Alejandro Arce — home Thinking in Public
No. 73 · Sales

The ad for the small jobs nobody wants to book

Vancouver Handyman Team's whole pitch is one line: the small jobs, done properly. Here's how I'd sell that, and the shot list to prove it.

Line illustration: a cracked tile beside a simple phone outline and a wrench, arranged like tools mid-repair.

A framework for a business starts with one question: what's the product, the solution it provides, and how it makes the customer feel. For Vancouver Handyman Team, the product is small jobs: carpet cleaning, a bathroom update, a door that won't latch. The solution is one team that shows up and finishes it. The feeling is relief: the thing you've been staring at for three weeks is handled.

The ad opens on the annoyance itself: the running toilet, the stained carpet, the tile you've walked past for a month and stopped seeing. Then it shows how fast that disappears. That sells relief.

The shot list

01
Close on the annoyance: a chipped tile, a stained carpet corner, a door that won't latch. No people yet.
02
A phone screen. A photo of the same tile, sent. A reply lands in seconds: a flat quote, no back and forth.
03
One person arrives, the same person who quoted it.
04
Hands working: grout, carpet steam, a hinge, cut fast, fifteen seconds total.
05
A before-and-after split, held for a beat. A phone photo of the finished job, timestamped.
06
End card: Vancouver Handyman Team. The small jobs, done properly. Phone number underneath.

Six shots — fifteen to thirty seconds

The proof is already built in: every job gets photographed when it's done, which means every customer becomes a before-and-after someone else can see. That's the guarantee: you get the photo alongside the invoice. One team, no subcontractors, is the status line: you know exactly who's showing up.

Sell the relief the job is handled.

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