Is my area free? How exclusive areas work for tradesmen

“Is my area free?” is one of the first questions almost every tradesperson asks me, usually before they ask anything else. It’s a fair question. If I’m running ads for you and for the roofer down the road, I’m working against you. So here’s exactly how it works, including the bits it doesn’t cover.

What counts as your area

Your area is a list of towns: the places you actually want work from and would happily drive to for a quote. We agree it by town names before anything goes live, not by drawing a circle on a map and hoping it fits.

It should be big enough to bring in steady work and small enough that you can get to every enquiry. If you’d never price a job in a town, it shouldn’t be in your area, because every enquiry from there is one you’ll turn down.

What “exclusive” covers

• One business per trade. We don’t take on another business in your trade in your area. If you’re the roofer there, you’re the only roofer we run ads for there.
• Your name on everything. The ads run from your page, so the homeowner asks you for a quote, not a website that passes them round.
• Every enquiry to you alone. Nobody else gets the same person’s details from us.
• Google Ads too. If we run Google Ads for you, it’s the same rule: we never run them for another business in your trade in your towns, so we’re never bidding against you for your own customers.

Exclusivity is per trade, so a roofer, a driveway firm and a tree surgeon can all have the same town. They aren’t after the same customers.

What it doesn’t cover

I’d rather be straight about this than have you find out later. An exclusive area is a promise about what we do. It doesn’t stop other firms advertising themselves in your town, and it doesn’t stop a homeowner asking two or three people for a quote.

That’s why the first few minutes still matter. Every enquiry gets an instant text in your name, but the job usually goes to whoever rings back, turns up and gets the quote out while the customer is still keen. In the six lead reviews where we counted it exactly, 72 of 236 real enquiries never replied to anything, so following up is where a lot of work is won or lost.

Why we keep it to one per trade

If we ran ads for two roofers in the same towns, the same homeowner could see both, enquire with both and get two calls. Both roofers would win fewer of their enquiries. Keeping each area to one business per trade means your ads never compete with ours for someone else.

It’s also why tradespeople value their area. One roofer put it like this:

If some one said Peter I’ll give [you] 20 grand for [your] areas … I [would] say no

Peter, roofer, Blackpool · WhatsApp, 11 Feb 2026, 14:00

How to check if your area is free

Message Nick on WhatsApp with your trade and the towns you work in. He’ll check and tell you straight. We don’t publish a list of who has which area, because that’s our clients’ business, not ours to share.

If your area is free, Nick will tell you what to expect there and the full price. If another business in your trade already has it, he’ll tell you that too, and which nearby towns are still free.

Holding an area, and letting it go

Asking doesn’t hold an area, because otherwise areas would sit empty while people think it over. Once you’ve said yes, Nick holds it for you while you get set up.

Lead Wave is month to month with no contract. If you stop, the area doesn’t sit reserved in your name. It’s free again for the next business in your trade.