Roll call! Meet & introduce yourself to other Service-based Skilled Trade pros
If you’ve ever thought, “How are other businesses like mine handling this?” you’re in the right place! This space is for Service-Based Skilled Trades 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 [your 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. 🚀Is creating a contractual agreement with customers on a fixed income too risky?
We essentially would build a payment plan step by step together explaining every detail and what each payment covers, showing the progress every step of the way ensuring they don’t go broke over a roof repair or drywall patch. I’m trying to start my own handyman business that will give back to the community through the disabled and elderly who can’t always afford thousands of dollars up front.
What is the best way to estimate materials accurately for handyman and remodeling jobs?
I run a Handyman/ small remodeling company and one thing that always seems to slow me up is material lists. For some of the bigger jobs we do such as decks, its not too bad. I typically get on Menards and use their design and build tool which gives a materials list for the project. This usually gets me about 90% of the way there, typically will have some additional things here and there. Where I typically get hung up is the more odd jobs. I spend time thinking about all the possible things we will need and it seems like always fall a little short. My question is what are others doing? Same thing? AI tools? Just getting materials close enough then billing out extra at the end? appreciate any and all help!
Small Property Damage Restoration Company Needing Some Serious Guidance!!!
Hello Everyone, my name is Jonathan and i own a small property damage restoration company in Live Oak, FL. We service a big radius including Gainesville, Ocala, The Villages and much more. Right now its just me as I've been in the industry for 18 years i work better myself but as i get more jobs on each end of my radius of service i will need to hire someone and get a van and get them helping me with these jobs. What's hard right now is i started this business a year an a half ago with nothing, no capital, no loan, just starting a job collecting a deposit and then collecting the rest at the end, and if you know the restoration industry then you know these companies don't survive off of word of mouth. many people will say word of mouth is best but if you think about it, when your home floods normally you call your insurance company or you go to google to hurry and find a company to come out and normally the top 3 companies will be the ones getting picked. So i will need SEO Marketing so that my google business page and website pop up first on google and its very very expensive I've seen 5000-8000 to get started and 2000-3000 monthly to keep you at the top and it does work I've seen it!! but as a company that literally survives off each job and doesn't get that many jobs monthly to begin with its very very hard to get up there with these big companies!!! What really bums me out is after 18 years and working with many many different companies i have a plan to implement all the good traits about these companies I've worked for to create the ultimate restoration company that is there for the community and help the customers and not my pockets like these other companies do!! Basically i need help with funding, i am currently working on my business credit i have many tradelines right now to help me build it cause my personal credit is not good enough to get a loan or any kind of funding! Does anyone know how to get Grants, Funding, Loan, Anything to help me with some working capital??
