We’ve worked with hundreds of trade businesses across Australia since 2012. Here are 10 of them — the challenges they faced, what we built, and what happened when they followed the system.
Not all of these businesses are named. That’s by design. We call out the vertical, the location, the scale — and the numbers. That’s what actually matters.
First, a Quick Frame-Up
Before the case studies, one thing worth understanding.
We’re not in the business of generating leads. We’re in the business of closing jobs. Leads are just the medium. The system behind them — the follow-up, the response time, the CRM, the quoting process — is what actually converts enquiries into revenue.
You’ll see that distinction play out in every story below.
Some of these businesses came to us with marketing problems. Some came with sales problems they’d mistaken for marketing problems. A few came to us with fulfilment problems they hadn’t spotted yet. Our job in every case was the same: find the actual bottleneck, fix it in order, and build something that keeps working.
The client is always the hero here. We’re the system.
1. The Solar Business That Went From Referrals-Only to Close to $6M a Year
The challenge: This business in WA was doing fine — on referrals. Plenty of word-of-mouth, a good reputation in their local area. But they were completely dependent on other people mentioning their name at a barbeque. No predictability. No control. One slow month of referrals and everything tightened up fast.
What we did: Built them out a full-stack marketing system. Google Ads, SEO, a website that actually converted, and Tradie Hub CRM to manage every single lead from first contact through to booked job. We also worked with them on their follow-up process — because getting the lead is one thing, closing it is another entirely.
The result: They went from being completely dependent on referrals to a business that now runs 100% independent of them. Last year they were tracking close to $6M in revenue. That’s not a typo — it’s where consistent, manageable growth takes you when you follow the system year after year.
The shift wasn’t overnight. It never is. But it also wasn’t magic — it was a sequence of the right things done in the right order.
2. The Roofing Business That Got 9,937% ROAS — vs The One That Got Zero
This one gets shared a lot. Because it’s the clearest illustration of what actually makes the difference.
Two roofing businesses. Same vertical. Same market opportunity. Very different outcomes.
Business A — Their Way (they ‘managed’ their own leads):
– Leads: 22
– Jobs won: 0
– Revenue: $0
– ROAS: 0%
Business B — Our Way (we managed the system for them):
– Leads: 107
– Jobs won: 9
– Revenue: $449,000
– ROAS: 9,937%
Same vertical. Same opportunity. Completely different outcome.
The difference wasn’t the ads. It wasn’t even the budget. Business A had slow response times, partial tech adoption, and was quoting on their own schedule — once a week when they got around to it. Leads were dying in the inbox.
We eventually parted ways with Business A. Not because the leads weren’t coming. They were. It’s because they wouldn’t do what was needed to actually close them. The system was working. They weren’t working the system.
Business B? They followed the process. Fast response times, meticulous follow-up, quotes done fast through our system — not two days later on their schedule. That’s what 9,937% looks like.
Marketing won’t fix a slow business. But when the business is dialled in and embraces the system, this is what happens.
3. The Solar Business Doing $300K a Month in WA
This one’s a bit of a benchmark internally.
WA solar business. Not a huge team — but a tight, well-run operation. They came to us with an already decent marketing setup, but inconsistent results and no real clarity on what was working.
We restructured their Google Ads campaigns, tightened their targeting, rebuilt the landing pages for conversion, and got Tradie Hub running properly so no lead slipped through.
The result: They’re now generating $300,000 in revenue per month. Consistently. Not a spike month — a normal month.
That’s what a predictable marketing system does. It stops being about “how do we get more leads?” and starts being about “how do we handle the volume we already have?”
That’s a good problem to have.
4. The Building Business That Went From $3M to $6M
The challenge: They were already a successful business. $3M/year isn’t small. But they’d hit a ceiling — they were trading hours for dollars, heavily reliant on referrals, and had no real marketing infrastructure. Growth was reactive, not planned.
The reframe they needed: They didn’t have a marketing problem. They had a predictability problem. Every good month was followed by anxiety about where the next job was coming from. That’s not a business — that’s a feast-and-famine cycle dressed up as success.
What we built: End-to-end lead generation, a CRM to manage every conversation, SEO to build long-term organic traffic, and Google Ads to generate demand on tap. We also worked with them on their sales process — because at $3M, the owner was still doing all the selling himself.
The result: They doubled revenue, going from $3M to $6M. But the bigger win was predictability. They stopped waking up wondering where the next job was coming from. The system tells them.
