Is this platform a scam?

JWMM_1_Music

I've spent nearly $1000 this month on leads and it has produced a single $30/lesson student. It will take more than 30 lessons for me to break even. Pretty sweet deal for Thumbtack; not such a sweet deal for me.

Am I doing something wrong, or is Thumbtack just a terrible place for music instructors to look for students? Or both?

Thanks.

DustiO

Hi @JWMM_1_Music I would love to take a look at your profile and see if I can help out, but the one you used to sign in here id not attached to your pro account. Would you be able to give me the email address associated with your pro account? In the future, you should be able to log in to the Community using your existing Thumbtack credentials (not creating a new Thumbtack account, which is I think what happened). If you want to drop it here or send me a DM I would be more than happy to take a look and see what is happening! Because for sure this is not the experience you want to be having!

JWMM_1_Music

Thanks. I did DM you. Did you receive it?

DustiO

Ok! Got your message and I was able to take a look. There is a new tool available to you called your Performance page (you can also click on more data to see how you compare to other pros in your area) — this is a great place to start. You can see a lot of things here, but one important thing I am seeing right off the bat is Response Time. That is a super important factor (you can see what some of our most successful pros have to say about it here in this recap post from our Pro Summit). Ideally, you'll respond at least within the first hour, but even better within the first few minutes as that greatly increases your chances of being hired.

You'll be able to see that the average pro in your area and category responds within 21 minutes (a 300 bit faster than your current average), so it's possible that customers are going with pros who are responding sooner. However, if we're looking at customers who just aren't responding, we had a great discussion about this at a recent CommuniTEA session and the group of pros had some really amazing tips for how they have been able to get customers to respond. Here are all of the tips they shared:

• Refresh your profile intro once a month using chatgpt, to mix it up and test what resonates more with customers (from @1_gold_hands, a handyman who has grown to 7 locations using Thumbtack)
• Reach out via the Thumbtack messenger, and then text and call - different pros suggested different timing that works for them like text immediately, call after 1 hr or 2 hrs, etc (several pros suggested this one)
• Leave the message on a positive note and follow up with "nurture campaigns" - reaching out to customers every 30 days/60 days/etc with a refresher message (both @ShaquealThomas and @SOUNIQUE007 use this tactic and have multiple customers hire them at later dates)
• Try a contest/sweepstakes - tell them even if they have used another pro and don’t need your services they can gift it to someone else! But put a deadline on it to add some urgency
• Leave on a positive note, leave all of your contact info if they come back later (from @ShaquealThomas)
• Message people during off time like evenings and weekends, when they will have time to respond to the message right when they see the notification, vs if they are at work) (from @AR2i, who has had a lot of success using this tactic)
• Send them a note with all of the services you offer, in case they have already figured out that job, they can return later to hire you for other things (also from @1_gold_hands)

I would also look at the number of reviews you have — I can't remember the statistic now, but I think it's at 5+ reviews you become a lot more likely to be hired and it only gets better from there! You can have up to 10 reviews from clients outside Thumbtack, so I'd recommend getting all 10 of those if possible!

On top of that you can add photos and respond to the FAQs section in your profile, as both of those things help your profile to stand out among others! I would also make sure your budget is at a level you are comfortable with, so be sure to visit that often and adjust as needed.

Hopefully some of this helps, let me know!

JWMM_1_Music

Thanks. I will read. Is there any way to turn off my availability during my sleeping hours? There's honestly no way for me to respond to leads that come from the East Coast at 9 in the morning when it's only 6 am out here on the West Coast.

DustiO

Your "response time" is only calculated from 8am-8pm (I think those are the hours). If you wanted to not show up at all during your sleeping hours I would recommend using the "hide my business" feature. You could also look into Front Desk, which automatically replies for you (but this is a paid service), if you wanted to keep it live at night.