How a Perth Tradie Increased Leads 150% By Fixing One Question

What They Came to Me With

They came to me wanting a website rebuild. Their current site was three years old, looked dated, and "wasn't converting." Pretty standard story.

What they thought they needed: A modern, mobile-responsive website with better design.

What they actually needed: Well, that's what we had to figure out.

What I Found in Research

Customer Research

I interviewed eight of their recent customers. Every single one mentioned the same thing: they didn't know if this business could handle commercial projects. The website only showed residential work.

"We almost didn't call because your site just showed house bathrooms. We needed a 12-story office refit."

They were losing half their potential market because of one missing section.

Competitor Analysis

The top three competitors in Perth all positioned themselves identically: "We do it all! Residential, Commercial, Industrial, 24/7!" They were all fighting over the same generic search terms and competing purely on price quotes.

The Audit

Traffic wasn't the issue. They had 2,000 visitors a month. The issue was the exit rate on the services page: 85% of traffic dropped off immediately upon seeing the mixed bag of $200 leaky tap fixes next to $50,000 commercial fit-outs.

The Real Problem

The website wasn't the problem. Their positioning was.

They were trying to appeal to everyone - homeowners, small businesses, large commercial clients - and ending up appealing to nobody. Their messaging was generic. Their portfolio showed everything but proved nothing specific.

A website redesign without addressing the psychological positioning wouldn't have fixed a thing.

The Strategy

Here's what we decided:

1. Pick a lane. They had the most experience and best margins in commercial work. That's where we focused.
2. Rebuild the website with messaging that spoke directly to commercial property managers. Not homeowners. Not small businesses. One audience.
3. Restructure the portfolio to show commercial projects only. Quality over quantity. Each project told the story of the problem they solved, not just pretty photos.

What We Built

Website

The rebuild took six weeks. The homepage focused entirely on commercial property managers. Copy used the exact language we heard in the customer interviews.

Portfolio section: 12 commercial projects, each with a case study format showing the problem, solution, and result. No residential work at all.

The contact form asked qualifying questions upfront so they weren't wasting time on projects they couldn't handle.

Marketing

Set up Google Ads targeting commercial property management terms. Landing pages built specifically for each service. Monthly budget tightly capped at $2k.

Systems

Implemented a basic CRM pipeline so they could actually track leads and follow up properly. They'd been losing $30k deals just by forgetting to call people back in the truck.

What Happened

The Reality

Beyond the numbers, here's what actually mattered: They stopped getting calls from people they couldn't help. Every lead that came in was qualified. They were having conversations with decision-makers instead of tire-kickers.

Six months in, revenue had doubled. Not because we were brilliant. Because we finally figured out who they were actually for.

What I Learned

This project reinforced something I see all the time: businesses think they need more customers when they actually need better customers.

They were getting plenty of traffic. They were getting plenty of leads. They were just getting the wrong leads.

Narrowing their focus felt scary to them. "What if we turn away business?" But turning away the wrong business made room for the right business.