How to get more electrical work

Every self employed electrician knows the pattern. Three weeks solid, then a Tuesday where the phone does not ring and you find yourself tidying the van for something to do. The work is out there, your town has not run out of electrics, so the question is not whether there is work. It is whether the people who need it know you exist at the moment they need you.

This page is the honest version of how a small electrical business fills its diary. No tricks, no funnels, nothing that needs you to be good with computers. Four taps that already exist in your business, turned on properly.

Why the phone goes quiet

It is almost never a marketing problem to start with. It is a memory problem. You did a good job for someone in March, they were delighted, and by September they have forgotten your name and are typing electrician near me into their phone. Somebody else gets that job. You paid for that customer once already, with your time and your work, and then let them wander off.

The second reason is that you are invisible between jobs. The customer only hears from you when you are on site. No email, no reminder, no sign of you in the places they look. Being good at the work is the entry ticket, not the advantage.

Where electrical work actually comes from

Ask a room of sparks where their work comes from and you get the same four answers in a different order. Here is what they are worth and how quickly they pay out.

Notice the cheapest and fastest sources are the ones sitting in your phone right now. That is the whole point. Buying leads is the only one you can start on Monday morning, which is exactly why so many electricians end up doing it and stay stuck there.

Tap one: the customers you already have

Get every customer you have ever worked for into one list. A spreadsheet is fine, the notes app is not. Name, address, mobile, email, what you did and when.

Then give them a reason to hear from you that is not a sales pitch. A consumer unit fitted in 2016 is due a check. A house with an EV on the drive needs a charger. A landlord needs an EICR every five years and most of them have lost track. A short, human message that says you were in the area and noticed their certificate is due beats any advert you could pay for.

Tap two: referrals, asked for on purpose

Most electricians get referrals by accident and call it word of mouth. Word of mouth is a system, not luck. The moment to ask is the moment the customer is happiest, which is when you are packing up and everything works. Say the line out loud: if you know anyone else who needs a spark they can trust, please pass my number on, it is how I get most of my work.

Then make it easy. Leave two cards, not one. Follow up a week later with a thank you. Every trade you get on with, plumbers, kitchen fitters, letting agents, estate agents, is a person who hears about electrical problems all day long and has nobody good to send them to.

Tap three: be findable at the moment of need

When somebody has no power in half the house, they do not ask around. They pick up the phone and search. That search shows a map with three businesses on it, and those three get the calls.

Getting into that map is free. Fill your Google Business Profile in properly, list your services, add real photos of your own work, keep your hours right, and collect reviews steadily rather than in one panicked burst. It is the fastest free win available to a local electrician, and it is the first thing I put new members on.

Tap four: a website that is yours

A site with one page and a phone number is a brochure. A site built around the jobs you actually want, in the towns you actually cover, is a lead source you own outright. When it ranks, the enquiries arrive exclusively to you, at no cost per lead, and they arrive already half sold because they have read your words and seen your work.

A sensible order to do it in

1. Week one. Build the customer list. Every job you can remember or find an invoice for.
2. Week two. Ten messages to past customers. Book what comes back.
3. Week three. Google Business Profile finished properly, and ask your last five happy customers for a review.
4. Week four. Start asking for referrals on every job, and get two trade contacts who send you work.

That is a month of evenings, not a career change. Do it once and the phone stops being a lottery.

What about being busy but skint

More work is only worth having if the work pays. If you are flat out and still tight at the end of the month, the problem is the price, not the diary. Work out your real hourly cost and your minimum charge before you go chasing volume, otherwise you just get tired faster.

There is a free minimum charge calculator that does that sum for you in about five minutes.