The counter cards

The trades-temperature digs settled two things: the shelf never markets itself on the boards (the ask-threads are astroturf swamps and deserve their skepticism), and the physical world's version of this giveaway happens where tradespeople already stand in line: the supply-house counter. This is that plan, sized for one person's winter.

The card

Printable at /housecalls/tools/cards: a letter sheet of eight 3.5x2 cards, black on white (toner is money, and so is a print shop's). Face carries the four tools, a QR to housecalls.bradley.io/tools, and the doctrine where a thumb finds it first: "No app store. No account. No catch. Works for you. Reports to no one." That last line came home from the boards, where the incumbent's tech-surveillance rollout is the most hated thing in the trade.

Where they go (winter route, Kent and the ring)

Counters where the trades actually queue, in priority order:

1. Electrical supply counters (electricians first, per the report: biggest online community, loudest shortage): the independent houses before the chains; counter staff at independents can actually say yes.
2. Plumbing/HVAC supply houses, same independent-first rule.
3. Lumberyards' contractor desks (not the big-box aisles; the desk).
4. The counter-adjacent: tool repair shops, the coffee place nearest a cluster of supply houses at 6:30am.

Ten locations saying yes is a complete winter route. This is a relationship errand, not a blitz: one person, one morning a week, December through February, restocking and hearing what the counter hears.

The ask (three sentences, printed on the cards page)

"I am a local engineer giving away free phone tools for the trades: quotes, change orders, job photos. No app, no account, nothing to sell your customers. Mind if I leave a few cards by the register?"

If the answer is no, thank them and leave none. A counter manager's no is the same no as everyone else's.

The rules that ride along

• Cards only where the counter said yes. No windshields, no bulletin boards without asking, nothing that makes a mess someone else cleans.
• Never at a shop we are actively pitching until they know us. Behler-Young is the standing example: a live prospect that IS an HVAC distributor. The synergy is real and it waits for a relationship; using their counter as free distribution while cold-pitching their CEO would be exactly the two-faced move the open ledger exists to make impossible.
• No tracking codes. The QR goes to the plain /tools URL for every card everywhere. We promised tools that report to no one; the cards report on no one either. The only measure is aggregate: do people show up, which the site's own counters see and the ledger can report honestly.
• The boards stay off-limits per dig two. If a tradesperson posts a card or the tools somewhere, that is theirs to do; we never seed it.

Timing

Print in late November; the route runs December through February, which is the thinking season: slow weeks, bids being written, phones in hands at the counter. A tool discovered in January is a habit by the spring rush, which is when its owner starts noticing who gave it to them.

Cost, honestly

A box of cardstock and a winter of Saturday mornings. If ten counters and ninety days move the needle at all, the ledger will say what happened either way; that is the whole analytics stack, and it is enough.