Painting Company here: Employees or Subs?
My Texas painting company has been operating with employees since we started. We offer benefits, WC, of course pay taxes, etc. Employees are expensive. Strangely enough, I have also found employees often are harder to keep motivated without constant oversite - they get the work done, but often not as fast as subcontractors, so that cuts into profits as well. I understand that a lot of franchises, like That 1 Painter, and CertaPro, have managers who are employees, but their laborers are 1099 subcontractors they basically treat like employees. The subs wear the company shirts, and work to the company's standards and the managers pop in here and there to check on them. This way the company avoids paying taxes, benefits, etc., and if they are low on work, they have no obligation to keep paying their laborers. This all sounds really nice. With how expensive my labor force and overhead are, I find it hard to be competitive against other companies with a subcontractor business model and still remain profitable. Any other painting companies or similar businesses - what do you guys do?Traning process
Hello, looking for advice on a training process for residential cleaning. Struggling to come up with a plan to help cleaners become successful. As of right now I been hands on training in person. As im growing and hiring team leaders i need a better training process as i can't always be there to train.
Pay for performance in Lawn Care and Landscaping - has anyone been successful?
I know this has been talked about many times, but I'm thinking about re-visiting this option. How have you structured your pay for performance when you have crews that do totally different things? For example- we have some crews that just do lawn maintenance (bi-weekly grass cutting, weed eating, etc), and other crews that do 'projects' (french drains, hardscapes, etc). And some guys that float between the different crews. My brain cannot conceive metrics that would be equitable for both groups. Would we have a different set of metrics for each type of crew? A different set for the grass cutting crew vs the projects crew? What are some examples of metrics that you have successfully used? How did you measure or track them? I think I'm just 'stuck' on how to even get started. I've looked at so many conversations on this that my brain is in overload. Can someone give me a hand here? Can I just see your metrics? Help. Please.How should cleaning businesses pay and structure their first part-time employee?
Hi, I am moving into the phase where I would like to hire anvemployee. I want to start with one person part-time. I am confused on what is right or wrong with my plans. I would like to explain how I want to handle hiring. Then I want to ask for input from this community where I need to make changes or keep my plan: I am looking to hire one part time employee. They will need to drive their own vehicle at some point once they are out of training and on their own. Until then they will be riding with me. When they are in house cleaning they will get there hourly rate and I will set that based on performace and skills. When they are traveling between homes they will be paid at an hourly rate at the minimum wage rate. They will not get mileage reinbursement because they are riding with me and I will be driving. Is this okay or how are others are doing it? Any input or suggesting are greatly appreciated! Thanks!
How to grow a business while hiring reliable employees and managing life as a parent?
I'm a 26 year old entrepreneur, I've owned and operated my residential cleaning company for almost 5 years now. I have learned a lot over the past couple of years and feel like I'm heading in a good direction, but I need to keep steering the company down the right path to true growth. I am a new mom, and will be adopting 2 more children. After having my daughter, I began to let my dream fade, as I didn't have enough fire to keep my dream going and thriving. As we begin to expand more, how do I juggle the rollercoaster of life and trying to stay on the same mindset of having and setting that goals when it feels like things are not really going in the direction I had hoped a year ago? Finding consistent workers who are reliable and willing to work have been somewhat of a struggle, due to the group of people we hire. Most are moms who have children to take care of and it affects their work life a lot, I'm even finding myself in that position. I have always been a more hands on owner who is physically doing the work and solo cleaned in the beginning, so handing over what felt like my "baby" was a hard adjustment, I felt that I micro-managed and it really shot me in the foot. I have a good team of cleaners at the moment, but am needing to hire more reliable cleaners, as well as, book more work. I am afraid of booking work and not having cleaners available. Should I just go for it? Given where I am in life now, I have to be able to focus on the business parts of things rather than the actual work.New Generation Problems: How do you train and manage younger employees in the trades?
