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Construction & TradesWhy Trust Yardstick
For more than 18 years, our team has built websites and managed digital marketing campaigns based on one unwavering principle: trust first, profit second. We know what it’s like to run a business with limited resources and high expectations — because we’ve been in your shoes. That’s why we’ve adopted a genuine consultative approach: no inflated promises, no surprise add-ons, just clear alignment with your goals. When you partner with us, you’re choosing more than technical expertise — you’re choosing a team committed to your success with integrity in everything we do. Let’s build something you can trust to deliver results.
–Kevin McLeod, CEO
More Expertise Than Hiring In-House
Hiring one person to handle all your digital marketing might seem simple, but it often means getting a generalist instead of experts. With Yardstick, you get an entire team for about the same cost—strategists, designers, developers, and marketers who each bring deep experience in their craft.
Our collaborative model delivers better results, faster execution, and fewer costly mistakes. You’re supported by a group that’s been working together for years, sharing ideas and holding high standards. It’s a smarter, more reliable way to grow your business online.
No Commissioned Sales Reps
You’ll never deal with a commissioned salesperson at Yardstick. We’ve built our company around trust and transparency, not pressure tactics or upsells. The people you speak with are the same people who’ll be involved in your project—strategists, designers, and developers who care about your results.
By removing commissions, we remove bias. Our only goal is to understand your business and help you make smart, sustainable marketing decisions. It’s a model that puts your success ahead of short-term sales and keeps every conversation honest.
More Affordable Than A Bigger Company
Our competitors provide us healthy competition. In fact, we look up to some of the larger companies in Vancouver as role models both in service and innovation. However, if budget is a concern, then our transparent pricing model combined with our low overhead structure (a remote team with no commissioned sales people) allow us to maintain competitive pricing, consequently providing our clients with some of the best value in the industry.
Community Outreach – Giving Back
We enjoy giving back and support our community both online and offline. Our team members regularly contribute to online forums, helping other web designers and business owners solve problems. Our CEO, Kevin McLeod, was a volunteer speaker and advisor at Small Business BC, has been a guest panelist at various SFU entrepreneurship events and has served on the board of directors for the BBB of Mainland BC.
Established Company According to Inc.com, “96% of businesses fail within the first 10 years.” This failure rate is likely worse in our industry where anyone can wake up in the morning and say they are a web expert. Yardstick began as a sole proprietorship in late 2006; we began building websites in 2007 and we incorporated in October 2010 and have been growing ever since. Thus, we are quite proud to be a part of the top 4% of businesses that surpassed the 10-year anniversary.
No Aggressive Sales Techniques We use a method called “consultative sales,” which focuses on providing some complimentary research and analyses to educate clients first and foremost. We believe that if we provide some value and teach our clients something, we achieve greater alignment between our clients’ needs and our own recommendations. Only then do we provide a quote or estimate for our services.
Lower Overhead Our entire team works remotely from locations across Canada. So, we are not carrying a lease or mortgage plus other overhead that some other firms must include in their costs. Thus, we can offer more value that a bricks-and-mortar agency with more of our clients’ investment goes towards the actual work on their site or campaign.
Professional Systems We use a project management system and file sharing system to keep all of our projects well organized and moving ahead efficiently. We also use some software to collabrate with clients which helps avoid emailing creative feedback or content back-and-forth. Internally, we have eliminated email and use Slack for open and transparent communication amongst team members. This helps minimize information silos and builds trust internally between our team members.
Passionate Team Our remote work-structure, defined roles and flexible working hours has created a team that absolutely loves their jobs. We also pay all of our team members fair wages and salaries. It goes without saying that a happy team is more productive and efficient than a team that is grinding out low-end products at minimum wage. The end-result is higher-performing websites and campaigns for our happy clients.
Education & Experience All of our team members are educated and certified (where possible). Kevin McLeod has an MBA in Management of Technology. Brendon McLeod received his website development training through BCIT (much of which while working for eBay). We have a range of additional education and training on our team including Google certifications, technical courses, and various certificates and diplomas.
Project Management We have a dedicated project manager; this might not be a revelation to you. But, you would be surprised how many agencies do not have a project manager and rely on managing projects via email. Our experience has shown that projects without a PM tend to go over-budget and have challenges fulfilling the promised scope and deadlines.
