Guides for Burlington trade owners who'd rather do the sums first

Planning a service radius across Halton

How to plan a service radius across Halton and Hamilton is for trades that already drive to Oakville, Milton, Halton Hills or Hamilton and want to know whether those trips pay.

What you'll learn:

• how to map a year of jobs by town and Burlington district in an afternoon;
• how to work out margin after drive time, with a worked example;
• a simple three-ring model for deciding where to rank, where to advertise and where to say no;
• the warning signs that a town is costing more than it earns.

A first-year marketing budget

Setting a first-year marketing budget for a Burlington trade is for owners who've been asked "what's your budget?" and didn't know how to answer.

What you'll learn:

• how to calculate the most you can pay for an enquiry, from your own margin and close rate;
• how to split money between ads, which work now, and organic work, which builds over time;
• a month-by-month view of a realistic first year;
• how seasonality changes the plan for different trades.

Selling to Burlington's housing types

Detached, townhouse or tower: matching your marketing to Burlington's homes is for trades that want to understand who they're really selling to.

What you'll learn:

• what the 2021 Census says about Burlington's housing mix, and why it matters;
• how decisions differ for a detached-house owner, a townhouse owner and an apartment building;
• what to put on your website for each buyer;
• how the growth planned around the GO stations may change the work available.

How to use these guides

Each guide works on its own. If you'd like to go further:

1. Read the guide and do the exercise with your own numbers.
2. Compare the result with what you're doing now.
3. If something doesn't add up, look at the related service, such as Google Ads or service-area expansion, for how we'd approach it.

Who these guides are written for

We wrote them with three readers in mind:

• The owner-operator who still answers the phone and does the quoting, and needs to know whether marketing spend is earning its keep.
• The growing company with two or more crews, deciding whether to add a town such as Oakville or Milton, or to go deeper in Burlington.
• The office manager who runs the schedule and the review requests, and wants a clear routine rather than vague advice.

Each guide includes a short checklist or worksheet at the end, so you can turn the reading into a decision the same day.

What these guides won't tell you

They won't tell you which licences you need, how to price a specific job, or what the law requires of your business. Those questions belong with regulators, industry associations and your own accountant or lawyer. Where a regulator is relevant, we link to it and summarise what its pages say, without giving compliance advice.

They also won't promise outcomes. The worked numbers are examples to copy with your own figures, not forecasts for your company.

A note on sources

Where a guide cites a figure, such as housing counts or Google's own ranking guidance, it links to the official source and lists it with the date we checked it. Programs and rules change, so confirm anything important with the source before you act on it.

If a guide raises a question about your own business, call, text or email us. You can also read about how we work first.