Building a home improvement business can feel really challenging. You're probably proud of the amazing work you do for homeowners and you're awesome at what you do. But when it comes to marketing your business and figuring out what needs to happen to achieve your goals, it can feel really complicated.

You know you need a more reliable flow of leads and customers, but between managing projects, handling piles of paperwork, going back and forth with strangers about the price of your services, and stressing about where your next job is going to come from, it's no wonder so many contractors get stuck in a rut.

Because of this, many Home Improvement Business Owners don't have a marketing plan in place to achieve their goals. And they simply don't know where to start.

If this sounds like you, don't worry. You're not alone.

In this article, I'm going to share a simple, step-by-step process that you can use to reverse engineer the exact plan to achieve your goals.

With that said, let's get started!

☑️ Step 1: Your Business Starts with Sales

The first step in any marketing plan is understanding that everything starts with sales.

You can have the best website, the most social media followers, and even provide the very best services, but if you're not making sales, then your business is going to struggle.

Many contractors we talk to get caught up in all the numbers within their construction business... their expenses, cost of goods sold (COGS), net profit, etc. And while it's important to understand and track these numbers, at the end of the day, your business is only as healthy as your sales.

So the first thing you need to do (if you haven't already), is to start with your total sales goal.

How much revenue do you want to generate over the next 12 months?

Write this number down before we move on to the next step.

☑️ Step 2: Figure Out Your Average Job Size

Now that you know how much revenue you want to generate, we need to figure out how many customers it's going to take to hit that number.

This is where your average job size comes in.

In order to figure out your average job size, you simply take the total revenue you've generated over the past 12 months and divide it by the number of jobs you completed.

For example, let's say your home improvement business generated $1.5MM in sales last year and you completed 50 jobs.

Your average job size would be $30,000

$1,500,000 ÷ 50 jobs = $30,000 average job size

Again, write this number down. We'll need it for the next step where we'll figure out how many projects you'll need to sell to achieve your goal.

☑️ Step 3: Determine How Many Customers You'll Need

Now that you know your total revenue goal and your average job size, we can determine how many customers you'll need in order to hit your total revenue goal.

To do this, we simply take your total revenue goal and divide it by your average job size.

For the sake of this example, let's say you want to generate $2MM in revenue over the next 12 months and your average job size is $30,000.

$2,000,000 ÷ $30,000 average job size = 67 jobs

This means that you'll need to sell 67 projects over the next 12 months in order to achieve your goal.

Again, write this number down before we move on to the next step.

☑️ Step 4: Know Your Closing Rate

In order to get a new customer, we first have to have conversations with homeowners (prospects). So the next step is to determine how many prospects we need to talk to in order to sell 67 projects.

This is where your closing rate comes in.

Your closing rate is the number of prospects you need to talk to in order to sell one project. This number is going to be different depending on your business, so spend some time figuring out what a realistic close rate is for you.

It doesn't matter if you're a remodeler, custom home builder, luxury landscaper, or a roofer... the flow is the same. You need to convert Prospects into Customers.

For the sake of this example, let's use an average 25% Conversion Rate.

This means that for every 4 prospective homeowners you talk to, you sell one.

25% Closing Rate = 1 Sale for Every 4 Prospects

☑️ Step 5: Determine How Many Prospects You'll Need to Talk To

Now that you know how many projects you need to sell (67) and your closing rate (25%), we can determine how many prospects you'll need to talk to achieve your goal.

To do this, we take the number of customers we need to sell (67) and divide it by our Closing Rate (25%).

67 Customers ÷ 25% Closing Rate = 268 Prospects

This means that in order to sell 67 projects and hit your revenue goal of $2MM, you'll need to talk to 268 prospects over the next 12 months.

☑️ Step 6: Figure Out Your Lead Generation Goal

The final step is to determine how many leads you'll need to generate in order to talk to 268 prospects.

A lead is simply a homeowner who has expressed interest in your services in some way, shape, or form.

This could be someone who's visited your website, downloaded one of your helpful resources, called your office, filled out a form on your Facebook page, etc.

For the sake of this example, let's use a lead conversion rate of 10%.

This means that for every 10 leads you generate, you'll be able to talk to one prospect.

10% Lead Conversion Rate = 1 Prospect For Every 10 Leads

Now, using our 10% lead conversion rate, we can determine how many leads we'll need to generate in order to talk to 268 prospects.

268 Prospects ÷ 10% Lead Conversion Rate = 2,680 Leads

This means that in order to sell 67 projects and hit your revenue goal of $2MM, you'll need to generate 2,680 leads over the next 12 months.

We can break that number down into a monthly and weekly target to make it more manageable.

To generate 2,680 leads in 12 months, you'll need to generate 223 leads per month. Or 56 leads per week.

2,680 Leads ÷ 12 Months = 223 Leads Per Month

223 Leads Per Month ÷ 4 Weeks = 56 Leads Per Week

So there you have it!

You now know exactly how many leads you need to generate in order to hit your revenue goals.

The final step is to create a simple plan for generating those leads and converting them into customers. But that's a story for another day.

In the meantime, if you're ready to simplify your marketing plan and finally commit to doing whatever it takes to make your goals a reality, grab a free copy of our one page Framework we use to help contractors do just that.

I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. I'm always happy to chat.

Cheers,
Ben