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Strategies / Suggestions for hiring manual labourer for a niche Biz.
Fitness Equipment Service Technician - Rock & A Hard Place 26 yrs at this and I cannot find my A-Player. Sorry, this is quite the essay from the heart of frustration, so if you make it to the end and have some valuable suggestions I can implement, beers are on me at this conference. 🍻🍻🍻 It’s been beyond frustrating with people lying on resumes until you see they can’t do what they say. OR They can’t follow the simplest of instructions and policies like... If ever unsure about what you're doing or need help of any sort, contact me, I’m ALWAYS available. Then they decide to go Cowboy and try to figure it out themselves, which I certainly encourage as that's how I learn best. Trial and error where just getting your hands in there, coupled with some well-lubricated gray matter, and things start coming together and making sense. But not to the point of adding additional unnecessary "HRS" not MIN, to an invoice I can’t charge for, but they expect to be paid. In my instructions, I let them know, even when right beside them during training, if they get stumped on an issue and they ask for advice, I tell them to run through some process of elimination and try to figure it out themselves without me constantly telling them. I'll let them go for 10 to 15 minutes, and if the lightbulb isn't flickering, then I'll methodically walk them through what I would do. This way I'm not just jumping in and doing it for them, but they're actually learning hands-on. It's when they decide to go cowboy rogue and spend way too much time trying to figure it out instead of calling me, then they expect to be paid for these hours I can't bill back to the customer. How do I tell my customer that we're overcharging them because my guy doesn't know what he's doing and wants to learn on their equipment Then he'll make a note of whatever the issue is and what their diagnosis is, which can include needing to order parts. I'm thinking that they didn't have an issue with the diagnosis and it was a cut-and-dry scenario and, hands-down, this is what the customer needs. Then we'll order wrong parts... not only costing money—which will be either out of my pocket or the customer's pocket upfront if the quote is over $1,000—we have to wait usually about a week for parts to come in, set up another appointment, and head back out to the location to rectify the situation. - Part gets installed, doesn't fix the issue, and we're back to square one. Tech expects to be paid for travel & time for his mistake. So I put in the contract that I backpay my techs by two weeks with the clause that this will cover any potential damage to customer property due to their negligence. Residential customers get invoiced and are expected to pay more or less immediately, and commercial customers are net 30 for the most part in a perfect world. So it kind of evens out to cover their pay if something were to happen. So what do I tell my customers now? "Sorry, my guy effed up. Now I have to go out there and diagnose it properly, and if you're lucky—which happens more times than not—it's just a matter of some adjustments that need to be made, and no part was needed after all." But the other side of that coin is a part is actually needed, so we have to run through the process again and face another week's delay. Then I feel in good conscience that I need to discount my customer and hope this hiccup isn't enough to lose them and they're gracious enough to understand. OR Lack of communication in general. I can't stress enough and tell them it’ll make us or break us if honesty and just pure, actual communication isn’t kept up. I make it very clear that if they're not happy with how things are going, my door is open and I am more than happy to discuss what's going on so that we can make an adjustment that works for both of us. 'Cause if I don't know, I don't know. And that goes two ways. I let them know I'll do the same for them. So it boils down to the fact that if they can't do it right, I might as well do it myself? PSA - common sense is not so common. LOL I refuse to drop my standards as we do charge a premium, and I would consider us to be a "boutique" service company as we have—or I should say I have—an incredible track record and can probably still count on one hand how many callbacks I've ever had. Even though we are the highest-charging company locally, if not regionally, I make sure that I add enough value to the customer so that they know they got their money's worth and then some. So how do I justify that when I have subpar techs going out and serving these customers with guarantees that I've made that don't get fulfilled? I tried doing the employee thing once and that was an absolute nightmare, so I only look for contractors now. I'm willing to pay good money for somebody who can prove themselves to me. If they have the drive and are willing to learn and be moldable, then they can increase their pay in a short amount of time. !!!!! So you can only imagine, after 26 years of working on the tools and without seeing any hope of getting off the truck in the near future, my drive, my mental, and my physical well-being are being stressed to the max! I even had a scare of a panic attack, so I was told. That kind of shit just is not in my vocabulary or in my DNA, but I was getting signs that were pointing towards a heart attack that did put me in a hospital for a day, but I checked out just fine. SO... FWD to today, things have gone from bad to worse. Financially, I can't even hire anybody in order to pay them as I can't even bring in enough to cover our own payroll, yet the hours that I work, no sane human should have to be exposed to. No word of a lie, I'm on the tools all day, usually starting at about 9–10 AM. I get home around 7–10 PM, just in time to kiss my favorite wife, give my teenage son a hug as he goes to bed, and then I'm on the computer catching up on the office work from the day and days past until usually around 5 AM seems to be the new norm. Up at about 8 AM—rinse and repeat my Groundhog Days. My loans & CCs are all maxed out constantly, and I just have no idea what happened to this dream drive I had to be the best in the industry and to truly make a change and grow this company to the vision I once had. UGH. I probably shouldn't even be coming to this event, but IDK, maybe there's something here that's going to allow for some transformation and growth to finally happen. AND GO000!!! I am all ears and moldable to learning and implementing any kind of positive criticism. MUCH appreciated! 👊
Should a Growing Business Hire Office Staff or a Field Tech First?
