The math page leads with $34k to $62k in new work a year from one more call a week. A number that size deserves skepticism, so here is the work: every input, both chains, and the two places where your numbers replace ours.
Start with the job
The model stands on one input: what an average job is worth. We use $4,000, the national average price of an excavation job (HomeAdvisor, 2026). HomeAdvisor's measured range runs $1,658 to $6,709, and foundations, basements, and septic work often run $5,000 to $15,000.
We hold it at $4,000 anyway. A conservative input means the output survives contact with your real books. If your average job runs higher, so does everything below.
The booking chain
In home services, 63% of answered new-customer calls book an appointment (Service Direct, 2019). From there, the model assumes 50% of booked site visits turn into signed work. That figure is ours, not a study’s, and it’s flagged that way on purpose. If you know your own close rate, use it instead.
Book rate, times sign rate, times the job: about $1,260 of expected work riding on each answered new-customer call.
The close chain
Now run it a second way, from a different dataset. In home services, 37% of answered calls are qualified leads, and 46% of those convert on the call itself (Invoca, 2025). This chain counts every answered call, not only the new-customer ones, so it lands lower: about $680 per answered call.
Two independent datasets, two different chains, one neighborhood. That convergence is what makes the range defensible: $700 to $1,300 of expected work rides on every answered new-customer call.
Your number goes here
Here is where we stop and you start. There is no credible industry figure for how many calls a contractor misses. Several float around, and they failed fact-checking, so we don’t quote them. The count that matters is yours: the rings that hit voicemail while you were in the cab, the 6 PM call you didn’t see until 9.
Whatever that count is, every call you capture carries the per-call value above. Capture one more a week and the year looks like this:
Benchmarks, not promises
Every figure here is measured in adjacent home-services and local-business data, not in excavation specifically, because no study measures excavation directly. Treat them as industry benchmarks, not a promise about your shop. The dollar model uses a conservative $4,000 job and your own call volume, the two inputs to replace with your real numbers. And one more piece of straight talk: we don't close your jobs, you do. Our work ends when the site visit is on your calendar and the transcript proves it got there.Every source behind the model is cited on the math page. If an input feels wrong for your shop, good: that’s the model working. Bring your average job and your real call count, and run it again with us.