About Us

Why did I start Marketing4? 

I started my career as a Structural Engineer. I went to school for structural engineering, and also took business. When I graduated I worked for a steel company as a structural engineer for almost 10 years. 

Then I realized something that they don’t tell you before you go an get an engineering degree …. Engineering can be quite boring. . . or at least for it can be for those who are more extroverted. 

I struggled with this for quite some time. I spent so much time and energy into becoming an engineer and I didn’t want to just abandon it. Then I found a job posting for a Sales Engineer for a General Contractor. 

This ended up being a great move for me as it allowed me to use my engineering skills, my extroverted personality and my business knowledge. I eventually became Vice President of Business Development for this company. I managed estimating, sales, marketing and some IT. 

In this position I was trying to scale the business operations and was looking for an external marketing company to help take the business to the next level. I went through 5 different marketing agencies.

None of them understood construction. They didn’t seem to really understand service businesses at all. I remember one meeting where they kept talking about “conversions” on our website. And I knew that we didn’t have any new leads that week, but they kept telling me about all these conversions. Turns out they considered anyone who visited the contact page as “conversion.” As if that had meaningful value to the business. 

These agencies pushed tactics that eroded trust with our clients, and prioritized “one-and-done” strategies that were supposed to make potential clients “impulse buy” our services. No one in construction impulse buys a $100 million dollar building. Yes there is nuanced emotion involved but it takes a long sales process, and enstilling genuine confidence in the client. 

The agencies didn’t get it. 

It was also challenging because the General Contractor was using a lot of modern construction methods in their approach. Meaning that the marketing needed to know about the business to highlight the uniqueness of the business. These agencies didn’t have the ability to understand this. I don’t blame them, they are marketing experts, not construction professionals, however trying to merge my knowledge with their skills just felt like speaking different languages. 

So, I dug in and started learning everything I could about marketing. It wasn’t too far from the business concepts I learned in university, and this allowed me to develop real strategies and skills in marketing, and sales processes. 

At the same time, my role had me interacting with a lot of sub contractors. Smaller businesses who would work for us as a sub. These were some of the greatest people I’ve met. Real “salt-of-the-earth” folks. Businesses that were started out of a skill and a passion and evolved into a real business employing real people. 

I noticed that these companies also didn’t have strong sales and marketing knowledge, and were being misled by marketing agencies who didn’t know their business. In some cases I genuinely believe that these businesses were being scammed.  

So finally I decided that there needed to be a marketing company that would genuinely help small to medium sized service businesses. Contractors, Landscapers, Plumbers, Electricians, Home Builders, Mechanics, Lawyers, Accountants, etc. Businesses that tend to have a local reach and offer services that require Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness and Trust (EEAT).

These businesses need a different marketing strategy compared to retail or ecommerce. And, if we want to promote EEAT for the business (which is a great marketing strategy) … we sort of need to understand the business, understand the work, understand the challenges of the customers for this business.

That’s where Marketing4 has a real unique value-add. We understand contractor type businesses, we understand service businesses and we learn your business in order to grow your business. 

We aren’t just another Marketing Mill. We are growth partners. We want to join you on your business journey and support you until you are big enough to hire your own full time marketing team. That’s our goal. Our goal is to get you to a point where you don’t need us. Sounds like a poor business plan … but trust me it’s the best business plan. 

We want to be your growth partners. This will include marketing strategy, but it will be more than that. We will help you look at your sales process and determine how we can make it more efficient and increase the amount of leads that become happy clients of your business. 

Now, because we put our time and effort into you and your business, we are very adamant about who we DO NOT work with. We state this right near the top of our home page: “We don’t partner with anyone who cuts corners or misleads customers. Marketing4 works with owners who take pride in their craft and care deeply about the people they serve. #sorrynotsorry”

This is a non-negotiable. We only work with genuine people who have integrity and a passion for doing the best work they can for their clients. I want to be able to refer all of our clients to my friends and family. If you don’t pass that test, we aren’t a fit. 

If you are a small to medium size business who offers services to a local area (or areas) and you’re interested in how to grow your business, reach out to us. We’d be happy to see if we are the right fit for you and your business. 

Every marketing partnership should start with a strong understanding of your business, your goals (this year, 5 years, and 10 years), the services you offer (or more importantly the problem you solve for your customers), your typical clients/projects (residential, commercial, high-end, large jobs, emergency services, maintenance, etc.) existing lead flow, the structure of your company, etc. 

Some of our clients have felt overwhelmed at the beginning, because no other company has asked the questions we do. However we go through this with you step by step to make it easy. Regardless of whether you continue with us, this exercise is valuable for you to put this all onto paper to help you work “on” the business and not “in” the business. 

If you’re just a one-person show, but you want to grow the business we’re happy to help out as well. We can start with a growth plan, and determine which items the budget can support and which items you can do yourself until you hire or outsource it. 

There are a lot of simple and free marketing strategies you can achieve by yourself if you’re willing to hustle. We can identify these for you and help guide you in the right direction.

Jeremiah Vanderlaan, P.Eng
Founder of Marketing4