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How Top Operators Turn $200 Leads Into $10K Jobs
An interview with James Zayner at Modernize
Bryan Shankman
July 01, 2025
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Workbench, a resource-rich weekly newsletter and podcast for home services entrepreneurs.
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This week, I sat down with James Zayner, Director of B2B Marketing at Modernize Home Services. James brought a SaaS and data-driven growth background to home improvement lead generation, and shared a powerful look into how the smartest home service operators leverage math, workflows, and a willingness to experiment to turn every channel into profit.
We went deep on the real economics of buying shared leads, building killer workflows to close more jobs, creative outreach that crushes digital noise, and the surprising power of gifts, AI voices, and next-level personalization.
The 7 Key Takeaways
Below are the most essential insights from my conversation that you can apply to your home services business today.
1. The Power of Math-Driven Home Service Growth
One theme James emphasized again and again: treating your lead generation and marketing as a pure numbers game. Smart operators graduate from chasing random lead sources to running the entire funnel by the math—so they know what every channel, partner, and workflow is delivering. That’s how you predictably level up from $1M to $5M—and avoid getting burned by poor quality leads.
"I think the best owners that get from 1 million to 3 million or 3 million to 5 million, they really start implementing these math based systems... you want to be able to forecast and if you can't forecast, you don't know how much you're going to be making next month, you're going to have a really hard time... If you can get all that into place on an Excel spreadsheet, or with software like ServiceTitan, that's the best time to start working with a lead partner."
2. Making Lead Aggregators Work for You (Not Against You)
Lead aggregators often get a bad rap, but James sees them as a necessary, even neutral tool for scaling a home service business—if you go in with your eyes open and your numbers dialed in. Modernize, for example, shares each lead four times, and smart owners use this math to predict their real cost per job and overall ROI. The key is knowing your numbers so you never overpay for new business.
"You yourself can't do enough SEO, LSA, SEM to get all of the leads in your area... With a lead partner, you know how many times the lead is shared—they should tell you. We share ours four times. So if every lead was perfect, every four leads, you should get a job. If you're buying the lead for 50 bucks, in the end you're paying $200 per job. And you can just math it out like that."
3. Build Workflows That Convert—Fast
Massive opportunity exists in getting your workflows dialed in—especially with your speed to lead. James has seen too many home service companies missing deals because web forms get ignored, or follow-up is slow and generic. The best operators set up smart, automated if/then workflows and get in front of the lead first—with tested subject lines, engaging copy, and relentless follow-up.
"It's understanding how to build a workflow, and understanding what an if-then statement is... If the lead comes in, and they're net new... send them down this path. Five seconds—get 'em. Everybody else is also trying to go get 'em... Quality of communication matters too: Are you experimenting on the subject line, the body copy? If you really want to get in the game, use inbound-focused workflow tools and make the most out of every lead that's coming in."
4. Be Ruthless About Personalization and Creativity
As cold email, cold calling, and even ads get more saturated, you have to get creative and hyper-personalized to stand out. James and his team use tactics like referencing a prospect's current CRM (e.g., ServiceTitan or Jobber), leveraging reviews, web traffic insights, and even sending high-value physical gifts to open doors. In a noisy world, showing you did your homework always outperforms generic pitches.
"There's so much a more interesting way you can put spin on that... I can reach out to a business and say there's this much demand in your area, the average close rate is this, average contract value is this, we can probably make you this much money if you have the right systems. That's such a cool email to write. Personalization's big for us..."
5. Creative Lead Magnets and Physical Reminders Win Attention
With digital saturation at an all-time high, giving away truly valuable, creative tools—like widgets that turn your reviews into shareable images—or memorable physical gifts can cut through the noise better than endless emails or ads. James shared how sending a $400 Mont Blanc pen to the right executive is often more effective (and affordable) than a big Facebook ad spend.
"I'm super big on in-person handshakes, hugs, kissing babies, giving gifts... it's no longer just about an email. One unique thing we started doing for executives is sending 'em a Mont Blanc pen. It's $400 a pen. But—almost nobody has taken the pen and not met with us. It's so much easier that way."
6. Leveraging AI and Data to Outcompete the Market
AI is opening up new ways for both operators and marketing partners to generate better leads and faster communication. From Modernize's in-house homeowner bots to early experiments with AI voice, smart contractors and marketers are using tech to serve leads quicker, answer complex questions, and even surface hyper-specific insights for outreach.
"We have an AI bot on the homeowner side that's doing question answering, cost calculators... The AI voice is getting pretty strange, but I'd say 75 to 80% of the population are willing to bear through it if it solves their problem faster. We’re in the early stages, but it's really, really cool what's possible now."
7. Getting the Most from Lead Partners—Ask Tough Questions
James closed with a hard-won reminder: If you want ROI from any lead source or partner, you need to take responsibility for tracking, questioning, and understanding your outcomes. Show up to reviews, map your funnel, know your close rates—and always ask your lead providers about data, frequency, and lead handling. The more organized you are, the more profitable the relationship.
"When you're working with a lead partner, just really be critical about the outcomes, really know your math, ask a lot of questions, show up to the meetings, show up to the reviews, have an understanding of what happened to those leads that went down the funnel. As long as you're organized and fully aware, you should have a positive outcome."
Looking Ahead
Modernize is investing hard in data, brand, and open-source intelligence for operators—making the latest market trends, homeowner insights, and actionable data accessible to their clients. James is excited about giving ambitious owners real market advantages and new ways to compete as tech keeps changing the game.
"We've got something in the works that's going to be really exciting and it's going to be around data—open source data. We're going to allow people to have access to a lot of things that we know, but in a very catered and curated way. We have access to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of homeowners every year, and because of that access, we’re able to learn from them and help more contractors grow."
Wow! You made it to the end; thanks for sticking with us.
The full interview is available on YouTube below, Spotify here, and Apple Podcasts here.