The number that runs your marketing

Here's the question that decides everything about your marketing: what's one new customer worth to you?

Not "what do you charge for a job." What's the customer worth — the job, plus the next job, plus the neighbor they send you. Most trades have never run the number, so they have no idea whether marketing is paying off.

How to figure it

It's simpler than it sounds:

  1. Average job value. What's a typical job? A plumber's service call might be $350. A landscaper's install might be $4,000. Pick your average.
  2. Jobs per customer. How many times does one customer hire you? A plumber might get called twice a year for years. A patio guy gets one job. Different math.
  3. Referrals. Does one happy customer send you another? Count it. A landscaper who gets two referrals per job has a customer worth way more than the one job.

Multiply it out. If your average job is $400, a customer hires you 3 times, and sends you one more customer — that customer's worth $1,600 to you, not $400.

How to use the number

Now you know what a customer's worth, you can decide what to spend to get one:

  • If a customer's worth $1,600 and you spend $200 on ads to get one, that's a no-brainer. Most trades never run this math and so they're afraid to spend $200 to make $1,600.
  • If a customer's worth $80 (a one-time small job), ads probably don't make sense. Fix your listing and reviews instead — they're free.
  • The number tells you what to fix. Low customer value means focus on repeat work and referrals, not new-customer ads. High customer value means you can afford to spend to get the call.

Use the calculator

We built a free calculator on this site. Put in your average job value and how many jobs you'd take. It shows you what a modest increase in calls is worth over a year.

Run the number. Then decide what to spend. Most trades are surprised — and then they stop being cheap about the thing that fills the schedule.