The Hidden Electrical Niche Most Electricians Miss (But Pays 3X More)

Most electricians ignore controls and relay work—meanwhile, it’s the most profitable, low-competition opportunity sitting in your service area right now. In this episode, Leonard Parker exposes how to land high-value automation and controls jobs that lead to repeat business and B2B partnerships.

You’ll learn:

• Why most electricians are already qualified for controls work (but don’t market it)
• How to position yourself for relay jobs, automation upgrades, and industrial installs
• SEO and Google Business tricks that make you visible to facility managers
• How to use LinkedIn and partnerships to win projects without race-to-the-bottom pricing

If you’re tired of fighting for $150 service calls, this episode will show you how to break into a market that values your license and pays accordingly.

▶️ Watch the full episode on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/tqpxWazwnWQ

📝 Prefer to read it all? Check out the blog here:
https://destinymarketingsolutions.com/electrician/automation-controls-relays-jobs

📞 Want a game plan to win these overlooked jobs?
Book a Full Circuit Growth Audit here:
https://calendly.com/leonard-parker/full-circuit-growth-audit

Destiny Marketing Solutions specializes in marketing for electricians. Trusted by electrical contractors across the U.S., we help electricians grow through digital marketing—local SEO, local service ads, Google Ads, content, and automation.

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Transcript

Leonard Parker 0:00

Most electrical service companies are sitting on a gold mine and they don't even know it. While you're fighting for $150 service calls, there's a hidden category of working in your backyard that pays three times more, has almost zero competition, and customers are desperately searching for right now. I'm Leonard Parker from Destiny Marketing Solutions, and I'm about to show you the profit centers hiding in plain sight in your service area. But here's the controversial part that most electricians won't emit. You're already qualified to do this work. You just don't know how to position yourself to get it stick around because I've got an expert tip at the end that you could implement today to start capturing these high margin projects immediately. Let's talk about where the real money lives in electrical work. Controls and relays aren't some mysterious engineering specialty that's out of your reach. They're the backbone of every automated system running in your service area right now. Think about it, industrial panels, generators, HVAC systems, elevators, they all rely on relay logic to function. This isn't work that's reserved for integrators and engineers. Electricians are absolutely essential to these projects, but here's what's frustrating. These control projects are constantly overlooked by electrical service companies, even though they come with real hourly rates. That would make your standard residential work look like pocket change. The smart electrical service companies I work with use this niche to land repeat clients at plants and facilities because once you solve one controls problem for a facility manager, guess who they're calling for? The next upgrade, the next troubleshooting issue or the next expansion project. That's right. You become their go-to specialist. Here's the opportunity that's staring you in the face. Every building in your service area has automation equipment, but most electricians completely fail to market this capability. Right now. Manufacturers are actively looking for panel repair, relay wiring, and control upgrades. Facility managers are searching online for help. But when they search, they're not finding you. Why? Because most electrical service companies just list residential or commercial on their websites and completely miss these leads. Meanwhile, searches for relay panel electrician or motor control wiring are wide open in most markets. You're literally letting this work go to specialty vendors or engineer. Who charge premium rates, not because they're more qualified than you, but because they actually show up when people search for these services. Let me demystify what we're actually talking about here. Controls work includes troubleshooting, motor starter panels, installing control relay relays and HVAC or generator systems, upgrading outdated control cabinets and plants or warehouses. You're also looking at wiring, programmable timers, overload relays, and power supplies, and here's a big one, supporting automation retrofits and new builds alongside integrators. If you can wire a panel or breaker box, you can absolutely wire a control system. Yes, the components are different, but the fundamental skills are the same. You understand electrical safety. You can s schematics. You know how to terminate wires properly. The only difference is the application in how you position yourself in the market. Now, let's talk about why this matters to your bottom line. Facility managers pay a premium for fast troubleshooting of control failures. We're talking emergency rates because when a control system goes down, production stops. Integrators regularly outsource controls wiring at over $100 per hour. Labor markup. Plant managers often call the same trusted vendor for maintenance and upgrades, creating recurring revenue streams you can't get from residential service calls. Every control job becomes a door to long-term service contracts, and here's the beautiful part, you don't need new skills. Just better packaging and positioning of what you already know how to do. This work is consistently more profitable than chasing commodity electrical leads. I am gonna do a quick demo and I'm gonna show you exactly what's happening when potential customers search for these services. I'm going to do a live search for relay wiring service across. The Houston market and you'll see which companies are visible, what they're doing right and what's missing. We'll review how your competitors structure their Google business profiles and service pages, and the goal here is to show you how easy it is to rank by simply naming the work and using the right terms. If you're not showing up any searches, it's not a skill issue, it's a positioning issue. Buyers are searching, using your language. They're just not finding your current branding. So with that, I'm gonna flip over here to my other tab. And first let's start in Ahrefs. Ahrefs, if you've seen some of my previous videos it's my go-to SEO software tool, also like SEMrush. So if you're do it yourselfer highly recommend ah s or simr for your SEO research needs. However, with that, I wanted to take a