Been reading on this forum about thumbtack for a while. From what ive see some people have seen no results and someclosing 15k+. I had signed up for it 2 days ago and the phone has been dinging off the hook but only about 3 for pressure washing! Before i spend the money on credits to bid, what is everybody elses experience with this? Is it worth spending the $30 on 20 credits?
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If you’ve been reading a lot about it then by now you know it’s heavily dependent on your market how successful you’ll be with it. If your area is saturated with other guys bidding the same jobs you are, it may not be worth it. My wife and I love thumbtack and do very well with it. My advice is spend a few weeks bidding jobs and see how it works out for you and go from there.
Just so I can get a general idea. How do you guys go about bidding on a thumbtack request? For instance, if one comes in saying…
Property Type: Home
Objects to be pressure washed: Sidewalk
Purpose: Remove mold or moss
Total Square Footage of property: 2,000 - 3,000 sq ft
Building: Three-Story
How would you respond to something like that? Prices could range quite a bit here…
Thank You,
Devin
Here’s how Thumbtack has worked for me… some guy bids the job at $99 and shows up with a Troy Bilt from Lowes and smells like booze. I bid the job at N/A need more info. Then I show up in a uniform with an obviously larger than homeowner machine, a clean truck and materials with BBB logos, HomeAdvisor best of, screened and approved, PWRA and WCRA logos, etc, and copy of insurance certificate in hand with a leave behind. Win jobs from Thumbtack.
Or I bid jobs on Thumbtack and then I get a sob story about how they have no money. Politely decline the job because if they’re that broke they should really redirect that money to groceries and diapers.
Thumbtack in my area is saturated with yahoos without background checks driving trucks like Sanford & Sons. Not always, but often Thumbtack shoppers are price shoppers vs quality shoppers. I’m not a fan despite getting 4 really great customers from Thumbtack and 4 great reviews. I’ve bid on probably 30 jobs and gotten 4.
HomeAdvisor, for me, in my market, has helped me earn tens of thousands of dollars including multiple commercial jobs. The annual membership is like $400 and the leads are more expensive, $16-25, but the close rate is 80% or better. It’s paid itself back many MANY times over.
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No. Thumbtack is already the place for $99 guy to go and undercut, now they have to pay even less. Welcome $79 guy.
Plus, thumbtack has already conditioned price shoppers to check there first.
The best thing Thumbtack has ever done is kept $99 guy in his wheelhouse and because he doesn’t make any money he’ll never be on HomeAdvisor or pay for better marketing. Thanks Thumbtack!
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I haven’t won anything on thumbtack but I’m not a $99 guy lol I just sent over a $250 job.
You’re trying to sell leather seats to people on pleather budgets. Lol
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My big brother was a commercial contractor before he passed. He used to do all the weird stuff no one else thought to do. Sports stuff. Stadium seating, basketball goals, scoreboards, baseball fences, etc.
When I started my contracting business I knew wasn’t going to enjoy it. Residential. He told me one time, “If homeowner’s were smart and looking to hire a contractor cheap they’d schedule all 3 different candidates to come meet them for the estimate at the exact same time. One would walk away because he didn’t want to compete and the last two would bid the work for basically free. But then the homeowner is going to get good enough, which is rarely ever good nor enough and it’s going to be the world’s biggest headache for everyone except the guy who walked away. Cheap customers will always turn into your most expensive, mentally and financially.”
It was the @Innocentbystander version of walk away except the moral of the story was to tell me to walk away from price shopping customers. In fact, that was the nicest thing Brian ever said about price shoppers. Lol
I always always remember that conversation whenever I see thumbtack.
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Signed up for thumbtack about 3 months ago. In that 3 month frame, I have put a bid on maybe 40 jobs. Out of that 40, I landed roughly 10. So after getting the nerve to spend 400 on a annual fee through Home Advisor, I decided to go for it. I set my service area up to 50 miles and budget to $850. Ever since, Home Advisor has been my best friend. Out of the 40 jobs I quoted, I got 30. HomeAdvisor is the lazy way to get clients but it works. You should see more with the effort of giving out flyers, handing out business cards, calling commercial places… I don’t want to use EDDM as I could pay someone I trust 40 bucks to drive through neighborhoods and roll up a professional looking flyer to place it between the flag and the box. It’s eye catching and a less way of people looking at it as “junk mail” inside their mail box.
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I’m also a guy who bought a champion 4K gpm 4K PSI machine on a 5x8 trailer and had limited funds to work with. Of course we all know winter is dead. Since spring has started, I have been making a decent amount of jobs to buy a 8 gpm machine, give bob at pressure tek a good amount of money for supplies, many 100ft hoses, chemicals, JRod, x jet, etc…, have a wordpress website built, get insured, and buy a flatbed f350 that is in the process of getting a full cab wrap. So I would say I’ve been doing something right and I can’t say homeadvisor has not been helping me.
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