The Playbook
Built by the otherside of the table.
Most agencies pitch you with their client list. This is ten years of sitting across the table from tradespeople, deciding which ones to call and which ones never to call back. Here is what that taught us.
Why this exists
I'm not a marketer. I'm a property manager who watched the same pattern repeat for a decade.
I spent more than ten years on the buying side of the trades industry. Running property portfolios across Europe. Managing multi-million pound trade-supply budgets. Hiring and vetting hundreds of contractors across electrical, plumbing, fire and security, cleaning, HVAC and general building.
I'm not going to tell you I'm the world's best marketer. I'm telling you I've been the customer. The one who opens 12 tabs and closes 11 of them inside 90 seconds. The one whose calendar you're trying to get on. The one who signs the PO.
What I noticed, over and over: the best tradespeople almost never had the best online presence. And the ones who did won the work, even when they weren't the best on the tools. That gap is what Rekraft exists to close.
Below is what I actually check, in the order I check it. Nothing invented. Nothing dressed up.
The checklist
The 8 things I check. In 90 seconds I know if you're getting a call.
- 01
Does the website load in under 3 seconds?
If it hangs on mobile, I'm on to the next tab. Speed is the first accreditation. The first check happens before I've read a single word on the page.
- 02
Can I see insurance, accreditations and licences in 10 seconds?
Gas Safe. NICEIC. FMB. Public liability cover. If I'm hunting through three pages to find them, you've lost. Commercial buyers will not phone for missing proof they could see on the competitor's footer.
- 03
Is there a named, photographed human behind the business?
An anonymous limited company is a risk I won't take for a £5k job, let alone a £50k one. A founder with a face and a story is a signal that there's someone to call when something goes wrong.
- 04
Are there real project photos with real dates and real locations?
Not a stock library. Not four hero shots from 2019. I'm looking for "week 3 of 6, Croydon commercial fit-out, February 2026". That's what earns the call.
- 05
Are reviews recent, specific, and from named people?
"Great service" from 2022 is worse than no reviews at all. I want last-90-day reviews that name the job, the location and the outcome. Otherwise I assume the business is treading water.
- 06
Is there pricing logic on the page, or is everything a mystery?
You don't need a price list. You need a signal that you know what you cost. A "from £X" range, a sample call-out fee, a typical project bracket. Mystery pricing reads as "making it up as we go".
- 07
Do you reply within a business day?
I'm timing you from the moment I send the form. Silent for 24 hours and I've called someone else. The enquiry response is the first sample of what working with you will feel like.
- 08
Does the brand look like you care, or like you are winging it?
If the website looks like a 2014 Wix template, I assume the site visit will feel the same. Not style for its own sake. Coherence. If the brand is shambolic, commercial buyers fill in the rest.
Hang-up triggers
What loses the work in 30 seconds.
The instant tab-closers. If any of these are live on your site today, fix them first. They cost nothing to remove, and they take you off the shortlist.
A Hotmail, Gmail or AOL email on the contact page
A business email costs £5 a month and twenty minutes to set up. Not doing it is a signal, not a saving.
A mobile number with no landline or business address
Fine for domestic work. Commercial buyers read "sole trader, no office, high risk". A city-based business number plus any postcode changes the read entirely.
Stock photography that clearly isn't you
A perfectly lit electrician with a drill in a white studio is more damaging than no photos. The buyer can spot a stock image in a second and every claim on the page dies with it.
"Established 2020" with no founder name
Three-word about pages read as "we don't want you to know who we are". If I can't find a human, I can't trust a quote.
A service list that reads like a directory entry
Every trade under the sun, no one an expert in any of them. A focused list of what you actually do beats a long list of what you might take on.
Reviews that all sound like the same person wrote them
Customers can spot this and so can I. Six reviews with identical phrasing are worse than zero reviews. A single honest, specific review beats twenty bland five-star notes.
What this changes
We don't sell marketing. We sell scoring on the buyer's own scorecard.
Every Rekraft audit uses this 8-point checklist as the scoring rubric. Every website we build is designed, from the first wireframe, to pass all 8 and to clear every hang-up trigger above.
That's the job. Not more traffic. Not more SEO words. Not more posts. More yeses from the specific people who pick up the phone and book the job.
If you're passing fewer than six of the eight, there's work to do. Fewer than four, and we should talk.