Where you actually are
Your numbers read back to you with the arithmetic shown, so you can check our work rather than take our word for it.
The audit
A free audit of your marketing, written by the person who would run it.
5 business days. A written document plus a 30 minute call to walk through it. No cost and no obligation at the end of it. It starts with a fifteen minute call, and we do not write one for everyone.
Which package this is for
The audit is for Marketing Department, the package that runs advertising at $3,500 a month plus $2,500 of ad spend on your own card. A day of work goes into it, which is why it is worth doing before you commit to that.
The AI packages do not need one. The Front Desk is $500 to set it up and $500 a month, with no advertising and no term, so an audit costs more to produce than the decision is worth. That one is a 15 minute call where you hear it answer and decide from that.
Start with the front desk insteadIt is free, and we still turn people down
Every agency in your inbox offers to audit you for nothing, so the word free is close to meaningless on a page like this. Here is what usually sits behind it: a sales document, written to make you hire whoever wrote it, finding the problems that person sells the fix for and going quiet on the ones they do not.
The thing that stops ours working that way is not a price, it is the screen. An audit is a day of work and Rootline is one person, so we cannot write one for everybody who asks, and we do not try to. The screen is the fifteen minute call below, and we say no to a fair number of them on it.
That is what buys the honesty. Because we are not trying to convert everyone who calls, the document can tell you your ads are fine and your intake is the problem, or that paid is the wrong place for your money this quarter, or that you should not hire us.
And if the answer is no, you get that in a sentence with a reason rather than silence.
What you actually get
A written document, delivered by email, plus a 30 minute call. It is not a template with your logo on it.
What we looked at
Named, in a list. Every source, so you know what we did and did not see.
What is costing you money, ranked by what it costs
Not by what is easy to fix, and not by what we happen to sell.
The plan
What we would run first, second and third, what we would leave alone, and why.
The numbers that decide it
What the channel would have to produce for this to be worth doing, run on your job value and your close rate, not on an industry average someone pulled off a blog.
What we are not promising
Its own section, in every audit we write.
What it would cost to have us run it
With the reasoning for the number rather than just the number.
What we need from you
Including the one question where a bad answer changes our recommendation.
What you can see before you start
The method, in full. All seven sections, what each one examines in a service business, and the findings that keep turning up across roofing, restoration and dental accounts.
It is published rather than described, and in enough detail that you could run most of it yourself in an afternoon. That is deliberate. A method that only works when we run it is not a method, it is a sales process.
What the audit adds on top is the arithmetic and the order: which problem is costing you the most, what the channel would have to produce on your own numbers for paid to be worth doing, and what we would do first, second and third.
What it costs you
No money. Some time, and some access. Here is the whole of it.
- Fifteen minutes on the phone. There is no form to fill in before it.
- Read only access to your ad account and your analytics, or exports if you would rather. You can revoke it in the platform without telling us.
- Thirty minutes on a call to walk through what we found.
- No money, no card, and no obligation at the end of it.
The audit is not a gate. If you already know what you want, you can skip it and go straight to a monthly engagement.
What happens after the call
- 01
The call, fifteen minutes
How many calls and enquiries you get a month, what happens to the ones you miss, and how a job gets booked. No preparation needed and no slides.
- 02
We name the package on the call
Not in a follow up email. Two of the three buy no advertising, so for most businesses the answer costs less than they expected and needs no audit at all.
- 03
If it is Marketing Department, we offer the audit
That is the only package an audit fronts. If we would not put you on it, we say so and you have saved a week.
- 04
Intake
About 15 minutes. What you sell, what a job is worth, what you have been spending and where. It also asks for read only access to your ad account and your analytics.
- 05
Why the access
It is what makes a 14 day launch possible if you do hire us. By the time you sign, we have already been in the account, so the build starts on day one instead of day six. Read only means we can see it and change nothing.
- 06
Not running ads at all?