5. The Electrician Who Was Drowning in Small Jobs
The challenge: Plenty of work — too much of it the wrong kind. Smoke alarm calls, small fault-finding jobs, the kind of work that fills the diary but doesn’t move the revenue needle. No clarity on how to attract the higher-value residential projects they actually wanted.
What we did: Rebuilt their Google Ads strategy from the ground up, targeting specifically the job types they wanted — switchboard upgrades, new home connections, big renovation electrical. Updated their website with service pages built around the right keywords. Got their Google Business Profile properly optimised so they were showing up in Maps for the right searches.
The result: Within four months, the job mix had shifted materially. More board upgrades. More renovation work. The small jobs didn’t disappear — but they stopped dominating the calendar.
The lesson: lead volume isn’t the goal. Lead quality is. If you’re running ads and getting the wrong enquiries, the problem isn’t the platform — it’s the targeting and the message.
6. The Plumbing Business That Couldn’t Scale Because the Owner Was the Business
The challenge: Classic trades trap. Owner-operator running a plumbing business that had grown to a couple of vans — but every lead, every quote, every follow-up still came through him. He was working 60-hour weeks and wondering why the business wasn’t growing.
Truth be told, it couldn’t grow. He was the bottleneck.
What we built: We started with the Impact Roadmap session — which, in this case, made it pretty clear that adding more leads to this setup would have made things worse, not better. So the first phase wasn’t marketing at all. It was systems.
We helped him deploy Tradie Hub to manage leads automatically, built follow-up sequences so no lead went cold while he was on the tools, and set up a proper quoting workflow. Only then did we layer in Google Ads.
The result: He now runs three vans with a dedicated admin and a trained sales process that doesn’t rely on him picking up every call. Revenue has grown materially — and he’s working fewer hours than when he had one van.
That’s what the system is supposed to do.
7. The Landscaping Business That Was Invisible Online
The challenge: Excellent work, loyal clients, great photos of completed jobs. Zero online presence. No website worth mentioning, not showing up in Google Maps, no SEO, no ads. All business came through word of mouth or local Facebook groups.
If you searched “landscaper [their suburb]” — they weren’t there.
What we did: Built a proper WordPress website with location-specific service pages, set up and optimised their Google Business Profile, launched a local SEO campaign targeting the suburbs they serviced, and got a Google Ads campaign running for their high-value services (garden design, retaining walls, full redesigns).
The result: Within six months they went from invisible to consistently ranking in the top three in Maps for their primary service areas. Lead volume tripled. More importantly — the quality of the leads was higher because people were finding them by searching for exactly what they do.
Word-of-mouth got them to a certain point. The online system took them further.
8. The HVAC Business That Was Losing Leads Over the Weekend
The challenge: They were running Google Ads. Leads were coming in. But their close rate was low — embarrassingly low for the amount they were spending. When we did the Impact Roadmap session, the problem became obvious pretty quickly.
Leads were coming in on Friday afternoon. Nobody was following up until Monday morning.
By Monday, those leads had already booked someone else. In a competitive market like HVAC, speed to lead isn’t optional — it’s the game.
What we built: Automated follow-up through Tradie Hub. The moment a lead comes in — any time, any day — they get a text and email response within minutes. Not a generic blast — a personalised sequence that starts the conversation before a human ever picks up the phone.
The result: Same ad spend. Same lead volume. Close rate went from around 15% to over 40% in three months.
The ads weren’t the problem. The gap between enquiry and response was killing them. Speed to lead is something we write about in detail here — the data on response time and close rates is pretty sobering.
9. The Solar Business That Thought They Had a Lead Problem
This one’s worth telling because it shows how the diagnosis matters as much as the solution.
They came to us convinced they needed more leads. They were spending on Facebook Ads, getting a reasonable number of enquiries, but the business felt stuck. Revenue wasn’t growing the way the lead volume suggested it should.
We didn’t immediately launch a new campaign. We spent the Impact Roadmap session looking at what was actually happening to the leads they already had.
The answer: the leads were there. The follow-up wasn’t. Out of 40+ leads in the previous month, fewer than half had been contacted within 24 hours. Some hadn’t been contacted at all. The inbox was full. The system was leaking.
What we built: Tradie Hub deployment, automated follow-up sequences, a proper pipeline so the team could see every lead’s status at a glance, and training on the response process.
The result: Revenue grew by close to 60% over the next six months — with the same ad spend they were already running. They didn’t have a lead problem. They had a lead management problem. That’s a pattern we see constantly.
10. The Renovation Builder With Great Projects and No Story Online
The challenge: Stunning work — the kind of renovations that would make anyone want to knock out a wall. But their website was outdated, they had no review strategy, and their social media was a ghost town. Their Google Business Profile had three reviews from 2019.
