Ep 64 – 3 Ways to Generate More Leads in 2026

In this episode of Trade Secrets, we’re finally in the same room and diving into three simple, seriously effective ways contractors can generate more leads in 2026. Whether you’re just getting started or running a well-oiled operation, these strategies will help you bring in better leads and keep the momentum going all year long.

We break down:

• How to build a steady flow of Google reviews (without it feeling like pulling teeth)
• Why Google Local Service Ads should be on every contractor’s radar,
• How interactive website tools—think instant roof quotes and siding visualizers—can turn curious visitors into confident customers.

Plus, we dig into what happens after you get the lead. From smart follow-up to subtle nurture tactics, we cover how to stay top of mind so you’re the easy “yes” when homeowners are ready to move.

Amanda Joyce:
Look at us. We’re in a real podcast studio, now we’re together.

Devon Hayes:
I know. I know the podcast on the couch vibes. What’s up? All right. Sorry, that was a lot.

Amanda Joyce:
If you haven’t ever watched any of our episodes before, we’re normally on Zoom and we’re not in the room together, so this is a big moment for us.

Devon Hayes:
We’re very excited. I’m based in Denver, she’s based in Phoenix and we’re partners. And so, there’s a lot of Zooming, a lot of podcasts on Zoom. Yeah, but we’re having a retreat here. We are so excited for 2026. Our entire team did some digging, did some analysis, some research, and we are so stoked for what we’re rolling out next year.
But with that, we wanted to just record an episode really quick, and talk to you guys about lead gen and getting more leads. Who doesn’t want more of those?

Recording:
Welcome to Trade Secrets where we demystify digital marketing to help contractors get the most bang for their marketing bucks. This is for you, if you’re a contractor looking for actionable marketing insights. Learn from home services industry experts to elevate your business through simplified marketing strategies. Let’s dive into today’s trade secrets.

Amanda Joyce:
Okay, so as Devon said, we’re here on our retreat, so we’re really excited about a lot of the great ideas that we’re throwing around. So we figured we would narrow it down to three that we feel like every contractor should be out there doing this. Whether you just got started and you’ve got one truck and you’re just scrapping at it, or if you’re a really established company and maybe marketing’s been on the back burner for a minute, these are tactics that are proven and we know will help drive more leads. It’s what we all need.

Devon Hayes:
Yep, absolutely. So the first thing that if you’re new, maybe you’ve never heard this. If you’re old, you probably have heard this and but you might not be doing it, you might not be doing it, reviews. You have got to be getting reviews consistently at A… What’s the word I’m looking for? At a standard cadence like three to five a week consistently. You don’t want to get 30 in a week and then get zero for a month. That would mess up the algorithm. You’re going to go way outside any standard deviation and Google’s going to be like, "Whoa, what is this? What is this? You had nothing and now you have this." But a slow steady drip of reviews is critical to be found anywhere online where people are looking for your services.

Amanda Joyce:
Exactly. And there are tools out there. NiceJob, we’re a huge fan of NiceJob that automates things. You can connect it to your CRM, it’ll send a text and a few emails afterwards to try to get people to leave those reviews. And that’s great and you need that, but it really is critical to get your team onboard. You need to have people at every stage of your operation, whether it’s an admin who answers the phone a whole lot and does a lot of customer service, a crew chief, a salesperson, a project manager, people that are out there that are interacting with your clients. They all need to understand how critical this is, and they all need to be asking for those reviews. It’s not enough anymore to send a couple of text requests and check out on your reviews. Because I promise you, the people that are really owning the digital landscape in your local market, if you go look at it and you’re honest with yourself, they’re prioritizing this.

Devon Hayes:
They really are. And they’re responding to reviews right away. That responsiveness, how quickly you reply when someone does leave a review, that’s another sign to Google. It’s all about engagement. And if they think your business is like, "Sure, I’ll get back to you right away." Then that’s a sign to Google, "Oh, okay. They give this customer what they want, which is a response immediately." We’re all used to getting things immediately, so you want to make sure that you’re responding to them right away on top of actually getting the reviews. I think what we should do is just advise our clients to have their sales guy get a QR code right here.

Amanda Joyce:
On the Adams apple?

Devon Hayes:
It goes right to the GBP profile. So that’s the hot tip.

Amanda Joyce:
Get them all tatted up.

Devon Hayes:
Tatted up and get a chest piece of a QR code straight to your GBP. That’s commitment. You can use that in your hiring videos.

Amanda Joyce:
The culture, what it’s like to work here.

