The Lead Problem That Isn’t Actually a Lead Problem
Most contractors who say they have a lead problem don’t have a lead problem. They have a booking problem, a speed problem, or an awareness problem. The leads are fine. The system around them isn’t.
Webinar 1 of Surge Ahead is Forrest’s full breakdown of the system — how to generate leads from Google and Facebook, how to record your own ads without being a social media person, and most importantly, what to do with the leads once they come in.
Here’s what matters most.
The Million-Dollar Leads Roadmap (In Order)
The biggest mistake contractors make with marketing is trying to do everything at once. Forrest’s framework: pick the highest ROI channel, get it working, then add the next one.
The order:
- Google Business Profile — free, high intent, leads only go to you. This is where you start.
- LSA (Local Service Ads) — paid, but only charged per call, and only to you. If you can’t rank organically, buy the spot.
- Facebook/Meta Ads — interrupt marketing that reaches the 7% of your market who are open to buying but haven’t started searching yet.
Each channel requires a different approach because the buyer is at a different stage. Google leads have already decided to buy. Facebook leads need to be moved through awareness stages first.
Intent vs. Interrupt (Why Most Ads Miss)
Forrest’s foundational concept: there are two types of marketing.
Intent (Google): the customer has already decided they need the service. They’re just picking who. You don’t have to convince them — you just have to show up and not lose them.
Interrupt (Facebook, Instagram, billboard): you’re reaching someone mid-scroll. They weren’t thinking about your service. You have to earn their attention, show them they have a problem, and walk them through to a decision.
Most contractors run the same ad regardless of channel — “10 years of experience, best in town, call us today.” On Google that might work because the buyer is ready. On Facebook, it gets scrolled past immediately. You’re talking to someone who wasn’t thinking about you five seconds ago.
The fix: match the message to the stage. Problem awareness first, then solution, then product. Only introduce your company after you’ve established they have something worth fixing.
Google Business Profile: Reviews Are Currency
For GBP rankings, reviews are the main variable. Not categories, not photos, not posts. Reviews.
Forrest frames them as currency — hard to counterfeit, worth different amounts depending on quality:
- Quarters: review with a photo attached (3–4x more weight than a standard review)
- Dimes: longer, descriptive, multi-sentence reviews
- Nickels: short single-sentence reviews
- Pennies: star rating only
The tactic most people skip: get the review on site, in person, before you leave. Ask the customer, hand them their phone, send them the direct review link. If you don’t get it right there, your chances of getting it at all drop dramatically.
Other tactics that work: employee bonuses ($25 per review, $15 extra for photos), review swaps with vendors and suppliers, friends and family of employees (as long as they’re local — Google has no database of who’s paid you).
Goal: 100 reviews before you expect real volume from GBP or LSA.
LSA: Mark as Booked or Lose Your Leads
LSA (Local Service Ads) is the first paid position on Google search — above the map pack, above everything. You only pay when someone calls, and they only call you.
The setup is straightforward. The mistake everyone makes: not marking leads as booked.
When you book an appointment, you have to go into the LSA dashboard and mark it. If you don’t, Google reads it as the lead going nowhere — and throttles your account. Leads slow down. Eventually they stop.
Same logic applies to answering inbound calls. Google tracks your answer rate. If you’re not picking up, they cut your volume.
Mark as booked. Answer the phone. Keep your license and COI updated so the account doesn’t get suspended silently.
293 Panel Leads in 5 Months at $27 Each
This is what Facebook ads look like when they’re done right.
Andy Keil had never been on camera before. He’s not a social media person. He shot his ads on an iPhone in a warehouse, reading from a script Forrest’s team wrote. The team edited the footage professionally.
Result: 293 panel upgrade leads over five months at a $27 average cost per lead. For a service with an $8–10K average ticket.
One specific ad: 63 leads at $18 each.
The ads aren’t overproduced. They work because they lead with the problem — Federal Pacific and Zinsco panels are fire hazards, insurance companies won’t cover homes with them — and only introduce the solution and company after establishing the stakes.
Ad Modularization: How to Get 10 Ads From One Recording
The insight that changed how Forrest runs ads: 80% of your effort should go into the first 2–5 seconds (the hook). If they don’t watch that, nothing else matters.
The system: record one solid ad body (the explanation of the service). Then create multiple different hooks — different opening lines, different angles (fire hazard, overloaded panel, old panel, insurance risk). Each hook transitions seamlessly into the same body.
Result: one recording session produces 10+ distinct ads. You test them all, find the winner, cut the rest, and put all the budget on the one that performs.
This is also why only refreshing once a quarter is enough — you have enough variations to avoid ad fatigue.
Speed to Lead: The MIT Study
Here’s the stat that reframes the lead quality conversation.
MIT published a study in the Harvard Business Review: 15,000 leads, 100,000 call attempts. The finding — if you don’t call a lead within 5 minutes, your chances of making contact drop by 90%.
Most contractors are calling leads hours or days later. Then blaming the leads.
“How many of your bad leads just weren’t called quick enough or enough times?”
The second variable: number of attempts. Six calls gives you a 90% contact rate. The average rep in the study gave up after two. Forrest’s standard is 10 attempts over 4–5 days using this cadence: 3 calls on day one, 2 on day two, 1 per day after that. One voicemail and text per day, not per call.
Most people answer on attempt 7, 8, or 10. They were just busy.
Booking Rate: The Fastest Way to Double Revenue
If your booking rate is 25% and you double it to 50% — without spending a single extra dollar on marketing — you’ve doubled your revenue from that lead source.
Target: 40–50% of inbound leads should book an appointment.
The main bottleneck: the owner is answering their own phone while in the field or on a job. That’s $17/hour work. Hire a CSR. Give them a script. Track the booking rate weekly.
Management principle: “You get what you tolerate.”
If you haven’t set the standard that leads get called within 5 minutes and followed up 10 times, that’s not a CSR problem. That’s a standard problem. Set it, enforce it, and the number moves.
The Frontend Math That Solves Everything
Once you know five numbers, marketing becomes a math problem with a known solution:
- Cost per lead = marketing spend ÷ leads generated
- Booking rate = appointments ÷ leads
- Cost per appointment = spend ÷ appointments
- Average opportunity = average ticket × close rate
- Allowable CPL = average opportunity ÷ 10
