However, there’s a dark side to working with plumbers. It’s created a hidden industry within—by paying plumbers for referrals, plumbers are for sale to the highest bidder.

It happens when a plumber is not referring you because you do great work. Rather, it’s a way to pad their wallet with kickbacks.

The problem is that at any given moment, those plumbers can and do sell out to a higher bidder. If someone offers them more, they’re gone. Loyalty is non-existent. You’re left chasing after the next plumber—offering that person a bigger share of the pie, with barely any meat on the bone left over for you.

Plus, there is a much worse problem. It creates a business you have no control over. How do we break the cycle of plumber dependence?

Alternative #1
Focus on plumbers who care about reputation

Not every plumber is for sale to the highest bidder. In fact, many still care about their old-fashioned reputation. They want to know that when they refer someone, you will treat them right. Paying for a referral might even lower the chances they’ll actually refer. They want someone who is going to take care of their people. They want someone who is going to make them look good. They want to know their clients are getting the best available option.

Reach out to local residential plumbers known for their quality work and integrity. Offer to collaborate on projects. Showcase your expertise in water damage restoration. Provide top-notch service. Give them a reason to trust you with their valued clients. Take care of them. Go above and beyond the call of duty. Little extras go a long way. Word will spread, and these plumbers will become your reliable partners.

Alternative #2
Insurance adjusters

Insurance adjusters play a crucial role in disaster situations. Contrary to what many contractors think, they are not the enemy. In fact, many of them need you. Why? Because they need to refer their clients to good partners. Here’s how to get referrals from adjusters:

Establish a professional relationship with local insurance adjusters. Offer them detailed, accurate reports and estimates. Make their job easier. Show them you can work efficiently to save them time and money. The easier you make their job, the more you’ll get paid reliably and consistently.

Build genuine relationships, and show them they’re valued. When they’re impressed, they’ll recommend your services to policyholders. It takes time and energy to build real relationships, but the returns are worth the effort.

Alternative #3
Lead the online marketing

In today’s digital age, online marketing can be a game changer. When people have an emergency, the first “person” they trust is the search engine Google. Google is your chance to be in the line of fire. If you offer water damage, you want people who use Google to search for water damage problems. If you do carpet cleaning, you want people Googling for carpet cleaning. Get in front of the problems you solve. You can do this with both pay-per-click ads and search engine optimization (SEO). Here’s what to do:

Create a user-friendly website showcasing your services and expertise. Optimize your website so people can find you easily, especially when using keywords related to the services you offer, such as water, fire, mold, carpet cleaning, storm damage, etc. Nothing sells your work quite like proof. Use before-and-after photos. Always ask for and get as many reviews as humanly possible. The market leaders consistently have the most and best reviews.

Create and distribute authoritative content regularly. Content doesn’t need to be fancy and overproduced. Think of content as documenting what you do rather than having to write or produce. Half your job is documenting your job. Document the work you’re already doing now. It’s impossible to be a thought leader in your space without content. Good quality and authoritative content can make you stand out from the competition. Who would you trust? The contractor with a glorified business-card website or the contractor with 100-plus five-star reviews, pages of before-and-after pictures, a detailed list of services and how the process works, and a blog that has hundreds of posts showing what they do? The choice is obvious.

By focusing on these three alternatives, you can take control of your business. You can break the cycle of dependence. Building relationships with reputation-conscious plumbers, partnering with insurance adjusters, and harnessing the power of online marketing are three ways to get out of the trap. Build a real foundation that lasts.

The post Plumbers for Sale appeared first on Cleanfax.

The latest disruption transforming our industry is the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

If you get some of your cleaning or restoration business online, the way you market and grow your business will never be the same again. Why? Because AI has fundamentally changed Google search results forever. It’s changed how people find your business in the future.

Every day, potential customers Google their cleaning and restoration questions: “How do I remove a wine spill?” “How do I find a carpet cleaning company?”  “What can I do about this leak?” “How do I clean up water from my basement?” The list of questions is endless.

Search engine optimization (SEO) professionals like to make Google sound more complex than it really is. Google—like all search engines—is simply a tool that indexes answers to questions. The better your online answers are to those questions, the more often your business will be found. It’s that simple.

These “answers” could be better referred to as “content,” as its online content that creates the information that search engines like Google use to deliver those answers to their users. The cleaning and restoration contractors who usually get online business are the ones who produce massive amounts of content. They are a content factory of information regarding their business services. They consistently have the most and the best cleaning and restoration information, answers, and resources.

This is why random strangers surfing the internet trust their expertise. That trust causes online visitors to pick up the phone and call—and the same is true no matter what cleaning or restoration services are being offered.

Every single day, potential clients go to Google and other search engines. They type in their problems, ask questions, read reviews, price shop, and check out their options.

Now here’s the big change: Content used to take hours of writing, research, and thorough investigation. It was laborious, and often required entire expensive content teams.

Now, AI can produce quality content for free in under 10 seconds. It just takes the right prompt. For example, you can build an entire library of flood job content that gets your water damage business found in under an hour. The following is an excerpt of the content that took just a few seconds to generate, via ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence content generator service.

AI has the potential to transform the content marketing efforts of restoration industries. As content is the backbone of search marketing, it’s essential for contractors to produce high-quality content that can rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs). However, producing such content is time-consuming and can be a significant challenge for contractors who are already busy running their businesses.

But with an AI-powered content generator, what used to take hours to do can now be accomplished with just one question. By using natural language processing and machine learning algorithms, these tools can analyze large amounts of data and generate high-quality content quickly and easily. This means that contractors can produce more content in less time, which can help them rank higher in SERPs and attract more traffic to their websites—and ultimately, gain more clients.

One of the most significant advantages of using AI-powered content creation tools is the ability to produce content at scale. Instead of writing each piece of content from scratch, contractors can use these tools to generate dozens or even hundreds of articles in a matter of hours. This not only saves time, but also allows contractors to target a larger audience through a broader range of topics.

In addition to creating content, AI can also help contractors optimize that content for search engines. By analyzing user behavior and search engine algorithms, AI-powered tools can identify and choose the best keywords and topics to use, as well as the most effective ways to structure content for maximum impact. This means that contractors can optimize their content for both search engines and user experience, which can lead to higher rankings and more traffic.

Overall, AI is set to transform the restoration industry in a significant way. From faster and more efficient job handling to more effective content marketing, AI-powered content generators offer contractors a range of benefits that can help them grow their businesses and attract more jobs.

By embracing these technologies and incorporating them into their marketing strategies, contractors can stay ahead of the competition and build thriving businesses in this dynamic and rapidly evolving industry.

By the way, everything between the image of ChatGPT’s burst pipe article and the sentence above this one was written by AI. Could you tell? Did you notice?

The future is here. The contractors who seize it first will get the lion’s share of cleaning and restoration business online.

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