Training & Support We provide a great deal of training and support to our clients every week. We would much rather teach our clients how to do something themselves (short of teaching them programming languages). We prefer to be seen as a strategic resource by our clients and not the web company you have to pay to make changes to the words and pictures in a site.
Strong Network Kevin McLeod is very well connected within the Vancouver business community. The same can be said for various team members who have connections to other industry professionals. We often help our clients find support for business challenges that go well beyond websites and digital marketing.
Solvency We keep a reserve of at least three months working capital in our bank account. We also have had no legal issues or claims against us to date that would affect our business or our ability to offer our services.
Real Estimates Our industry is plagued by agencies and freelancers that under-quote in order to win a project and then bill for changes or “additions.” We try to quote as accurately as possible with a small contingency left in reserve (ideally not used) to account for the different amounts of communication time and hand-holding required by different clients. We believe that an accurate and trustworthy quote is better for us and the client.
To-the-Minute Billing Unlike other agencies that round to the nearest hour, we use a time tracking system that allow our team to log their time to the minute. We do have a minimum charge of 30 minutes for small requests from our existing clients. But, we do not round our time up to the nearest hour. And we gladly provide our clients with our time logs so they can see exactly what we are seeing.
Documented Best-Practices We document all of our processes internally so that we follow the same steps every time for every project. Our entire team has access to our knowledgebase that includes our checklists and step-by-step processes as well as our researched development standards. And we use templates within our project managament and time tracking system to ensure all project milestones and tasks are accounted for on every project and campaign we manage.
Criminal Records Check We require that all new team members who may have access to our clients’ or our own business systems have a criminial record check completed (otherwise known as a police information check or PIC). We reimburse all of our team members for completing this vital step in our hiring process.
Role Mastery Each member of our team occupies a specialist role, which means that each team member has mastered a much deeper set of knowledge. This provides Yardstick with a distinct competitive advantage over small agencies and freelancers where one person is trying to be a designer, developer, copywriter, ad specialist, SEO expert, project manager and sale person all at once. There is truth to the saying “Jack of all trades, master of none.”
Committed to R&D We spend several hours of our own time each month researching new developments in our industry and developing or adapting our standards. We also research technical challenges that our clients pose to use and document our findings for use on future projects or campaigns. Our industry is always changing…and so are we.
Security At the top of our list is security. We take this very seriously. In fact, we are so serious about security that we have started a sister-company dedicated to WordPress Security wherein we implement and manage over 100 industry standards.
Giving Back A big part of building trust is about giving back and spending time on activities that are beneficial to a larger group and not directly related to making money. Our CEO, Kevin McLeod, volunteers his time in multiple capacities to support the Vancouver business community. He is on the Board of Directors for the Better Business Bureau. He is on the Board of Directors for one of Vancouver’s oldest networking groups, VanEx (established in 1920). He has volunteered his time as an advisor/mentor to SFU business students and has been a panellist for an SFU entrepreneurship event. He is also a former volunteer speaker at Small Business BC and judge for the Small Business BC Awards.
Established Company According to Inc.com, “96% of businesses fail within the first 10 years.” This failure rate is likely worse in our industry where anyone can wake up in the morning and say they are a web expert. Yardstick began as a sole proprietorship in late 2006; we began building websites in 2007 and we incorporated in October 2010 and have been growing ever since. Thus, we are quite proud to be a part of the top 4% of businesses that surpassed the 10-year anniversary.
Solvency We keep a reserve of at least three months working capital in our bank account. We also have had no legal issues or claims against us to date that would affect our business or our ability to offer our services.
No Aggressive Sales Techniques We use a method called “consultative sales,” which focuses on providing some complimentary research and analyses to educate clients first and foremost. We believe that if we provide some value and teach our clients something, we achieve greater alignment between our clients’ needs and our own recommendations. Only then do we provide a quote or estimate for our services.
Real Estimates Our industry is plagued by agencies and freelancers that under-quote in order to win a project and then bill for changes or “additions.” We try to quote as accurately as possible with a small contingency left in reserve (ideally not used) to account for the different amounts of communication time and hand-holding required by different clients. We believe that an accurate and trustworthy quote is better for us and the client.
Lower Overhead Our entire team works remotely from locations across Canada. So, we are not carrying a lease or mortgage plus other overhead that some other firms must include in their costs. Thus, we can offer more value that a bricks-and-mortar agency with more of our clients’ investment goes towards the actual work on their site or campaign.
