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By Darren DeYoung
Pick the agency that can prove it has booked jobs for a company your size, in towns like yours, and that isn't already marketing your competitor. A small local shop and a bigger national firm can both pass or fail that test. Put the two proposals side by side, score each one the same way, and let the answers decide.
Hire the one that answers four questions clearly:
Staff count tells you very little. A 12-person landscape crew needs proof the agency can fill its calendar, not a bigger logo wall.
Picture the owner of that 12-person crew. Two proposals are on the kitchen table. One is from a national firm with a polished playbook and a lower monthly number. The other is from a small shop 20 minutes away.
Both say "more leads." Neither says much about Woodbury, Stillwater or Lake Elmo. That's where the scorecard comes in.
Score each firm 0, 1 or 2 on the same four questions, using what they show you, not what they promise. A 2 means they gave you names, towns or numbers you can check. A 0 means a vague answer or a pivot to how big they are.
| Question | Look for |
|---|---|
| Know your towns? | Named towns, real jobs |
| Booked jobs? | Jobs, not clicks |
| Your competitor? | A straight answer |
| Who you'll sit with? | A name, not a queue |
Reading the total (out of 8): 6 or more is a real contender. Under 4, keep looking. A 4 or 5 means ask follow-up questions before you decide. If a pitch leans on guarantees instead of names, here's how to spot a shady SEO offer.
Ask which towns they've marketed in and what got booked there. Homeowners search by town and by job, like "tree removal Maplewood."
An agency that knows your map can tell you where you show up, where you don't, and which towns are worth the drive.
A national playbook can be very good. It just starts from the same template for everyone.
Before the next meeting, ask them to look you up the way a homeowner would. If they come back with notes on your towns and your Google Business Profile, that's a 2.
Here's the 10-minute walkthrough we give owners for the same check.
If you're trying to grow into new towns, ask how they'd expand your service area without wasting ad money on towns you can't serve.
Ask for two companies near your size and what got booked. Not clicks, not impressions, not "leads." Booked jobs.
A firm that works with big franchises may have great numbers that don't apply to a crew of 12, so ask for companies like yours.
This is the question that sorts proposals fastest. It's the same math as comparing cost per booked job across lead sources. We cover it in detail in Before You Sign a Marketing Contract, including how to define a lead in writing.
Then ask how they count a booked job. If the jobs live in ServiceTitan, Jobber or Housecall Pro, they'll need you to share that data.
Good. An agency that asks for it plans to track every call and form back to a job.
It looks like a company that grew because the phone rang. Precision Landscape & Tree is the tree-company proof on our site: a 550%+ increase in leads, with year-over-year growth, after Hoist built its website and ran its marketing.
Precision started as a couple of guys and a pickup truck. They'd grown to about 10 people relying on directories and mailers, and those channels were drying up.
Hoist built a modern website as their front door, then ran content, social, reviews, paid ads and conversion work through it.
Read the full Precision Landscape & Tree case study.
The leads number is one result. The staff growth is another. While marketing with Hoist, Precision's staff grew from about 10 to over 50 people, enough to buy new equipment and expand its headquarters.
Ask it straight: do you already run marketing for another tree, landscape or painting company in my towns? Plenty of good agencies serve more than one company in a trade. You just deserve to know, so you can decide whether you're comfortable sharing the same map and the same playbook.
Bigger firms are more likely to have a few of your neighbors on the roster, simply because they have more clients. Small shops can have conflicts too.
A clear answer earns a 2, even if the answer is yes. Dodging it earns a 0.
If you want to see who's winning your map right now, here's how local rankings work against competitors.
Ask for the name of the person you'll talk to every month and what happens when you call on a Tuesday in May. With some firms that's a senior strategist. With others it's a ticket queue and a new account rep each year. Neither is wrong, but you should know before you sign.
Ask how many accounts that person handles. Ask if you can meet them before the contract, not after. A name you can meet earns a 2.
You're hiring them to make your phone ring, so it's fair to check how fast they answer theirs.
We're the small, local option. We work with select clients and a smaller staff. The person who builds your campaign is also the person who picks up the phone. Our office is in White Bear Lake, Minnesota and you can come sit down with the people doing the work.
Hoist builds websites and runs marketing, so the site and the ads answer to the same team. Here's more on why that matters.
Our Results page shows the numbers clients tracked at the time. A Garage Door And Gate Store was booked out for six months after we started its Google Ads.
Street Smart Rental counted 33 new deals after its website rebuild.
Email both firms the first three questions so you get their answers in writing, side by side. Ask the fourth one face to face, because the only way to know who you'll sit with is to sit with them.
Send by email:
Ask in person:
If both firms score 6 or more, you've got a real choice. Pick the people you'd rather sit across from.
Ask us those questions first. Book a time with Hoist, or swing by the White Bear Lake office and sit down with us.