To fix a few holes in the plaster walls we had at our home, I posted an ad on Craigslist. I took the time to measure the holes and describe what I wanted. I was a little surprised at the amount of responses. It was tough to decide who to pick out of all of the responses and make a decision, based on the limited information I got via email. Here are a few of the things I thought may be helpful for contractors responding to ads.

1. Use correct grammar and punctuation.

I couldn’t believe how many of the responses had spelling and grammatical errors. I posted an ad stressing how important it was to have the job done right, so the chances I would use a someone who couldn’t even write an email without speling and grammar errors are virtually nil. Like I said, the information I had to choose between respondents was very limited, so why would you screw up the little chance you had to make an impression?

2. Don’t respond if you can’t meet the price.

For all of the Craigslist ads we’ve posted for work, we’ve had numerous people offer to do the job for less. So, if you are quoting a price higher than what was posted, include a comment that you think the price offered was a little high, and you were worried they wouldn’t get any respondents, and what you think would be a fair price.  Otherwise, if you are quoting a price higher than the one posted, include a good reason (you have 35 years of experience, you’ve won awards, you will go above and beyond what the ad requested, etc.).

3. Read the ad before responding.

I had a few people ask details, such as what the size of the holes were, that were already in the ad. I did not respond to those ads. If you are too sloppy to read the ad you are responding to, I don’t want you fixing my house.

4. Be careful when clarifying questions.

I took a decent amount of time writing the ad, to make sure I was on the right page with the respondent from the start. I outlined who would pay for materials (them), and provided as much information as I could. I had plenty of people responding with various questions, which I didn’t feel like answering, because there were plenty of people responding, that weren’t asking questions. To clarify, many of the questions asked details like, “what is the texture of the walls?” I can understand asking these questions if my ad read something like “looking for someone to fix two holes in my walls”, but not if its a detailed post. Sometimes you need to take calculated risks, and avoid asking inconsequential questions.

5. Have a website (or Facebook link, or LinkedIn link, or something).

So, trying to make a decision based on limited information is hard, and worrying, since the person needs to come into my house, I wanted some sort of assurance. I’m not expecting anyone to get their own domain, maybe just setup a blog at blogger.com, or Squidoo, post a few pages and some information about yourself. Show your customers that you have done some work in the past, and remove some of the doubts a potential customer would have in their head about you. I would think even a Facebook or LinkedIn profile would at least show people that you are at least normal enough to have Facebook friends.

So, that’s most of what I was able to learn from my Craigslist encounter. Although I picked someone without a website, I did pick someone with a contractors number that started up. It was difficult and a bit overwhelming to pick one out of the 40+ respondents I had, based on the fact that most of the responses were 2-line emails. Hopefully this helps out some of the others who are trying to get gigs from Craigslist.