How to Get More Work as a Tradie
Quiet weeks are rarely a marketing problem. Here's how to find out where your work actually comes from, plug the leaks losing you jobs you already won, and add channels in the order that pays.
When the diary looks thin the instinct is to spend money — ads, a new website, a directory listing. Most of the time that's the wrong first move, because the jobs you're already being offered are leaking out somewhere between the phone ringing and the quote being accepted. This guide works the problem in order: find out where your work comes from, stop the leaks, then add channels one at a time and keep the ones that pay.
Doing this job for a living? See job management in ServiceYak.
Start by finding out where your work actually comes from
Almost every tradie can tell you where they think their work comes from, and almost none of them have checked. It matters, because you can't grow a channel you haven't identified and you can't cut one that isn't earning.
Take your last twenty jobs and write down, for each one, how that client first heard of you. Not how they contacted you — how they first knew you existed. Then group them.
| Where they came from | What that tells you |
|---|---|
| Repeat client | Your retention is working — the question is whether they know your full service list |
| Referred by a past client | Your best channel. Worth deliberate effort, not luck |
| Referred by another trade or a builder | A relationship channel. It grows by being easy to work with, not by advertising |
| Found you on Google or Maps | Your listing is doing work. Feed it |
| Directory or marketplace | Check what those jobs actually paid before you scale it |
| Saw the ute, the sign or the shirt | Local presence. Cheap and slow, but it compounds |
| Social media | Usually smaller than people assume — measure it |
The pattern is usually a surprise. Most established trade businesses find that repeat and referral work is carrying the whole thing, and that the channel they spend money on is producing the jobs they least want.
Plug the leaks before you turn on the tap
More leads into a leaky business just means more leads going to waste. Before you spend a cent on getting found, fix the three places work walks out the door.
- Answer, or answer back fast. A homeowner with a problem rings three trades and books whoever responds first. If you can't take calls on the tools, get a message to them within the hour — even just to say when you can talk. That one habit wins more work than any advertising.
- Quote while you're still interested. Quotes that go out days after the site visit lose to quotes that went out the same day. If quoting is stacking up until Sunday night, that's not a discipline problem, it's a system problem — build the quote on site from saved rates instead of retyping it later.
- Follow up the quotes you sent. Most trade businesses send a quote and never mention it again. A single follow-up a few days later, asking whether they have any questions, converts a real share of the quotes you'd otherwise write off.
The first and last of those are systems in their own right rather than habits you can will into place. Managing enquiries so leads don't go cold covers handling the ones you can't stop for, and following up a quote covers what to actually say and when.
Work out your quote acceptance rate before you decide you need more leads. If you're winning most of what you quote, you genuinely need more enquiries. If you're winning a small fraction, more enquiries just means more unpaid quoting — the problem is your pricing, your scope or your follow-up.
The channels worth setting up, in order
Set these up in this order. Each one is cheaper and more certain than the one after it, and the later ones work better once the earlier ones are in place.
- Your Google Business Profile. Free, and it's what appears when someone searches your trade and their suburb. If you do nothing else, do this one properly.
- Reviews on that profile. Ask on the job, every job. This is the single highest-leverage unpaid thing in the list.
- A simple website. One page that says what you do, where you work, and how to reach you. It's what people check after they've found you somewhere else.
- Directories and marketplaces. Fast to set up and a reasonable way to fill gaps, but the leads are shared and price-shopped. Treat them as a top-up, not a foundation.
- Trade-to-trade relationships. Builders, real estate agents, property managers and the trades who work alongside yours. Slow to build and very hard for a competitor to take off you.
- Paid ads. The fastest tap to turn on and the only one that stops the moment you stop paying. Worth it once you know what a job is worth to you.
Do them one at a time. Setting up six channels badly in a month is how tradies conclude that marketing doesn't work — nothing had a chance to run long enough to prove itself either way.
The cheapest work you will ever win
Repeat and referral work costs nothing to acquire, closes faster, argues about price less and pays on time more often. Most trade businesses treat it as something that just happens. It doesn't have to be.
- Tell past clients what else you do. A client who had you fix one thing often has no idea you do the other five. A short note at the end of a job, or a message when you're working nearby, is enough.
- Ask for the referral out loud. Not a campaign — one sentence when they're visibly happy with the work: if you know anyone who needs the same done, send them my way.
- Make the maintenance obvious. Anything with a service interval — a system, an inspection, a seasonal check — is repeat work you can book at the time rather than hope for later.
- Keep the client record. You can't call past clients you can't find. Names, addresses, what you did and when is a business asset, not admin.
Getting more of the work you actually want
More work isn't the goal. More of the right work is. If every channel you turn on brings you the same low-value callouts, you'll be busier and no better off.
Be specific about what you're advertising. A tradie who says he does everything gets asked about everything, most of it unprofitable. A tradie who says he does switchboard upgrades, EV chargers and rewires gets asked about those. The narrower the message, the better the enquiry.
- Name your best three services on every profile, listing and sign — not your full list.
- State your service area honestly. Jobs an hour away rarely pay for the drive.
- Say what you don't do, if it stops the enquiries you keep having to knock back.
- Put a minimum charge in front of people if small callouts are eating your week.
Know what a job is worth to you
Once you're paying for leads — ads, directories, marketplaces, all of it — you need one number to judge them by: what you can afford to pay to win a job and still be ahead.
Work it from your own figures. Say an average job leaves you $700 after materials and labour, and you convert one in four of the enquiries a channel sends you. Four leads produce one job and $700, so anything under about $175 a lead is making you money — and that's before repeat work from the same client.
Run that same calculation for each paid channel every few months, using your own conversion rate rather than the one the platform quotes. It is the only honest way to tell a channel that's working from one that's just busy.
ServiceYak holds the whole chain on one job record — the enquiry, the quote built from your saved rates, the job and the invoice — so you can see which enquiries turned into work and what that work actually made, instead of guessing which channel is carrying you.
Frequently asked questions
What's the fastest way to get more work when the diary is empty?
Call past clients. It costs nothing, they already trust you, and there's usually work sitting there that nobody has asked about. After that, make sure your Google Business Profile is complete and ask your recent clients for reviews — both start paying within weeks rather than months.
Are lead marketplaces and directories worth paying for?
They're worth testing, not committing to. The leads are typically shared with other trades and shopped on price, so work out what you can afford per lead from your own margin and conversion rate first, then run one for a couple of months and check what the jobs actually paid.
How much should I spend on marketing?
Start from what a job is worth rather than a percentage of turnover. If an average job leaves you $700 and you convert one in four enquiries, you can pay up to about $175 a lead and still be ahead. Spend to that number on channels that are measurable and stop spending on ones that aren't.
Do I need a website if I get all my work by word of mouth?
Yes, though it can be a simple one. Referred clients look you up before they ring — they want to see that you exist, what you do and that other people have used you. A single page with your services, your area, your contact details and a few real photos does that job.