Marketing, website and brand
More of the right customers, on purpose.
Eight working guides for owners who want more of the right customers: the website audit, being found in local search, the brand package, choosing channels, a referral system, the sales process, the numbers that say whether any of it is working, and the rules. Each ends with next moves in the words a lender, a buyer or an agency will use.
8 guides
Where is the leak?
The website auditTwelve checks, done in an hour, that decide whether the site produces enquiries or sits there.12 checks, 3 next moves →
Being found: local search and reviewsWhere the ideal customer looks first, and the free things that decide whether they find you.8 checks, 3 next moves →
The brand packageWhat a small business actually needs written down so that everything it puts out looks and sounds like the same company.10 checks, 3 next moves →
Choosing channelsThe ways customers arrive, what each usually costs, and how to test one without betting the year on it.9 checks, 3 next moves →
A referral systemTurning the cheapest customers there are into something you can count on.7 checks, 3 next moves →
The sales process and the pipelineHow a lead becomes an order in steps somebody else could follow, and how to see next quarter before it arrives.9 checks, 4 next moves →
Measuring marketing: the numbersSeven numbers that say whether the marketing is working, how each is worked out, and what a good one looks like.7 checks, 3 next moves →
The rules: advertising, email and privacy in CanadaThe five sets of rules a small business breaks by accident, and what each one asks of you.7 checks, 3 next moves →
Written for owner-led businesses in British Columbia. General information, not advice; the rules section is a summary and the statutes govern. The Business Development Plan puts the numbers on your own sales engine; the directory lists who can help, and the research what the evidence says.
Guide 1 of 8
The website audit
Most small-business websites are brochures: they describe the business and wait. A website that is a channel does three things on the first screen, says who it is for, what to do next and how to call, and then gets out of the way. Work through the checks below on a phone, because that is where most of your visitors are.
What a lender or a buyer reads. A lender or a buyer will look at the website before the first meeting. What they are reading is whether the business finds its own customers, or whether the owner does.
The first screen says who it is for and what you doIn one sentence, in the customer's words, without scrolling. “Residential plumbing in the Fraser Valley, same-day” beats “Welcome to our website”.
A phone number and a short form on every pageTwo fields and a button. Every field you add loses a share of the people who would have asked.
What to do next is obviousOne button, one colour, one action: call, book, get a quote. Not five.
It loads in under three seconds on a phoneTest it on your own phone on mobile data. Google's PageSpeed Insights gives the number; images are usually the cause.
Each service or product has its own pageA page for “furnace repair” ranks for furnace repair. A page for “services” ranks for nothing.
The area you serve is namedTowns and neighbourhoods, in text, not only on a map image.
Reviews are on the site, recent and realThree from this year beat thirty from 2019. Link to where they came from.
Photographs are of your work and your peopleStock photographs tell the visitor you have nothing to show.
Prices, or at least a starting pointWhere the industry allows it. “From $X” qualifies the visitor before they call.
Enquiries are counted every monthCalls, forms, bookings: a number, written down. Without it the website cannot be managed.
Analytics is set up and someone looks at itVisitors a month, where they came from, which pages they read. Google Analytics and Search Console are free.
Someone owns itA name against the website, the domain renewal, the hosting and the updates. Sites die from neglect, not attack.
Next moves
1. Website conversion rate (the share of visitors who enquire, call or buy)Work it out: enquiries a month divided by visitors a month. Between one and three per cent is typical for a service business; under one per cent, fix the first screen before buying traffic.
2. Call to action (the one thing the page asks the visitor to do)Evaluate cutting the choices on the first screen to one, and putting the phone number in the header of every page.
3. Conversion tracking (counting the enquiries the website produces, by source)Consider a call-tracking number for the website and a form that lands in one inbox, then count them monthly.
Guide 2 of 8
Being found: local search and reviews
For most local businesses, search is the largest channel they do not run. The customer types what they need and where, and the map and the first few results decide who gets the call. The work is mostly free and mostly neglected: the Google Business Profile, reviews, and a page for each thing you do.
What a lender or a buyer reads. A buyer reads a strong search presence as a sales channel that stays after the owner leaves. It is one of the few marketing assets that transfers cleanly.
Google Business Profile claimed and completeEvery field: categories, services, hours, photographs, the area served. Incomplete profiles are shown less.
Reviews asked for after every jobA link sent the same day. A steady flow of recent reviews matters more than the total.
Every review answeredGood and bad, within a week, politely. The reply is read by the next customer, not the last one.
