The Client
Profit For Contractors
Andrew Houston — Business coaching and digital courses for trades business owners (contractors, plumbers, electricians, HVAC, all types) across the US and Canada
Two offers. First: The Profit Plan Accelerator, a digital course that gives trades business owners the tools, systems, and support to scale a successful 6, 7, or 8-figure contracting business. Priced from $997 to $1,997. Second: a 1-on-1 and group coaching mastermind with year-long commitments at approximately $30,000 in annual contract value, paid monthly.
The goal: introduce a new digital course revenue stream and acquire new coaching clients at scale through a complete, systematic marketing engine. When I came on, the business was generating approximately $45K/month with no structured acquisition system in place.
$45K
Starting Revenue/mo
Timeline
~18 months (2019–2020)
Desired Outcome
New course revenue stream + coaching clients at scale
The Strategy
Complete Customer Value Journey
The Customer Value Journey is a framework that maps every stage a stranger goes through to become a paying customer and eventually an advocate for the brand. Most businesses build one or two of these stages and wonder why growth stalls. I built all of them — a complete engine from cold traffic to $30K coaching contracts, where every stage feeds the next.
01
Stage 1
Aware
"How do qualified prospects find out the brand exists?"
The target: trades business owners doing $30K+/month who wanted to scale. Contractors, plumbers, electricians, HVAC companies across the US and Canada. Not a mass market. A specific segment that needed to be found through precise targeting across multiple channels simultaneously.
The Persona
Trades business owners doing $30K+/month in revenue. Cold targeting started with demographic and job title targeting on Facebook (Painting Contractor, Apprentice Electrician, Builder, Building Contractor). As the customer base grew, we built lookalike audiences from buyers and leads, which consistently outperformed cold demographic targeting.
Paid + Organic, Working Together
Facebook & Instagram Ads (Primary Driver)
Cold paid traffic directly to lead magnets and webinars. Also ran content-first campaigns to build retargetable video view audiences. This was where the majority of ad spend went and the main engine for awareness.
Boosted Organic Content
Top-performing organic posts identified and amplified with ad dollars. Organic performance informed paid allocation.
Organic Content (Instagram + YouTube)
Consistent organic posting on Instagram and YouTube to maintain visibility and feed content into the paid amplification loop.
Multiple Pathways, Not Just One Funnel
This wasn't a single funnel. Multiple pathways ran at the same time. Some cold traffic went straight to direct response offers -- webinar registrations and lead magnets. Other cold traffic was introduced through content first, then shown direct response ads after they'd engaged. And people already inside the funnels were retargeted with content -- value-driven posts and videos that kept the brand present while they were making decisions. The ads made people aware of the problems they were facing in running a contracting business, not our services. That framing mattered.
~3M+
Est. Unique People Reached
$34.55
Average CPM
02
Stage 2
Engage
0
Minutes of Video Content Consumed
Before we ever asked anyone for anything, we put strategic content in front of our audience. No pitch, no CTA, just value. The idea was to pre-frame prospects: handle objections before they came up, demonstrate expertise, and deliver tangible value in advance of a sale.
Boosted Video Content — Building Retargetable Audiences for Pennies
By targeting cold and warm audiences with video content (no pitch or CTA, just delivering value), we acquired hundreds of thousands of retargetable video views for pennies. Facebook allows you to retarget people who watch your videos, so every piece of content wasn't just engagement - it was building future ad audiences.
We put strategic content in front of people before and during the sales process to pre-frame them, handle objections before they came up, demonstrate expertise, and deliver tangible value in advance of a sale, to our ideal future customers. This resulted in lower costs and higher conversion rates when we finally did put offers in front of them. Retargetable video views were acquired for as low as $0.01 each.
We put strategic content in front of people before and during the sales process to pre-frame them, handle objections before they came up, demonstrate expertise, and deliver tangible value in advance of a sale, to our ideal future customers. This resulted in lower costs and higher conversion rates when we finally did put offers in front of them. Retargetable video views were acquired for as low as $0.01 each.
Creating the Podcast
Launching a podcast was the #1 thing we did content and engagement-wise. We helped set up the podcast studio from the ground up in Andrew's new Ottawa office. It did two things. First, it provided a long-form piece of content every week that we could cut up and repurpose into dozens, sometimes 100+ additional pieces of content for other social platforms. Second, it ended up being one of the main things high-ticket coaching clients who closed mentioned as having got and held their attention.
The Compounding Effect
The steady flow of long-form podcast content helped grow the Instagram page and gave us something to continually engage and nurture the email list, which was growing at around 3,000 new leads per month. The podcast was the engine that powered the entire content ecosystem: one recording became dozens of touchpoints across every platform.
03
Stage 3
Subscribe
0
People Opted In for a Lead Magnet Over 2 Years
The goal at this stage was straightforward: gain contact information of potential customers. We ran two parallel systems - lead magnets and webinar registrations - both feeding the same downstream conversion engine.
Lead Magnet Testing — 5–6 Offers, 3 Winners
We tested 5 or 6 different lead magnet offers. Not in theory - we ran paid traffic to each one and let the data decide which performed. Three emerged as clear winners. The top performer alone generated nearly 13,000 opt-ins. The 2nd and 3rd best performers carried the rest. Each lead magnet ran through an automated 3-page funnel workflow: opt-in page, thank-you page with a clear next step, and automated email follow-up.
The 2nd and 3rd best performing lead magnets:
Webinar Registration Funnels
Parallel to the lead magnets, we built webinar registration funnels using the same 3-page automated workflow architecture. Over the engagement, 10,067 people registered for a live webinar. The webinar funnels served a dual purpose: they captured leads AND pre-qualified them by requiring a higher commitment action (registering for a specific time).
