The Plan · Marigold Home Cleaning · 13 June 2026

Six gates and phases, in order, sized to your real week

How to use this document

This is the companion to the book — the same 90-day argument, turned into tasks you can tick off. It runs in order: two gates first (get the keys, then fix the five things that quietly cost you trust), then the four build phases. The first day costs about 95 minutes of Renata's time and unblocks everything else.

The gates are gates. A phase below a gate does not start until the gate above it is green — out-of-order work wastes the work that follows it. Every task names an owner, an estimate in minutes, the day to do it, and exactly where to do it. Tasks that have a "why" link back to the chapter that argues for them.

If you only do one thing today: finish Phase −1 (≈45 min) so the developer can start the booking flow tomorrow. Nothing converts until someone can actually edit the site and take a card.

GATE

Phase −1 — Access & ownership

Day 1 · ≈45 min · once

Nothing below starts until this is done. The old site had a promo code (SPARKLE25) that expired and started erroring at checkout because no one could log in to turn it off — own the access first so a known defect can never sit live for a season again.

Confirm Renata can log in to the site CMS and edit a page (change one word, save, undo).Renata · 10 min
Confirm the payment account (the card processor) is in Marigold's name and you can see its dashboard. This is the account the booking flow charges against.Renata · 10 min
Confirm you control the domain marigoldhome.co (you can reach the registrar login) and the analytics account.Renata · 10 min
Name the one developer who will build the booking flow in Phase 1, and give them CMS + payment-test access. One named person, not "a freelancer we'll find."Renata · 10 min
Write down today's three baseline numbers (see the 30-day check at the bottom) before anything changes.Renata · 5 min

Where: CMS → Settings → Users (confirm your login) · Payment processor → Dashboard · Registrar → Domains

Why this first → Ch. 4 · The two gates the plan is built around

GATE

Phase 0 — Five credibility fixes (live defects only)

Day 1–2 · ≈50 min · once

These five things are live on the site right now and each one manufactures distrust at the worst moment. They are not redesign — they are stopping the bleeding. Do them before any new build, because a beautiful new flow behind a broken promo popup still loses the buyer.

Kill the on-load "$25 off" popup. The SPARKLE25 code expired last season and now errors at checkout — it interrupts your most ready buyers and then breaks in front of them. Remove the modal entirely; do not "fix the code."Developer · 15 min
Make the phone number and contact form actually work and actually answered. Test that a form submission arrives in an inbox someone reads today. Until booking ships, this is your only capture — it cannot be silently broken.Renata · 10 min
Move one true line — "Insured & bonded · W-2 team · background-checked · 24-hr re-clean guarantee" — out of the footer and under the hero headline as plain text. The full trust-bar comes in Phase 2; this is the stopgap so the most expensive asset isn't invisible for a month.Renata · 10 min
Walk every page and click every link. Fix or remove anything that 404s, any "coming soon," any stale price, any phone number that isn't yours.Renata · 10 min
Confirm the site loads over HTTPS with no browser security warning (the padlock). A "not secure" flag next to a form asking for a home address ends the visit.Developer · 5 min

Where: CMS → Pages (remove the popup component sitewide) · CMS → Home → Hero (add the trust line) · CMS → Forms (test a submission)

Why these five → Ch. 1 · D5 and D6, the avoidable wounds · Ch. 1 · D3, the buried trust story

Access gate

Phase 1 — Booking + instant price

Weeks 1–3 · fixes D1, D2, D5

The one phase that is non-negotiably first. It is done when a buyer who has never spoken to Marigold can see a real price and confirm a clean without a phone call. Until then, every other improvement just qualifies demand the site can't capture.

Phase 1 tasks The developer owns the build; Renata owns the pricing decisions and the test. "Day" is the target day within the phase.

Task	Owner	Min	Day
Set the flat per-visit prices to publish: $129 weekly · $149 every-2-weeks · $189 monthly · ~$329 one-time deep clean, with the "price you see is the price you pay" line. Decide the larger-home and first-deep-clean rules.	Renata	45	1
Build the `book.html` 60-second self-serve flow: home size → frequency → date → card on file, $0 charged today. Reuse and enlarge the `.quote-card` from the home page into the multi-step form.	Developer	—	2–9
Add the instant-price quote-card to the hero of every page, defaulting to every-2-weeks (the high-value plan), so the price is on screen before any form.	Developer	—	9–12
Publish the flat-pricing tables on a `pricing` view, larger homes resolving to an exact number inside the flow.	Developer	60	10
Change the primary call to action everywhere from "Contact us" to "See your price & book."	Renata	20	11
Test a full booking end to end with a real card, confirm $0 charges today, the booking lands in your calendar, and the confirmation email reads warm and clear.	Renata	30	14

Where: CMS → Pages → New page "Book" · CMS → Components → Quote card → set default frequency = Every 2 weeks · CMS → Navigation → Primary button → label + link to /book

Why the price goes on the hero, not behind a form

"Call for a quote" reads as "we'll size you up." The busy professional who would happily pay $149 to never think about it again reads opacity as a red flag. A real number on screen turns hesitation into a booking before the impulse cools.

