Where your first ten jobs come from

New contractors almost always plan their first ten jobs backwards. They build a website, order shirts, set up a business page, and wait for the phone.

Then they discover the thing every established contractor already knows: for a local trades business, the first ten jobs do not come from marketing. They come from people who already know your name, and from the trades who are standing next to you on a site.

The website matters eventually. It does almost nothing in month one.

Why advertising is the wrong first move

Advertising works by reaching strangers. Strangers have no reason to trust a business that has existed for three weeks, has no reviews, and cannot show them a job it has finished.

So a stranger comparing you to an established competitor is comparing on the only thing they can see, which is price. That is the worst possible footing for a new business — you win on being cheapest, at exactly the moment your costs are highest and your cushion is thinnest.

Meanwhile the people who already know whether you are any good are sitting in your phone.

The five sources, in order

One: the trades you already work beside. This is the best source in the business and almost nobody works it deliberately.

Every electrician has a plumber they are tired of. Every GC has a tile setter who does not answer the phone. These people are not looking for a cheap trade — they are looking for one who turns up when they said and does not need chasing. That is a low bar and you can clear it.

The conversation is not a pitch. It is: "I've gone out on my own — if you ever get stuck for a plumber, I'm about." That is all. Say it to fifteen people.

Two: people who have already asked you. Most tradesmen have been asked to do side work and said no because they were employed. Those people still have the problem. Go back to them.

Three: your supplier's counter. The counter staff at your supply house talk to every contractor and every walk-in in the area, all day. They know who is looking for a trade and who is short-handed. Being someone they know by name and think is reliable is worth more than a page of ads, and it costs you being pleasant at 7am.

Four: the people you have already worked for. Not your old employer's customer list — that is the line to be careful with. But over the years people have gotten your number straight from you: neighbors, friends of friends, the guy whose water heater you fixed on a Sunday. They know you.

Five: your street. Local, physical, small. The community group, the ball field, the school. This is slow and it compounds, and in a small town it eventually becomes most of your work.

What those first jobs are for

This is the part that changes how you choose them.

The first ten jobs are not primarily about the money. They are about producing three things you currently do not have:

Photographs. Before, during, after — on every single job, whether or not it is interesting. In six months these are the only proof you have that you can do the work.

Reviews. Ask for one on every job, on the day, while they are pleased. Not by email a week later. "If you were happy with it, a review really does help me — it's the main thing people look at." Most people say yes when asked in person and forget when asked by email.

Names you can call. Not references in the formal sense — people who would vouch for you if asked.

A job that pays well and produces none of those is worth less to you right now than a slightly smaller job that produces all three. That is only true for a little while, at the beginning, and it is worth being deliberate about while it lasts.

Choose them on purpose

The temptation in month one is to take everything, because a full calendar feels like safety. It is not.

Take the jobs you are fast at. Your margin is highest on the work you have done a hundred times, and the finish will be good, which is the point of the photographs.

Take the jobs near you. An hour of driving each way is two unbilled hours. Four of those a week is a day.

Be slow to take the difficult customer. You know the signs already — they argued about the quote, they told you about the last three trades who let them down, they want it started tomorrow. In month one you have no cushion for a job that goes sideways and no other work to hide it behind.

Be wary of the job that is too big. The $40,000 project that shows up in week two looks like the answer to everything. It's also the job where one payment problem or one bad estimate takes the whole business down, because it's every hour you have and every dollar you have, in one place.

A worked example

Two people start in the same month.

The first spends $2,000 on a website, shirts and a vehicle wrap, then runs $600 of local ads. Six weeks in they have had eleven calls, of which nine were price-shopping and two became jobs, both won on being the cheapest quote. Revenue about $3,400, spent $2,600, no photographs because both jobs were small repairs, no reviews because they did not ask.

The second spends nothing, has fifteen conversations in the first two weeks — five with trades, four with old contacts, the rest at the supplier and around the neighborhood. Six weeks in they have done nine jobs from seven different sources. Revenue about $11,000, spent nothing, and they have photographs of every job, six reviews, and two builders who now have their number in their phone.

By month four the second one is turning work away and starting to think about price. The first one is still explaining why they are not the cheapest.

When the website does start to matter

Around the time people who do not know you start calling — usually once reviews accumulate and word moves past your immediate circle. Then someone searches your name to check you are real, and there needs to be something there.

But it is checking, not finding. The job came from a person. The website confirmed you exist.

Which is why it can be simple, and why building it before you have a single photograph of your own work is building an empty room.

What to do this week

1. Write down fifteen names — trades you have worked beside, people who have asked you for side work, old direct customers. Actual names, not categories.
2. Say one sentence to all fifteen. "I've gone out on my own — keep me in mind." Text is fine. Do not make it a pitch.
3. Introduce yourself at the supply counter and learn the staff's names.
4. Photograph every job from the first one — before, during, after. No exceptions, including the boring ones.
5. Ask for a review on the day, in person, every time.
6. Leave the website and the wrap until month three, and spend that money on material float instead.

Ten jobs from people who know you leaves you with photos, reviews and names you can call. Ten jobs won on price leaves you starting over next month.