quick look. So I did a. A quick search here before I started the video, and you can see the different searches that are happening every month. So we have electrical panel design. These are our list of keywords, and then the search volume SV here for short. That's the average monthly searches for that keyword. You can also see there's this other number, global search volume is at 2.1 K. So very, a very niche space. I would combine SEO with some other tactics that are more more appropriate for B2B, however. When it's a cold audience, they don't know you. One of the first places they're gonna go is a Google or Bing. And so you wanna make sure that you're present there in your market. So just looking at this, we can do a quick search for electrical panel design near me and also do a search for industrial electrical services. So let's start with that first one. Electrical panel design near me. So again, I'm in a Houston area. And you can see here AI has also hit this search. So we have the AI overview where Google's AI is recommending companies while them even having to search the user, even having to search. So it's recommending Gibson engineering, Willis Electrical and Automation Display. So something that's always interesting is that whatever. Websites listed here aren't necessarily the websites that are ranking at the top here at the traditional search results. So you have Houston Motor and Control. So that's nowhere up here in that Google AI overview snippet. But we do have Willis Electrical. So let's take a, let's take a look at what Willis is doing and notice how. Even before I get to their page, they're using relevant keywords and relevant location here in the title tag. So they're not even targeting Houston, they're targeting Texas. So what that tells me is that unlike other electrical specialties where. It gets even down to the area of the city, not just the city itself. With something like electrical panel design there aren't a lot of competitors out there. If they are, they're not really properly optimizing their SEO, so they're able to win a Houston search. With Texas. So if we click over to their page, custom control panels in Texas so you can see here using some very good keywords. So control panel manufacturer, it's not necessary to bold your keywords. For SEO it might help with the US usability of your side. Make it easier to read, but no, no reason to do so for SEO. But. You can see here, over and over, they're listing out control panels, custom control panels, electrical systems, and they have this list of different panels that they work with. So this is adds more relevant and ensures that whatever the user is searching related to electrical panel design their page is going to come up. So they're doing a great job with their content here. Yeah. Also they talk about benefits here. So that's also just a really good sales strategy on your pages. You just don't wanna sell what you do, but you also wanna sell that after state. So once that buyer comes to you and they work with you. What is that after state after it? So they, they're talking about safety, they're talking about precision performance. They're talking about support. So they offer those maintenance services that I mentioned earlier. And then they're also listing their certifications and they wrap up with a quote. Very well optimized page. So let's take a look at Willis Electrical. So I'll just do a Google search for them. So you can see here, so they're based here in Harris County, so they are based in Houston. So nothing special that they're doing with their Google business profile. In fact, they don't even have any reviews. And you can see they were ranking number two there. And also in the AI overview if you look at their. Profile description, however we get some re some ideas on why they're winning a search. So not only are they calling out control panel work on that page, they also have it here in their Google Business profile description. So you can see here we specialize in VFD applications. Explosion proof control panels and power distribution systems. So this is all very relevant to those types of searches. So they're doing a great job with their SEO. Now moving on to another search I wanted to take a look at. Industrial Electrician Services. So this is a broader search, not specific to control panels, but I want to see what this looks like in a different market. So Industrial Electrician Services, it is pulling up the local service ads, and I'm willing to bet that these companies that are bidding for this may not necessarily. Offer industrial electrician services. It's just the fact that electrician is in the search that I'm using and that's why they're showing up. So I think this is a different type of case where you have to scroll down to find what you're really looking for. And this is where someone might scroll down to the search result and skip the ads completely. But you can see here, number one, industrial electric services. So you can't be more optimized for the search to net. That's the actual company name industrial Electric Services. They provide commercial, electrical, and mechanical design build. We see it right here in their search. I think it's the GRA electric. So they're calling out industrial electrician right here in their title tag again, and then wrap it up with the third result, DVAs, I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. DVAs Electric. They're an industrial electrician. You'll see here if we continue to scroll down, we see different. Variations of industrial electrical services. Sometimes they'll use commercial electrician, but I'm willing to bet if Barra, if they, if industrial is a priority service category, if they were to add industrial electrician here somewhere in their title tag, that's really going to help them improve in a search ranking here and continue to go down more industrial electrical. I won't go too deep with this, but it just shows you how. A electrical service company who offers these types of services. If you just tell Google and users what you offer, and it doesn't take long, this is probably a weak project. You will have more visibility when people are searching. Now I'm gonna scroll over back to my slide deck. We're gonna go do the rest of the content here. Now, how do you start building your credibility in this space? Here's how you start. You capture. By capturing work immediately, you can post project photos of relay panels and control wiring on your website. We saw that with the screen share example. Even if it's just part of a larger job you've done, you want to showcase that component. You want to add phrases like motor control, wiring, relay repair in industrial