u/JobFar1662

I currently work as a low level salesperson at a remote company. I got the job by using one of those AI automatic apply websites to mass apply to a ton of roles at once with customized apps. Issue is this company likes to churn through reps like crazy and I know that no matter what I do, a day will come where I'm on the chopping block...

I say all that to ask... where do you go to find legit roles? The kind of company where they have inbound leads, don't constantly fire people, and promote hard.

Huge fan of the idea of living off-grid. But, how do you make a living? Do you just grow all your own food and use solar? I suppose that's probably the end goal, zero reliance on society, but how feasible is this... for instance what happens if you hurt yourself and need to go to the hospital... it's not like you can trade produce for it.

​

Hey everyone,

​Looking for some advice from anyone running B2B agency outreach or selling to local service businesses.

​I run a PPC agency targeting local, trade-based businesses (plumbers, HVAC, roofers, etc.). Our primary outbound channel right now is Instagram DM.

​The Good:

Our initial hook is solid. We get a 7-10% reply rate on our first message, which is just a brief intro and a quick elevator pitch on how we can scale their leads.

​The Bottleneck:

Once they reply, the conversation completely derails or dies. Their initial responses usually fall into three buckets:

​A) "I'm interested"

​B) "How much?"

​C) "How does it work?"

​My Current Process & Where it Goes Wrong:

When they reply with one of those, I send over a brief explanation of our service along with screenshots of recent campaign KPIs to prove concept.

​From there, one of two things happens:

​The Ghost: They see the KPIs and just stop replying entirely.

​The Interrogation Loop: They say something like "Great," and then immediately turn the DM into a text-based interview.

They hit me with rapid-fire questions: "What's it cost?" "How long does it take?" "What's the ROI?" "What's the refund policy?" "Are there long-term contracts?" I answer, they ask another, and eventually, they get bored and ghost.

​The Goal:

I need to stop treating the DMs like a FAQ page and start converting these high-intent replies into discovery/booked phone calls.

​Where am I dropping the ball here? How do I handle the "How much / How does it work" gatekeeping in the DMs without giving away all the leverage and getting trapped in an endless interview loop?

​Appreciate any scripts, framework shifts, or advice you guys have.

Why is my IG prospecting suffering?

Hey everyone,

​Looking for some advice from anyone running B2B agency outreach or selling to local service businesses.

​I run a PPC agency targeting local, trade-based businesses (plumbers, HVAC, roofers, etc.). Our primary outbound channel right now is Instagram DM.

​The Good:

Our initial hook is solid. We get a 7-10% reply rate on our first message, which is just a brief intro and a quick elevator pitch on how we can scale their leads.

​The Bottleneck:

Once they reply, the conversation completely derails or dies. Their initial responses usually fall into three buckets:

​A) "I'm interested"

​B) "How much?"

​C) "How does it work?"

​My Current Process & Where it Goes Wrong:

When they reply with one of those, I send over a brief explanation of our service along with screenshots of recent campaign KPIs to prove concept.

​From there, one of two things happens:

​The Ghost: They see the KPIs and just stop replying entirely.

​The Interrogation Loop: They say something like "Great," and then immediately turn the DM into a text-based interview.

They hit me with rapid-fire questions: "What's it cost?" "How long does it take?" "What's the ROI?" "What's the refund policy?" "Are there long-term contracts?" I answer, they ask another, and eventually, they get bored and ghost.

​The Goal:

I need to stop treating the DMs like a FAQ page and start converting these high-intent replies into discovery/booked phone calls.

​Where am I dropping the ball here? How do I handle the "How much / How does it work" gatekeeping in the DMs without giving away all the leverage and getting trapped in an endless interview loop?

​Appreciate any scripts, framework shifts, or advice you guys have.

Hey everyone,

​Looking for some advice from anyone running B2B agency outreach or selling to local service businesses.

​I run a PPC agency targeting local, trade-based businesses (plumbers, HVAC, roofers, etc.). Our primary outbound channel right now is Instagram DM.

​The Good:

Our initial hook is solid. We get a 7-10% reply rate on our first message, which is just a brief intro and a quick elevator pitch on how we can scale their leads.

​The Bottleneck:

Once they reply, the conversation completely derails or dies. Their initial responses usually fall into three buckets:

​A) "I'm interested"

​B) "How much?"

​C) "How does it work?"

​My Current Process & Where it Goes Wrong:

When they reply with one of those, I send over a brief explanation of our service along with screenshots of recent campaign KPIs to prove concept.

​From there, one of two things happens:

​The Ghost: They see the KPIs and just stop replying entirely.

​The Interrogation Loop: They say something like "Great," and then immediately turn the DM into a text-based interview.

They hit me with rapid-fire questions: "What's it cost?" "How long does it take?" "What's the ROI?" "What's the refund policy?" "Are there long-term contracts?" I answer, they ask another, and eventually, they get bored and ghost.

​The Goal:

I need to stop treating the DMs like a FAQ page and start converting these high-intent replies into discovery/booked phone calls.

​Where am I dropping the ball here? How do I handle the "How much / How does it work" gatekeeping in the DMs without giving away all the leverage and getting trapped in an endless interview loop?

