Schedule reminders around local seasonality and realistic delivery availability.

• Does reactivation stop when someone responds or buys again?

  Try This: Test that replies, bookings, purchases, and opt-outs stop the reactivation sequence.

Results

• Do you track how much revenue comes from reactivation?

  Try This: Record resulting sales against the reactivation effort without double-counting attribution.

• Do you know how many people respond?

  Try This: Count genuine human responses separately from automated replies.

• Do you know how many become customers again?

  Try This: Track returning customers and their actual purchase outcomes.

• Do you know which groups respond best?

  Try This: Compare relevant segments only after allowing enough time for the buying cycle.

• Do you treat reactivation as a real revenue channel instead of an occasional blast?

  Try This: Review outcomes regularly and refine the segments, message, and timing.

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Help good customers stay when there is a genuine ongoing need. Retention should follow the service cycle and customer experience rather than an arbitrary message schedule.

Retention looks different when you build a pool than when you maintain one. A pool builder may not sell the same customer another pool for years. There can still be a useful relationship through warranty help, care guidance, relevant future work, and referrals.

That doesn’t mean putting everyone into a monthly sales sequence. Stay in touch when you have a reason the customer would recognize as useful.

• Are you doing enough to keep good customers coming back when the business model allows it?

  Try This: Identify repeat needs your service genuinely creates before planning retention messages.

Repeat Business Opportunity

• Do you know whether customers naturally need your service again?

  Try This: Distinguish genuinely recurring needs from work that rarely needs repeating.

• Do you know how often they normally need it?

  Try This: Review observed repurchase intervals for each relevant service.

• Have you identified renewal opportunities?

  Try This: Record contract or membership renewal dates before they are due.

• Have you identified maintenance opportunities?

  Try This: Identify legitimate maintenance requirements and explain the value of the work.

• Have you identified useful membership opportunities?

  Try This: Offer memberships only when the ongoing benefits are real and useful.

• Have you identified recurring-service opportunities?

  Try This: Document suitable repeat services and the interval that makes sense.

• Do you know which customer milestones matter?

  Try This: Map delivery, maintenance, renewal, and customer-experience milestones.

Customer Status

• Can you tell which customers are active?

  Try This: Define active status in a way that fits the service or membership.

• Can you tell which customers have become inactive?

  Try This: Flag inactivity using the expected service interval rather than a fixed universal date.

• Can you identify customers who are getting close to renewal?

  Try This: Create a renewal view with date, owner, and required next action.

• Can you identify customers who are due for another service?

  Try This: Use the prior service date and relevant interval to identify due customers.

• Can you identify paused members?

  Try This: Record the agreed pause period and any follow-up commitment.

• Can you identify customers who may be at risk of leaving?

  Try This: Review complaints, unresolved issues, and relevant changes before assuming churn risk.

• Do you record why customers cancel when that matters?

  Try This: Capture the actual cancellation reason without pressuring the customer.

Staying in Touch

• Do customers get a reminder when service is due?

  Try This: Base reminders on the actual due date and communication preferences.

• Do customers get renewal reminders?

  Try This: Explain renewal terms, timing, and the available next step clearly.

• Do customers receive maintenance reminders?

  Try This: Use service-specific maintenance reminders rather than generic promotional messages.

• Do you send useful information to customers after the sale?

  Try This: Share useful care instructions and support details after completion.

• Is communication based on what the customer actually needs rather than an arbitrary newsletter schedule?

  Try This: Choose messages based on the customer's service and situation.

• Are customers kept informed during long projects or ongoing services?

  Try This: Set project communication milestones and tell customers when they will hear next.

Preventing Customers From Leaving

• Can you identify canceled or unhappy customers?

  Try This: Track the concern and current status so a suitable person can respond.

• Do you review why customers leave?

  Try This: Review cancellation reasons by service and customer segment.

• Do repeated complaints lead to real changes?

  Try This: Assign process fixes to repeated complaints and check whether they worked.

• Can your team step in before an important customer leaves?

  Try This: Route significant concerns to someone authorized to resolve them.

• Do customers have an easy way to raise a concern?

  Try This: Provide a working contact route and an honest response expectation.

• Do you use feedback to improve the experience?

  Try This: Use feedback to change the underlying service, not merely the follow-up wording.

Retention Numbers

• Do you know your customer retention rate when it matters?

  Try This: Define the eligible starting customer cohort and calculate how many remain.

• Do you know your customer churn rate when it matters?

  Try This: Calculate churn using a consistent active-customer or subscriber denominator.

