Why Chasing Every Lead Can Cost You Money — And How to Attract Clients Who Value What You Do
🟦 Business After 60 Conversation
Last week, we looked at the fundamentals of getting your pricing right without leaving money on the table.
We discussed understanding your material costs, accounting for your true labour rate, setting your profit margins deliberately, and recovering your overheads.
Included in those business overheads, of course, is a budget for marketing.
Sometimes it can be confusing to differentiate these costs. For example, your website — which is your digital shop window to the world — software packages, and lead generation packages can feel like general admin, but they are very much part of your marketing machine.
I like to break it down into a simple reality:
The next question is how you generate the right leads for your contracting business — because more enquiries aren’t necessarily better enquiries.
You also need a business capable of attracting and delivering the work that makes that pricing possible.
1. Understand Your Market (And Who You Are Actually Serving)
First of all, you have to understand your market and the specific clients within it.
If we take electrical contractors as an example, are you operating within the domestic homeowner market? The volume house building market? Or the commercial market, which covers a whole spectrum of environments like data centres, office blocks, hotels, and hospitals? Or perhaps industrial clients, including factories, pumping stations, and water treatment works?
Very often, our businesses are not a “one-size-fits-all” operation.
Yet, I frequently hear contractor owners say:
“We need to diversify our business because there’s not enough money in the sector we’re operating in.”
What usually happens next? They spend a huge amount of money on shiny new equipment, only to discover their staff aren’t adequately trained or experienced enough to deliver that type of work profitably.
I have seen many examples of this over my years in business advisory and contracting, but one that sticks closest to home involves my son.
2. A Father-and-Son Conversation on Lead Generation
A few years ago, I helped my son start his painting and decorating contracting business. After a couple of years of hard graft, he walked up to me one afternoon looking completely deflated.
“Dad, I’m packing it in,” he said. “I’m not making any money. I’m going back to work for my old boss on a day rate.”
At the time, he was employing two painters. He was signed up to directories like Checkatrade, buying online lead packages, and trying all sorts of digital shortcuts.
“I’m losing money on every job,” he told me.
“Don’t be hasty,” I replied. “Why didn’t you come to me earlier?”
“I wanted to do it on my own without running to you.”
What followed was a long father-and-son conversation — the kind of frank, honest chat that happens often in family businesses. (It’s a subject close to my heart, and probably a book I must get around to writing one day!)
Once we delved properly into the numbers and his process, two big things became immediately apparent:
- His prices were too low while his overheads were rising.
- He is a perfectionist. He insisted on using top-end brushes, high-quality rollers, and premium trade paint.
Here was the paradox: initially, his prices had been higher to reflect that quality. But when the phone didn’t ring enough, he panicked. He started buying cheap, generic online leads.
To win work from those price-sensitive lead sources, he lowered his hourly rate and compromised on his materials to match the customer expectations those leads were creating.
He had fallen into a classic trap: He was allowing his lead source to dictate his business model.
3. Don’t Let Cheap Leads Dictate Your Contracting Business
Look at how that cycle unfolded:
- He started with quality materials, high standards, skilled painters, a perfectionist approach, and pricing that reflected all of it.
- The enquiries coming in through his online lead platforms didn’t support that level of service.
- So, he changed his entire business model to chase the enquiries.
He was working harder, carrying more overhead and compromising the standards that had originally differentiated his business.
The answer seemed obvious: find customers who valued the quality of work and the finish he was trying to provide.
But that raised a much bigger question: what sort of business was he actually trying to build — and was the rest of the business equipped to support it?
4. Are You Equipped for the Work You Want to Attract?
“High-end customers” is a phrase thrown around a lot in marketing.
But let’s be clear: it doesn’t mean you can charge more money simply because a client has a larger house or a bigger budget.
It means finding customers who value what you are genuinely good at — and ensuring your business is fully equipped to deliver it.
When my son and I looked closely at his setup, we had to ask hard questions:
- Were his employed painters trained to the standard required for detailed, high-spec properties?
- Did he have the right dustless sanding systems, specialist spraying gear, ladders, and scaffolding required to take on larger, complex projects safely and efficiently?
Marketing isn’t just about getting someone to call you. It is about aligning three things:
I’ve seen businesses spend a fortune trying to enter a new market without first asking a fairly basic question: are we actually equipped to do this work profitably?
A domestic electrical contractor can’t necessarily decide tomorrow that they’re going after major industrial work because the contracts are bigger.
