Dave tried one of those lead generation platforms for tradespeople for eight months.
He paid the subscription, built the profile, collected five genuine five-star reviews and did everything the platform told him to do.
The leads came in. Twelve in the first month, which felt promising. But eleven of those twelve wanted the cheapest quote. Nine went with somebody else. The two who booked haggled on the day.
By month four he'd spent £600 on the subscription and made back £340 in actual margin after his time was factored in. By month eight he'd cancelled and written off the whole idea of online lead generation as something that works for other businesses. Not his.
If that story sounds familiar, you've probably already decided lead generation isn't for your trade.
That's a reasonable conclusion. It's also the wrong one.
Here's what actually failed Dave — and it wasn't marketing.
When a homeowner goes to one of these platforms and searches for a plumber, an electrician, a roofer… the platform doesn't send that homeowner to you. It sends them to you and four of your competitors at the same time, then lets the price decide.
You're not being found. You're being compared.
There's a difference, and it's the difference between a business that owns its pipeline and one that competes for scraps in someone else's marketplace.
The platform wins either way. You pay whether you get the job or not. The leads are shared by design — that's not a flaw in the product. It is the bloody product. And when Dave cancelled after eight months, he drew the only logical conclusion from the evidence in front of him: online marketing doesn't work for my trade.
He was right about the platform. He was wrong about the conclusion.
What Dave experienced isn't failure.
It's the expected result of a model that was never built in his favour.
These platforms aren't lead generation tools for tradespeople. They're comparison engines for homeowners. The homeowner gets choice and price competition. You get exposure — at a cost, shared with competitors, on someone else's terms.
The moment any of those terms change (subscription price, algorithm, how many competitors appear alongside you) your lead flow changes overnight.
I'd say f**k that.
There's a different model.
When a homeowner in your area searches Google for what you do and your website comes up — they're not seeing you alongside four other vans.
They're seeing you.
The enquiry comes directly to your phone, your email, your inbox. No platform taking a cut. No shared lead going three other places first.
You didn't buy that lead. You built the position cleverly that delivered it. That's what it means to own your pipeline.
Now, there are two choices, if you're honest with yourself.
One:
Keep using these platforms and accept that your margin is determined by whoever quotes lowest in your area this week.
Or two:
Build something that works the way your business works: consistently, on your terms, sending enquiries to you and nobody else.
In my absolute biassed opinion…
Option two lets you fire on all cylinders.