• Do you know your renewal rate?

  Try This: Compare actual renewals with contracts or memberships eligible to renew.

• Do you know how long customers normally stay in a membership?

  Try This: Track observed membership duration and distinguish active members from completed lifetimes.

• Do you know how often customers buy again?

  Try This: Measure repeat purchases by service and customer cohort.

• Do you know the average time between purchases?

  Try This: Use actual service dates to calculate the typical repurchase interval.

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Create additional value when a customer has a relevant next need. Packages, maintenance, upgrades, and other services should improve the customer outcome.

• Are you creating more value from current customers when there is a real reason to do so?

  Try This: Offer the next genuinely useful service based on what the customer already needs.

• What Else Can You Help With?

  Try This: Map sensible next needs after each main service.

• Have you identified the logical next service a customer may need?

  Try This: Ask service staff what customers commonly need next and validate the pattern.

• Have you identified services that naturally go together?

  Try This: Pair services only when the combination improves the customer's outcome.

• Have you identified useful maintenance plans?

  Try This: Build plans around useful maintenance needs with clear inclusions.

• Have you identified useful memberships?

  Try This: Explain concrete membership benefits, limits, and renewal terms.

• Have you identified package opportunities?

  Try This: Package services around a clear customer need rather than an arbitrary bundle.

• Have you identified meaningful upgrades?

  Try This: Offer upgrades with a meaningful improvement and an honest price difference.

• Have you identified useful cross-sells?

  Try This: Identify complementary services that actually fit the customer's situation.

• For business customers, have you identified opportunities to serve additional locations?

  Try This: Check whether the business customer has relevant needs at other locations.

• Have you identified recurring or annual advisory services when relevant?

  Try This: Offer recurring reviews only when there is useful ongoing work to perform.

Right Offer, Right Time

• Do you make additional offers at a sensible time?

  Try This: Wait until the customer can reasonably assess the current service.

• Do you make sure the customer is happy before asking them to buy more?

  Try This: Resolve significant service concerns before making another sales request.

• Does the offer match what the customer may actually need next?

  Try This: Use purchase history and conversation notes to choose a relevant next offer.

• Are offers triggered by the customer's situation instead of random promotions?

  Try This: Trigger suggestions from a genuine need, due date, or project milestone.

• Do you avoid sending customers offers that clearly do not apply to them?

  Try This: Exclude customers whose service, location, or circumstances make the offer unsuitable.

Knowing Your Customers

• Can you group customers by what they bought?

  Try This: Record completed purchases using consistent service categories.

• Can you group them by customer type?

  Try This: Use customer segments that change the service or communication approach.

• Can you identify your highest-value customers?

  Try This: Compare value and profitability rather than rewarding revenue alone.

• Can you group customers by where they are in the relationship?

  Try This: Label the current stage using actual purchase and service events.

• Can you identify what each customer may need next?

  Try This: Record relevant next needs when the customer shares them.

• Can your team quickly identify your most valuable customer groups?

  Try This: Create a simple segment view that the responsible team can understand.

Customer Value

• Do you know the average value of a customer?

  Try This: Choose a consistent period and distinguish revenue from profit.

• Do you know how much repeat customers are worth?

  Try This: Include repeat work without counting the same customer acquisition twice.

• Do you know monthly recurring value when that applies?

  Try This: Separate recurring contracted value from one-time project estimates.

• Do you know annual customer value?

  Try This: State the time period and whether the number is actual or estimated.

• Do you know customer lifetime value when useful?

  Try This: Use observed history and show assumptions when estimating future value.

• Do you know which services lead to stronger long-term customer value?

  Try This: Compare repeat value and direct delivery costs by service.

• Do you know which types of customers are actually the most profitable?

  Try This: Compare customer groups using contribution margin and the costs of serving them.

Offers

• Are memberships genuinely useful instead of being forced onto customers?

  Try This: Remove memberships that add fees without useful ongoing benefits.

• Are packages simple enough to understand?

  Try This: List what is included, what is excluded, and how pricing works.

• Do bundles create real value?

  Try This: Explain the practical advantage of the bundle compared with buying separately.

• Are upgrades actually relevant to what the customer needs?

  Try This: Tie the upgrade to the outcome the customer actually wants.

• Are sales incentives designed around good customer outcomes?

  Try This: Reward suitable sales and customer outcomes rather than volume at any cost.

• Is your team avoiding unnecessary or aggressive upselling?

  Try This: Train staff to recommend only work the customer can reasonably benefit from.