Hey everyone, Comfort Kings HVAC here, We opened our company this year in March and are rapidly approaching 500k in revenue. Me and my partner are running like crazy trying to keep up with demand and are curious when would be a good time to hire AND would it be wise to hire office first or field tech? We currently answer all the incoming calls on our cell phones while we are in the field working and do our best to get everything scheduled or just handled same day because tomorrow more calls will come. We would be able to do more in a day if we had another employee in the field. We would also be much more organized and structured without having invoices fall through the cracks with somebody in the office fielding the calls, making the schedule, and making sure we don't miss any billing opportunities. Anybody with experience in this wanna chime in and help us decide which way to go?How often are you actually measuring whether your employees still fit your core values?
One thing we’ve started doing is a quarterly core value analysis of our team. Not just, “Are they good at their job?” but: Are they actually demonstrating the behaviors we say matter here? I think this gets especially interesting with long-term employees. Someone can be productive, reliable, and technically great at their job while slowly becoming a poor culture fit. And sometimes we tolerate it because replacing a good producer feels harder than dealing with the cultural damage. The other side is hiring. We can interview for experience and skill all day long, but figuring out whether someone genuinely aligns with your values before they’re inside the company is much harder. So I’m curious how other owners handle this: Do you formally evaluate employees against your core values? If so, how often—and have you ever let a high performer go because they were consistently failing the culture side of the scorecard?Should You Let Your Employees Take Their Work Vehicles Home?
I'd love everyone's input on this and their why behind it! My coworkers usually use their own vehicles but I have a couple that use company vehicles. It started because my first real employee had his truck repo-ed and I needed him to stay working so I let him use my burner car. Then my mom blessed me with her old vehicle so I could let him use an actual work truck. Then I got another Van that I was using until another employee had an issue with his wife's car now he uses the Van so his family can use his truck for their personal stuff. He never uses it for personal stuff but it lives at home. Now the set up is we have a big Van that's used but always gets left at the shop. But the small van is being taken home by an employee. Seemed fine until it got broken in to and then of course I'm footing the bill to get it fixed. Especially when your vehicles are wrapped, you become a target. BUT the drawbacks are - when someone parks at the shop, that means as soon as they get to the shop every day, they have to clock in (california law). So every day, you are paying for up to an hour of lost time from them going to te shop to get their vehicle, then going to the job instead of going straight to the job site. Now my employees use their own tools so if the car gets broken in to, it's their stuff being stolen so the cost is damage to your property/ potential lost income if you have to decommission the vehicle for a few days. What is your opinion on this?
New Hiring Strategy for Skilled Trade Jobs - The Test Job
I've been implementing something that's been pretty successful so I wanted to share with the group. In my business, people need to come in and already have at least one thing they are very skilled at. As most of you know, a lot of construction people have lots of confidence and it's hard to find people that can be objectively honest about their skill level in any given trade. I mean, probably most of us are like that for the things we think we're good at. I've definitely adopted the hire slow, fire fast mindset but I got so sick of training people on all the systems just to have them not work out after a week. So I started doing "test jobs" - and it's been working really well. What are the rules? Well first you have to plan it out. It needs to be a 2 person job, that's in their wheelhouse that they claim to be in, and you pay cash for the day. I usually tell them it will be 1-2 shifts like this. I don't require them to do anything in jobber, I don't onboard them normally and I always pay at the end of the day. What am I looking for? Everyone is going to put on their best face but I look for these things as the dealbreakers. Did they show up early - if they "caught traffic" on their first day they aren't a planner and it will happen again Did they ask questions - are they going to be a robot or are they going to think about what they are doing Did they stay on task How receptive were they to receiving direction - this is a big one. Not that we need to boss them around or always be right but our manager is in his early 30s so sometimes older guys can not want to hear from them or they just don't like being told what to do in general. Did what they said they are good at line up with what actually happened Now some people still slip through and make it a couple weeks only to be let go again BUT this will help alleviate some heart ache. I will say I am in California - you are not supposed to do this technically BUT we small business owners and you have to do what you have to do sometimes. I'd say most people actually prefer this to having to do all the onboarding paperwork only for it to not work out so it's not something you'd have to sell someone on.How Do You Budget for Rising Employee Wages Without Cutting Into Their Own Pay?
Hey guys, In our area of Canada everything is more expensive (Canadian inflation) wages seem to really be bumping up to around $50 / hour for an Electrician. Right now my guys are $40 + van + $5g bonus plan so let's call it $45 / hour. Which is what I pay myself. We are busy... but it's also summer and summer is usually busy, this will die down I'm thinking. So I'm hiring at the moment but feel the pressure to pay more and then at the same time I'm thinking I also need to give myself a raise! All good things for the budget I'm about to make for this next fiscal year, but just curious if anyone else is feeling this same pressure?What's a job you'd hand off if you knew it'd be done right every time?
Whether it's estimates, scheduling, field work, or customer calls, there's usually one task that's really hard to let go of. What’s yours? And if you've successfully handed something off, what finally gave you enough confidence to do it? In this Masters of Home Service episode, Austin Rogers (arogersavai) and Sadi Ingallina (Grow Your Tree Co.) break down one of the toughest transitions for home service owners: stepping out of the field. They share lessons on hiring, training, creating SOPs, and building a business that doesn't depend on the owner being there every day. Never miss an episode of Masters of Home Service. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
