Has anybody used Home Advisor?

SomethingWitty said:
Shilling pretty hard there.
I can't say that I have any beef with what you are offering as a perspective in your previous post, but that one was PM fodder at best.
If you want to advertise on treebuzz, there are ways to do it.
Click to expand...
I think you might be confused. I am not seeking any clients for marketing I only market my tree business
And any one who wants to understand what I am doing I left my info and some examples of my NICHE SITES and my software
SomethingWitty said:
Shilling pretty hard there.
I can't say that I have any beef with what you are offering as a perspective in your previous post, but that one was PM fodder at best.
If you want to advertise on treebuzz, there are ways to do it.
Click to expand...
I think you missed what I was doing.
Which is letting people know what these citation directories do and how if we all on treebuzz.com put up one site and every one did marketing for that site to each other instead of directories. We would dominate the industry.
That's why I put www.licensedarborists.com on the board
Because it is our niche site just like treebuzz.com is our social sites.
It may never be used by one of you.
But who ever wants it there is no charge to get involved and have the location in your area....
See I am moving to Denver Colorado where state certification is required so I will start Http://denver.licensedarborists.com
I was just throwing the site out there to see if any licensed arborist wanted a location in their city for this domain.
I need them to be certified and up to date on cu.
Other than that they need an address to do business.
I was gonna market the domain my self I went to school for this...
Still was not really selling any thing

Looking for a few partners yes but I can do my part with out money...
And my marketing skills are proven in DFW buddy so read the other reply so you get a more broad understanding of what I am looking for thank you for reading the first one
 
John simpson said:
I think you might be confused. I am not seeking any clients for marketing I only market my tree business
And any one who wants to understand what I am doing I left my info and some examples of my NICHE SITES and my software

I think you missed what I was doing.
Which is letting people know what these citation directories do and how if we all on treebuzz.com put up one site and every one did marketing for that site to each other instead of directories. We would dominate the industry.
That's why I put www.licensedarborists.com on the board
Because it is our niche site just like treebuzz.com is our social sites.
It may never be used by one of you.
But who ever wants it there is no charge to get involved and have the location in your area....
See I am moving to Denver Colorado where state certification is required so I will start Http://denver.licensedarborists.com
I was just throwing the site out there to see if any licensed arborist wanted a location in their city for this domain.
I need them to be certified and up to date on cu.
Other than that they need an address to do business.
I was gonna market the domain my self I went to school for this...
Still was not really selling any thing

Looking for a few partners yes but I can do my part with out money...
And my marketing skills are proven in DFW buddy so read the other reply so you get a more broad understanding of what I am looking for thank you for reading the first one
Click to expand...

Selling was not the verb I used.
I believe I was clear about how informing people of how the system works is okay by me (and probably everyone else) especially in a thread related to the topic, but the post that I quoted earlier was exactly the opposite of informative. It struck (once again the precise verb that I am looking for) me as unrequested solicitation on a public forum, which is generally considered to be in bad taste. It can have a negative impact on the quality of information available here as well as clutter things. There is very little of it, and that is because of a healthy forum culture.
My intent was not to be rude or to run you off. I only wanted to point out that that post is of the generally frowned upon sort, and hopefully help to steer you and your very real, potentially very helpful knowledgebase into a more constructive and tasteful kind of post.
I understand that advertising/networking/selling is your business and habits will show.

"my marketing skills are proven in DFW buddy"
This is the internet. Brag if you need to, but pretending that any of us need to be impressed by it is an exercise in futility.

I only came here today because there were two homeadvisor threads back to back.

Edit: This is getting cluttered. Feel free to PM me about our differences of opinion. I look forward to seeing some insightful content from you.
 
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SomethingWitty said:
Selling was not the verb I used.
I believe I was clear about how informing people of how the system works is okay by me (and probably everyone else) especially in a thread related to the topic, but the post that I quoted earlier was exactly the opposite of informative. It struck (once again the precise verb that I am looking for) me as unrequested solicitation on a public forum, which is generally considered to be in bad taste. It can have a negative impact on the quality of information available here as well as clutter things. There is very little of it, and that is because of a healthy forum culture.
My intent was not to be rude or to run you off. I only wanted to point out that that post is of the generally frowned upon sort, and hopefully help to steer you and your very real, potentially very helpful knowledgebase into a more constructive and tasteful kind of post.
I understand that advertising/networking/selling is your business and habits will show.

"my marketing skills are proven in DFW buddy"
This is the internet. Brag if you need to, but pretending that any of us need to be impressed by it is an exercise in futility.

I only came here today because there were two homeadvisor threads back to back.

Edit: This is getting cluttered. Feel free to PM me about our differences of opinion. I look forward to seeing some insightful content from you.
Click to expand...
Ok I am brand new in a forum never used this .
Still people are relying on Home advisor Angie's list etc and really if like I said we meaning you and as many people who have any skill set for marketing could get together and make a site that locks out the middle man.

We would all have a better success at our endeavor
Where and how would you suggest I offer my skills on this forum...
And how do I explain that I am not in it for lead generation business.
I am simply a tree guy who wants to leave Texas and people all over the USA who are a part of the arborculure world can join me to connect with each other.
Where would you suggest I put this post? And I am very aware you are trying to help this is why I responded again.
 
