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?How Fast Do You Pick Up a Phone Call or Call Someone Back After a Missed Call?
Curious how everyone here handles this, because a new Jobber survey of recent homebuyers turned up a stat that stuck with me: 15% had to follow up repeatedly just to get a response from a contractor 9% never heard back at all Losing potential business due to something that is not a pricing problem or a skill problem should be a wake up call. In a world where 75% of new homeowners hire a pro within their first two years of buying, being the one who calls back first might be the easiest job you win all week! So, what's your business standard? Do you answer within a certain time frame or let it go to voicemail and call back same day? Are there systems set up so nothing slips through the cracks? 👉 Recent Homebuyer Report: It's got homeowner quotes on what made them trust (or ditch) a contractor, plus a breakdown of how each generation actually finds a pro.
How Do Solo Operators Find Reliable On-Call Help When Jobs Get Too Big to Handle Alone?
I would like a better way to keep track of my time. Since I ran in one person operation with occasional aside helper, I sometimes get overloaded with jobs. I think I can do. As a small one person handyman type jobs. I may get out on a job and find its way too much for one person and then I have to stop and try to find someone to help me. So I’ve tried using workers day workers and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. But whatever I’m looking for as far as parts, I know I can go to Home Depot and find what I need so I always depend on Home Depot and now I just need a way to find a reliable worker that is willing to be on call.Syncing Jobber to Google Calendar
Are any of you time blocking people? Well I'm an aspiring time blocking person and I just learned I can have Chat GPT do it for me instead of me slaving away on google trying to get everything dialed. What I realized was my tasks in jobber would have to get synced to google manually and that's super annoying. Wait - turns out Jobber quietly solved this and I didn't realize. I made a video showing yall how to sync you site visits, jobber tasks etc right on your calendar. https://www.loom.com/share/601da88e9b77434c84f7fa17ead4963c Hopefully that's helpful!How Do You Roll Back a Major Change?
Have you guys ever made a major organizational change then needed to go back? This last year I tried to help buy back some of my time and created a Project/ Operations manager position so I could focus on sales and marketing. It's been a bumpy road to say the least. I first tried to hire two guys from outside the organization, I really thought I did my due diligence but it didn't work out with either of those guys. One guy I learned after a week (lol) the other took me a month and a half. On our third guy, I promoted from within and it seemed like it was working but here we are almost two full quarters in and we have less capacity because I haven't been successful in finding a replacement for him in the field, and we are making less money on jobs because ... well it's a combination of things but he might not be a fit for the position. I'm thinking I need a more decentralized approach since essentially we are at the same revenue number as last year when we didn't have his big overhead position. So the question is - how do you roll that back? Is it possible to make a change like that without alienating the person I'm demoting? Would it be easier to demote if I'm citing financial and structural changes for the company? What's ya'll take on that.Best ways to track material costs?
Tracking material costs in the electrical contracting industry is critical because supply prices (wire, conduit, breakers, panels, etc.) fluctuate frequently due to market demand, copper prices, and supply chain changes. A strong system protects profit margins, improves estimating accuracy, and helps maintain consistent pricing for customers. How does your company keep track?I Got a New Truck - Now Everyone Wants a Raise
This happen to anyone in here? haha man I tell you what. I've been driving second hand cars for basically my whole life. I sold a couple work vehicles and finally splurged on a nice pick up so I have something to pull a dump trailer then all of a sudden everyone wants a raise. This post is more about me thinking out loud but let me think through what's occurring for that kind of cause and effect. I always thought I paid well but first thought was ... do I pay well enough? My gross profit is mostly around our goals as a company (50%) so maybe I need to raise prices to help my guys out more. Or maybe: 1) My relationship with my team has become transactional. Everyone is always there for the paycheck but I've been neglecting the relational aspect of the company. Less team get togethers as of late. Less checking in with everyone to see what's up with their lives. From their perspective, well if I have to be here, I should be making as much as possible. 2) I don't have incentives in place so they can earn more outside their hourly. I've been wanting to do this for a while but this is a sign I need to do this now. Maybe we've reached a breaking point with this. 3) I'm doing something to embolden them to ask for a raise immediately after a big transaction Funny thing about it is I'm leasing and the lease payment isn't that much but I was curious if this happened to anyone before and how they dealt with it.
