Where a new contractor's work comes from
The first jobs come from people who already know you. A neighbor, an old boss, somebody at church. That's how nearly every trade business starts, and it's worth every bit of it.
The trouble is you can't grow it on purpose. You can't decide to know more people this month. The people searching for your work right now don't know you, and they're the ones you have to reach if the truck's going to stay busy in February.
Search is the part you can build. Somebody types your trade and their town into a phone, and either your name is on that list or it isn't. There's no waiting for a referral in it.
The three things it takes
A website that says, in plain words, what you do and where you do it. Google builds a different list for every town, and it builds each one from sites that say they work there. If your site only talks about your home town, you're off the list in every other one.
A Google Business Profile. That's the listing with your name, your phone number and your reviews on it, and it's what puts you on the map above the results. It's free, and a new business can set one up the week it opens.
Reviews from real jobs. Ask every customer, with a link straight to your listing. Ten honest reviews in your trade in your town do more for you than anything you could buy.
What doesn't work yet
Ads are the first thing people reach for, and they're the wrong first thing. You pay for every click, the clicks stop the day you stop paying, and a caller who lands on nothing has no reason to trust you. Send paid traffic somewhere before you send it anywhere.
A Facebook page on its own has the same problem. It's fine for showing finished work to people who already follow you, and it doesn't put you on a search result in the next town over.
Directory listings are cheap and they read as cheap. A profile on somebody else's site sends the customer a page full of your competitors right beside your name.
What to do in the first month
Get the website up before you chase anything else, because the profile, the reviews and any ads you run later all point back at it. Then claim the Business Profile and fill in every field: the services, the hours, the towns you'll drive to.
Then ask. Every finished job, the same day, with the link in a text so the customer taps it once. A new business with eight reviews looks established. A new business with none looks new, and that's the only thing about you the customer can see.