JontreeHI said:
These guys keep calling and I’m looking to focus on getting some work for myself going. Anybody have anything new to add to this? Thanks in advance
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They suck! Only ones making money in that scheme is HA. The clients are 99% of the time price shoppers looking for many bids. Unless you are the lowest they don’t want to do business with you. If you win all of your HA bids you aren’t making any money cause you are cutting your own throat. Tell them to put you on their do not call list!
I pointed out failures in a cable installation that were critical. Got a call back saying I wasn’t the cheapest and the job was awarded to another company, but no one else mentioned the cable issues..... so he wanted me to look at different cable. I got that repair but it’s hardly worth the time for a cable. I got more into the two trips already then the cable is worth, and I still gotta install it. Oh and the $26 +/- I paid for the lead someone else got the work for!!! Unfortunately I’m stuck with them till June (per the contracts) but until then my leads are OFF.
 
It's a love (well, not love...maybe not even like, but at least tolerate)/hate thing for me.

If you are considering - first, ask how many others they will be sending the leads to. Even who those others are...are they companies you expect to compete with or lowballer hacks?...or higher pricing? (Not always better work...highest price company around here does mediocre work....so I'd go head to head with them all day long given the opportunity...another is a little higher than me but i think we both do top notch work....they are more established so can command the price - I'd expect closer to 50/50 going head to head with them...).

For a couple of years I was the only one getting HA leads...even with that I'd get work from about 60% of the calls (while paying for 100%). Of those I didn't get work from, 80% never returned a call/email/another call/text/etc...even when I call immediately. Some I did talk to said they didn't know they were actually submitting a request. The client doesn't realize how much it costs us to just click a few buttons on the computer.

Of those I get to visit, I'd say closure rate is pretty similar (but a tad lower) to leads of other sources.
 
They have been calling me like crazy lately and no matter how rude I am in telling them to stop calling me, they keep doing it. It seems to be that people looking for the cheapest price use the service. You have to pay for the lead regardless if you get the job or not. So if you are the cheapest, go for it. If you charge real prices, I wouldn't.
 
We just tried HA. Don't waste your time. They sent around 10 or so leads before I shut them off. Of the 10 there was one job I looked at. The rest were nonsense, no answer when I called or emailed. The one job I did look at was a serious price shopper and we didn't get the work. Complete waste IMO.
 
Call me cynical (or prudent considering most tech startups are like parasites taking a perfectly functioning system and looking for the best spot to jam their probiscus into the money flow while providing little to no real value) but this whole setup seems easily gamed in their favor. Is there any sort of verification for the leads? In other words, what prevents an unethical party from having a small IT company in India spend an hour or two per week spoofing their IP and putting in fake numbers?
 
GreenstoneVT said:
Is there any sort of verification for the leads? In other words, what prevents an unethical party from having a small IT company in India spend an hour or two per week spoofing their IP and putting in fake numbers?
Click to expand...

ABSOLUTELY no verification for leads! They even have a request credit section (you only get 5 or so a month) where the reason for your request is your competition is testing the system! There is nothing preventing HA from doing exactly what you said and I thought that's what they were doing to me for a while.
 
Yes I have used home advisor go with wed.com more reliable home advisor sucks too much money product

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I've gotten credit for a few bad leads...but they won't give credit for leads who don't return calls. You can set a monthly budget. I'm not saying it is a great service. It is a good idea, not implemented particularly well.
 
They called me again trying to get me to sign up. About every 3 months they assign a new sales person to me with the same line of being overwhelmed with customers and not enough pros. I beat the guy down so bad, he admitted that he had no clue and was just reading what they tell the sales people to say. Good times.


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GreenstoneVT said:
Call me cynical (or prudent considering most tech startups are like parasites taking a perfectly functioning system and looking for the best spot to jam their probiscus into the money flow while providing little to no real value) but this whole setup seems easily gamed in their favor. Is there any sort of verification for the leads? In other words, what prevents an unethical party from having a small IT company in India spend an hour or two per week spoofing their IP and putting in fake numbers?
Click to expand...

Parasitic companies indeed - they suck! They steal the best internet searches too - when you searhc on tree service in your area the results will almost invariably yield one of these parasites advertising "the ten best tree services in Farqhuar", and they have no idea who a good tree service is or what tree work even is.

Never pay anyone to generate leads for you just go out and talk to people, network, if your completely out of work you're better off to do door to door flyers than waste time and money with these services.
 
Just got another proposition by CATS - Certified Arborist Tree Service -or- Cert Arbo Training School, I guess they can't decide. Asking if I want to go to Puerto Rico of all places. They said they trolled my contact info from ISA website, fair enough but they sound a bit fishy. Anyone else get hit up by them? https://certifiedarboristtreeservice.com/
 
I got the email yesterday - kinda ignored it. Then I was at a meeting where a guy was talking about going to PR through the Incident Management system (typically used with large forest fires) and how good of a time he had. But he was only there for 3 weeks helping with logistical support. Not cutting hazard trees for 2-3 months straight.
 
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