Primary category is wrong.
Eighty percent roofs, listed as “Contractor.” Somebody types “roof leak repair” in Canton and you're not in the room. You didn't lose that job — you were never in it.
Contractors within 45 minutes of Belleville
Pull up your business on Google. I'll tell you what I'm going to find.
Wrong category. Newest review from two summers ago. Nowhere to apply. A site that crawls on a phone.
TJ Bowman — licensed Michigan builder, still on the tools. One contractor per trade per area.
Voicemail picks up — I'm on a job. Same-day callback.
The X-ray
Four things I find on nearly every profile I open.
Not yours specifically — I don't know your name yet. But it's the same four every time.
Newest review is old.
Not bad. Old. She's got three names on her screen. A profile nobody's fed in a year reads as closed.
Nowhere to apply.
A framer likes your trailer, pulls you up at lunch, finds nothing. Back to the shop he's tired of. That's a man you could've hired for free.
Site crawls on a phone.
Eight seconds of white screen in a driveway and she's tapping the next name. You paid for that site. It's turning people away.
Check it yourself — ten minutes, free
- Your primary category
- Date on your newest review — not the stars
- Service area vs. where you actually drive
- Name, address, phone matching everywhere
- How it loads on one bar in a gravel driveway
- Whether a tradesman could apply today
Two diagnoses
Every shop is sick one of two ways. Plenty are sick both.
Opposite fixes. That's why generic marketing moves neither — and why none of it ever shows up as a bill.
The phone's too quiet
Referral work, good but lumpy. Then you're sharpening the pencil against a cheaper outfit. She looked you both up that night — he had a recent review and a site that loaded.
It rings and you say no
Turned down two jobs last month, one was good. Indeed sent twelve; eleven never held a shovel. The hands you want already have jobs.
Both — the worst one
More calls means turning more away. More guys means payroll eats the slow month. Most owner-operators live here.
The fix
Two weeks. This order, for a reason.
You can check every one of these yourself when it's done.
Point the profile at the right work
Correct category. Real service area — suggested in Willis, not Novi. Cheapest, fastest, most-ignored repair in the trade.
A site that loads in a driveway
Fast on one bar. Your trade and your towns in plain words. A form that reaches your phone. Site and domain in your name, forever.
Get reviews moving
A link she can tap in the finished kitchen. The goal isn't a number — it's a recent date on the top review.
Put a door in the wall
Ninety seconds to apply, no resume. Good hands don't keep one.
Then it gets fed
Everybody skips this. Fix it once and abandon it, it looks dead again in eight months.
Why believe a guy with nothing to show you
I'm early at this. No testimonials, and I won't invent any.
Here's what's checkable before you spend a dollar.
State of Michigan
#2101215480
My builder's licence — look it up with the state. Tell me a change order went sideways and I know what you mean.
Territory
13 towns
Belleville, Milan, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, Plymouth, Canton, Taylor, Wayne, Willis, Saline, Dexter, Chelsea, Monroe. Nowhere else.
Competition
One per trade
Your competitor calls me, I tell him no. Not a trick — I can't honestly get two of you found for the same search.
Cost to walk away
$0
Quit after thirty days and you keep the site and the domain. Worst case: one month, and you own a site you didn't have.
Price
What it costs.
Everybody starts the same place. No sense feeding a profile pointed at the wrong category.
Required first step
The Build
$1,000one time, up front
Live in two weeks. Site and domain yours whatever happens after. Already have a good setup? Say so on the call.
- Website built new, or yours rebuilt properly
- Google profile taken apart and put back together
- Right category, real service area, real photos
- Social profiles cleaned up and matching
- Review link, so asking stops being awkward
- A form that hits your phone
More Work
$500a month · quiet phone
- The build, maintained and fed
- Posting from photos you text me
- Profile kept alive
- Review requests going out
- New service pages as you add work
More Crew
$750a month · turning work down
- The build, maintained and fed
- A careers page built to convert
- Hiring posts in your zip codes
- Ninety seconds to apply, no resume
- Applicants screened before you call
Both Ends
$1,000a month · work in, crew to run it
- Everything in both, together
- Every call answered, day or night
- Name, number and need texted to you
- Lead follow-up, nothing sits overnight
- Ads when they're worth running
All three month to month from day one. No term, no notice, no cancellation fee. More Crew is dearer because hiring is harder.
Straight answers
Including the ones that don't help me.
I already have a website.
Some are fine. If yours loads fast on a phone and the form reaches you, you don't need me — and I'll say so. Most I'm shown were good in 2017 and nobody's opened them since.
Six have pitched me. Two burned me.
Nothing I say in a paragraph proves I'm different. Look at the structure: they needed a twelve-month contract. I'm month to month from day one and you keep the site the day it's built.
A thousand up front is real money.
It is. It's also a fraction of one job, and it's up front because the work is up front — two weeks of building before I collect a nickel of monthly.
How fast does the phone ring?
Build's live in two weeks. Google realistically takes sixty to ninety days. Anybody promising page one in a month is lying.
Do you actually know contracting?
Licensed Michigan builder #2101215480, and I still take jobs. You won't be explaining callbacks to me.
What if I cancel after one month?
You cancel. No fee, no notice, no retention call. Site and domain stay in your name.
One thing to do
Don't take my word for it. Go check your own profile.
Category, newest review date, service area, whether a tradesman could apply today. Then open the site on your phone and count the seconds. All clean? Close this page — you don't need me.
Same-day callback. Changed your mind before I start? I refund it.
P.S.
Every one of those four things is free to fix. It costs attention, week after week — which is exactly why it never gets done. You're on a roof. This is the job that never yells at you.