01
RUN THE NUMBERS
What a customer is worth. What you keep. How many estimates close. What you can afford to pay for one.
First I find the number the marketing has to beat. Everything else waits.
Before you spend another dollar on ads, let's find out if the numbers even work.
If you've talked to a few marketing people, you've probably heard all three.
Where the conversation needs to begin is:
What is a customer actually worth to you?
That's the question that comes first. Because if you don't know it, you don't know what you can afford to pay to get one. And if the math is broken, more traffic just helps you lose money faster.
Here's what I mean.
Say a job is worth $8,000 and you keep 30%. That's $2,400. You close 1 out of every 3 estimates, so every estimate is worth about $800 to you.
Which means you can pay up to $800 to get an estimate on the calendar and still break even.
Under $800, you make money. Over it, you're paying to stay busy.
(Example numbers. Yours will be different. That's the point.)
What a customer is worth. What you keep. How many estimates close. What you can afford to pay for one.
First I find the number the marketing has to beat. Everything else waits.
Then I look at your market. Demand, competition, what clicks cost, and what your funnel does right now.
Maybe Google makes sense. Maybe Meta does. Maybe paid ads don't make sense yet, and if that's the answer, I'll tell you.
Once the math works, I build the system and track the things that put money in your account:
Not clicks. Not impressions. Not "reach."
A roofer and a med spa have almost nothing in common.
Different offers. Different customers. Different margins.
But the question is always the same: what can you afford to pay for a customer, and can we get them for less than that?
So I don't show up with a favorite tactic and force it on you. The strategy follows the numbers. Not the other way around.
In the video, I walk through one client's real numbers so you can see exactly how this works.
And listen: most agencies get paid the same whether you make money or not. I'd rather know the answer before we start.
Seriously.
If your customer value, margins and close rate are guesses, I'm not going to pretend I can promise you a profitable result. That's how people get burned.
We can work out the numbers together. That part's fine.
But if you want me to stand behind the economics, I need real numbers. Not vibes.
I'd rather lose the deal than guess with your money.
No numbers.
No bullshit promises.
Here's what the call looks like.
It's 15 minutes. We go through five numbers: what a customer is worth, what you keep, how many estimates close, what you spend now, and what a lead costs in your market.
You leave knowing the most you can afford to pay for a customer. Whether you hire me or not, that number is yours.
If the math supports growth, we'll map out the next move.
If it doesn't, I'll tell you. You lost 15 minutes instead of three months of ad spend.
One more thing. If you know your numbers, 15 minutes is plenty. If it takes longer than that, the numbers aren't ready yet. And that's worth knowing too.