The new Thumbtack was built to help you win more business — but getting there means changing how you do things. And who doesn’t love change?
We brought together three of Thumbtack’s high performing, long-time Top Pros to discuss what it takes to grow your business using Thumbtack today. They sat down with Thumbtack’s head of Pro Marketing, Allyson Letteri, to share their best tips and secrets for winning jobs on Thumbtack.
Meet the pro panelists.
Patricia, Evan and Paige joined us for the day to discuss how their businesses changed using Thumbtack and Instant Match. Here’s a bit about the Top Pro panelists.
Patricia Nguyen of Just the Little Things Photo Booths
Before starting her business, Patricia worked as a political aide. When her brother was struggling to hire a photobooth operator for his wedding, a light went off in her head. Today, she’s been hired over 120 times on Thumbtack — and she’s just getting started.
Evan Mather of Custom Fit Personal Training
Evan was in his last year of law school when he realized his heart was somewhere else — the gym. After working for other gyms for a few years, Evan struck out and started a personal training business of his own. Today, he has eight employees, more than 130 Thumbtack hires and just signed a lease on a second gym.
Paige Rounds of MaidPro Wichita
Paige and her brother Dwight are co-owners of MaidPro Wichita, a franchise cleaning company based in Kansas. Neither sibling had ever owned a business, much less a cleaning service, so to build up their customer base they turned to Thumbtack. Two years later, Paige has more than eight employees and fifty hires — and most of those have turned into recurring customers.
Takeaway #1: Focus on your profile.
Your Thumbtack profile is more important than ever — now it’s the first thing your customer sees. Here’s what the panelists said about making small tweaks to grab customers’ attention.
Patricia’s tip: Use your off-season (if your business has one) to double down on your profile. For Patricia that means uploading new photos of her latest props and events, adding captions, and following up with customers who haven’t reviewed her service yet.
Evan’s tip: If you’re going to do something, do it right the first time. Take time to upload your best photos and workshop descriptions of your service until you find one that works. For Evan, that meant including professional quality photos of his space (a stunning two-room studio in San Francisco) and honing his messaging.
Paige’s tip: Make things personal. For Paige that translated to a professional quality headshot and photos of her and her brother Dwight — the joint owners of MaidPro Wichita. It also meant tweaking their introduction section to explain more about the company’s origin and values to help customers immediately understand who they are.
Takeaway #2: Use every customer contact as an opportunity.
Ever get a message from a customer asking for something that’s definitely included in the body of your quote? Like “What’s your price?” or “Will you travel to me?” The panelists share their best tips for turning those messages into hires.
Patricia’s tip: Do everything you can to set up a call. Patricia always follows up with customer inquiries by offering to explain everything to them on a brief call. Once she has the customer on the phone she can really hear what they want for their event and sell her business. This also helps Patricia (who prices her services higher than most of her competitors) to distinguish her services from the rest.
Evan’s tip: If customers are reaching out with questions that don’t make sense, consider changing your job preferences. This is what Evan does when he’s getting a lot of customer confusion — often it stems from something as simple as an overly broad travel radius or pricing confusion.
Paige’s tip: Paige follows up with every quote that’s sent for her (she’s on Instant Match and loving it). Every day she scans through the quotes that have been sent and sends a message to customers with more information on her services and availability.
Takeaway #3: Follow-up is everything.
Using Instant Match means not missing quotes. But if you’re not following up, you might still be missing out. It’s so important, we’re working on a way to make your follow-ups instant too. The group was in total agreement about how to keep the conversation going: actively engage your customer base.
For Paige this means following up four times after making her initial connection — once with an introduction to her services, one day after the initial quote was sent, two days later, and then a week after their conversation started. She also scans through her quotes from the previous year at the beginning of every month so she can follow up on any seasonal/recurring jobs. Evan on the other hand generally doesn’t follow up on the quotes that are sent from him until he hears back from the customer — at that point, he enters them into a conversation that continues for the duration of their training in person and over email.
Takeaway #4: Set up your Thumbtack calendar.
Maybe you already have a calendar and you update it every day. Syncing it with your Thumbtack calendar might seem redundant — it’s not. Keeping your calendar updated means that customers can book you directly by checking the availability on your Thumbtack profile. It also means you won’t get booked at a time when you’re already working. Here’s how to start, according to Patricia, the (self-professed) scheduling queen.
Step 1: Update your Thumbtack calendar with any appointments you already have on the books.
Step 2: Every time you update your calendar, also include that entry in your Thumbtack calendar. This prevents customers from booking you on a day or at a time when you’re already busy.
Step 3: Respond to booking requests (customers requesting your services directly through your calendar) as soon as possible and follow up with a custom message.
Read more about Instant Match and stay tuned for more from this Self Made panel, including tips on cancellation policies and introductory sessions in the next few months.