Say so on the call. It changes what the audit covers. It does not make it useless, and it does not change the price.
- 07
The 5 business days start when your intake is in
Not when you book the call. If it takes you a week to send it over, that is fine, and the clock waits for you.
- 08
The document, by email
Then a booking link for the 30 minute call. We walk you through it and you can argue with any of it.
- 09
Then nothing, unless you want something
There is no sequence waiting to chase you. If you want to talk about us running it, say so on the call. If you do not, the document is still yours.
Who we will not sell this to
The call is there to stop you buying something we cannot deliver. We will not take your money if:
- You have fewer than about five people, or you do not have capacity to take more work.
- You are national, or you have no defined service area.
- You have been through three agencies this year. The problem is usually not the ads, and an audit will not fix it.
- You want us to guarantee a number of leads.
- You are in a category we cannot legally advertise, which we will check before, not after.
We would rather lose the sale than take it from someone we cannot help. It is a small business, and we only get to be wrong about that a couple of times.
What it will not do
A free document that oversells itself is still overselling. So, the limits.
- It will not guarantee you a number of leads, jobs or revenue. Nothing we write ever will.
- It will not be a full competitive teardown of your market. It is about your account and your funnel.
- It will not fix anything by itself. It names what is costing you money and what we would do about it.
- It will not tell you what you want to hear. If paid is the wrong place for your money right now, it says so.
What we ask of you in return for the access is set out in our Terms, and what we do with what we see is in the Privacy Policy.
Still not sure? Book the call first. It costs nothing and we will answer whatever you want to ask.
Step one: the call
You do not apply for one. You ask on the call.
Fifteen minutes on the phone, free, no preparation needed. We work out what is actually costing you work, and which of the three packages fits. If that turns out to be $3,500 a month Marketing Department, we write you the audit. If it does not, we say so on the call and you have not spent a week waiting to hear it.
There is no payment step, here or later. The audit is free and the call is free. We do say no to people, and when we do you get a straight reason rather than silence.
Most businesses we speak to do not need an audit. Two of the three packages buy no advertising at all, and an audit of advertising you are not running would be a week of your time for nothing.
How it goes
- 01
The call, fifteen minutes
How many calls and enquiries you get a month, what happens to the ones you miss, and how jobs get booked. No slides and no pitch.
- 02
We tell you which package fits
On the call, not in a follow up. Sometimes the answer is that none of them do, and that is a real answer we are willing to give.
- 03
If it is Marketing Department, we write the audit
5 business days from the call. A written document, then a thirty minute walkthrough of what we found and what we would run first.
- 04
You decide, with the document either way
The audit is yours whether or not you go further. No obligation at the end of it.
Would rather write than talk? Email Sean and say what you do and roughly how many calls a month you get. That is enough to start. What we ask for in return for account access is in our Terms.
Questions people actually ask
Before you spend anything.
01Can I just get on a call instead?
That is now the only way in. Fifteen minutes on the phone, free, and it is where we work out whether an audit is even the right thing for you. The longer thirty minute call is for walking through one you already have.
02Do you need access to my ad account?
Read only, yes, and we ask on the call whether you are willing. It is what lets us launch in 14 days if you hire us. Saying no does not disqualify you, it just means the audit works from what we can see from outside and says which figures are estimates. If exporting your data is easier than granting access, tell us and we will work from the exports instead.
03I am not running ads at all. Is this a waste of money?
No. It changes what the audit covers, and you tell us on the call. Most of what we find in a business that is not advertising is in the follow up and the intake rather than the ads.
04How is this different from the one an agency gave me for nothing last week?
It is written after we have seen your actual numbers rather than your website, and it will tell you things that cost us the sale. Compare them. That is a fair test.
05What if you tell me something I already know?
Some of it you will already know, and we would rather confirm something than invent a problem. If the entire document is news to nobody, that is a failure and we want to hear about it on the call.
06Who writes it?
Sean does. It is never handed to a junior and never outsourced.