Results from just a couple of the webinar campaigns
Why This Matters
Systematic testing, not guessing. Most businesses pick one lead magnet and hope it works. We started with 5–6 offers, ran real traffic to all of them, and let the data tell us which 3 to keep. That top performer at nearly 13,000 opt-ins wasn't a lucky guess - it was the survivor of a structured test. Everything downstream - webinars, calls, revenue - was fed by this stage.
04
Stage 4
Convert
0
People Booked Calls with the Sales Team
All of our front-end offers, webinars, and lead magnets funneled people to one mechanism: booking a strategy session - "The Calibration Call." The name mattered. It positioned the conversation as a diagnostic, not a sales pitch.
5 Entry Points to the Calibration Call
Every front-end offer in the system funneled to one conversion mechanism. Here is every way people were nudged to book a call:
1. Lead magnet thank-you pages
2. Webinar registration thank-you pages
3. End of live webinar presentations
4. Email follow-up automation
5. Retargeting ads on Facebook
No matter how someone entered the system - through a lead magnet, a webinar registration, a podcast episode - there was always a clear path to booking a Calibration Call.
1. Lead magnet thank-you pages
2. Webinar registration thank-you pages
3. End of live webinar presentations
4. Email follow-up automation
5. Retargeting ads on Facebook
No matter how someone entered the system - through a lead magnet, a webinar registration, a podcast episode - there was always a clear path to booking a Calibration Call.
3 Automated Email Workflows
Three email workflows drove conversion behind the scenes:
"Don't Stand Me Up" — A live webinar show-up and reminder series. This sequence fired after someone registered for a webinar and pushed show-up rates as high as possible.
Post-Webinar Call Booking — Immediate follow-up after each live webinar event, driving attendees to book a Calibration Call while the content was fresh.
"How Can I Help?" — A longer-term follow-up series for people who engaged but hadn't booked. This kept the door open without being aggressive.
"Don't Stand Me Up" — A live webinar show-up and reminder series. This sequence fired after someone registered for a webinar and pushed show-up rates as high as possible.
Post-Webinar Call Booking — Immediate follow-up after each live webinar event, driving attendees to book a Calibration Call while the content was fresh.
"How Can I Help?" — A longer-term follow-up series for people who engaged but hadn't booked. This kept the door open without being aggressive.
$20–25K
Monthly Ad Spend
100–200
Calls Booked / Month
~$100–125
Cost Per Booked Call
05
Stage 5
Excite
0
Call Show-Up Rate
0
Webinar Show-Up Rate
We found a direct correlation between the amount of video content people consumed of Andrew and the brand, and how likely they were to book a call and convert. This wasn't anecdotal. The data showed it consistently. One of the main drivers was live webinar presentations.
78 Weeks of Live Webinars
We did a live webinar almost every week for 1.5 years. To deal with topic fatigue, we changed the presentation every month or so depending on the current one's performance. Seasonal relevance mattered too - hiring topics in spring, growth-focused content in fall.
We ended up creating 6 unique live webinar presentations and rotating them based on performance data and what was contextual based on the time of year. This wasn't one good webinar run on repeat. It was a system of 6 presentations, each tested, each rotated in when the data said it was time.
We ended up creating 6 unique live webinar presentations and rotating them based on performance data and what was contextual based on the time of year. This wasn't one good webinar run on repeat. It was a system of 6 presentations, each tested, each rotated in when the data said it was time.
The "Ah-Ha Moment" Framework
During every webinar, the goal was to deliver an "Ah-Ha Moment" - the point where the true core value of coaching clicks with a prospect, changing it from a nice-to-have to a must-have. We designed for two types:
Hope & Progress — Make them feel like today will be better than yesterday. Show them the path forward so clearly that they can already see themselves on it.
Community & Identity — Make them feel like they're part of something. Not just buying a service, but joining a community of trades business owners who are building something bigger.
Hope & Progress — Make them feel like today will be better than yesterday. Show them the path forward so clearly that they can already see themselves on it.
Community & Identity — Make them feel like they're part of something. Not just buying a service, but joining a community of trades business owners who are building something bigger.
06
Stage 6
Ascend
The Results
Every Stage, Measured
Aware
0
Est. People Reached
Engage
0
Video Minutes Consumed
Subscribe
0
Leads Generated
Convert
0
Calls Booked
Excite
0
Call Show-Up Rate
Ascend
$0
Monthly Revenue
Return on Ad Spend
0
$20–25K/month in ad spend generating $346K/month in revenue
The Methodology
What Made This Work
Full-Funnel Ownership
I didn't run ads for a coaching business. I built the complete marketing engine, from cold traffic to $30K coaching contracts. Every stage informed every other stage.
Systematic Testing
5–6 lead magnets tested, 3 winners found. 6 webinar presentations rotated by data. Price increased three times. Nothing was guessed, everything was measured.
Compounding Execution
The podcast fed the retargeting. The retargeting fed the webinar. The webinar fed the calls. The calls fed the revenue. Each piece made every other piece stronger.
For Your Business
This Framework Transfers
PFC was a coaching business for trades owners. Your business is different. But the stages are the same for every business. Aware, Engage, Subscribe, Convert, Excite, Ascend. The tactics inside each stage change depending on your market, your offers, and your data. What doesn't change is the approach: build every stage, measure everything, test systematically, and let the compounding effect do the work over time. That's what I bring.