Devon Hayes:
Okay, so that’s number one. Sorry, off track. Number one, reviews. Get them consistently, frequently, respond to them with some immediacy, and that’s going to greatly impact your visibility online.

Amanda Joyce:
Yeah, and share that ownership as a team. That’s the other thing that we do see a lot of our clients finally starting to embrace. Before all the pressure was on maybe the project manager who had the most contact with the homeowner, and it just goes so much further if you have more people asking for those reviews, and then they give the call-outs to your team members. The person asking for the review oftentimes gets mentioned in the review, and Google gobbles those up. We saw we were looking at some numbers with some of our clients here at the retreat, and one of the things we were noticing was they were consistently getting reviews week over week, and then when the cadence really started to increase and there were people calling out specific members of the team, we just went gangbusters in LSA and local overnight. So that’s a test case for you. It just works.

Devon Hayes:
There you go. Okay, and then number two, something else that you can do to generate more leads is-

Amanda Joyce:
Google Local Service Ads. Some of you might be rolling your eyes and say, "Duh, I already knew that." But some of you might not. It surprises me. We talked to some companies that have been running Google Ads for a long time that haven’t even made the switch over to LSA, and while they are both Google products, they are different ad platforms. And Google Local Service ads are, it’s like Google Ads with training wheels on it. There’s not really as many bells and whistles that you can tweak in there, so you can truly manage it on your own internally. We as an agency will manage it because you have to stay on top of it. But if you’re trying to save money, but you really want to get that phone ringing, if you’re getting consistent because it links directly to your Google business profile, that’s how you set up LSA. If you’re getting those consistent reviews and you’re staying on top of it, listening to the calls and running those ads, I promise you you’re going to be really happy with the results you get.

Devon Hayes:
That’s absolutely true. Everybody loves it. And the other thing I was going to say about LSA is if you have used it, and you have heard of it and you’re like, "Oh, those aren’t good leads or my market’s saturated." Start to maybe change your mindset a little bit, and start to open up the services and the categories that you want to be listed for. What is your foot in the door offer? There’s a lot of roofing companies that will clean gutters for free, just so that they can go out there and get on a roof. What is that foot in the door offer? Nobody wants to do roof repairs, but maybe you go out there and you build a relationship, and now you’re thinking you did right by them, because no other would go out there, because nobody wants to do repairs.

Amanda Joyce:
And then you get a good review out of that person.

Devon Hayes:
Yes, yes. I like that callback. So maybe shift your perspective, and I would challenge you to think about it a little bit differently, because there’s the easy conversion for a replacement that we would all love, or a brand new landscape design instead of lawn care. We understand, but start to shift your mindset. What could your foot in the door offer be if you open up your categories just a little bit? Build that relationship. Think long-term, not just instantly.

Amanda Joyce:
Great, great point. And one of the other things to keep in mind about these ads too is, even when you say they’re saturated, clicks and Google Ads anymore for some service terms, especially roofing, can be like $80, north of $100. Most of these calls are like $50 to $100 now, and you only pay for them if they’re legit leads. You can dispute them if it’s junk. Just even if you’re trying to stretch the most out of your marketing budget, you’re going to get more money. Assuming that you’re managing it properly, you’re going to get more out of your LSA ads than you probably are even out of your Google Ads. Might not be a popular opinion, but in most markets that is the case right now.

Devon Hayes:
Fantastic advice. All right, number three, things that you can do to help you get leads. What we’re seeing is any tool that helps the homeowner, something that you are providing to them on your website that gives them some value, an instant roof quote, some of those siding visualizers or roof visualizers. There’s not as many fun tools that I’ve seen in the landscaping space that offer that value.

Amanda Joyce:
Even if there’s one out there and we just haven’t heard of it. But look into it if you are in the landscape space. But yeah, it’s that top of funnel. You’re not asking for their address. Well sometimes you are, you’re not asking for their them to get in your calendar and for you to be out there. They’re not committing to a meeting with you, but you are giving them value through these different tools.