The same name, address and phone number everywhereThe website, the profile, directories and social pages. Mismatches cost rankings.
A page for each service, naming the area“Hot water tank replacement, Kelowna” is a page. It is what people type.
Photographs added monthlyReal jobs, real people, dated by the platform. They are a signal that the business is alive.
Search Console connectedIt shows the words people used to find you, and the pages Google cannot read. Free.
Listed where your customers actually lookThe industry directory, the association, the local chamber. Not every directory; the two or three that send calls.
Next moves
1. Local search (SEO) (being found when a customer searches for what you do near them)Evaluate the Google Business Profile against the checklist above this week; it is the highest-return hour in small-business marketing.
2. Review velocity (how many new reviews arrive a month)Consider a same-day review request on every finished job, sent by the person who did the work, with the link.
3. Search intent (what the customer is trying to do when they type)Consider one new service page a month, each named the way a customer would say it, with the town in it.
Guide 3 of 8
The brand package
A brand is not a logo. It is what a customer expects from you before they call, and whether every touchpoint keeps the promise: the truck, the quote, the voicemail, the invoice, the person at the door. A brand package is the short document that lets a new hire, a designer or an agency get it right without asking you.
What a lender or a buyer reads. A buyer pays for a brand customers recognize without the owner attached to it. It is one of the few intangibles that survives a change of ownership, and a lender reads consistent presentation as a business that is run, not improvised.
One sentence that says what you do and for whomUsed everywhere, by everyone, word for word. If the team cannot say it, the customer cannot repeat it.
Your position against the alternativesFor whom, what, and why you and not them. Written, not assumed.
The promise, and what it costs you to keepOn time, or it is free. Fixed price. Answered within the hour. Pick one you can always keep.
Logo files in every formColour, single colour, reversed; vector and PNG; the minimum size; the clear space around it.
Colours and type, namedHex codes and font names, with which is used for what. Two colours and two fonts is plenty.
The voiceThree adjectives and a paragraph of example: how the business sounds in a quote, a text message and a complaint.
Photography rulesReal work, real people, daylight, no stock. Who takes the photographs and where they are kept.
Templates for the things you send every weekQuote, invoice, email signature, proposal, social post. One design, used every time.
Reviews and proof, collected on purposeTestimonials, case studies, before-and-after, numbers. A folder, kept current.
Who owns the brandOne person approves anything new that carries the name. Usually not the owner, eventually.
Next moves
1. Positioning (the one sentence that says for whom, what, and why you and not the alternatives)Consider writing it this week and testing it on three customers: do they recognize themselves in it?
2. Brand guidelines (the short document that keeps every touchpoint consistent)Evaluate a two-page version: the sentence, the logo files, colours, type, voice and templates. A designer can produce it in days once the sentence exists.
3. Brand audit (comparing every touchpoint against the guidelines)Consider laying the truck, the website, the last quote, the invoice and the voicemail side by side. Where they disagree, the customer notices before you do.
Guide 4 of 8
Choosing channels
A channel is a way customers find you that you can name, count and turn up: search, referrals, advertising, outbound, partners, events. Most businesses have three or four and know the cost of none. The order of work is always the same: count what you have, find the cheapest customer, fund that first, then test one new channel at a time.
What a lender or a buyer reads. A lender reads “word of mouth” as a hope and a named channel with a cost per lead as evidence. A growth forecast is believed when each extra dollar of sales is traced to a channel, a spend and a conversion rate.
Word of mouth and repeat customersThe cheapest customers there are, and the hardest to plan around. Count them, and see the referral guide for turning them into a system.
Referrals from other businessesThe accountant before the lawyer, the realtor before the mover, the architect before the builder. A partner programme with a thank-you attached is a channel.
Website and local search (inbound)The customer comes looking. Usually the best conversion of any paid-for channel, and the slowest to build. Free to start.
Paid searchAds shown to people already searching for what you do. Fast, measurable, expensive per click in competitive trades; the cost per lead is known within a month.
Paid socialAds shown to people who were not looking. Good for things people did not know they wanted, and for reaching a defined audience; weaker for urgent, searched-for services.
Direct or outbound salesCalls, visits, mail, proposals. The channel for business-to-business work with a large average sale. Its cost is mostly salaries, so it belongs in the sales cost line.
Trade shows and eventsA few days that produce a year of conversations. Count the leads and the customers a year later, not the business cards.
Tenders and requests for proposalGovernment and large-company work through BC Bid and CanadaBuys. Low win rates, large orders, long cycles; a channel only if someone owns the bid calendar.
