Why I Only Work With Service & Trade Businesses
I didn't stumble into this industry. I grew up around it.
My family has worked in and owned trade businesses for as long as I can remember. I know what it looks like when a slow week hits and payroll is still due.
I know the difference between a business owner who built something real with his hands and a marketing consultant who's never been on a job site. I've sat at both tables.
Before starting Gap Digital Solutions, I spent years in the fire service. That put me in contact with many service business owners — the HVAC guys, the plumbers, the electricians, the contractors, landscapers, arborists, woodworkers, blacksmiths , and some brick and mortar business managers.
I watched them work hard, build great reputations in their communities, and still struggle to get found on Google. Not because their business wasn't good enough. Because nobody had set up their digital presence to match the quality of the work they were actually doing.
That's the gap I started this business to close.
I only work with service businesses because that's where I can do my best work. I'm not trying to be everything to everyone.
I know your industry, I know your customers, and I know what it takes to get your phone ringing consistently. A generalist agency doesn't bring that to the table. I do.
First thing to know: I don't disappear after the sale. That's the number one complaint trades business owners have about every marketing agency they've worked with before. You sign on, things feel great, and then you're left sending emails into a void wondering if anyone is actually managing your account. That's not how I operate.
Here's what you can actually expect.
I communicate the way you want to communicate. Some business owners are running crews all day and the last thing they want is a phone call — they just want their monthly report to land in their inbox so they know everything is running. That's exactly what they get.
Others want to be more involved, want to text when something's on their mind or call when they see something in their Google Ads account they don't understand. That works too. I don't put a limit on how often you can reach me during business hours. You're not submitting a support ticket. You're working directly with me.
Every client gets a monthly performance report. It's written in plain language, not a dashboard full of metrics you need a translator for.
It tells you what's working, what we adjusted, how many calls came from your ads or your Google profile, and what we're focused on next month. If you want reporting more frequently, we can build that in. If you want a quick call to walk through the numbers together, we do that too.
The point is this: your business is not a set-it-and-forget-it account. When something needs attention, I'm on it. When Google makes a change that affects your campaign or your profile, you'll hear from me before you have to ask. And when you have a question, you get a straight answer from the person who actually manages your account, because that person is me.
What Working Together Actually Looks Like
My Background
& Why I Started Gap Digital Solutions
I've spent almost ten years in the fire service — as a volunteer and in an administrative role — and if there's one thing that career teaches you, it's how to solve a problem fast with whatever you have in front of you.
But the thing that shaped how I think about business wasn't the fire station. It was growing up watching the people around me build things.
My uncle runs a commercial painting and sandblasting company. Another family member owns a landscaping business. I've watched an aunt build a pickle company from scratch. I've seen a family bee and honey operation run through every season, good and bad. And in the fire service, I lost count of how many firefighters I worked alongside who were also running their own trade businesses on the side — HVAC, plumbing, contracting, you name it.
What I kept seeing was the same pattern over and over. Good people. Solid businesses. Real skills. And almost none of them getting found online in a way that matched the quality of what they were actually doing. They were leaving money on the table not because their work was lacking but because their digital presence was invisible — or worse, they'd paid someone to fix it and gotten nothing back.
I had skills in digital marketing that I wasn't fully using outside of my full-time job. I knew this audience better than most marketing people ever would. And I kept thinking — someone should be doing this specifically for these businesses.
Someone who actually understands what it means to run a service company, manage a crew, carry the weight of payroll through a slow season, and still show up every day.
Eventually I stopped waiting for that someone to appear and decided to be it.
I started Gap Digital Solutions because I wanted to build something of my own that I was proud of — something where my skills went toward helping business owners who deserved better than what most marketing agencies were giving them. Not a side hustle I was indifferent about. Something I actually cared about building.
I still work in the fire service. I'm not going anywhere. But Gap Digital Solutions is what I'm building alongside it — one service business at a time, doing work I believe in, for people I respect.