A welding shop finds customers by naming 25 businesses that break things or build things, and sending each the same short rate card for emergency repairs. This page follows one fictional shop through 30 days: who it listed, what it emailed, what came back, and the revenue that resulted. The numbers are illustrative, but the arithmetic is real, so you can swap in your own rates and see what a month would look like for you.

Rocketship finds business buyers, so this plan sells to contractors, manufacturers and farms, not to homeowners with a broken gate. The shop is made up: Tallgrass Fabrication in Wichita, Kansas, with three welders, a service truck, a 6,000 square foot shop, and a slow month ahead. The owner, Dale Hutchins, wants two things: emergency repair calls from businesses that pay the same week, and a standing order that keeps one welder busy.

The shop and the goal

Dale's slow weeks happen after a big job ends and before the next starts. His goals for 30 days: 25 buyers contacted, at least 3 quotes sent, at least one emergency call, and one standing order signed. He sets his rates before he writes anything: emergency call-out $185 (covers the truck and first 30 minutes), $95 an hour for a welder, 1.5 times that after 6 p.m. and on weekends, materials at cost plus 15 percent. A standing order is 10 hours a month reserved at $85 an hour, billed monthly whether used or not, with a same-day response.

Week 1: 25 buyers listed by name across three groups

Dale splits the list so each group gets its own wording. Ten general contractors and steel erectors, picked from commercial permits and the city's bid notices (people: project managers and superintendents). Eight manufacturers and food plants with equipment that runs daily (people: maintenance managers and plant managers). Seven agricultural dealers and grain elevators within 60 miles (people: owners and service managers). For a group like the second, the right person is the one who gets called at 2 a.m. when a line stops, which is usually the maintenance manager. See how to find general contractors to sell to and getting clients as a general contractor for how the first group thinks.

Dale builds the list in a sheet: company, person, title, trigger (a permit, a new line, harvest season), email, phone. It takes him about 6 hours. With Rocketship the same step is a description of the buyer, 25 names shown before spending a lead, and the emails go from his own Gmail. Either way, a name beats a generic address.

Week 2: the rate-card email and first calls

Subject: Same-day welding repair rates for Prairie Grain's loadout

Hi Wes, I'm Dale Hutchins at Tallgrass Fabrication in Wichita. When a conveyor frame or a gate cracks in the middle of harvest, here's what I charge so you can plan: $185 call-out, $95 an hour, materials at cost plus 15 percent. After 6 p.m., 1.5 times the hourly. We keep one truck ready for same-day calls inside 60 miles. If you'd like a standing arrangement, 10 hours a month reserved is $85 an hour. I can stop by this week to look at what's most likely to break first.

Dale Hutchins, Tallgrass Fabrication, dale@tallgrassfab.example, 4410 S Hydraulic, Wichita, KS 67216. Reply "stop" to end these emails.

Dale changes the first sentence for each group: for erectors he writes about handrail, stair and embed plate fabrication and lead times; for manufacturers, about line-stop repairs. Then he calls the ten plant managers the same afternoon, because maintenance people often answer the phone but not email. Calls take 40 minutes for ten. Cold email needs an honest From line and subject, a physical address and an opt-out (CAN-SPAM). For wording on the call, see how to follow up on a quote.

Week 3: emergency calls and site visits

Five of the 25 reply or call back by Wednesday. Two ask for the rate card to go in a vendor file. One, a grain dealer, calls on Thursday morning: a loadout conveyor frame cracked and a truck is waiting. Dale's crew arrives at 10:40. The job is $185 call-out, 6 hours at $95 ($570) and $240 of steel and consumables: $995, paid by check on delivery. He also walks two sites that week and takes photos of worn items: a plant's hopper support and an erector's laydown yard.

Week 4: quotes and standing orders

Dale sends three quotes. A steel erector wants 14 sets of stair stringers and handrails: Dale quotes $6,800 including powder coat, lead time 3 weeks. A manufacturer asks for a replacement guard frame at $2,150. A third asks for pricing on a monthly retainer. Follow-up rule: a call two business days after each quote, then one more at day 7. The erector accepts. The guard frame goes to another shop. The retainer is signed at 10 hours a month, $850.

What the month brought in

  • Buyers listed: 25. Emails sent: 25. Phone calls: 10.
  • Replies: 5. Site visits: 2. Quotes: 3.
  • Won: one emergency repair ($995), one fabrication order ($6,800), one standing order ($850 a month, starting next month).
  • Revenue in month one: $995 + $6,800 = $7,795. Recurring from month two: $850.
  • Lost: the $2,150 guard frame.

Cost: roughly 6 hours of list-building, 4 hours of emails and calls, 8 hours of quotes and visits. Roughly 18 hours of Dale's time, or $433 of revenue per hour of selling time. These are the numbers for one illustrative shop and one lucky month. Don't expect 5 replies from 25 every time. A realistic range is 2 to 6 replies, and the first month is for finding out which group answers. In this example, it was ag and fabrication; the manufacturers mostly said "we have a shop."

Copy the rate card, change the groups

Copy: the written rate card, the split by group, a call within a day of each email for groups that answer phones, and the standing order offer. Change: the groups. If your region has food plants or oil and gas, those replace ag. If you only weld on site, drop the shop-heavy lines. Keep a log: company, person, group, date emailed, reply, quote value, result. After 60 days, double the groups that replied. Also see estimate follow-up for contractors for the quote step, and the neighboring trade pages demolition contracts and paintless dent repair customers for other B2B shop plans.

The list and the follow-up are the parts Rocketship does while you weld. Rocketship finds the buyers, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, and books the meeting on its own. Plans that get you customers start at $24.99 a month (Launch), and both Launch and Frontier start with a 7-day free trial, card required. Answering your existing number works on Launch, with call minutes bought as you go ($15 for 50), and a dedicated line is $5 a month. See the AI workers.