Directories and marketplacesIndustry directories, platforms and marketplaces that send customers for a fee or a commission. A concentration risk when one of them is most of the business.
Next moves
1. Attribution (recording which channel each lead and customer came from)Consider asking every new customer how they found you, for ninety days, and writing it down against the channel. Nothing else in marketing can be decided until this exists.
2. Cost per lead and cost to win a customer (spend on a channel divided by the leads, and by the customers, it produced)Work them out for each channel in the Business Development Plan. Channels differ by two times or more; fund the cheapest customers first.
3. Channel test (one new channel, one budget, one quarter, one number)Evaluate a single new channel with a fixed budget and a cost per lead you would accept, decided before it starts. Keep it if it beats the number; stop it if it does not.
Guide 5 of 8
A referral system
Referred customers cost the least to win, close the most often and stay the longest. They are also the channel most owners leave entirely to chance. A system is small: know who refers you, ask at the right moment, make it easy, say thank you, and count it.
What a lender or a buyer reads. A buyer asks one question about referrals: do they refer the business, or the owner? The relationships written down, with who holds each one, are what make the answer “the business”.
The list of who refers youCustomers, other businesses, former staff, suppliers. Names, how often, what you do for them in return.
The moment you askRight after the job is done well and the customer has said so. Not on the invoice a month later.
The ask itselfOne sentence the team can say: “If you know anyone who needs this, we would be glad to help them.” Practised.
Something to hand overA card, a link, a text message they can forward. Make the referral take ten seconds.
A thank-you that is feltA hand-written note, a gift, a discount on the next job. Consistent, and within a week.
Partner businesses, formalizedThe two or three businesses that serve your customer before or after you: a conversation, an agreement, and a way to send work both ways.
Referrals countedHow many, from whom, and what they were worth. It is a channel; treat it as one.
Next moves
1. Referral rate (the share of new customers who came from a referral)Work it out from the channel grid in the Business Development Plan. If it is over half, the business is cheap to grow and fragile: nobody can turn referrals up on purpose.
2. Partner programme (an agreed way for other businesses to send you work)Consider three partner conversations this quarter with the businesses that see your customer first.
3. Relationship transfer (moving a referral relationship from the owner to someone who stays)Evaluate handing one referring relationship a quarter to a named person in the business, with the referrer told.
Guide 6 of 8
The sales process and the pipeline
A sales process is the steps between the first enquiry and the signed order, written down with who does each one and within how long. A pipeline is every lead somewhere in those steps, with a value and a date. Together they are what a buyer means by a sales engine, and what a lender reads as evidence for the forecast.
What a lender or a buyer reads. The most common discount a buyer applies to a profitable business is for sales that close only when the owner is in the room. A written process, a pipeline someone else runs and relationships that sit with the business are what remove it.
Every lead recorded the day it arrivesWhere it came from, what they need, who is handling it. A CRM, a spreadsheet, a whiteboard: anything that is not memory.
Qualified before anyone spends timeThree questions against the ideal customer profile: right kind of customer, real need, a budget. The rest are politely declined.
A response time the team keepsSame day for enquiries; a quote within an agreed number of days. Speed wins more work than price.
The stages namedEnquiry, qualified, quoted, negotiating, won or lost. Five is enough. Every lead is in exactly one.
Follow-up at fixed intervalsEvery quote followed up at day three and day ten, by a person. Most quotes are lost to silence, not to competitors.
Lost quotes asked whyOne question, written down. The answers are the cheapest market research there is.
A weekly pipeline reviewTwenty minutes: what moved, what is stuck, what closes this month. The number on the board is quotes out and quotes won.
Targets per personQuotes a month and sales a quarter, for everyone who sells, including the owner.
The process written so a new hire could run itOne page. If it exists only in the owner's head, the sales engine is the owner.
Next moves
1. Win rate (the share of quotes or proposals that become orders)Work it out for the last quarter. Below the yardstick for your industry usually means too many quotes go to the wrong people, or nobody follows up.
2. Pipeline coverage (the value of quotes in hand against the sales the target still needs)Consider a rule: three times the gap in quoted work, or the target will be late. The sales funnel calculator shows the pipeline the target needs.
3. Sales capacity (the quotes a sales team can properly work in a month)Work out whether the target needs more salespeople than you have; if it does, the hiring starts two quarters before the sales are due.
4. Owner dependence (sales that close only because the owner is the one selling)Evaluate moving one customer relationship a quarter to someone who stays, in writing.