How are you guys dealing with the newest generation coming into the trades. I feel like these guys have intelligence, they ask very good questions but my answers leave them looking like a deer in the headlights. No information seems the be retained, and it seems like they are unable to work independently without continuous instructions. have not found a good way to get through to them, seems they are only here for the paycheck and no one considers acquiring knowledge and skill as an asset anymore. What have you been experiencing?Residential cleaning businesses specifically in North Carolina. Advice on how to pay W2 employees.
Hi, Residentail cleaning business here. Looking to hire my first part-time W2 employee. I have asked this before, but I would like advice from people who are in my state, so the advice can match NC laws, ideas, and cost of living. I want to get some advice from other cleaning business owners who have specifically hired W2 employees in North Carolina. This Jobber community is so large but each state is different when it comes to compensation for their employees. I am interested in knowing the following: *Pay Rate per hour(range) *Travel Time Rate per hour(range) I think I will just do the IRS mileage Rate, unless someone in NC has another idea that is cost efficient over mileage pay. For the employee driving there own personal vehicle for work. When I hire the part-time employee they will need to drive their own personal vehicle after training. Thank you!
How to grow a landscaping business stuck at “owner + one crew” stage
TLDR: My spouse and I run a small landscaping business that’s stable but stuck at the owner + one crew stage. We still have to work in the field daily because we haven’t been able to develop reliable crew leaders, and hiring more staff feels unmanageable. Our maintenance model works well in a dense service area but doesn’t scale easily to nearby towns, and clients mainly see us as a maintenance company rather than landscapers. We’d like to move toward higher-value work and build a business that doesn’t rely on our physical labor long-term. For those who’ve grown service businesses: how do you break past this stage and start working on the business instead of just in it? My spouse and I run a small landscaping business that we somewhat fell into unexpectedly, and we’re looking for advice from people who have grown service businesses past this stage. The business started informally in a neighbourhood about 20 minutes outside a nearby town. Over time, several gated communities were developed nearby, adding a few hundred homes. Many are vacation properties and many residents are snowbirds, so there’s strong demand for property maintenance. Right now we operate with one truck / crew (2–4 people including us), and season that runs roughly March–December. We do have another truck and a few other trailers so have had short stints of running two crews. The business is financially stable. We pay ourselves modestly, have an accountant/bookkeeper, and use QuickBooks and Jobber. However, we feel stuck at this size. Main challenges We’re still on the tools every day. Most hires are entry-level and turnover is high, so we don’t have anyone who can reliably run a crew, quote jobs, train others, or solve problems independently. Crew leads aren’t long-term. Even when someone steps up, they still require constant support. Growth feels unmanageable. Hiring more staff means more work to manage, which already feels like full capacity. Our model relies on a dense service area. Maintenance works well in the clustered neighbourhoods we serve, but expanding into nearby towns becomes inefficient (plus there is a lot of more established competition outside our main service area). We’re stuck between models. Clients mostly see us as a maintenance company, but we’re not big enough to run separate maintenance and landscaping crews. Goals/Ideas We've Thought Of Move toward higher-end design and installation work Reduce dependence on daily physical labor Build a business that is sustainable and potentially sellable For context, I handle marketing (website, social media, Google reviews) and have a graphic design background. One of us also has an irrigation technician certificate, but we haven’t added irrigation services yet due to limited experience. Each winter we plan to work on business development, but the time usually goes toward preparing for the next season. Questions How do service businesses break past the “owner + one crew” stage? How do you develop reliable long-term crew leaders or managers? Is it better to scale maintenance crews or pivot toward higher-value landscaping work? How do you make time to work on the business when operations already take everything? Where do you start to work on the business? We’re approaching middle age and don’t want to rely on physical labor forever. I’d love to build something more sustainable than just owning a job. Neither of us have "dream" careers, but owning a landscaping business wouldn't have been on the list of contenders. We want to know how to make this work and how to figure out what to do in the future whether that is with the current business or doing something completely unrelated. If anyone has gone through this stage in a landscaping or service business, or just as a middle-aged person who still doesn't know what they want to be when they grow up, I’d really appreciate hearing what helped you gain clarity / move forward!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.