To-the-Minute Billing Unlike other agencies that round to the nearest hour, we use a time tracking system that allow our team to log their time to the minute. We do have a minimum charge of 30 minutes for small requests from our existing clients. But, we do not round our time up to the nearest hour. And we gladly provide our clients with our time logs so they can see exactly what we are seeing.
Professional Systems We use a project management system and file sharing system to keep all of our projects well organized and moving ahead efficiently. We also use some software to collabrate with clients which helps avoid emailing creative feedback or content back-and-forth. Internally, we have eliminated email and use Slack for open and transparent communication amongst team members. This helps minimize information silos and builds trust internally between our team members.
Documented Best-Practices We document all of our processes internally so that we follow the same steps every time for every project. Our entire team has access to our knowledgebase that includes our checklists and step-by-step processes as well as our researched development standards. And we use templates within our project managament and time tracking system to ensure all project milestones and tasks are accounted for on every project and campaign we manage.
Passionate Team Our remote work-structure, defined roles and flexible working hours has created a team that absolutely loves their jobs. We also pay all of our team members fair wages and salaries. It goes without saying that a happy team is more productive and efficient than a team that is grinding out low-end products at minimum wage. The end-result is higher-performing websites and campaigns for our happy clients.
Criminal Records Check We require that all new team members who may have access to our clients’ or our own business systems have a criminial record check completed (otherwise known as a police information check or PIC). We reimburse all of our team members for completing this vital step in our hiring process.
Education & Experience All of our team members are educated and certified (where possible). Kevin McLeod has an MBA in Management of Technology. Brendon McLeod received his website development training through BCIT (much of which while working for eBay). We have a range of additional education and training on our team including Google certifications, technical courses, and various certificates and diplomas.
Role Mastery Each member of our team occupies a specialist role, which means that each team member has mastered a much deeper set of knowledge. This provides Yardstick with a distinct competitive advantage over small agencies and freelancers where one person is trying to be a designer, developer, copywriter, ad specialist, SEO expert, project manager and sale person all at once. There is truth to the saying “Jack of all trades, master of none.”
Project Management We have a dedicated project manager; this might not be a revelation to you. But, you would be surprised how many agencies do not have a project manager and rely on managing projects via email. Our experience has shown that projects without a PM tend to go over-budget and have challenges fulfilling the promised scope and deadlines.
Committed to R&D We spend several hours of our own time each month researching new developments in our industry and developing or adapting our standards. We also research technical challenges that our clients pose to use and document our findings for use on future projects or campaigns. Our industry is always changing…and so are we.
Training & Support We provide a great deal of training and support to our clients every week. We would much rather teach our clients how to do something themselves (short of teaching them programming languages). We prefer to be seen as a strategic resource by our clients and not the web company you have to pay to make changes to the words and pictures in a site.
Security We take website security very seriously. In fact, we are so serious about security that we have started a sister-company dedicated to WordPress Security wherein we implement and manage over 100 industry standards including automated backups, same-day updates, firewalls, antivirus, malware scans, encryption, up-time monitoring, speed optimization, file and folder change alert, two-factor authentication, spam protection and much more.
Strong Network Kevin McLeod is very well connected within the Vancouver business community. The same can be said for various team members who have connections to other industry professionals. We often help our clients find support for business challenges that go well beyond websites and digital marketing.
Giving Back A big part of building trust is about giving back and spending time on activities that are beneficial to a larger group and not directly related to making money. Our CEO, Kevin McLeod, volunteers his time in multiple capacities to support the Vancouver business community. He is on the Board of Directors for the Better Business Bureau. He is on the Board of Directors for one of Vancouver’s oldest networking groups, VanEx (established in 1920). He has volunteered his time as an advisor/mentor to SFU business students and has been a panellist for an SFU entrepreneurship event. He is also a former volunteer speaker at Small Business BC and judge for the Small Business BC Awards.
CASE STUDIES
Trusted by Our Clients
Take a look at some of the tangible results we have achieved for our clients to help them reach their business goals.
We have been collaborating with Yardstick for a few years now for website development, SEO strategy and web security. Kevin and the Yardstick team are great – they provide professionalism and expertise but with a human touch that make it all the more enjoyable to work with them.
Richard Johnson
Partner, Ascent Employment Law
Partner, Ascent Employment Law