How Honest Fix Built 1,769 Pages in Eight Months and Started Winning Jobs Without Paid Ads

Honest Fix’s Endless Customers Journey

Scott Merritt’s Endless Customers story didn’t start with Honest Fix. It started in 2020, when his first company, Fire and Ice Heating and Air Conditioning in Columbus, Ohio, saw the phone go quiet at the start of COVID.

His general manager handed him They Ask, You Answer. Scott read it in one night, became an IMPACT client, hired a content writer and videographer, and turned Fire and Ice into one of the most known and trusted HVAC companies in Columbus. He sold the business in 2025.

As Scott put it:

“It’s truly been the bedrock of how Fire and Ice excelled in the last 5 or 6 years, and is completely the bedrock on which I build everything with the new company.”

Scott then helped found Honest Fix, a heating, cooling, and water heater company serving 11 small towns within about 10 miles of Steubenville, Ohio. It’s a much smaller, more economically challenged market than Columbus, and Scott wanted to win it without paying for ads.

Building for AI from day one

Scott believes more buyers, and eventually their AI assistants, will rely on AI to research and recommend local companies. So Honest Fix built every page to be useful to both people and AI.

He described the stakes:

“Ultimately, when a buyer asks ChatGPT who to call, are you the answer or are you invisible?”

How they implemented

Applying the Endless Customers System™, Honest Fix:

• Published at a remarkable pace, with Scott writing articles using AI trained on Endless Customers principles and his own expertise, then reviewing and editing every piece.

• Made local pages genuinely local, writing cost articles for each of its 11 towns with unique details like humidity, water hardness, and housing stock, instead of simply swapping in town names.

• Led every article with a quick answer of about 40 words, so its content can appear in Google’s AI Overviews and other AI-powered search results.

• Published proof, not just claims, including its 15-year labor warranty, state licensing, and technician credentials.

• Got transparent about pricing, with a pricing page that helps homeowners understand costs and options.

• Made the site easy for AI to read, with structured content, FAQs, an llms.txt file, and an on-site AI assistant named Leo that answers questions for both visitors and AI agents.

Results

Just eight months after opening, Scott shared what the approach has produced:

• 1,769 pages published in eight months, with a digital team of two.

• No paid advertising: all growth has come from organic search, AI, and the Endless Customers approach.

• Jobs sold through AI: one homeowner asked ChatGPT for an HVAC contractor, was pointed to Honest Fix because of its published warranty, and chose the company for a $14,000 job.

• Visibility competitors can’t match: in a market where most competitors publish almost nothing, Honest Fix often appears as multiple sources in AI-generated answers.

Scott summed up the advantage:

“Anybody can outspend you on Google Ads, but nobody can outspend you on being the answer that GPT gives.”

Why coaching mattered

Scott has been learning about AI since before ChatGPT launched. But he’s clear that what made it work was the structure and coaching behind it.

He explained:

“The pieces did not come together without They Ask, You Answer and Endless Customers and without some of the coaching that I had over the years.”

He credits IMPACT’s 90-day roadmaps and EOS-aligned structure for giving both companies a clear plan, and the Endless Customers framework for training the AI tools he uses to write. He called it the best investment he’s made in either of his companies in the last 25 years.

What’s next

Scott is already focused on widening Honest Fix’s lead:

• Publishing about 1,200 more articles to answer every remaining question homeowners ask

• Creating a short video for every article, built around its quick answer

• Continuing to optimize content for voice search and AI agents

• Building what Scott calls a digital moat competitors will struggle to cross

Scott’s advice for other business owners:

“Trust comes from proof.”

Want results like this in your business?

If AI can’t find clear answers and real proof about your business, it can’t recommend you. Honest Fix’s story shows what can happen when you publish both, consistently, before your competitors do.

Curious where your business stands today? Take the free Instant Diagnostic to see how buyers and AI see you, or schedule time to talk with our team about what the Endless Customers Coaching Program could look like for you.