panels to your Google business profile. Like we saw with Willis Electrical. You want to create a dedicated landing page for control and relay services. I mentioned that this is more of a B2B play. A homeowner is probably not looking for an industrial electrician. So you want to join LinkedIn groups. LinkedIn is going to be your playground for any type of B2B marketing. So join LinkedIn groups for control integrators and facility engineers. Add UL five zero. A knowledge or a PLC cabinet support in your service copy. You're probably already doing this work as part of other projects. Now you need to make it findable so facility managers and plant engineers can discover you. You also want to leverage your electrical license for fast trust. That's your competitive advantage that no one talks about. Controls work still requires permits, compliance and electrical sign-off. Engineers or automation techs can't pull permits or approve installs alone. Most project managers prefer to hand this work off to licensed electricians because they know it'll be done right, and meet code requirements. That gives you leverage over integrators and low visibility freelancers. Who can't provide that level of assurance. You want to bundle the install, the sign off, and troubleshooting services to increase your job size and your value proposition. Your electrical license is your competitive moat in this space. Used it strategically. You wanna find partners who already need you, and this is a strategy that can fill your calendar. Local automation integrators constantly need wiring partners. Generator installers often sub out relay work to license electricians, HVAC companies call electricians for control board or relay installs. Plant managers don't want to deal with multiple vendors. They want one reliable partner. They can trust for all their electrical and controls needs. Use LinkedIn or email outreach to position yourself as the relay and control specialist. You don't have to win the entire project. Just win the partnership. These relationships can provide steady referral work that keeps your team busy during slower periods. You also want to market the way facility buyers think. And this point is crucial. Facility managers and plant engineers don't search for electrician. They search for a relay panel repair or motor control tech. They want someone who can show up, troubleshoot efficiently and not cause more downtime. They care about terms like UL 5 0 8 A 24 VDC, laterally and ladder logic. They expect technical literacy and examples in your marketing, not just license and insured. Most of your competitors are invisible in this niche. Even if they're capable of doing the work, match their language, speak to their pain points, and position yourself as the obvious choice when they need help. And this is where we come in and we can help you own this niche in your market. We audit your website and online visibility for controls and automation keywords. We rewrite your service pages to speak directly to technical and B2B buyers. We create content that re deposition you As the regional expert, we run targeted ads to high value partners like integrators and facility managers. It's more on the LinkedIn side of things. Most importantly, we build a system that attracts higher paying. Less price sensitive clients who value expertise over the lowest bid. We don't just get you leads, we get you in the rooms where real budgets are made. And this is why we created the full circuit growth Method. The full Circuit growth method helps electrical service companies dominate, overlooked niches like controls and relays by turning their expertise into a visibility engine. From SEO and positioning to lead nurturing and partnership outreach, we systematize the path from one time installs to high margin contracts. This takes you from a lack of qualified leads. All the way to your dream outcome through getting found by the right customers, converting more leads into projects, and knowing exactly what's working. Let me ask you this, do you have any mentions of control panels or relay work on your website or Google business profile? Are you only ranking for generic electrician near me searches when facility managers or integrators search for help? Are you showing up? We audit your copy, positioning, visibility, and strategy to fix that. Immediately, you'll walk away with a specific playbook to win controls work in your market, book your full circuit growth audit, and start showing up where the real work lives. We help electricians win more control relay, and automation jobs without chasing low margin leads. This is where the real money lives in electrical work. Get visible and go get it. To wrap things up, here's that expert tip I promise. Create a service page title, control panel, and relay wiring, and also add your target market. If you're in a Dallas for Worth area at Dallas Fort Worth, or DFW, somewhere in that title, you on that page, you want to add control related terms like relay replacement, motor starters and troubleshooting industrial panels. Include photos of any panel work you've done, mention any integrator experience, and update your Google business profile and LinkedIn company page. And if you don't have one, create one. You want to update these profiles and pages with controls and automation services. Run a small test campaign targeting facility managers in your area. LinkedIn offers a great feature with their advertising called sponsor messaging where you can reach out. Two people who have facility manager in their job LinkedIn profile. And you can actually target people who are actually, who are the decision makers who make the buying decisions for plants and facilities in your area. And of course, you can layer on top of that location targeting. So whatever your service area may be, you can target that area and all of the facility managers in it. And keep in mind that. This is a B2B place. So unless it's an emergency, it's very likely that they are going to want to build that relationship over time. So you wanna have an omnichannel approach, or perhaps maybe they first find you on Google or Bing or LinkedIn. Maybe you have some type of content asset that you can send them, and that could simply be a portfolio of your projects all in a nice PDF email that. And then you can continue to nurture that relationship over time. But nevertheless these changes can start gen generating leads within weeks. So hopefully this has been helpful, but I'm Leonard Parker from Destiny Marketing Solutions. Remember, the system is the solution. Let's build yours like this video if it opened your eyes to the opportunity in your backyard, and I'll see you in the next one.