2020 leads have completely dried up

[Vsydorowicz]

I am a business consultant, CPA, and professional coach.  I have received exactly zero leads in the last 8-10 weeks.  Am I the only one?  I am promoting my services and have very competitive pricing.  I was extremely busy through March and getting multiple leads a day.  I mean I was spending upward of $1,500 monthly on leads and was selling enough business to make that entirely worthwhile.  My reviews are top notch and I was a top pro in 2019.  Is this simply a COVID thing?  Your responses are appreciated.  Thank you!

[AAW]

Most likely because people can't see you now in their search if you don't have the famous ridiculously expensive 'targeting' turned on in your profile. Thumbtack is losing many pros who were wiling to pay large amounts of money on their site only to be screwed on pricing recently. Mine have about tripled and are an average price of $60 to $100 PER LEAD! Thumbtack WAS great, but now a total failure in my book.

[Vsydorowicz]

I actually have targeting turned on. The answer I received from TT was that they haven’t received any leads to distribute. I find that so hard to believe because most of us work remotely and encompass the entire U.S. Thank you so much for your reply.

[KrisKat]

So I think your situation is probably different than AAWs or mine. It sounds to me like you have neither competition nor are you receiving leads. So you are not paying out for leads if you are not getting them. And you mentioned it dried up after March. So what I see with your scenario is COVID hit the US full force in March. People's businesses were forced closed. People were layed off, and even the people when were able to work from home and continued to receive a paycheck were uncertain about the future so they did not want to spend the extra money for consulting and coaching.

I also know that March 15th is when corporate filing was due, and April 15 was the normal personal filing. So once people completed those they no longer had those consulting needs. Yes, I realize they extended the filing deadline to July, but those that utilized that extra time are not the ones with disposable income that would need your services. So to answer your question, yes, I do believe it is COVID that has impacted your business.

However, I think you will be needed again come the new year. My CPA takes his vacation in December because his business is always busy starting late January, and he gets swamped the closer to he gets to March and April. I booked my tax appointment with him two weeks ago and I got his last open slot in March for corporate filing.

So you may need to figure out what is another service you can provide to fill the gap until people start needing tax help again.

My business of 20 years was professional pet sitting and dog boarding. I had 16 clients on the books in March and every single one of them cancelled by the end of March and early April. My business has been decimated by COVID. If people don't travel I have no clients. That is why I had to reinvent myself with something else that I am good at and enjoy doing. It was something that people need and had the time to address once they were forced to stay home. I just wish I had the foresight to get into it in March and not wait until July when my competitions unemployment ran out. Because my friend who does the same profession worked instead of going on unemployment and was busy from March through July. Now she is starting to face the same competition challenges.

[KrisKat]

What is your profession that you are charged so much for leads? I assume it is something that the payoff results in at least five times that much if you get the job.

[KrisKat]

This question above was for AAW asking the profession. TT won't allow me to edit it. Not sure why they would limit editing, that seems silly. I also tried to go back to my other response to correct a typo and they said I ran out of time to edit the message.

[crussell821]

People probably aren’t seeing you. I used to do great business on here, then they changed the way businesses show up in searches and I dropped to zero leads. I haven’t had work from Thumbtack since July.

[Vsydorowicz]

Same here. It is quite disappointing. Thank you foe r replying. At least I
know I am not doing anything wrong.

[KarmasKreations]

I actually found out why the other day. It's due to Thumbtack's algorithm. For me I am a top pro Makeup artist on thumbtack at the very top of the search results. I went from securing 4-6 bookings per week, to only securing 2 bookings within 2 weeks after getting over 20 leads as of recently. Someone told me its cause lets say a client wants only you. After they reach out to you, Thumbtack will shove other pros in their face that may do exactly what you do or may have other services that coincide with the service you all offer. Now you lost your lead, you're left on read, paid for the lead that you lost, and that pro gets your job because Thumbtack wants to be greedy and the customer realizes "oh maybe I dont want just makeup, I want makeup AND hair. It made me livid when I found that out.

[KrisKat]

Yes, I have suspected that. And here is the problem, I am a Home Organizer and if a client trys to reach out to one person they selected, then TT sends them 4 or 5 additional pros that fit due to targeting, then we are all charged for that lead. The person who initially selected that one lead after carefully reading their profile should get the client and many times will. They may be wondering why TT is sending them all these other people. But it was a way to steal from the rest of us. I found this out when my friend was looking to hire a handyman and after selecting one, they sent her several more saying these people may be a good fit too. I am pretty sure they all got charged a lead fee.

I have paid for up to my set weekly budget for 20 weeks now and have only gotten a few jobs. Every lead has between 4 & 7 pros contacted for each job. About 6 weeks ago I decided to write in my bio letting the clients know we have to pay for every lead they want to hear from so it would be wise to select only one or two, then go back in and look at another if the first two were not a good fit. This way everyone is not charged unnecessarily. Nothing has changed, they still send the client 5 to 7 lead names.

We are all equally qualified i my category. However those who have been at this longer have more reviews. That is the only reason i can see why others may get the job before me. But the fact that if the client had really selected me, then I would think they would at least want to speak with me and weigh out all their options before selecting. But the truth is, I write a response usually fairly quickly after the request arrives, yet I never even get an acknowledgement back. Only a check mark saying they viewed the message. So I feel I have to turn off targeting. It is just too costly.

But then the question is, do I even want to spend the money to send a message to someone who never even saw my profile because I did not have targeting turned on? I think the only answer is that if we pay for a lead we MUST be able to have that contacts phone number so we can equally pitch ourselves to the client, and they need to only send those targeting leads that the client actually selected and wants to hear from. I have already asked that this be addressed, and maybe they need to hear from the rest of you too. If we demand fairness, and there are enough of us asking for it, we should prevail.