Today we’d like to introduce you to Zachary Hoppaugh.
Hi Zachary, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
So my background isn’t marketing at all. I spent 14 years in restaurants. Started as a busboy and worked my way up to general manager. That’s where I learned how a business actually runs, managing people, dealing with pressure, and figuring out what makes a customer want to come back.
Eventually I burned out on it. And like a lot of people who burn out on a grind, I got pulled into the whole make money online world. Affiliate stuff, MLM, all the systems that promise the world and mostly deliver nothing. I lost some time and some money there, I’ll be honest.
But the part that actually stuck with me was running Meta ads and creating content. That’s when I taught myself video editing, and that’s what got me my first client. They hired me for the video side, but then they needed a website, and funnels, and landing pages built. So I figured that out too.
That first client kind of snowballed into more, mostly for social media management. And for a while that was the business. But I kept hitting the same problem. Social media is the hardest thing to tie directly to revenue. So I’d have a client for a few months, everyone’s happy with the work, but the second they needed to cut costs, the social media was the easiest thing to cut. It just made sense for them. Hard to argue with.
So I started steering toward the things that actually connect to money. Websites, ads, funnels, SEO. Stuff a business owner can look at and actually see where the leads are coming from.
And somewhere in there I kept ending up working with home service contractors. Landscapers, tree services, cleaners, that world. They turned out to be my favorite people to work with. Part of it is I came from operations, so I get how their business runs. But the bigger thing is the more I worked with them, the more I realized they’re the ones getting taken advantage of the most. Agencies overpromise them, lock them into contracts, and disappear. So I leaned all the way into that.
That’s pretty much how I ended up here. Still figuring it out as I go, but that’s the whole idea behind it.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No, definitely not smooth. Honestly it still isn’t, and I think anyone who tells you their road was smooth is leaving parts out.
That make money online phase I mentioned was a real low point. I put time and money into things that went nowhere, and there’s a stretch where you start to wonder if you’re just not cut out for any of it.
Then even once I was doing real client work, the social media side was rough in a way I didn’t see coming. The work itself was fine, but the income was unpredictable. I’d land a client, feel good about it, and a few months later they’d cut the social media to save money and I honestly couldn’t blame them. So I was constantly rebuilding. It’s hard to feel stable when the thing you sell is the first thing people cut when times get tight.
The other big one, and this is still something I work on, is charging what the work is actually worth. When you’re solo and hungry, it’s really easy to undercharge just to land the client. I did that for a long time. Learning to say a real number and stand behind it took me way longer than it should have.
And then there’s just the reality of doing everything myself. I’m the sales guy, the one doing the work, the support, all of it. Some weeks that feels like freedom and some weeks it’s a lot. There’s no team to cover for you on an off day.
But the struggles are basically what pushed me toward the way I run things now. Every one of them taught me something about what to actually sell and how to do this. So I wouldn’t trade them, even the ones that stung.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
The business is Zachary Hoppaugh LLC, but really it’s just me. I help home service contractors get more calls and booked jobs. Landscapers, tree services, roofers, cleaners, that world. The actual work is websites, SEO, Google, and Meta ads, the stuff that ties directly to a phone actually ringing.
The biggest thing that sets me apart is I’m not an agency. When you hire a lot of these companies, you get handed to an account manager who skimmed your file five minutes before the call, and the person from the sales pitch is never the person doing the work. With me, you talk to me and I do the work. That’s the whole thing.
A few things I hold to no matter what. It’s month to month, no long contracts, so you stay because it’s working and not because you’re stuck. You own everything from day one, the website, the domain, all of it, nothing held hostage if you ever want to walk. And I only work with home services. I’m not trying to be everything to everybody. I know the margins, the seasonality, and what actually makes a contractor’s customer pick up the phone.
The thing I’ve been most into lately is a couple of tools I built to take the guessing out of all this. One scans a contractor’s Google visibility across their whole service area and shows them on a map exactly where they show up and where they’re invisible. Most of them have no idea they’re basically missing from half the towns they serve. The other one audits their website in about 30 seconds and tells them, in plain English, what’s quietly costing them jobs. And when a client needs something more specific, I’ll build them a custom system for their exact situation.
I built those because contractors get sold a lot of vague promises, and I wanted to show them something real instead. That’s kind of the whole brand. These are people who keep everything running and they get taken advantage of constantly, so I try to be the straight, no games version. Results over reports. And you can actually hold me accountable, because there’s only one person to hold accountable.
That’s what I want people to know. It’s not fancy, but it works, and it’s honest.
What matters most to you? Why?
Results, honestly. When a client actually gets more calls and books more jobs, that’s the thing that makes me happy. Everything else is kind of noise.
It’s not just a nice thing to say either. It’s basically the whole reason my business looks the way it does. I spent years doing work that was hard to tie to any real outcome, and it never felt good, for me or the client. So now the only thing I really care about is whether their phone is ringing more than it was before.
I’ve had a few where it really hits home. One startup I’ve been working with got so busy he’s honestly close to leaving his regular job to go all in on his business. That’s the stuff that gets me. It’s not a number on a dashboard, it’s someone’s actual life changing because the work worked.
And a lot of that comes down to who these clients are. They’re real people running real businesses, and when their marketing actually does something, it matters to them. That’s worth way more to me than sending a nice looking report. So yeah, results. That’s the whole thing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://zacharyhoppaugh.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zachary.hoppaugh/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091934558810
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachary-hoppaugh/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@zachary.hoppaugh
- Other: https://hophq.ai
