15 Questions to Identify What’s Actually Working
If you’re running an established HVAC, plumbing, or electrical company in the $2M–$10M range, you already know the frustration: you’re spending real money on marketing, some of it works, some of it doesn’t, and you can’t clearly see why.
You’re not struggling because of a lack of effort. You’re struggling because of a lack of clarity.
The most successful companies I work with aren’t the ones hustling the hardest. They’re the ones with visibility into what’s actually producing booked jobs, where the inefficiencies are, and which opportunities will generate premium customers rather than price shoppers.
This 15-question audit is designed to give you that clarity. These aren’t theory-based questions. They’re the exact blind spots I see costing established home service companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in missed opportunity every year.
Grab a notebook. Be candid. The questions you can’t answer are the ones that will make you money.
The 15-Question Marketing Audit
SECTION 1: Visibility, Tracking & Real ROI
1. Can you name your top three lead sources and their true cost per booked job?
Not cost per lead, cost per job that actually made it onto the schedule. Most companies misjudge their best channel by 30–50% because they track leads instead of booked revenue. When we audit campaigns, the channel they think is winning rarely is.
What this reveals: Whether you’re making decisions based on revenue or vanity metrics.
2. What percentage of your revenue goes to marketing, and how was that number set?
Growing companies typically invest 7–10% of revenue in marketing. Below 7%, growth tends to stall. Above 10% without a strategy, money gets burned fast. The real issue is whether the number was chosen or just “whatever’s left.”
What this reveals: Whether you’re investing intentionally or reacting month to month.
3. How many leads did you get last month, and how many could you realistically handle?
If you generated more leads than you could serve, you wasted money and trained customers to call competitors. If you generated fewer than your capacity, you left revenue on the table. Most companies don’t know either number.
What this reveals: Whether your marketing is aligned with operations or unintentionally fighting it.
4. What happens to leads that don’t book immediately?
Most companies lose 30–40% of potential revenue simply because they have no structured follow-up. A lead that doesn’t book today isn’t lost, they just buy from whoever stays top of mind.
What this reveals: Whether you have a lead generation problem or a lead nurture problem.
5. What percentage of jobs come from existing customers?
Existing customers convert faster, buy more, and rarely push back on pricing. Yet most companies spend 90% of their budget chasing strangers and almost nothing staying connected with their own base.
What this reveals: Whether you’re building a loyal customer base or continuously renting one.
SECTION 2: Positioning, Messaging & Customer Psychology
6. Can your team clearly explain what makes you different in one sentence?
If you get inconsistent answers, or generic ones like “great service”, you don’t have positioning. You have noise. When employees can’t articulate your value, customers definitely can’t.
What this reveals: Whether you have a brand or just a name and logo.
7. How many prospects are you losing to lower-priced competitors?
If price objections dominate your sales conversations, you don’t have a pricing issue, you have a positioning issue. When customers view companies as interchangeable, they default to the lowest number.
What this reveals: Whether you’re attracting premium buyers or bargain hunters.
8. What do you actually know about the customers you want more of?
Not demographics. Not zip codes. I’m talking about what they value, what they fear, and what they care about. “Homeowners 35–65” is not a target audience. It’s a census report.
What this reveals: Whether you’re marketing to real people or vague averages.
9. When was the last time you looked at your website with fresh eyes, or had someone else review it?
Your website either builds confidence or creates doubt. Business owners often see what they meant to say, not what customers actually experience. A neutral review almost always reveals friction you didn’t know existed.
What this reveals: Whether your website is an asset or quietly costing you calls.
SECTION 3: Revenue Systems, Resilience & Long-Term Growth
10. How are you measuring phone call quality and conversion rates?
Phone calls convert better than any digital lead, but only if they’re answered and handled well. Many companies lose 15–20% of revenue to missed calls and weak call handling, and never realize it.
What this reveals: Whether you’re treating your most valuable lead source like it matters.
11. Are your campaigns coordinated across channels, or just scattered tactics?
Google Ads for a month, then a little direct mail, then some SEO… this approach burns money. Integrated campaigns, where digital, traditional, and relationship channels support the same message, produce 3–5x higher results.
What this reveals: Whether you have a system or just a series of experiments.
12. Do you understand which activities drive immediate results versus long-term value?
Paid search and direct mail can create calls this week. SEO, branding, and customer retention build compounding value. You need both. Companies that rely only on “now” stay stuck on the hamster wheel.
What this reveals: Whether your marketing is balanced or dangerously short-term.
13. What would happen if your biggest marketing channel stopped working tomorrow?
If that idea scares you, you have a dependency problem. Google changes policies. Partnerships end. Algorithms shift. A resilient marketing system has diversified demand sources.
What this reveals: Whether you’ve built resilience or vulnerability into your growth engine.
14. How often do previous customers hear from you when you’re not selling something?
If the answer is rarely or never, you’re missing the easiest revenue you’ll ever earn. Small, consistent, value-based touches dramatically increase repeat business and referrals.
What this reveals: Whether you’re building relationships or only showing up with your hand out.
15. Can you map your ideal customer’s journey, from first hearing about you to becoming a repeat customer?
Most companies can’t. But your customer journey determines everything: message, channel mix, follow-up timing, and close rate. Without a clear picture, you’re optimizing in the dark.
What this reveals: Whether you’re engineering growth or hoping for it.
How to Interpret Your Audit Score
12–15 “Yes” answers: The Optimization Phase
You have a strong foundation. Your biggest wins will come from tuning, scaling, and increasing efficiency.
8–11 “Yes” answers: The Fragmentation Phase
Pieces are in place, but they’re not working together. With alignment, you can unlock significant gains quickly.
4–7 “Yes” answers: The Reactive Phase
You’re doing a lot of things, but not in a way that consistently drives profit. You’re carrying major blind spots.
0–3 “Yes” answers: The Chaos Phase
You’re growing despite your marketing, not because of it. The upside is enormous once you create structure.
Your score isn’t a judgment, it’s clarity. And clarity is the beginning of control.
Your Gaps Are Your Roadmap
The questions you struggled with aren’t problems. They’re opportunities. Each one represents revenue you’re missing, efficiency you haven’t captured, or risk you haven’t solved.
You don’t need to fix everything at once. Choose the 2–3 areas that would create the biggest impact and focus there first.
Want Help Turning This Audit Into a Real Strategy?
Most home service companies score lower than they expect. Not because they’re doing anything wrong, but because nobody has ever shown them how to build a system instead of a set of disconnected tactics.
If you want clarity on:
- Which marketing activities to keep, cut, or double down on
- How to attract premium buyers instead of price shoppers
- Where the highest-leverage revenue opportunities are hiding
- How to build a strategy that works across seasons… not just this month
Schedule a 45-minute Marketing Audit Call.
We’ll walk through your answers, identify 2–3 high-impact opportunities, and outline your next steps.
Clarity—not effort—is what drives growth.
