Services
Marketing Consulting for Service Business Owners
A marketing brain on call, without another salary on payroll.
- Starting at
- $750+
- Timeline
- Onboarding takes two weeks
- Services
- 4 included areas
Call (714) 823-3164 or ask a question. Clear recommendations, even if we never work together.
Marketing consulting is ongoing outside advice for owners who run their own marketing or manage vendors. A consultant reads your numbers, answers questions as they come up, and checks vendor work. You get help deciding what to do next. Nobody takes over the work, and nobody goes on your payroll.
Jump to a section
- The problem
- What Consulting is
- Who it is for
- What is included
- Our process
- What it costs
- What changes
- All Consulting services
- How this changes with your size
- What else that money could buy
- How a vendor proposal gets checked
- How to get your money's worth
- The 60 day check on whether it is working
- When not to hire a consultant
- Questions to ask before hiring any advisor
- Questions
The problem
Plenty of owners do not need an agency. They need someone to ask. They have a web person, maybe an ads vendor, an office manager who posts on Facebook, and a nephew who set up the email list. The work gets done, more or less. What is missing is judgment. Is the SEO invoice worth it. Is the proposal that just landed a good deal or a bad one. Should the busy season budget go up or down. Why did leads drop in March. Hiring a marketing director costs ninety thousand and up, and a full agency retainer means paying someone to do work you are already paying for. So the questions go unanswered, decisions get made on the strength of whoever pitched hardest, and small mistakes compound for a year before anyone notices.
What consulting actually is
Consulting is advice with accountability, not execution. Each month there is a scheduled call, usually 45 to 60 minutes. We look at the same numbers every time: spend by channel, leads, booked work, cost per booked job, and whatever is currently in question. Between calls you can send things over: a proposal you want sanity checked, a report that does not make sense, or a vendor email that feels evasive. Send the questions too, like whether something new is worth trying. We answer within a business day, in plain language. That includes the times when the honest answer is that we do not know, and here is how to find out. Over a year the work usually covers vendor oversight, budget decisions, and hiring input when you bring marketing in house. We also keep a running record of what has been tried, so the same idea does not get pitched to you twice. We do not require that you use us for execution. And we will tell you when a vendor you already have is doing good work, which happens more often than agencies like to admit.
Who it is for
This fits owners who already have marketing running and want oversight, not a takeover. It fits companies with an internal marketing coordinator who is capable but junior. That person needs someone to check their thinking. It fits businesses that just finished a strategy engagement and want help staying on the plan. It fits owners who got burned by an agency and are not ready to hand over control again. It is not a fit if you want the work done for you. Consulting produces decisions and direction, not deliverables. It is also not a fit if nobody on your side has time to act on what gets decided. Advice nobody executes is an expensive hobby.
What is included
- Scheduled monthly call of 45 to 60 minutes with an agenda sent in advance
- Shared numbers dashboard covering spend, leads, booked work, and cost per job
- Email and text access between calls with same business day replies
- Vendor proposal and invoice review with a written second opinion
- Quarterly written summary of results, decisions made, and open questions
- Access to our templates: briefs, review requests, and reporting formats
- Hiring input for marketing roles including job descriptions and interview questions
- A running decision log so nothing gets relitigated every six months
Our process
Onboarding and baseline
Week 1 to 2One longer session to learn the business, the current setup, and the numbers, plus read access to analytics, ad accounts, and your Google Business Profile. We build a simple shared dashboard so every future call starts from the same page instead of hunting for reports.
First month of watching
Week 2 to 6We observe before advising. Watching a normal month reveals the pattern: which vendor reports arrive late, where leads actually come from, what the office does when the phone rings during a job. Advice given before that is advice about a business we have not met.
Monthly call rhythm
Ongoing, monthlySame day each month, agenda sent ahead so you can add to it. We review the numbers, close out last month's decisions, work whatever is currently in question, and set one or two things to do before the next call. Notes go out the same day.
Between call support
Ongoing, as neededSend proposals, reports, or questions as they come up. Most replies land within a business day. Anything that needs real analysis gets scheduled rather than answered off the top of the head, and we say which one it is.
Quarterly reset
Every 3 monthsEvery third month the call goes longer and looks back at the quarter: what moved, what did not, what we said would happen and whether it did. Being on record about predictions is the part that keeps advice honest.
Realistic timeline: Onboarding takes two weeks. The first genuinely useful call is usually month two, once we have watched a normal month. Most clients say the arrangement starts paying for itself somewhere in months three to five, typically by stopping a bad spend rather than by adding a new one. Engagements are month to month with no long contract.
What it costs
The number moves with call frequency, how many channels and vendors we are overseeing, and how much between call access you use. One monthly call for a single location business with two vendors sits at the low end. Multi location companies, businesses with an internal marketing team that needs weekly direction, and owners who want us in vendor meetings run two to four times that. If oversight starts turning into us doing the work, we will say so and price it as execution instead, because quietly absorbing project work into an advisory retainer serves nobody.
Published ranges are starting points. The final number depends on your market, your current position, and how much ground there is to make up. You get a fixed scope in writing before anything begins.
What changes
Faster decisions, because there is somebody to ask who knows your numbers
Vendor work that gets checked by someone who understands the invoice
Fewer purchases made because a salesperson was persuasive on a Tuesday
An owner who can read their own marketing reports without translation
A written record of what has been tried, so ideas do not cycle back
Clear escalation when a channel needs real work rather than more advice
All marketing consulting services
Every area we cover under marketing consulting. Each one has its own page with process, deliverables, and timelines.
