How to Take Your Trade Business to the Next Level in 2025

James Dooley: Made business in 2025—I believe we also did one of these videos for 2024. A few things have obviously changed in the past 12 months. AI has come into play, and we’re going to touch on that. Joined with me is Kasra Dash. So what’s one tip or strategy that you're going to be using to grow a trades business?

Kasra Dash: If you’ve got a trade business or a service-based business, the first thing I would always look to do is SEO for your own website—that’s search engine optimization for your own site. It’s a long-term investment, but if you can get SEO right and rank for the main keywords you want, you can generate your own in-house leads. That is the holy grail of a successful business.

You should always be oversubscribed and have a consistent flow of quality inquiries. That allows you to increase your prices and say no to clients that could be a nightmare. I’m sure there are people watching who understand those clients—you knock 10–15% off the job and those are the ones that always go wrong. If you have enough inquiries coming through, you can hold your price and avoid racing to the bottom. I’d be doing SEO, gathering as many testimonials and case studies as possible from past jobs. I’ve found over the years, and working with trade-based businesses, that so many inquiries come from people seeing a case study and saying, “I want that exact job.” For example, we build playgrounds, and loads of schools come saying they want the exact playground we did at St. John’s or the sports pitch at St. Michael’s. Testimonials matter too. When people are at the 11th hour deciding between you and a competitor, they’re checking reviews. So build testimonials and strengthen your reputation through SEO. If I’m growing a trade-based business in 2025, the first step is SEO and ticking all the boxes for growth.

James Dooley: One thing I’ve personally learned from you—you have a business installing AstroTurf. When I first met you, I thought you just installed AstroTurf in back gardens. But you install for schools, which I didn’t understand until we fully discussed it.

If you install AstroTurf in someone’s garden, the homeowner is very particular—asking why you cut it that way, why you installed this way, what underlay you used, a million questions. It’s their home, so they care. And there are more gardens than schools, so that was my mindset. But schools are easier. You install an 11-aside pitch, roll it out, and it’s done. Schools also have allocated budgets, so they’re not as price-sensitive.

Kasra Dash: Exactly—you need to know your perfect client and target them. Access at schools is also better. You can bring in diggers and dumpers easily. In a garden, the gate might be one meter wide. In a school, you get right into the area with no obstacles. You can fence it off, and no one’s there.

Whereas with a house, neighbors hear you, you can only start at certain hours—lots of limitations. Trade businesses need to identify not only their perfect product but their perfect customer—who’s willing to pay the prices you need to charge. And that leads to my second point—probably more important than SEO—team up with a lead generation company that understands your industry. They’ll know which keywords to target and what questions to ask about profit, best clients, worst clients, and so on. They’ll go after not just volume, but the best leads. If you’re trade-based, go to FatRank.com and fill in the form. There’s a high level of declines right now because some websites, branding, or testimonials aren’t strong enough. If declined, improve. If accepted, great—you only pay on converted jobs, so it's low risk.

James Dooley: Other ways to grow your trades company include PPC and Facebook ads. PPC can work, but you must scale your negative keyword list. If you want to spend £5,000 per month and expect 300 inquiries, that’s unlikely unless you dial in the negatives. PPC often triggers for irrelevant intent-based keywords until you refine it.

Facebook ads are interruption marketing. It’s harder to sell something like solar through Facebook, but not impossible. You just need to expect that you might close only five out of 100 leads. PPC and Facebook give quicker returns but often lower quality. SEO is slower but brings better quality.

Kasra Dash: AI can help—chatbots, email funnels, writing content, writing case studies if prompted well. AI is always evolving. We’d prefer people to comment what trade they’re in and how they’re thinking about using AI. We might recommend tools or software.

If you're a trade-based business owner looking to grow in 2025, comment with your pain points, what you’re thinking of doing, or what we missed—whether leaflet drops, email marketing, or traditional channels like TV ads, radio, and billboards.

James Dooley: That’s our video on how to grow your trades business in 2025. If you want to grow, check out FatRank.com and fill in the contact form. Thanks for watching.