What Should Home Service Businesses Automate First to Save Time?
Small manual tasks start stacking up, catching up on follow-ups, re-adjusting scheduling, invoicing, review requests, the list goes on and on. Sound familiar? What’s one task you’re still doing manually that you know could be automated? What’s stopping you from setting it up?Roll Call! Meet & introduce yourself to other Construction and Home Improvement pros
If you’ve ever thought, “How are other businesses like mine handling this?” you’re in the right place! This space is for Construction and Home Improvement pros to connect, compare notes, and talk shop with others who understand the day-to-day realities of running your type of business. 👋 Introduce Yourself Drop a comment and tell us: Your name Business name Industry Years in business Location (City/State/Province) Let us know if you’re joining us for LIVE networking on March 17 (more details below) The more context you share, the better connections you’ll make. 🙌 Pro tip: Search your city or state in the forum to easily find other pros in your area. 📅 Want to connect LIVE? We’re running a pilot to host virtual weekly LIVE Industry Networking starting on March 17, running until April 7. If you’d be interested in joining for the first or following sessions (don’t need to commit to all but you're welcome to join!), make sure to let us know in the comments. 🤝 Culture of this space Think of this forum board like a room full of peers who understand your world. Share what’s working. Ask real questions. Talk through challenges. The goal is to power your success and raise the standard of home service industries together. 💬 Looking for conversation starters? This space works best when conversations are industry-specific and experience-based. You might jump in with something like: “How are other [industry] pros pricing this service right now?” “Is anyone else seeing this shift in their market?” “What’s been working for you when it comes to ____?" 🤔 Why are industries grouped together? We’ve intentionally clustered similar industries to keep conversations active and relevant. These groupings reflect shared business models, operational challenges, and pricing conversations so you can learn from peers who “get it,” even if they’re not in your exact trade. If your question applies to all home service businesses, feel free to post in our broader forum boards. Pro tip: Check out the industry tags to get even more specific Looking forward to seeing this space come to life. 🚀How I Finally Delegated Estimating (Without Hiring Another Person)
For years, estimating was the one thing I couldn’t take off my plate. We changed the org chart. We hired roles. Delegated everything we could. But estimating? That was always me. Even if I wasn’t doing anything else in the business... I was still stuck quoting jobs. It was the bottleneck I couldn’t fix—until now. I built a ChatGPT-powered estimator trained with my systems, my pricing, and my language. It asks the right questions, runs the math, and delivers estimates like I would—without me being involved. Now I’m no longer the bottleneck. Customers get quick answers. I get my evenings and weekends back. Want to build your own? Map out your estimating logic. Plug it into ChatGPT. Test and refine. If you're stuck working all day and doing estimates at night and on Saturdays anddddd, sometimes even Sunday mornings when everyone's sleeping—this might be your way out. Heres my direct Zoom link if you'd like to learn more: https://calendly.com/ryaan-besthandymancompany/bh-plan-phone-consultationIndustry virtual networking starting March 17
We’re trying something new in the community! Starting March 17, we’re hosting a weekly 30-minute networking session for construction and home improvement businesses. Join one session or all four—no commitment. These will run once a week until April 7 while we pilot the idea. The goal is simple: Connect with other pros and help each other work through real business challenges. Format: • Quick intros • Everyone shares one challenge • Group feedback and ideas • Quick wrap-up 🕒 Tuesdays at 12:15 PM ET ⏱️ 30 minutes Interested? Comment below and we'll send you a reminder email with the link!Salary for In Field Staff? Good Idea or Bad Idea
Curious how others handle salary for field staff, especially hybrid roles. I’m in a bit of a management dilemma and wanted to see how other service businesses approach this. Ideally I’d like to hire a strong operations manager to help manage projects, but as many of you probably know, finding someone who truly thrives in that role can be tough. My alternative idea is to split some of that responsibility between my two most experienced technicians. Both of them have a wide range of knowledge and strong leadership potential. The idea would be a hybrid role where they still spend most of their time in the field but also manage a portion of the jobs. The management side wouldn’t be overly complex – mainly making sure the right technicians are scheduled, materials are ordered, and acting as the point of contact if the crew runs into issues on a job. In return they would earn additional compensation for taking on those responsibilities. My two questions are: has anyone here put in-field technicians on salary, and if so how did that work out? And has anyone successfully split operations responsibilities among senior field staff instead of hiring a dedicated operations manager? I don’t have concerns about their work ethic. They’re both very reliable and I think they’d take the responsibility seriously. In fact giving them more ownership might make them even more invested, and I could also tie in performance incentives if needed. At the same time I don’t want to create a structure that causes problems down the road. I also recognize that being a field tech isn’t necessarily a forever role, so part of me sees this as a potential growth path for them. Curious to hear what has worked or not worked for others.How Much Should You Really Be Charging?
The number one question I receive is tied directly to the fact, most contractors are still guessing when it comes to pricing. Overhead. Profit. Labor rate. Trip fees. They think just because they throw a number they hear their competitors use, thats all that they need. It may work, but how and what do you divide these funds is just as important for your business health. If you don’t know how to do the math, you’re not building a business. You’re surviving check to check and think you need more work, when you do not. So here’s the plan: This Tuesday & Thursday on IG, I’m walking you through our Contractor Price Builder Worksheet FREE on instagram live. We will cover: - How to calculate your real hourly rate - The difference between markup and margin - Why profit is a non-negotiable - And how to price with confidence Join the session. Bring your numbers.
Accounting Problems with Jobber Payments
I saw a post that was voicing the same frustration that I have and it looks like none of the responses were truly helpful… so here’s my version and hoping Jobber will resolve it. (Yes, I have already spoken to Jobber representatives several times about the issue and they couldn’t do anything about it… other than change the program which is what I’m advocating for) We enabled Jobber Payments a while back because we rely pretty heavily on getting down-payments especially for bigger jobs. However, we quickly realized that ANY transaction going through Jobber payments didn’t match the invoice amounts. In short, we figured out that it was because it was taking the fees out BEFORE the money was deposited and it was an absolute NIGHTMARE to fix our books and match numbers. Made reconciling literally impossible. It also was difficult to match the payments to an account. We had to hire a separate accountant to fix it and we ended up shutting it down before it could do more damage. We have been sending payment links with the QuickBooks payment processor because it actually works without messing up the books, but it can be a pain to send the invoice twice. Not to mention once they actually pay we have to manually enter the payment into Jobber since the sync is only one-way. I now know that we aren’t the only ones with this experience. Please like this post so Jobber will do something about this. Any tips would also be appreciated in the meantime.