Growth Planning Sessions
Half day working session that ends with a written quarterly plan
Growth Planning SessionsMarketing Consulting for Owners
Teaches the owner to read reports and judge vendors without help
Marketing Consulting for Owners
Where we do this work
Based in Chino, serving Chino, the Inland Empire, Orange County, Los Angeles County, Riverside County, and San Bernardino County.
How this changes with your size
A one truck operator does not need a monthly call. You need someone to read five bills twice a year and say which ones to cancel. At that size a quarterly check in is the honest price.
Three to eight trucks is where this earns its keep. Spend is big enough that a bad twelve month contract hurts. Volume is still too low to justify a marketing hire. One monthly call, two or three vendors under review, one real decision each time.
Multi location work is a different job. Every branch reports in its own format, so nothing can be compared. Half of the first quarter goes to making the numbers match: same fields, same dates, same definition of a booked job. Until then, one busy branch covers for a weak one all year.
If you already employ a marketing coordinator, the shape shifts again. Most of the call is spent with them, not you. You get a short summary and a straight answer on whether the plan holds.
What else that money could buy
Consulting is one of several ways to buy marketing judgment. Here is how the options compare, so you can rule this out fast if another one fits better.
| Option | Rough monthly cost | What you get | Best when | Where it falls short |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full time marketing director | 7,500 to 11,000 plus benefits | One person who owns all of it | Several channels and steady growth | Slow to hire, costly to get wrong |
| Full service agency retainer | 2,500 to 8,000 | The work done for you | You want it off your plate | The only reviewer is the agency |
| Fractional CMO | 3,000 to 10,000 | Senior planning and team leadership | A funded push with staff to lead | Too much for a five truck company |
| Owner groups and courses | 200 to 2,000 | Ideas and peers to compare with | You like to learn and act fast | Nobody there sees your numbers |
| Marketing consulting | 750 to 3,000 | Decisions, oversight, a written record | You have vendors but no referee | You still have to do the work |
| Keep asking your vendors | Nothing extra | Free opinions, delivered fast | Spend is small and steady | Everyone asked is also selling |
Rough market ranges around Southern California, not quotes from us. Most owners run two of these at once, which is fine.
How a vendor proposal gets checked
Forward a proposal and it runs through the same five steps. Most take under an hour.
Step three catches the most money. A fair price on a twelve month lock with no way out is still a bad deal.
How to get your money's worth
Owners who get the most from an advisor behave the same way. So do the ones who get the least.
Do this
- Send the bad month first. A slow March teaches more than a record June.
- Forward proposals early, not the night before the quoted price expires.
- Bring one real decision to every call, with a date attached to it.
- Say your budget ceiling out loud so the plan gets built to fit it.
- Invite your office manager. They know what the phone actually does all day.
Not this
- Do not ask for a review of a contract you already signed and paid for.
- Do not hide the vendor you like best. That is usually the one worth checking.
- Do not use the call as a status update. Your vendors already send those.
- Do not swap vendors in the middle of a test. You lose the answer and pay twice.
- Do not cut a channel after one slow month. Seasons are real in home services.
The 60 day check on whether it is working
Two months in you should tick most of this list. If you cannot, say so on the next call instead of waiting out the year.
You know your cost per booked job
Not cost per lead. Cost per job that made it onto the calendar.
Something has been stopped
At least one spend, tool, or task paused or cancelled, with a reason.
Reports arrive in one shape
Every vendor sending the same fields on the same day each month.
You can describe each vendor's job
One sentence each, without opening the contract to check.
A decision log exists and you have read it
Dated notes with the choice made and who owns the next step.
You sent something between calls
A proposal, a report, a question. If not, hourly advice is cheaper.
One thing you believed got overturned
Sixty days of real numbers should prove at least one hunch wrong.
You said no to something
A pitch reviewed and declined for a reason you can explain out loud.
When not to hire a consultant
If your whole marketing budget is under about 1,500 a month, skip this. Oversight would eat too much of the pie. Put the money into your website and into answering the phone.
If nothing is running yet, you need a plan, not a standing call. A one time strategy job costs less and it ends. Come back once there is something to advise on.
If the real problem is that you cannot get to the jobs, marketing advice will not fix it. Booked six weeks out and turning work away is a crew and pricing problem, not a lead problem.
And if you want somebody to hand the blame to, this will let you down. An advisor improves your odds. You still make the call.
Advice nobody writes down turns into an argument about who was right. A dated note turns it into something you can check.
Questions to ask before hiring any advisor
Do you take referral fees from vendors you recommend?
Will you talk to my vendors directly?
What if I disagree with the advice?
Frequently asked questions
How is consulting different from hiring your agency?
Will you tell me to fire my current agency?
Do I need a long contract?
What if I only have questions once in a while?
Can you work with my in house marketing person?
What do you need from me to be useful?
Sources
- Google SEO starter guide(opens in a new tab) Google publishes its own basics for search, so a vendor's claims about what search needs can be checked against the source rather than taken on trust.
- Guidelines for representing your business on Google(opens in a new tab) Rules a vendor must follow when managing your Google Business Profile, useful when reviewing whether a tactic they sell puts your listing at risk.