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Create more demand when your systems, margins, and delivery capacity can support it. Referrals, search ads, and paid social work best with a clear offer and reliable follow-through.

Advertising tends to expose what is already happening inside the business. If estimates sit untouched, more inquiries can create a larger pile of untouched estimates. If the team follows through well and has room to deliver, more demand has somewhere useful to go.

Before increasing spend, agree on the signal that would make you slow down: longer response times, a growing backlog, weaker margins, or a delivery promise you can’t keep. It is easier to make that decision before a busy week than in the middle of one.

Local Services Ads eligibility, screening, categories, and requirements vary by service and market. Verify the current requirements before treating the channel as available. See Google’s Local Services Ads guidance.

• Is the business ready to create more demand without creating more chaos?

  Try This: Check sales capacity, service quality, and acquisition economics before buying more demand.

• Are You Ready to Grow Demand?

  Try This: Confirm the team can handle more demand without losing existing opportunities.

• Can the business actually handle more leads?

  Try This: Compare available appointment and delivery capacity with expected new inquiries.

• Can your team answer more phone calls?

  Try This: Review answer rates and staffing before increasing call-generating spend.

• Can your sales team properly follow up with more opportunities?

  Try This: Check overdue follow-ups and sales ownership before adding more opportunities.

• Can your operations team handle more work?

  Try This: Confirm crews, materials, scheduling, and cash flow can support additional work.

• Is the quality of your service currently stable?

  Try This: Review complaints, callbacks, and delivery delays before scaling promotion.

• Is your team currently responding as quickly as it should?

  Try This: Compare actual response times with your agreed service targets.

• Is the sales pipeline working properly?

  Try This: Check that new opportunities reliably move toward a recorded outcome.

• Have you fixed the biggest places where leads currently fall through?

  Try This: Fix the largest unresolved lead-handling leak before increasing volume.

• Is your reputation strong enough to support more promotion?

  Try This: Review recent feedback and relevant proof before amplifying claims.

• Are your margins strong enough to afford customer acquisition?

  Try This: Estimate contribution margin before deciding what acquisition spend is affordable.

• Do you understand what you can afford to spend to acquire a customer?

  Try This: Set a maximum acquisition cost using margin, repeat value, and cash constraints.

Referrals

• Do you have a clear way to ask for referrals?

  Try This: Choose an appropriate moment after a genuine positive customer experience.

• Do happy customers know you welcome referrals?

  Try This: Tell satisfied customers what types of referrals you can serve well.

• Is it easy for someone to refer a friend or colleague?

  Try This: Provide a simple introduction or contact link rather than a complicated process.

• Can you track which customers came from referrals?

  Try This: Record the original referrer when the new customer shares it.

• Do you appropriately thank or acknowledge people who send referrals?

  Try This: Thank referrers appropriately without tying incentives to prohibited review activity.

• Have you identified possible referral partners?

  Try This: Identify complementary businesses that serve the same customers without direct conflict.

• Do you manage important professional referral relationships?

  Try This: Keep referral partner details, responsibilities, and follow-up commitments organized.

• Do you handle referred leads appropriately?

  Try This: Respond promptly and acknowledge the introduction without sharing private customer information.

Your Own Audience

• Are you building your own database of real prospects and customers?

  Try This: Keep genuine inquiries and customer records with their source and contact preferences.

• Is that database organized into useful groups?

  Try This: Segment by service, relationship, need, and relevant buying stage.

• Is it kept clean and up to date?

  Try This: Review duplicates, invalid details, opt-outs, and stale records regularly.

• Do you stay in touch with people who have given you permission to contact them?

  Try This: Use the channels and permissions appropriate to that customer and message.

• Is what you send actually relevant?

  Try This: Send useful information that fits the customer's need or original interest.

• Do you measure whether people engage?

  Try This: Review human replies and completed actions alongside less reliable open and click data.

• Do you clean up contacts who never engage anymore?

  Try This: Suppress invalid addresses and review inactive contacts before sending repeatedly.

• Can you reach former customers without paying an advertising platform to find them again?

  Try This: Keep your own customer records current and respect their communication preferences.

Google Search Advertising

• Is Google Search advertising a good fit for your business?

  Try This: Check whether people actively search for the service and whether your margins support acquisition.

• Are you focused on people with strong buying intent?

  Try This: Match service-specific keywords and exclusions to genuine buying intent.

• Does every campaign have a clear goal?

  Try This: Define the qualified lead, booking, or sale the campaign should produce.

