Unlocking 150 Leads With LinkedIn for Restorers

This week, I sat down with Whitney, founding team member and now leader at Tier Level Digital Marketing, a firm focused on digital marketing for home services businesses. She wasn’t the founder, she was employee number one, hired while still in college and originally planning a career in medicine.

Whitney was on track for PA school, and had even been wait listed, when a health issue forced her to pause those plans. What started as one of several college jobs turned into a career, and she was promoted to COO by the time she was 24, growing alongside the company from 11 clients to a few hundred.

We covered why storytelling matters so much for restoration companies, how LinkedIn has become an unexpected growth channel for home services businesses, the biggest mistake owners make about digital marketing, and how AI has changed the way her agency operates.

The Key Takeaways

Below are the most essential insights from my conversation with Whitney that you can apply to your home services business today.

1. From Pre-Med to Founding Team Member

Whitney was in college working toward medical school when she took a job at Tier Level, one of several jobs she held at the time. She wasn’t the founder, but she was the company’s first employee, and what began as a side job turned into the career that shaped her twenties.

“I wasn’t the founder of Tier Level Digital Marketing, but I was the first employee. So founding team member for sure. I was actually in college, trying to go to medical school when I started working at Tier Level.”

— Whitney

2. A Health Scare Redirected Her Career

Whitney had been promoted to COO by age 24 and was wait listed for PA school when her health took a turn. She planned to take a short break from the medical school track, but instead found a real passion for marketing while working through it, and never went back.

“I ended up getting promoted to COO by the time I was like 24, and I was wait listed for PA school, and then my health kind of took a turn. So I was like, okay, I’ll take a break from the medical school thing for a bit. But I actually found a really great passion for marketing.”

— Whitney

3. Growing From 11 Clients to a Few Hundred

Whitney has watched Tier Level grow from just 11 clients to a few hundred, and says the work still lets her help people, just in a different way than the hospital career she once imagined. Now she helps home services owners grow their businesses instead of caring for patients directly.

“I’ve got to witness growing from 11 clients to a few hundred, and being able to still really help people even though I’m not in a hospital taking care of them. I’m helping them grow their business.”

— Whitney

4. Storytelling Sells Restoration Better Than Anything Else

Whitney says most people have no idea what restoration work actually looks like until they need it, which means many homeowners are blindsided by the process, like having walls cut out before reconstruction begins. Her advice for organic content is to tell the full story, from flooded and damaged to fully restored.

“Nobody really knows what restoration is until they need it. It’s really about storytelling for the owners and the businesses in the space, like how did you make this home or business go from flooded with five feet of water to looking new again?”

— Whitney

5. LinkedIn Is an Underrated Channel for Home Services

Whitney sees LinkedIn as especially valuable for owners trying to move into commercial work, connecting them with property managers, insurance companies, and government contracts. She shared a story about a client who copied one of her team’s draft caption ideas, quotation marks included, and still landed 150 likes, proof that even minimal effort on LinkedIn can pay off.

“You just would be so surprised at just being on LinkedIn in such a minimal way can put people in front of you that you would have never known without someone saying, hey, you should really try to focus on LinkedIn.”

— Whitney

6. Digital Marketing Is Not a Quick Fix, and Not the Full Solution

Whitney says the biggest mistake owners make is assuming digital marketing will solve their growth problems fast. Many clients arrive without any broader marketing strategy in place, expecting Tier Level to be a complete solution rather than one piece of a larger sales and marketing effort.

“One of the biggest mistakes that owners make is just thinking that digital marketing is a quick fix. We can be a piece of this solution, but we’re not the full solution, because marketing is not just digital marketing.”

— Whitney

7. AI Is Making Her Team More Efficient, Not Replacing It

Tier Level was an early adopter of AI tools, and Whitney credits that head start with helping the team learn how to prompt effectively rather than just use AI casually. She’s used AI to help write unique content at scale for the couple hundred franchise clients the agency works with, but doesn’t see it replacing her team, just making them more efficient.

“I don’t necessarily see AI replacing team members. I more so see it as making our team a bit more efficient and helping us grow in terms of our education, because digital marketing, everything’s always changing.”

— Whitney

Looking Ahead

Whitney says Tier Level is looking to expand further into private practice healthcare marketing, a natural extension given her own background and something she’d love to keep growing. It gives her team new industries to write for and more room to keep learning how digital marketing works outside of home services.

“We’ve worked a bit with private practice healthcare, and that’s something that I would definitely love to continue working into in terms of expanding our services and the businesses that we serve.”

— Whitney