The number that proves it: share of sessions that reach a priced quote; first self-serve bookings with no callback. · Why → Ch. 1 · D1, the buyer cannot buy · Ch. 4 · What the rebuilt site does

Credibility gate

Phase 2 — Surface the trust

Weeks 3–6 · fixes D3, D6

Once a buyer can book, this decides whether they do. The point is mechanical, not decorative: with trust sitting at the moment of commitment, the flow stops competing on price — the one ground where a $10-cheaper app wins. Starts only after the Phase 1 access gate is green.

Phase 2 tasks Trust must sit in the booking path, not on a separate About page nobody reaches before deciding.

Task	Owner	Min	Day
Build the persistent trust-bar directly under the hero on every page: Insured & bonded · W-2 team · Background-checked · 24-hr re-clean guarantee. Reuse the shield/check SVGs from the home page.	Developer	90	1–4
Add a "Why you can book with confidence" block inside the booking flow, right before the card field, where hesitation peaks.	Developer	60	5–8
Write and publish the `about.html` story: Renata Cole's boutique-hotel housekeeping background, why W-2 (not gig), the background-check, the same-team promise. Warm and human, not a credential list.	Renata	90	6–12
Land the "The home cleaning you'd trust with a key" headline sitewide as the default; queue candidates 2 and 3 to A/B later.	Renata	30	13
Confirm the trust-bar and confidence block render on phone width and survive print (a partner should be able to print the booking page clean).	Developer	20	15

Where: CMS → Components → Trust-bar → enable sitewide under hero · CMS → Book → insert "Why you can book with confidence" before payment step · CMS → Pages → New page "Our team"

Why the trust story moves into the path

Marigold pays real money to run a W-2 payroll and background-check every cleaner — exactly what a nervous "who am I letting into my house" buyer wants — and the old site mentioned it in a footer line nobody reads. The most expensive, most defensible asset was the least visible.

The number that proves it: quote→book conversion rate lift, now that trust sits in the path. · Why → Ch. 2 · The honest moat · Ch. 1 · D3

Aim gate

Phase 3 — Emphasize recurring

Weeks 6–9 · fixes D4

With a trusted flow working, point it at the product that compounds. A recurring household is worth roughly eleven one-time cleans of value per year — so the share of new bookings that are recurring is the number that actually grows the business. Make recurring the obvious default and the one-time clean the exception.

Phase 3 tasks Every move here nudges the default toward the standing plan without removing the one-time option.

Task	Owner	Min	Day
Build the dedicated `recurring.html` landing page: how recurring works, what's included, the plan prices, recurring-client testimonials, booking CTA.	Developer	120	1–7
Confirm the instant-price card defaults to every-2-weeks and carries the line "most Durham homes choose every 2 weeks."	Renata	20	8
Re-order reviews so recurring-household testimonials surface first on `reviews.html` and the home page — name real Durham neighborhoods (Trinity Park, Hope Valley, Watts-Hillandale).	Renata	45	9–11
Frame the one-time deep clean as the on-ramp to a plan in the flow ("most homes start with a deep clean, then roll onto every-2-weeks"), not as a peer product.	Renata	30	12
Add "skip or reschedule free, no contract" reassurance beside the recurring price, so the commitment feels safe.	Developer	30	13

Where: CMS → Pages → New page "Recurring" · CMS → Components → Quote card → default frequency + helper line · CMS → Reviews → sort/pin recurring testimonials first

Why aim, not just build

The old site treated a one-time clean and a recurring plan as equals on a flat list. They are not equals — burying the recurring plan in an undifferentiated grid trains demand toward the lowest-value, highest-churn product. Make the high-LTV plan the path of least resistance.

The number that proves it: share of new bookings that are recurring vs. one-time. · Why → Ch. 1 · D4 · Ch. 3 · Group 1, recurring households

Demand gate

Phase 4 — Demand, paced to the team

Weeks 9–13 · funds the recurring base & channels

Only now — with a flow that takes a buyer, reassures them, and points them at recurring — is it safe to pour demand in. And it is poured in metered, because the team of roughly 14 W-2 cleaners is the moat and also a ceiling: a new recurring household handed a rushed or rotating clean is the one failure the brand cannot survive.

Phase 4 tasks, ordered by load on the team The moves that add revenue without adding load come first; the ones that add both come last and stay throttleable.

