Missed-call text-back
The text that answers the phone while you’re on a ladder.
I don’t fix businesses from a laptop. I come work in yours first.
Four days riding along in your shop. Answering phones, pricing quotes, watching jobs go out and invoices come back. Then the straightest look anyone has ever taken at your whole operation: what’s working, what’s leaking, what to fix first. I stay to build the fixes.
Claymont, DE. Serving Delco, Philly, and Wilmington. Owner-run service businesses: contractors, cleaners, landscapers, salons, gyms.
No. 001
The business runs. It just runs you.
The phone rang at 4:12 on a Tuesday. You were under a sink, so it rang out. Whoever it was called the next name on their list.
That one had your name on it.The invoice for the kitchen job rode around on the truck seat for two weeks, because writing invoices takes an evening and your evenings are spoken for.
Money you already earned, still not in your account.The schedule lives on a whiteboard that one guy knows how to read. He is currently in Aston, not answering his phone.
Four people waiting on one man’s memory.It’s 9:30 at night and you’re at the kitchen table pricing a quote from a 2019 price sheet, again, because nobody else can do it.
The owner is the bottleneck, and the owner is tired.
No. 002
Week one: I ride along.
Four days on site, Monday through Thursday. Not in a conference room. In every seat you’ve got: the phone, the schedule board, the quote clipboard, the job site, the invoice drawer, the parts shelf, and the seat nobody audits — yours.
Toyota has a word for this: gemba. Go see the actual work, ask why, show respect. It is the only honest way to learn a business, and it can’t be done over Zoom.
If your real week happens Friday or Saturday — salons, gyms — I add that day for $700 flat.
By Thursday you’ll know if I’m faking it. That’s the point of week one.
No. 003
Then I write it all down. All of it.
By Thursday night your business has something almost no shop its size has: the whole operation, written down. I call it the Shop Book. Every process, every number, every leak, ranked and priced. You keep it — whether you ever hire me again or not.
By the end of the week your shop will be better documented than companies ten times your size.
I run the analysis with Claude — an AI made by Anthropic, the same tool I run my own work on. It can read a year of invoices in an afternoon and hold every note from the shadow week at once. Claude does the reading; I do the judging. Here is exactly what it reads and what it never touches:
What gets written downWhat I watch, what you tell me, and the paperwork you hand me. Nothing taken without asking.
Where it livesIn your file. Not in a marketing database, not in anyone’s training set.
Who can see itYou and me. Nobody else, ever, including future clients.
Whose it isYours. The whole file, whether you ever hire me again or not.
Some of what goes in the Book, no software can fix. A price sheet from 2019. A good tech doing bad paperwork. A truck that shouldn’t exist. It goes in anyway. That’s the point of the Book.
Not a binder of adjectives. A priced map of your whole business, plus working systems where systems belong, and Tuesday-morning changes where they don’t.
No. 004
Walk through a shop I shadowed.
Marek Brothers Plumbing is a three-truck shop in Drexel Hill that doesn’t exist. I built it so you can see the method without paying for it: thirteen stations, the findings at each one, and a verdict stamp on every single one — automate it, change it, or leave it alone.
It’s fictional. The method isn’t.
No. 005
Some fixes are software. Some are Tuesday-morning changes.
After the Shadow Week, the Install: two to four weeks building the top of your list. Automations where they belong, process changes where they don’t. If it isn’t running when I leave, it doesn’t count.
FIX-01
FIX-02
Quote-chase
The follow-up you’d send if you ever got to sit down.
FIX-03
Invoice & payment chase
Invoice out the day the job closes. Reminders after.
FIX-04
Review engine
Asks while the customer is still smiling at the door.
FIX-05
Online booking & schedule
The whiteboard, readable by everyone, from anywhere.
FIX-06
Job pipeline
Every job, name, and number in one place instead of three notebooks.
FIX-07
The book rate, written down
Your prices, current and on paper, so nobody quotes from memory.
FIX-08
The parts run, scheduled
Supply-house trips on a schedule instead of mid-job. A Tuesday-morning change; no software involved.
FIX-09
Owner’s scoreboard
The five numbers that tell you if the week worked. One page.
FIX-10
Checklists & playbooks
The way you’d do it, written down, so the new guy does it that way too.
Where the money leaks
The phones chapter is the one I’ve worked in public. A fictional shop, a month of its ledger, deliberately conservative math with every source shown. Run the simulator and steal every idea in it.
The first thing a skeptical owner does with a big number is try to break it. Fair. Try to break mine.
No. 006
Prices.
Almost nobody in this business publishes prices. Here are mine.
1. The Shadow Week$1,500–$2,500
Four days on site, Monday through Thursday. Ends with the Shop Book: the whole operation written down, ranked, and priced, with a fixed quote for the top fixes. Standalone. The Book is yours either way. Read a full sample.
What moves it: crew size, locations, how many systems you already run. Optional Friday or Saturday on site: $700.
2. The Install$5,000–$10,000 fixed
Two to four weeks building the top of the list. Automations where they belong, process changes where they don’t, your crew trained on all of it. Quoted fixed off the Book. If it isn’t running when I leave, it doesn’t count.
Example shapes: phones & quotes, around $5,000. The full Marek-style install from the sample Book, $6,400.
