Veteran-owned general contractor — Greater Los Angeles

What they came in with

Veteran-firefighter founder running a mid-size residential GC in the greater LA market — full-service remodels, kitchen and bath, accessory dwelling unit conversions. Strong word-of-mouth in the firefighter community and military veteran network — fellow first-responders and retired servicemembers refer steadily, but the inbound is undermarketed and capped by the sphere itself. Generic franchise-style site with no portfolio architecture, no project case framing, and no scope-or-budget qualifier on the contact form — so every inbound lead has to be qualified by phone before scope is known. Long sales cycles (3 to 6 months from inquiry to signed contract) with leaky top-of-funnel: leads land, ask for a quote, get one, then go silent for weeks while shopping competitors. No structured nurture, no retargeting, no follow-up sequence — the lead is either ready that month or lost to the next operator. Window cleaning is a smart recurring-revenue pivot bolted on for cash-flow smoothing, but it shares a home page with $80k kitchen remodels, which dilutes both positions. The veteran credential is real and rare in the LA GC market; it does not currently appear above the fold or anywhere a buyer making a $150k decision would weigh it.

What we built

Engagement built around three pillars: portfolio architecture, intake qualification, and the parallel window-cleaning service line. Phase 1 (week 1 to 3) site rebuild with a structured project portfolio — every project gets its own page with scope summary, timeline, budget range disclosed, before-and-after photography, and the homeowner-side decision context (why they chose this GC, what mattered about veteran-owned). Veteran-firefighter trust signals move above the fold rather than being buried on an About page — that credential is the differentiator against the 4,000 other LA GCs and needs to load before the visitor scrolls. Lead form qualification rebuilt at the form level: project scope dropdown, ballpark budget range, target timeline, decision-maker role. Unqualified leads still come through but auto-route to a longer-cycle nurture sequence; qualified leads (budget defined, decision-maker, 6-month or sooner timeline) hit the calendar within 24 hours. Phase 2 (week 3 to 6) email plus SMS retargeting for top-of-funnel leads — 12-touch sequence across 90 days with high-trust content: framing the GC selection process, common renovation gotchas, vetted-vendor checklist, financing options for veterans. Phase 3: window cleaning broken out into its own service line with its own intake flow, its own SEO, its own call-to-action — runs in parallel without diluting the remodel positioning. Sphere reactivation campaign hits past firefighter and military-network contacts with a residual-referral ask and a maintenance-tier window-cleaning offer.

What to expect

GC engagements run on 4 to 9 month sales cycles — closed-project ROI is a back-half-of-year measurement, not a week-one signal. Early signal is QUALIFIED inbound: lead form responses with budget disclosed, decision-maker named, timeline within 6 months. Week 1 to 4: window cleaning revenue line will produce first — shorter sales cycle (1 to 2 weeks from inquiry to first service), lower price point ($350 to $800 per residential job), faster repeatable cash flow that smooths the GC project bursts. Month 1: first qualified remodel inbound through the rebuilt form. Month 2 to 3: lead quality lift measurable — average disclosed budget on inbound leads up 30 to 50 percent versus pre-engagement baseline. Month 4 to 6: first net-new closed remodel project sourced through the engagement (not from existing sphere) — typical project size $35k to $75k, gross profit $7,700 to $16,500 at the 22 percent industry margin. Month 6 to 12: retargeted leads who went silent during shopping start re-engaging on the second nurture touch — long-cycle re-engagement converts at meaningfully higher rates than the cold form-fill. Verified results case study lands July 2026.