Task	Owner	Min	Day
Stand up a referral mechanic for the recurring base (a clean-credit when a referral converts to a plan). Self-pacing — grows only as fast as happy clients refer.	Renata	60	1–5
Local SEO for "recurring house cleaning Durham" and the named neighborhoods: page titles, meta descriptions, a Google Business Profile pass. The booking page is the landing page.	Developer	120	3–12
Open realtor outreach (Group 2) — a short list of active Durham agents, a one-page "listing-ready turnover" offer. Metered: open only the accounts the team can staff well.	Renata	90	10–18
Open short-term-rental host outreach (Group 3) — same-day turnover with a linen reset and photo checklist. Metered to the slots you can guarantee.	Renata	90	14–20
Set a simple capacity rule before any paid spend: when the every-2-weeks calendar passes a fill threshold you set — confirm with the schedulers, switch new demand to a short waitlist or trigger a hiring plan. Never a quietly lowered standard.	Renata	30	21

The capacity trap to refuse

Do not buy demand the team cannot serve to the standard the site promises. A recurring household won and then handed a rushed clean churns fast, leaves the review that contradicts the whole position, and costs more to lose than it cost to win. If demand outruns capacity, the answer is a short waitlist or a hire — never a lowered standard. One-time deep cleans receive no proactive spend; the door stays open, the dollar goes to the recurring base.

The number that proves it: cost per acquired recurring client; realtor and STR accounts opened. · Why → Ch. 4 · The capacity-honest first moves · Ch. 3 · Groups 2 & 3

Your real capacity

The build hours sit with the developer; the hours that gate this plan are Renata's. The "KEEP" set — the owner tasks across all six phases that must be Renata's own hands (pricing decisions, the team story, the booking test, the channel outreach, the capacity rule) — totals about 13.0 hours, spread over the 13-week run. That is roughly 1.0 hr/week of owner time. Renata said she has 4 hr/week to give this. The plan fits with comfortable room to spare — the constraint is never Renata's calendar, it is the team's cleaning capacity once Phase 4 opens.

1.0 hr/week committed of 4 hr/week you said you have (25%). The plan is well inside your hours; the real ceiling is staffed cleaning slots, not owner time — which is why Phase 4 is metered, not floored.

Owner hours by phase (the KEEP set) Developer build hours excluded — those don't compete for Renata's week. Front-loaded into the two gates and Phase 1's pricing call.

Phase	Owner min	Heaviest week
−1 · Access & ownership	45	Week 1
0 · Five credibility fixes	40	Week 1
1 · Booking + instant price	95	Weeks 1–3
2 · Surface the trust	120	Weeks 4–5
3 · Emphasize recurring	95	Weeks 7–8
4 · Demand, paced to the team	270	Weeks 11–13
Total	665 min ≈ 11.1 hr	+ ~2 hr testing slack

665 minutes of owner tasks ÷ 60 ≈ 11.1 hr, plus ~2 hr of testing and review slack ≈ 13.0 hr over 13 weeks ≈ 1.0 hr/week. Arithmetic checks.

Deferred — on purpose

These are good ideas that do not earn their place in the 90 days. Each is held for a reason, with what would unlock it — so nothing here is lost, just sequenced behind the work that pays for it.

What's deferred, and what unlocks it

Idea	Why it waits	What unlocks it
Paid local search ads	Pouring paid traffic into the flow before it converts pays to lose buyers — and outruns the team fastest.	A waitlist or hiring plan behind it, and Phase 1–3 conversion numbers proving the flow holds.
Customer portal / self-serve reschedule account	Real value, real build cost; the 60-second booking flow captures the LTV without it.	A recurring base large enough that reschedule volume is a genuine load on the office.
Photography / before-and-after gallery	The site is deliberately photo-free and calm; trust here comes from the W-2 story, not stock imagery.	Owned, consistent photography of Marigold's own teams and homes — never stock.
Proactive acquisition for one-time deep cleans (Group 5)	Roughly 4% of a recurring client's value — the dollar is always better spent on the recurring base.	Nothing planned. The booking door stays open; spend stays at zero by design.
A/B testing the three hero candidates	Needs enough booking traffic to read a result; testing on thin traffic just adds noise.	Phase 4 demand live long enough to give each variant a real sample.

Why one-time gets no spend → Ch. 3 · Group 5, not pursued

The 30-day check — 13 July 2026

Binary, no essay

On 13 July, can a buyer who has never spoken to Marigold reach a real price and confirm a clean online, with no callback in the path? If no: the access gate has not passed, and the response is a 90-minute working session with the developer to ship it — not another planning document, and not starting Phase 2. Phase 1 is the only phase that is allowed to be late.

Write these three numbers down today, before anything changes, so the 30-day check has a baseline to beat:

Day-0 baseline — write these down now

Number	Today's value	Source
Bookings completed online with no phone call, last 30 days	____ — measure today	Calendar / booking log
Share of new bookings that are recurring (vs. one-time), last 30 days	____ — measure today	Calendar / booking log
Visitors who reached a real price, last 30 days	0 — there is no instant price yet	Analytics (this becomes measurable once Phase 1 ships)

The whole plan is bent toward the second number — the recurring share — because at roughly eleven one-time cleans of value per year, that is the number that compounds. · See it argued → Ch. 0 · Why everything points at one product

Two links, two moves

Walk what Phase 1 builds, then start the first task: Read the rebuilt-site walkthrough → · then come back and tick the first box in Phase −1.