“Tomorrow I’m going to give my two weeks notice,” Troy Klaevemann says excitedly on the phone to me from Pearland, TX. After 20 years of working in the gas packaging industry, Troy is finally in a position to live his dream. Courtesy of Yodle, Troy is now generating enough cash flow to work full-time on his home inspection small business, which he had been doing on the side for the last nine years.
Let’s backtrack more than a decade. Troy’s passion for home inspections first started when he held a project manager position at a test facility. One of Troy’s customers came in and mentioned that he was going back to school for home inspections. Troy eventually also took the classes, originally thinking it could be a good retirement plan.
Troy soon started making some money on the side from home inspections and became increasingly passionate about his new vocation. Although Troy was generating a little revenue from home inspections and hoped to take it to the next level, he only began to seriously pursue his dream over this past year.
The biggest roadblock to working full-time on his home inspection business was building a strong customer base. Troy tested many options to attract more customers. “I’m very statistical about everything I do – I make sure that what I’m getting into is a good deal for me and my family,” he explains. Troy tried online ad companies that didn’t produce the right results and even worse, didn’t explain the results. “They give you a bunch of numbers and rankings at the end of the month but its stuff that just doesn’t make any sense when I’m looking at it,” says Troy. He knew he needed something better.
After these disappointments, Troy was understandably skeptical when he got a call from Yodle. However, when Yodle clearly laid out a plan for his campaign, he decided it was worth a shot. Troy went live in November with a campaign that was initially catered to provide him with just enough work to do outside of his regularly scheduled job. Yodle generated a significant amount of leads for Troy in the highly competitive Houston market. Troy ended up getting more business than he anticipated and didn’t want to turn it down, forcing him to finally consider whether it was time to leave his day job. He turned to his Yodle marketing specialist to discuss a strategy.
“I spoke to my rep about quitting my job, going full-time. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it and whether or not I should put another ad in or expand on the one I already had. He came up with a plan that I felt good about,” Troy recounted.
“The first month I was out of town and I had just started the new campaign. I immediately got more calls and quickly realized it was time to change my life.” Troy sees Yodle as a partner who has supported him along his journey and he is excited to take the next step as a new full-time small business owner.