The skills, certification, equipment, project management, health and safety requirements and experience may all be different.
- Your Core Expertise: What you do exceptionally well.
- Your Operational Capability: The equipment, training, and systems you have in place.
- Your Target Client: The people who actively need that specific level of quality and are willing to pay for it.
If any one of those three is out of alignment, your marketing will feel like an uphill battle.
5. Building Your Contractor Marketing Strategy
So how do you start attracting those ideal clients without spending thousands of pounds every month on aggressive agency retainers or cheap lead-gen sites?
Treat Your Website as Your Shop Window
Your website shouldn’t just be an online business card that says “We do electrical work” or “We do painting.” It needs to demonstrate your standards, show off your completed projects, and explain how you work. High-value clients look for professionalism, reliability, and clear evidence of past work.
(If you’re unsure whether your current site is doing its job, take a look at our downloadable guide: How to Identify the Right Website Builder for Your Business Checklist).
Build an Organic Relationship (The Power of an Email List)
One of the most useful long-term assets a contracting business can build is its own audience.
Writing a blog or newsletter, sharing practical advice — such as “What to look for when planning a full house rewire” or “How to prepare commercial premises for annual testing” — you establish trust before you ever submit a quote.
Encouraging prospective clients and local commercial contacts to join a simple email list builds an ongoing pipeline of work that you own outright, rather than renting from a third-party lead broker.
One Size Doesn’t Fit Every Business
There is an important point I don’t want to lose here.
I’m not suggesting that lead-generation platforms, software or automated marketing systems are inherently bad. Far from it.
There are businesses I have worked with where I would recommend particular lead-generation systems or specialist companies because they fit the type of business, the market and the objectives they are trying to achieve. Some of these systems can work extremely well.
In fact, there is a slightly ironic example in my own family.
My niece’s son is starting his own plumbing business. When he asked me what I thought he should do to start generating work, one of the things I told him was to look at platforms such as Checkatrade or TrustATrader.
Why would I recommend something that contributed to the problems my son experienced?
Because the circumstances are different.
A new plumbing business needs to get known, generate enquiries and build a customer base. A lead-generation platform can be a perfectly sensible part of that process.
My son’s problem wasn’t simply that he used a lead-generation platform. His problem was that the type of work it was generating was pulling his business in a direction that didn’t match the business he wanted to build.
That is an important distinction.
The tool isn’t the strategy.
A lead-generation platform, an email system, a website, social media or a referral network are all tools. Whether they are right for you depends on what you are trying to achieve, the market you operate in and whether your business is equipped to deliver the work those enquiries generate.
There really are many ways to skin a cat, as the old saying goes.
The trick is choosing the method that fits your business, rather than changing your business to fit the method.
Next Week: Converting Enquiries into Signed Contracts
Generating the right enquiries is one thing. Turning those enquiries into profitable, signed contracts without getting dragged into a bidding war is another.
Next week, we’ll look at the sales and conversion process for contractors — how to present your quotes, follow up professionally, and win the jobs you actually want.
And Finally…
Marketing your contracting business isn’t about shouting louder or buying more leads. It’s about clarity.
Stop letting cheap lead platforms tell you what your business is worth.
Identify the market sector where your skills actually shine, make sure your team and equipment are equipped to handle it, and build a simple digital shop window that speaks directly to the customers who value quality.
When your marketing matches your capability and the business you actually want to build, you have a much better chance of attracting the right sort of work rather than simply more work.
FAQs
How do I generate leads for a contracting business?
There isn’t one method that works for every contractor. The right approach depends on your market, pricing, capabilities and the type of business you want to build. Options include lead-generation platforms, your own website, referrals, networking, useful website content and an email list.
How do I attract the right customers for my contracting business?
Start by identifying the type of work your business is genuinely equipped to deliver profitably. Your website, case studies, previous work, qualifications and marketing should then make it clear who you work with and the standards you provide.
Are lead-generation websites worth it for contractors?
They can be. Lead-generation platforms can be particularly useful for businesses that need to establish themselves and generate enquiries. The important question is whether the type of work generated fits your pricing, capabilities and business model. That’s the distinction illustrated by the two family examples in this conversation.
Should a contracting business have an email list?
Building your own email list can create a useful long-term marketing asset. Sharing practical information through a website, blog or newsletter can help you stay in contact with potential customers, previous clients and commercial contacts rather than relying entirely on third-party lead sources.
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