Guide 7 of 8
Measuring marketing: the numbers
Marketing is the part of the business most often run on feel. It does not have to be. Seven numbers, each a division of two things you can count, turn a marketing budget into a forecast a lender can test. The Business Development Plan works them out from your figures; the calculators do each one on its own.
What a lender or a buyer reads. “If a dollar goes into this channel, what comes out the other side?” is the question a lender asks about a loan for growth. These numbers are the answer.
Cost per lead (CPL)Spend on a channel divided by the leads it produced. The price of one enquiry. Compare channels on it.
Conversion rateThe share that move from one step to the next: visitors to leads, leads to quotes, quotes to orders. Each step has one; the leak is where it is lowest.
Customer acquisition cost (CAC)Everything spent on sales and marketing in a year, divided by the new customers won in it. The first number a growth plan needs.
Customer lifetime value (LTV)The gross profit a typical customer brings over the whole relationship: average sale, times sales per customer, times gross margin.
LTV to CACLifetime value divided by acquisition cost. Three to one or better is healthy; under that, growth spending is not yet paying for itself.
CAC paybackHow many months of a customer's gross profit it takes to earn back what it cost to win them. Under twelve is comfortable for most businesses.
Return on ad spend (ROAS)Sales a campaign produced divided by what it cost. Apply the gross margin before calling it profit: at a 40% margin, break-even is 2.5x.
Next moves
1. Dollar in, dollar out (the gross profit that comes back for each dollar put into a channel)Work it out for your best channel with the calculator. Three dollars back for one is a channel worth funding until the cost per lead climbs.
2. Marketing budget (what is spent on being found, as a share of sales)Compare yours with what is typical for your industry on the industries page, then decide on purpose rather than by what is left over.
3. Monthly numbers (the seven numbers, reviewed on the same day every month)Consider a one-page sheet: leads by channel, quotes out and won, cost per lead, CAC, sales per salesperson, pipeline value, capacity used.
Guide 8 of 8
The rules: advertising, email and privacy in Canada
Marketing in Canada runs under a handful of laws that most owners have never read and most agencies assume you know. None is hard to comply with; all are expensive to ignore. This is a summary in plain words; the statutes and the regulators' guidance govern, and counsel should be asked when in doubt.
What a lender or a buyer reads. A buyer's diligence and a lender's review both ask whether the customer list, the email list and the advertising can be relied on. A list collected without consent is a liability, not an asset.
Anti-spam law (CASL)Commercial email and text messages need the recipient's consent, an identified sender and a working unsubscribe. Existing customers give implied consent for a limited time; bought lists do not. Keep the record of consent.
Deceptive marketing (Competition Act)Claims have to be true and provable before they are made: performance, testing, “sale” prices against a real ordinary price, reviews that are genuine and disclosed, no drip pricing. The Competition Bureau enforces it.
Privacy (BC PIPA and PIPEDA)Collect only the personal information you need, say what it is for, keep it safe, and let people see and correct it. A privacy policy on the website that says what you actually do.
Telemarketing (CRTC and the National Do Not Call List)Calling consumers to sell needs registration with the list and honouring it, with calling hours and identification rules. Existing customers and business-to-business calls have exemptions.
Advertising standardsThe Canadian Code of Advertising Standards, administered by Ad Standards, covers accuracy, comparisons, testimonials and advertising to children; provincial rules cover liquor, cannabis, real estate and health claims.
AccessibilityWebsites and communications that people with disabilities can use. Obligations are growing for organizations in BC; a site built to the WCAG guidelines is the practical standard.
Photographs, testimonials and namesWritten permission to use a customer's words, image or name. A folder of signed releases.
Next moves
1. Consent record (proof of who agreed to receive marketing, when and how)Evaluate the email list this month: where each address came from, whether consent was express or implied, and when the implied consent lapses. Remove what cannot be shown.
2. Substantiation (the evidence behind a marketing claim, gathered before the claim is made)Consider a file for every claim on the website and in the ads: the test, the data, the source. If there is none, change the claim.
3. Privacy policy (the statement of what personal information the business collects and why)Consider having counsel or a privacy specialist read the website's policy against what the business actually does; the directory lists free guidance from the regulators.
Want it done with you?
Business development is where the managing partner’s own operating background lies. The Business Development Plan as an engagement is built with you and your sales team: positioning, the ideal customer, the channels, the pipeline, and the conversion numbers a lender reads beside the financials.
Request a call back, or take the three-minute diagnostic first and bring the report.