People were finding them. Then going and looking them up. Then choosing someone else.
What we did: Built a new website with a proper portfolio section, set up a review generation system through Tradie Hub (automated requests after job completion), updated their GBP, and started a content strategy to position the owner as the go-to renovation expert in their area.
The result: In eight months, they went from three Google reviews to 47. Their average job value increased — partly because the website now commanded premium positioning, partly because better leads were self-selecting in.
The work had always been good. Now the online story matched it.
What These 10 Businesses Have in Common
Different trades. Different problems. Different starting points.
But a few things were consistent across all of them.
One: None of them had a purely marketing problem. They had a combination of marketing, systems, and process problems — and fixing only one wouldn’t have delivered the result.
Two: The ones that got the best results followed the system. Fast response times. Proper CRM adoption. Consistent follow-up. That’s not complicated, but it’s not optional.
Three: Every one of them started with an Impact Roadmap session — because that’s where we figure out what the actual bottleneck is. Adding leads to a broken system doesn’t help. The sequence matters.
If you want to understand how we calculate what a marketing investment should actually return, this breakdown on marketing ROI for tradies is worth reading.
And if you’ve been relying on word-of-mouth — and wondering why growth feels unpredictable — this piece is a bit confronting but probably necessary.
What Happens After You Get the System Right?
The businesses above all got to the same place eventually — not fast, but consistently.
Predictable lead flow. A pipeline they could see. A sales process that didn’t live entirely in the owner’s head. Revenue targets that were actual targets, not optimistic guesses.
That’s what the system delivers when it’s followed.
It’s not for everyone. Some businesses want more leads without changing anything else. We don’t take those on — because we know how that ends. But for trade businesses that are ready to build something that works? The results above are what’s possible.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you work with all types of trade businesses?
Mostly, yes. We work with builders, roofers, electricians, plumbers, solar installers, HVAC businesses, landscapers, and other trade businesses that serve homeowners directly. The common thread isn’t the trade — it’s the business model. Residential-focused, direct to homeowner, typically $50K+/month in revenue or working toward that.
How long before we see results?
Depends on the business and what we’re building. Google Ads can generate leads within weeks. SEO typically takes three to six months to build real traction. The businesses covered here that doubled their revenue did it over 12–24 months — not overnight. We’re not in the business of promising fast. We’re in the business of building things that last.
Do you guarantee results?
No. And if an agency guarantees you a specific number of leads or a revenue outcome, read the terms and conditions carefully — because those guarantees are almost always buried under conditions that put the responsibility back on you. We will guarantee that you get a documented strategy from your Impact Roadmap session and a system built to deliver results. What we can’t control is how well the business follows through on their end. The businesses that got the results above did the work. That’s the honest answer.
What does it actually cost to work with Tradie Web Guys?
The starting point is an Impact Roadmap session at $500. That’s a paid working session — not a free sales call — where we map your current position, identify the gaps, and design a plan. From there, ongoing services vary based on what you need. We’re not cheap. But we’re also not a volume shop taking on anyone with a credit card. If you want to understand the cost-benefit, this piece on marketing ROI lays out the maths pretty clearly.
What makes these results possible?
The system. Not just the ads. Not just the website. The combination — ads or SEO driving traffic, a website built to convert, a CRM managing every lead, automated follow-up so nothing slips, and a sales process the business actually uses. When all of those things are working together, the results compound. When one piece is missing — especially lead management — the whole thing breaks down. That’s what the two roofing businesses showed clearly.
Can I see the case studies on your website?
Yes — there are results and client stories featured on the Tradie Web Guys website. The specific case studies mentioned above come from real client engagements. We don’t name clients publicly, but the numbers are real and documented.
What if I’m not ready for full marketing — can you still help?
Yes. The Impact Roadmap session is designed specifically for this. We’ll tell you honestly where you are, what the realistic next steps are, and whether now is actually the right time to invest in marketing. If it’s not — we’ll say so. We turn away more work than we take on, because taking on businesses that aren’t ready doesn’t serve anyone.
Is solar your main industry?
It’s one of the verticals we have significant experience in, but not the only one. Solar comes up a lot because the results have been particularly strong — the combination of high average job values and strong demand makes the maths work well. But the system works across trades. Our solar-specific marketing approach is documented separately if that’s relevant to you.
Ready to Build Something That Actually Works?
If you want help auditing your current setup and building a marketing system that belongs to you, book an Impact Roadmap Session. We will walk through every platform, every account, and every asset, then build a plan to put you in full control of your marketing infrastructure.