• Are you tracking real actions instead of only clicks?

  Try This: Track relevant calls, forms, bookings, and outcomes instead of treating every click as success.

• Do you know which phone calls are actually good leads?

  Try This: Review call quality and outcomes using appropriate access and privacy practices.

• Are form submissions tracked?

  Try This: Test form conversion recording and remove spam or duplicate submissions from lead reporting.

• Are bookings tracked?

  Try This: Test actual completed bookings and avoid counting a calendar page view as a booking.

• Can actual sales and revenue be connected back to advertising when possible?

  Try This: Keep campaign identifiers connected through CRM outcomes where feasible.

• Does paid traffic go to the right page?

  Try This: Send visitors to a relevant service or offer page rather than a generic destination.

• Does that page match what the person searched for?

  Try This: Match the page's service, location, promise, and next step to the search intent.

• Are you actively watching for wasted ad spend?

  Try This: Review search terms, exclusions, geography, lead quality, and cost regularly.

Local Services Ads

• Is your business eligible for Local Services Ads?

  Try This: Confirm your actual category and market are eligible before building a plan around it.

• Are all required licenses and verification kept current?

  Try This: Track required credentials and respond to verification requests before expiry.

• Do you know whether those leads are actually good?

  Try This: Review the actual inquiries and resulting opportunities rather than raw lead totals.

• Do you know what those leads cost?

  Try This: Compare charged lead costs with qualified leads, bookings, and won work.

• Are bad or invalid leads reviewed when the platform allows it?

  Try This: Use the current review or credit process only where the platform makes it available.

• Do those leads enter the same follow-up and sales process as your other leads?

  Try This: Route these inquiries into the same accountable CRM and follow-up process.

Paid Social

• Do you have a clear reason for running paid social ads?

  Try This: Define whether the goal is education, relevant inquiry generation, or another clear outcome.

• Are you using retargeting when appropriate?

  Try This: Use retargeting only with the required consent and privacy controls for the audience.

• Are you using strong visual proof when that channel calls for it?

  Try This: Use approved real photos, projects, or demonstrations rather than unsupported claims.

• Do you only generate social-media leads when your follow-up process can handle them?

  Try This: Test routing and response capacity before generating additional form leads.

• Do you treat lower-intent social leads differently from someone actively searching for your service?

  Try This: Match qualification and nurture to the person's actual level of intent.

• Does your advertising use real proof and real customer needs instead of generic brand messages?

  Try This: Show a relevant customer need and verifiable evidence that supports your offer.

Campaign Pages

• Does each important campaign have the right page for that offer?

  Try This: Use a dedicated page when the audience or offer needs different information.

• Does the page deliver what the ad promised?

  Try This: Check that the advertised offer, scope, and terms appear clearly on the page.

• Is the next action obvious?

  Try This: Choose one primary action and make the next step understandable.

• Does the page show enough proof?

  Try This: Place relevant evidence close to the main decision and CTA.

• Is the page easy to use on a phone?

  Try This: Test the entire page and inquiry flow on a real phone.

• Does the form ask for the right amount of information?

  Try This: Ask only what is necessary for the next step and explain sensitive requests.

• Do leads go into the right system after they submit?

  Try This: Submit a test and confirm the correct record, source, owner, and notification.

• Do you know what percentage of visitors take action?

  Try This: Calculate unique completed conversions divided by the relevant visitor cohort.

• Can the Numbers Work?

  Try This: Compare acquisition costs with real margins, capacity, and collected outcomes.

• Do you know what you pay for a lead?

  Try This: Divide spend by genuine unique leads, excluding spam and duplicates.

• Do you know what you pay for a qualified opportunity?

  Try This: Divide spend by consistently defined qualified opportunities.

• Do you know what you pay to win a new customer?

  Try This: Divide relevant acquisition spend by actual new customers won.

• Can you compare advertising cost with actual revenue?

  Try This: Allow for the sales cycle and avoid double-counting revenue across channels.

• Do you know the profit margin on each major service?

  Try This: Review direct delivery costs and margin for each priority service.

• Do you know how much you can afford to spend to get a new customer?

  Try This: Set a maximum acquisition cost that leaves room for delivery costs and profit.

• Are you optimizing for profitable revenue instead of simply more leads?

  Try This: Use qualified opportunities, wins, contribution, and collected revenue to guide decisions.

• Will you slow or stop advertising when the business cannot deliver the work well?

  Try This: Reduce or pause spend when the team cannot fulfill the advertised promise reliably.

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