"We're slammed from April to October and dead in February. Half the calls are tire-kickers, I send quotes from the truck at night, and I never know which ones turned into work."
If that sounds like your week, you are not short on skill. You are short on a system. Most contractors in Ottawa still run on referrals, a five-year-old website and a phone that rings while they are on a machine. That works until a referral partner retires or a competitor starts running ads in your area.
Where the jobs slip away
We see the same leaks in almost every builder, landscaper and excavation company we talk to:
- Missed calls on site. A homeowner in Stittsville wants a septic quote. You are in an excavator in Carp. They call the next name on Google. Try our missed-call calculator to see what that costs over a season.
- Quotes that go quiet. You spend two hours on a site visit and an estimate, send it, and never follow up because the next job is already waiting.
- The wrong leads. Your website says "we do it all," so you get $800 patio repairs when you want $80,000 additions.
- No photos doing the selling. Your best work lives on your phone, not on your site or your Google Business Profile.
- No way to tell what paid. You can't say whether the last lead came from Google, a lawn sign or your brother-in-law.
Your seasons, planned ahead
Construction in Ottawa runs on the weather. Frost comes out in April, the spring reduced-load period slows heavy hauling, and everyone wants their deck, driveway or foundation done before the snow. Landscapers book spring clean-ups in March and snow contracts in September. Builders and renovators pick up design work over the winter.
Good marketing follows that calendar. Ads and email go out a few weeks before the rush, not during it. Winter is when you fix the website, collect reviews from last season's clients and book next year's work early.
What good looks like
- A website with one clear page per service you actually want more of: additions, excavation and septic, interlock, custom homes. Each one shows real jobs in real neighbourhoods, from Kanata to Orléans.
- A short quote form that asks for location, scope, timeline and budget range, so you can sort leads before you drive anywhere.
- Every missed call gets a text back within a minute.
- Every quote gets a polite follow-up on day 2, day 7 and day 21 without you remembering.
- One simple pipeline, on your phone, that shows every open quote and its value.
- If you bid public work, a clean capability page you can point to from a CanadaBuys or municipal bid.
How 1 Club does it
We have done this work for trades before. We built the website, ads and CRM for JDS Earthworks, an earthworks and septic company. We built the brand and website for Soublière Group, and the website for Kadri Construction. We built the website and lead generation for Noble Stone Flooring.
Here is how a project usually goes:
- Free call. We ask which jobs you want more of, your service area and how many you can handle a month. Taking on more than your crew can handle is a problem too.
- Plan and fixed quote. You get a written plan and one price before we start.
- Build. Service pages written in your trade's language, your job photos, a quote form, Google Business Profile clean-up, and tracking so every call and form is counted.
- Follow-up machine. Missed-call text-back, quote follow-ups and a review request when a job closes, all in one CRM. Texts and emails follow CASL, so you only message people who asked for a quote or hired you.
- Ads when it makes sense. Google search ads for high-intent jobs, Meta ads for visual work like decks and landscaping, timed to your season.
- Weekly numbers. Calls, forms, quotes sent, jobs won. Plain numbers you can read in two minutes.
We also look after the office side if you need it: Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace for your estimators, shared drives for plans and photos, backups, and security on the laptops that hold your bids.
Three ways to start
- Do it yourself, free. Read how to get more leads for a trades business, then use our quote follow-up prompt tonight on the quotes sitting in your sent folder.
- Done with you. We set up the pipeline, the text-back and the follow-up messages, show your office manager how to run them, and step back.
- Done for you. We run the website, ads, follow-up and reporting, and you get a weekly number for jobs booked.
Want a quick look first? Run the free website checkup and see what Google and AI search see when someone looks for your trade in Ottawa.