We explain getting hired from the owner’s side of the truck.

Protocol publishes stories for people who run service businesses: lawn care, cleaning, tile, HVAC, plumbing, painting, pressure washing, detailing, and the rest. Not for marketers. Every story is about one question: how does a good local business get found, trusted, and hired, now that the way people search has changed.

What Verified means

The Registry is a list of service businesses we vouch for, each with a full profile. Verified means verified by us. A business is Verified when three things are true:

• We interviewed the owner, in person or on the phone.
• We have seen the work: the jobs, the reviews, the customers.
• The business is real, independently owned, and does what it says it does. We would send a friend there, and we say why on the profile.

The stamp Verified by Protocol is not a rating and it is not paid placement. It is earned through the interview, and any service business can apply for one. Being a Protocol customer is not required and does not get anyone on the list. The reasons are written down on every profile, with a date.

Why a third-party stamp matters: every referral gets checked online before the call, and a business saying it is good is noise. A third party that has met the owner, seen the work, and put its name on the line is a signal people can act on. The stamp links back to the profile, so anyone can read the reasons.

See the Registry.

Who writes this

Protocol, a small company in Lincoln, Nebraska, publishes this site. Protocol also makes a marketing product for service businesses. We think it helps, and it lives at protocoltext.com if you want to look. The stories and the Registry stand on their own: nobody gets a profile or a story for being a customer, and nobody is kept out for not being one.

Photos

Photos on stories and profiles come from Unsplash photographers, credited on each image, unless a business supplied its own.

Corrections and tips

If a number is wrong or a story missed something, tell us here. If you run a service business with a story worth telling, same place.