Devon Hayes:
It’s important because user behavior has shifted. All of us know that now. We don’t have this linear buying cycle where we start at Google, we type in what we want, and the location, and then we look at the reviews and then we decide to go to somebody’s website, and then we decide who we trust and fill out the contact form. You probably no doubt heard of all the new search optimization things. There’s how to get found on AI, how to get found with Alexa, how to get found with Google. So there’s all these different areas and I’ll spare you the marketing jargon, but with that, these tools and our user behavior, our buying cycle is circular. It’s a loop buying cycle, and there’s more places to find you and people want that instant, they want something from you before they make a choice. They’re doing all the research, they don’t need to read your service page, they want to trust you, they want to like you, and you just got to cast a wider net to meet buyers where they are.
I am sure you guys have all heard that one before, but with the introduction of AI and our robot friends, we’ve just changed how we buy and how we interact on websites. So having something with instant pricing, or those visualizers is huge. Cast that net, and then you get more time on site, which helps with your overall visibility online.

Amanda Joyce:
And there’s just a lot of goodwill in that. If somebody’s at the beginning of the buyer’s journey and you provided them with a siding visualizer that they can go in and upload a photo of their home, and try on the siding. So before they even reach out to you, they’re already excited about what it’s going to look like. They’ll make it easier for you to sell to them. If they can say, "Look what I came up with. I love this. What’s it going to cost me?"

Devon Hayes:
I provided that. I’m not one of those people that can picture it. So I love that where I’m like, "Oh, oh, that’s ugly. Oh, that’s fantastic and lucky for you, you’re James Hardy, preferred contractor. Yeah, so you can sell them the good stuff.

Amanda Joyce:
And it is when you’re about to make an investment like that as a homeowner, it is a little daunting. When it comes to roofing, if you can get an instant roof quote knowing before they even walk in your door like, "Okay, this is in the realm of possibility. I could afford it this year or it might be a year or two out for me." But giving people that information can really disarm them, and make them trust you as a company, and make them way more willing to pick up the phone when you maybe call to follow-up after they’ve used one of your tools.

Devon Hayes:
There you go building that relationship again, just saying. And then with that though, now here’s part two, part due of that, is what do you do once you have that information? So what we’re telling you is, they might not convert right away, but then what do you do? How do you nurture them? That’s part B of these pricing tools, these calculators, these visualizers, what do you do with the information after you get it? Is it just sitting there? Have you done anything with these email addresses? How do you follow-up with them? There’s email drip campaigns you should them engaged in. And maybe now’s not the time, but you can email them quarterly and just tap them on the shoulder a little bit. You can be much more aggressive depending on which tool it is and how they converted and came to your site. You get a better idea of what timeline they’re on.

Amanda Joyce:
But yeah, exactly. But we’ve been reading things about, I think they say that in the home service space you have to have an average of 5.5 touches before somebody completes a conversion. And that’s probably even on a shorter buying cycle. But somebody who maybe uses your roofing calculator and is like, "Well, too rich for my blood, but I do know I have to budget for this in the next year or two. Pray for a hail storm. But at the end of the day, it could end up being retail." If you are in their inbox quarterly, giving them a quick tip, or a little bit of information, they’re going to keep you top of mind. And then probably when it’s time to go pull that quote again in a year and a half when they’re like, time to pull the plug and time to do this, hopefully they’re going to come back and reach out to you and you’re going to be the company that they choose.

Devon Hayes:
Because you just stay top of mind. You’re giving them value. It’s not that me, me, me, every time you send them an email, you’re just trying to provide value each time. So as long as you keep up with that, it’s a great way to nurture that lead and warm them up a little bit.

Amanda Joyce:
And hopefully in the meantime, they might know somebody that also is in the market for a roof and they might say, "Hey, I have found this really cool company that I was able to get a quote from. If you want to go check it out." And they might refer some people over.

Devon Hayes:
Yeah, there you have it. Okay, so those are three tips, three things you can do to get more leads in now, or in 2026, depending on when this airs.

Amanda Joyce:
And then part tre would be just keep in mind that we are, we are Roofle resellers, so if you are in the roofing space and you’re looking for a roof calculator, we’re your ladies, we have a whole package we’ve been refining at this retreat right now, and we are really excited to roll it out. So if you’re hearing this and are interested in figuring out how to get a roofing calculator in place on your website, reach out, let us know. We’ve also got some great relationships with sighting visualizer tools as well. So reach out.

Devon Hayes:
Yes, and definitely check out our other podcast on Roofle and how I went from absolutely hating it to being a reseller. You will want to see that one.

Amanda Joyce:
All right, well thanks for tuning in guys. Let us know if we missed anything. Do you think these are good tips? Are these things you’re going to implement in 2026? And we can’t wait, please engage with us. Yeah, let us know.

Recording:
That was today’s trade secret. Thanks for listening. Did you find this helpful? We’re just getting started. Subscribe and don’t miss our next reveal. Until next time.