Should I hire employees or use 1099 subcontractors for better quality?
We have 6 subs full time and it's burned us a few times. We go behind them on ~25% of jobs. We just got CompanyCam and that'll help operationally. But, I am considering going the employee route and paying hourly. What do you feel works best -- to maximize profitability, ensure quality, and reduce headaches?
Claim your Territory!
Hello Jobber Community, My name is Mario Visin, Founder of Group7 Home Services LLC. We joined the Jobber community with a spirit of collaboration, learning, and service to the home services professionals who keep our homes, neighborhoods, and communities running. I believe the home services industry is entering one of the most important seasons in its history. Blue-collar workers are becoming entrepreneurs by the thousands. Handymen, roofers, painters, landscapers, installers, restoration experts, and specialty trade professionals are no longer just working jobs — they are building businesses, serving families, and creating the foundation for generational opportunity. The home services industry represents hundreds of billions of dollars in economic activity each year. Large suppliers, big-box retailers, and national construction brands have created tremendous wealth from this industry. Yet the heart of the industry has always been the person swinging the hammer, climbing the ladder, knocking the door, answering the emergency call, and doing the work that homeowners depend on. That person is you. That person is me. That person is the blue-collar professional who deserves better systems, better connection, better opportunity, and a clearer path toward building a meaningful life through the trades. One thing I have noticed across many industries is that people often struggle to connect with one another in ways that truly make a difference. We are entering a time where connection and community will matter more than ever. The future will not only belong to the biggest brands or the largest companies. It will belong to those who learn how to connect, serve, collaborate, and build trust with one another. At Group7 Home Services, we are designing a Live-Work-Play vision for the trades — a curriculum and platform strategy focused on helping home services professionals serve one another, grow together, and build wealth through shared relationships, better systems, referral opportunities, and a service-first mindset. This is not just about jobs. It is about lifestyle. It is about family. It is about creating a future so compelling that the next generation sees the trades as a path of pride, ownership, entrepreneurship, and purpose. Strategy matters. Systems matter. Technology matters. But the real transformation begins when good people come together with humility, discipline, and a desire to serve the need before serving the self. I believe larger technology companies serving the trades, including platforms like Jobber, play an important role in this new era. The right technology can help blue-collar entrepreneurs run smoother businesses, communicate better with customers, organize their teams, and create more professional experiences for the homeowners they serve. But technology alone is not the full answer. The real power comes when technology, community, service, craftsmanship, and vision meet at the same table. Group7’s broader mission is Building Thriving Cities by helping people connect around housing, entrepreneurship, education, and local economic opportunity. We believe the home services professional has a major role to play in that transformation because every strong city begins with strong homes, strong workers, strong families, and strong relationships. I am a visionary, and I understand that vision must be protected, refined, and shared with care. But I also believe the home services industry is ready for a new conversation — one centered on dignity, ownership, connection, and a higher conscious level of capitalism where the smaller parts come together to create something greater than any one person could build alone. The big brands we know today started with a dream, a strategy, and a willingness to work for decades. The next great wave of wealth creation may come from like-minded people linking their common threads together, weaving a much larger blanket of opportunity for families, workers, entrepreneurs, and communities. Being part of a community is just the beginning. How we connect matters. Relationships are everything. Work like your life depends on it. Best, Mario Visin Founder, Group7 Home Services LLC
The Quickest Firing I've Ever Done (And What I Should Have Done Differently)
In the trades, we talk a lot about "hire slow, fire fast." I've lived by that principle — long applications, phone screens, in-person interviews, and working alongside our team for a couple of shifts before anyone flies solo. As a skilled labor company, I need to know someone is reliable before I trust them on their own. So when I let someone go recently after just a handful of days, it wasn't a surprise to me. What was a surprise was how much of that situation I had created myself. Here's what happened: I'd gone through the full process with a candidate who looked great on paper — strong experience, excellent finish work, exactly the shower remodeler we were looking for. There was a lot of back and forth on his start date since he was wrapping up another project, and when he finally said he could start on a Friday, I jumped at it even though my schedule was a mess that day. Instead of doing a proper onboarding, I handed him off to my operations manager and told myself we'd sort out the details later. We didn't sit down together to go over expectations, I never walked him through Jobber, and — maybe worst of all — I never confirmed that his new hire paperwork was actually completed. I sent it. I just never followed up. He worked a couple of shifts and the feedback was decent — promising, but still being evaluated. Then Tuesday came, and because we hadn't properly briefed him on the schedule or made sure he understood how our system works, he showed up to a unit turnover job with no context. He felt blindsided, and honestly, I get it — he came on as a bathroom remodeler. His reaction, though, was the problem: attitude with the crew, visibly disengaged at our team meeting, and a text to me saying he couldn't trust us. That was enough. I let him go, and I'm confident it was the right call — his attitude made it clear it wasn't going to work. But I also have to be honest: we didn't give him — or ourselves — a fair shot. The lesson I'm taking away isn't just "fire fast." It's that hiring slow has to extend all the way through onboarding. I was so eager to get him into the pipeline that I skipped the very steps that exist for good reason. If I couldn't carve out the time to do a proper onboarding — paperwork signed, systems explained, expectations laid out clearly — I should have pushed the start date until I could. Going forward, I'm building out a simple onboarding checklist so that no matter how busy things get, nothing gets skipped just because I'm stretched thin. A great hire can become a problem hire real fast when you don't set them up to succeed.How do you structure pay and incentives for high school employees in a small business?
I started a firewood company that services commercial accounts like grocery stores and individuals that want a premium firewood. One of my goals is to hire high schoolers and pay them a fair wage. My question is, how do I manage the cost of hourly pay and the expectation that this is only sustainable if they are able to significantly contribute to the productivity of the business? I’ve considered creating a pay incentive if they are able to hit certain metrics. I would appreciate your feedback.
Commission Based Pay?
Hey guys! Wondering if anyone here has experience with paying employees commission instead of hourly. How is that working for you guys? How do you have it set up to where you’re making the profit you need and the employee is happy and motivated to work hard? At what percentage do you pay? Thanks!
Where do I hire a qualified box truck driver willing to do hard work?
I run a growing local food scrap hauling and composting business in Louisville, and we’re looking to hire a dependable part-time route driver for box truck and step van work. The job involves early mornings, local routes, heavy wheeled bins, liftgates, outdoor work in all weather, and a long drive down some windy country roads after backing in and out of loading docks downtown. For those of you who have hired solid delivery or route drivers before, where have you had the best luck finding hardworking, reliable people who are comfortable with physical work and independent routes? Indeed? Amazon/FedEx drivers? Word of mouth? Looking for advice from folks who have actually found good people.