3. Care$650 or $1,250 / mo
Keep it running, $650. Monitoring, fixes, two change requests, a monthly scoreboard call. Keep it growing, $1,250. All of that plus one new system each quarter.
Plain terms: everything lives in your accounts from day one. Care buys my attention, not access to your own stuff. Fire me anytime and keep it all.
Founding rate · 3 of 3 open
The first three businesses get the founding rate. The trade, stated flat: a lower price in exchange for a published before-and-after write-up with real numbers, whatever they turn out to be. Ask about it on the fit call.
Your actual options, side by side
| Comparison | Do nothing | Big agency | Office manager | Me |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it costs | The leaks, forever | $2k–$5k/mo, ongoing | $45k+/yr, plus taxes | One fixed quote |
| Who does the work | You, at 10pm | An account manager you’ve never met | Someone you now have to train | Me, in your shop |
| What you own after | – | Their platform, their terms | A salary line | Everything, day one |
| When it starts | – | After the onboarding call about the kickoff call | After the posting, the interviews, the notice period | The Monday after we shake hands |
Slide the table sideways for the rest.
If you want it built: I start Monday.
No. 007
The honest part.
Founded2026, Claymont, Delaware
Clients to date0
Founding slots open3 of 3
There are no testimonials on this site because I haven’t earned any yet. I’d rather say that than have you discover it. What stands in for them: prices in writing, a sample of the exact deliverable you can read in full before paying, a fictional shop where you can watch the method work, and week one itself, which is four days of you watching me in your own building.
One number about the market, not about me: in Housecall Pro’s 2025 survey of 400+ home-service contractors, 8 in 10 who tried AI tools said the results met or beat expectations. Their data, their businesses. Mine will be published here when it exists, good or bad.
And what Claude can’t do: it can’t see your shop, smell a burned-out tech, or know that the whiteboard guy is the problem and also your brother-in-law. That part is me, standing in the building. The tool reads. I judge.
No. 008
Who this isn’t for.
Not for owners who want a binder of adjectives and a handshake. Not for shops that can’t give me real access in week one: the phone log, the quote folder, and enough of the books to price what I find. Not a fit if you’re pre-revenue or between careers.
Not for everyone. For the shops it’s for, it really is. If that’s not you, no hard feelings, and the free version is real: the shop, the simulator, and the intake sheet are all open. Steal every idea in them.
No. 009
It’s just me. That’s the point.
Fiurio Forestieri. Claymont, Delaware. Sales is my trade. I’ve spent my career selling face to face and coaching salespeople, which is why I can stand in a shop for four days and see where the money walks. The systems side is what I do with the rest of the day, and every fix in section 005 is one I’ve built and run myself.
No juniors and no handoffs. The person on the fit call is the person in your shop on Monday and the person answering the phone in month six. You get all of me or none of me. What I’m working on right now is public: the now page.
Built in Claymont, DE. I use Claude in my work and I used it here, the same way I’ll use it in your shop: it does the reading, I do the judging, and I answer for every claim, price, and promise on this page.
No. 010
Questions.
Why would I pay a guy with zero clients?
Correct, and I’d rather say it than have you discover it. Three things stand in: the founding rate trades a lower price for published results. The sample report shows the exact document you’d buy, before you buy it. And the Shadow Week is standalone, so the real test costs $1,500–$2,500, happens in your own building, in front of you, and you keep the Book even if that’s where we stop.
Why does an AI guy need to stand in my shop?
Because the shop is where the truth is. Toyota calls it gemba: go see the actual work. Claude can read a year of invoices in an afternoon, but it can’t hear how the phone gets answered or notice that the schedule lives in one man’s head. I collect what’s true by standing there. The tool reads what I collect.
What does Claude actually see?
Exactly what the box in section 003 says: what I watch, what you tell me, the paperwork you hand me. It lives in your file, seen by you and me only, and the whole file is yours. It never trains anyone else’s AI, and no future client of mine will ever see a word of it.
What if I hate computers?
Most of what I install runs without anyone touching it. The text-back answers by itself, the invoice reminder nags by itself. Where your crew does touch something, I train them in person during the Install, and every system comes with a one-page checklist. If it needs a manual, I built it wrong.
Do I have to switch the tools I already use?
No. If your scheduling app or your accounting software works, I build around it. I rip something out only when it’s the leak, and that goes in the Book with the reason, priced, before anything changes.
Why fixed price instead of hourly?
Because you quote your customers a number. Hourly pays me to be slow. A fixed quote off a written Book means you know the cost, I carry the risk of my own estimate, and we’re both looking at the same finish line.
How much of my time does the Shadow Week take?
A sit-down at the start, about an hour. A walkthrough at the end where I hand you the Book. In between I mostly need to watch things happen the way they already happen. Your crew keeps working. I’m the one taking notes.
Will the automatic texts annoy my customers?
A text back within a minute of a missed call is the only version of that moment where the customer doesn’t feel ignored. Everything sends from your number, in your words, you approve every template, and anyone can text STOP and never hear from the system again.
No. 011
See if your shop is a fit.
Tell me what kind of work you do and what’s slipping. The fit call is about 15 minutes on the phone. You talk, I ask questions, and we both say honestly whether this fits. If I don’t think I can move your numbers, I’ll say so on the call and you’ve lost nothing.