​Appreciate any scripts, framework shifts, or advice you guys have.

Hey everyone,

​Looking for some advice from anyone running B2B agency outreach or selling to local service businesses.

​I run a PPC agency targeting local, trade-based businesses (plumbers, HVAC, roofers, etc.). Our primary outbound channel right now is Instagram DM.

​The Good:

Our initial hook is solid. We get a 7-10% reply rate on our first message, which is just a brief intro and a quick elevator pitch on how we can scale their leads.

​The Bottleneck:

Once they reply, the conversation completely derails or dies. Their initial responses usually fall into three buckets:

​A) "I'm interested"

​B) "How much?"

​C) "How does it work?"

​My Current Process & Where it Goes Wrong:

When they reply with one of those, I send over a brief explanation of our service along with screenshots of recent campaign KPIs to prove concept.

​From there, one of two things happens:

​The Ghost: They see the KPIs and just stop replying entirely.

​The Interrogation Loop: They say something like "Great," and then immediately turn the DM into a text-based interview.

They hit me with rapid-fire questions: "What's it cost?" "How long does it take?" "What's the ROI?" "What's the refund policy?" "Are there long-term contracts?" I answer, they ask another, and eventually, they get bored and ghost.

​The Goal:

I need to stop treating the DMs like a FAQ page and start converting these high-intent replies into discovery/booked phone calls.

​Where am I dropping the ball here? How do I handle the "How much / How does it work" gatekeeping in the DMs without giving away all the leverage and getting trapped in an endless interview loop?

​Appreciate any scripts, framework shifts, or advice you guys have.

The Setup:

Managing a contractor brand with 3 distinct locations. Each location is independently owned, managed, and paid for by 3 separate contractors, utilizing 3 separate Google Business Profiles.

​The Infrastructure:

All 3 profiles point to a single shared landing page. To establish distinct location signals, the top of the landing page clearly lists all 3 service locations along with their corresponding unique local phone numbers.

​The Issue:

​Location 1: The local owner repeatedly attempted automated verification (~20 times), hard-locking the profile. After a 5-week support battle, we finally managed to get a manual phone call with Google support to get it cleared.

​Location 2: Currently stuck. Automated verification options fail or are completely unavailable. It requires a manual review or phone/video verification, but the interface is hiding the option.

​Actions Taken So Far:

​Opened multiple support tickets explicitly requesting a phone/video verification callback.

​Posted the case details on the Google Business Profile Help Forum to find a Product Expert.

​Every automated response from support closes the ticket without routing to a live agent.

​The Question:

How do you reliably force or trigger the system to offer a manual review/phone call when the option is completely hidden in the dashboard? Are there specific support category routing combinations or escalation hooks that bypass the bot loop?

​

Hey everyone,

I come from a Meta Ads background and took on Google Ads for a trade-based service client (electrical) thinking the skills would carry over. They didn’t. I’m bleeding cash, the accounts are a mess, and I need straight answers to stabilize this before I lose the client.

The Setup (3 Campaigns for 3 Locations)

Budget: $80 - $150/day per campaign.

Bidding: Maximize Conversions.

Targeting: 20-mile radius.

Match Type: Switched back to 100% Broad Match yesterday after an attempt at Phrase/Exact choked all volume.

Tracking: No tracking pixel installed.The goal is phone calls, currently just trying to track conversions via the call button.

I checked the numbers today, and the three campaigns are completely fractured in different ways. Here are the exact stats right now:

Campaign 1 (The only one moving): 2.5k impressions | $188 spend | 3 phone calls.

Campaign 2 (The money pit):** 107 impressions | 5 clicks | $198 spend. (Google UI is throwing a generic "Detected issues" warning flag). That is a $40 CPC on local residential trades.

Campaign 3 (The flatline): 0 across the board. Spend is at $0. Google UI says "Conversion tracking setup is incomplete"—which makes no sense because the other two campaigns are running without this hard block. It seems to also have different settings than tbe other campaigns so I clearly messed something up.

The Background:

At launch, I set things up loosely and it actually pulled in a few calls a day. Then I tried to optimize based on standard advice (switching to Phrase/Exact match, trimming keywords). It choked the account for a week. I panicked, switched it back to Broad yesterday, and now I am looking at these metrics.

My Questions for the Pros:

1. The Max Conversions Trap: How can "Maximize Conversions" even function properly if there is no pixel or historical conversion data feeding the algorithm? Should I drop all of these to Max Clicks immediately to reset?

2. Campaign 2 ($40 CPC): What causes a local campaign to register a $40 CPC on 5 clicks with a "Detected issues" flag? Low Quality Score from chaotic broad match keywords?

3. Campaign 3 (The Block): Why is one campaign completely bricked by the "Conversion tracking incomplete" error while the other two are allowed to spend? How do I bypass this if we are only tracking call extensions/buttons?

Appreciate any brutal honesty or direct technical steps to stop the bleeding today.

FOLLOWUP QUESTION: Where should I go to learn accurate and up to date best practices for google ads? Asking AI is not working whatsoever.