Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert

Scaling trade businesses online with Marketing and Ai follow up

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[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

I'm Alex. 18, West Midlands, UK, founder of Oakden Creative.

I help trade businesses with two things:

https://t.co/Wkry8QSZNV and Meta ads that bring the right enquiries in

2.AI-powered follow-up across phone, email, web enquiries and socials, so every enquiry, quote and past customer gets a reply.

Enquiries in, jobs won.

Marketing and follow-up, working together.

I'm here to share what I learn from talking to trade owners every day.

Quick question: what's harder in your business right now, getting enquiries or following them up?

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

@DanTtweets 100% mate purely about execution and research at this stage

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

Fellow agency owners:

I’ve been straight grafting for the past 6 weeks with cold calls and emails targeting the home service industry.

What is the best way to get a client?

I’ve had 2 deals fall through already and a healthy amount of no shows.

Is this just entrepreneurship?

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

@NaivaidyaY66600 Message my closest friends and family to see whether they know any business owners that match my GTM. Whilst simultaneously doing cold email outreach for businesses within a 30 mile radius from me.

How does that sound?

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

Trade businesses this ones for you:

Why don’t you like Marketing agencies?

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

@anupamrjp https://t.co/lJiLWqd0Qs

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

@adhamuxi @Dwriteway Yes

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

Trade businesses: struggling to get Google reviews?

Most customers are happy to leave one. They just forget.

Fix: send your review link by text the same day you finish the job, while they're still pleased with the work.

One text. Same day. That's it.

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

Signed a roofer last week who'd been paying a lead platform £1,800/month by the end.

Results were dropping every month and he had no idea why.

If you don't own your website, your data or your reporting, you're renting your business from someone else's algorithm.

[Paul Mit @pmitu]

if you hate sales, don’t start a startup

you won't like it

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

@hiimmehdi Cold outreach

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

I'm giving away my follow-up scripts for trade businesses, free.
What's inside:

•Missed call text-back (copy and paste)

•Voicemail script that gets people to text instead of ringing the next name

•48 hour quote chase message

���"Gone quiet" message for old customers

Want them?

1Follow me

2Comment "SCRIPTS"

I'll send them over.

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

After 4 months of cold calling trade businesses, the biggest pattern I see:

The best tradespeople aren't losing jobs on quality. They're losing them on speed.

Whoever replies first usually wins the job.

Trade owners: how long does an enquiry sit before you reply?

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

Here are several of the problems I found working with trade businesses over the last 4 months that can be solved by AI:

1. Slow follow up/slow speed to lead - AI automatically follows up with all customer enquiries whether that's email, phone, social media etc.

https://t.co/lDncEo5vpa way to track where enquiries come from - no CRM, no record of who called, when, or what happened next. Everything lives in someone's head or a notebook.

3.Quotes sent and never followed up - a customer gets a quote, goes quiet, and nobody chases it. That's a lost job sitting in an inbox.

4.Missed calls while on the tools - can't answer when you're up a ladder or under a van, and the customer just rings the next name on Google.

5.Old customers never get re-approached - no system for reminding past customers it's time for a service, a check-up, or repeat work. Repeat business is left to chance.

Same demand. Just captured properly.

Trade owners: which of these actually costs you the most right now?

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

@LuckyRob007 @MarioNawfal Shouldn’t be like that though it’s a shame

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

What we actually check before taking on a new client at Oakden Creative.

Most agencies skip step 4 and just sell whatever they've got. We only recommend what would genuinely move the needle for that specific business.

If it's not a fit, we'll tell you. Better for everyone.

How does everyone else qualify before taking someone on?

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

Made this to show exactly how we take on a new client at Oakden Creative.

No fluff, no "book a call" funnel.

Just the real process: audit, diagnostic, a call where we qualify each other, then only recommend what the business actually needs.

Built for trade businesses, but the process holds for any service business.

Curious how other people structure their onboarding, does everyone else qualify this hard before taking someone on, or am I overthinking it?

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

@itx_gunner Personal brand

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

Trade owners: when a customer calls and you're on site, what actually happens to that enquiry?

Voicemail, call back at night, or does it just get lost?

Genuinely curious how everyone handles it.

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

We built a solution to this exact problem. Free chat if you want to see it:

https://t.co/xFwF9mHzel

[Alex McMillan | Marketing & Ai Expert @AlexFMcMillan]

A roofer I spoke to said: "I get calls all day, but I'm on the roof. I can't pick up."

I hear it on nearly every call.

Rough maths: miss 5 calls a week, and even if 1 in 5 was a £3,000 job, that's £3,000 a week walking to the next roofer.

Not missed calls. Missed jobs.
The fix isn't hiring a receptionist.

It's what happens in the next 60 seconds:
•Instant reply to the customer
•A couple of questions to see

if it's a real job
•Quote or visit bookedv
•Everything logged in one place

Same demand. Nothing slips through.

Trade owners: how many calls do you reckon you miss in a week?