Seven things to do yourself before paying any agency

Why bother when you could just pay someone?

Because an agency builds on what you give them. Hand them a business with no reviews, no photos and a Google listing that says you are closed on Tuesdays, and they spend your first three months of fees fixing the basics. Hand them a business with 20 reviews, 200 good photos and a tidy listing, and they can get straight to the part you are paying for.

There is a second reason. Doing these yourself teaches you enough to tell a good agency from a poor one. You cannot judge a plasterer's work if you have never seen a flat wall. Same here.

1. Claim and finish your Google Business Profile

If you have never claimed it, do it tonight. Search your business name, look for the panel on the right, and follow the 'own this business?' link. Verification usually involves a postcard, a phone call or a video.

Then fill in every single field. Hours, service areas, the services you offer, a proper description written like a person talking, and a phone number that rings a phone you answer. Pick the right primary category: 'Plumber' not 'Contractor'. Half the trade listings we see are missing the service area entirely, which is the one field Google leans on most for 'near me' searches.

2. Get your first batch of reviews

Reviews do two jobs. They push you up the map results and they convince the person reading them to ring you rather than the firm below. A business with 3 reviews loses to a business with 40 almost every time, even if the 3-review firm is better.

Go back through your last two years of jobs. Text every customer you parted with on good terms, one at a time, with a direct link to your review page. You will get a reply from roughly a third of them if the message is personal. We have written a full walkthrough in how to get your first 20 Google reviews, including what to say so it does not feel like begging.

3. Photograph everything you finish

From this week on, every job gets a before shot and an after shot, in daylight, with the rubbish moved out of frame. Phone camera is fine. Hold it level.

Within a couple of months you will have a library that no agency can create for you, because they were not there. Those photos go on your Google listing, your Facebook page and eventually your website. Our guide on job photos that actually sell your work covers the handful of habits that make the difference between a snap and a photo that wins a quote.

4. Fix how you handle the phone

Ring your own number from a mate's phone while you are on a job. What happens? If it rings out to a generic voicemail, or to a voicemail box that is full, you are losing work every week and no amount of marketing will fix it.

At minimum, record a proper voicemail greeting that names the business and promises a callback by the end of the day, and then keep that promise. Better, set up a missed-call text that fires automatically. Many phone networks and cheap apps do this. The detail is in answering the phone when you're on the tools.

5. Write down what you actually do and where

This sounds obvious. It is not. Sit down and list every service you are happy to be rung about, and every town or area you will travel to for it. Be honest about what you do not want: if you hate bathroom fitting, leave it off.

This list becomes the backbone of everything else. It tells you what to put on your Google listing, what pages a website needs, and what to say when an agency asks what you want to rank for. Agencies often skip this step and guess. You know your business better than they ever will.

6. Search for yourself and your competitors

Type the things a customer would type: 'emergency plumber Darlington', 'roofer near me', 'EV charger installer Stockton'. Who comes up in the map? Who comes up underneath? Click on them. Look at their reviews, their photos, their websites.

Write down the three firms that keep appearing. These are the people you are competing with, and whatever an agency promises you, it is really promising to beat them. Knowing who they are lets you ask the agency the right question: how, specifically, do you plan to get me above those three?

7. Decide what a lead is worth to you

Work it out roughly. If your average job is £800 and you make £300 profit on it, and you win one job in every three quotes, then each quote is worth about £100 to you and each enquiry a bit less. That number tells you what you can afford to pay for marketing and still come out ahead.

Without it you cannot judge any agency's offer. With it, you can look at a £149 a month fee or a £900 a month retainer and know immediately how many jobs it has to produce to be worth it. We go through the maths in how much a tradesman should spend on marketing.

Then, and only then, talk to agencies

Once the seven are done, you might find the phone has picked up enough that you do not need anyone. Plenty of one-van firms live comfortably on a good Google listing, 50 reviews and word of mouth.

If you still want help, you will be a far better client. You will know your numbers, your competitors and your services, and you will be able to tell within one phone call whether the agency has done its homework or is reading from a script. Our spotting a cowboy marketing agency checklist is the next thing to read.

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