How to 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.Are You Building a Business or Just Creating Yourself Another Job?
It’s easy as a small business owner to get caught up doing everything yourself. At what point do you start delegating, hiring, or putting systems in place so the business can operate without you being involved in every job? I’d love to hear how other owners are making that transition while still keeping quality and customer service high.
Estimated Time or Duration of Jobs
How are others scheduling jobs without any duration or estimated time fields in Jobber? When creating a new job, it simply prompts us to put in the exact day and time of the job we are creating.. as if we have our entire calendar and routes memorized and can just rattle it off. So we have to mark the job as unscheduled. But when that happens, Jobber assumes all unscheduled jobs are one hour. There is no field for us to input HOW LONG the job is going to take.. thus all unscheduled jobs in history.. are one hour. $50,000 paver job? 1 hour. 1,500sq ft lawn mow? 1 hour. It seems the logical thing would be during the create a job flow, to have a field where we could put in the estimated time it’s going to take. Then Jobber knows our calendar and can say… hey.. these are some times i found that seem to work. Or if it’s unscheduled.. at least when we go to schedule it.. Jobber’s ‘find a time’ tool.. would be able to work off the actual time it’s suppose to take. So I’m asking.. how are ya’ll handling this now? I assume most of us estimate based off how long a job will take as a the main factor… but that doesn’t really transfer to jobber well. Are you writing estimated times in the description and then having your office manually adjust and mess with each visit individually each time a job is scheduled? Is there another way? Are you just scheduling all jobs for 2am on a Sunday and then manually dragging them to your 10-12 routes that week? Really looking forward any insight into this as I don’t think Jobber is going to add time as a factor for jobs anytime soon. If we did it manually and had to falsely schedule all jobs for some random time before they were moved to a correct position on the schedule.. we’d then have to turn off all our clients upcoming visits views in the portal.
💡FEATURE REQUEST: Price Increases in Products & Services List
Do you increase prices for ongoing customers? Do you know how long it takes me to increase my prices for 700 ongoing clients in my cleaning business? Whether you increase your prices on an annual basis or just as needed in these unpredictable times, it would be easier to make these changes en masse in the Products and Services tab! How would it work? When editing a product or service line item in the Products & Services List, there should be an option to carry that modification over to any existing Jobs that have that line item on it. Currently, this would only update for new jobs created, but I'd love to see a little pop-up that says, "Would you like to change the price for existing Jobs with this line item? Yes/No" Use Case Example: Because I am in the cleaning industry, it will be my primary use case. Let's say you have a minimum price that every client's rate will be at or above. When you create a new job for a recurring customer, you add a line item titled "Minimum Rate + current year," like for 2020: "Minimum Rate 2020," which is $150. You also add another line item based on how your pricing model is set up - in this case, I will use a simple one: "Small House" for $10 "Medium House" for $30 "Large House" for $50 When it's time for your prices to increase, consider the following options: you could decide to raise prices only for people with large houses and keep your minimum rate the same, or you may want to increase the cost for clients who have been with you for more than 5 years. Instead of making this change one client at a time and trying to sort through who the change applies to, I could go to the Products and Services List and find the specific line item I want to modify. Then, I could edit the price in there! Ta Da! You've raised your prices! Why should Jobber care? This would be huge for any business industry that has recurring clients. ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, and other competitors already have this feature. I have found other threads that mention something like this or frustrations with how to go about raising prices. This would allow businesses that only see customers once or twice a year to set up their customers as recurring with one Job, saving them a lot of time and effort as well. You'd have at least one very loyal customer in me! I've spoken to two support agents who thought this was a simple but fantastic idea! My next price increase is in June, and I'd love you guys if you saved me weeks worth of work in a single click 🤞🙏 QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, FEEDBACK, AND MORE USE CASES WELCOME!!
LAWN CARE PRICING
What do others do when clients skip multiple weeks in a row? I have a situation where for years I was providing weekly services, and this year I’ve skip a certain property more times than I’ve serviced. How should I handle a discussion with the client? Should I be charging more the times I do show up?
Marketing for a Growing Landscaping Company (When You’re Still Wearing All the Hats)
For those running small-to-mid size landscaping companies (especially maintenance-heavy businesses), how are you handling marketing as you grow? I’ve been managing ours in-house due to my convenient design background, but between operations and crew management it’s becoming unsustainable—especially when it comes to SEO and lead generation for higher-value projects (which I have less experience with) Are you outsourcing to a freelancer/agency, or hiring in-house? And at what point did that investment start to make sense for you? Do you have any recommendations for Canadian companies?
How Are Home Service Businesses Preparing for AI Search Visibility?
Search is changing fast. We’ve already seen Google test online estimates and AI-assisted pricing in local search. Now, AI tools are helping homeowners decide who to call, sometimes before they ever visit a website. Scorpion Marketing published a report with the following stats: 22% of homeowners are already using AI tools to research services or get recommendations 80% of business owners say they don’t know how to prepare for AI-driven search visibility We’d love to hear what you’re seeing👇 Have you noticed changes in how customers find you or ask questions? Are you doing anything intentionally today to prep for AI-driven search? If AI search on your radar but still confusing, what question do you have? This space will continue to evolve. Sharing what’s working (or not) across different trades helps everyone get ahead of it!
