Should I purchase a van or truck for my company?
I am looking at a potential second vehicle for my electrical company. I have always thought trucks were the way, I started in the oilfield 20 years ago and that all there was. So now I am trying to decide on the potential benefits of a van. It seems easier to manage and control tools and material, but seems like it may be a large vehicle to handle, especially the height. Curious to hear about your past experiences!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. 🚀
What’s holding most service businesses back
I’ve been thinking about this lately, what’s actually holding most service businesses back? Is it: • Lack of leads • Poor systems • Weak pricing • Or the owner not stepping into the business role Because I’ve seen companies busy all day… but still stuck. Curious what do you think is the real bottleneck?👉 “Turning My Logistics Vision Into Reality – Lyric Logistics LLC”
Hi everyone, I’m Flo, the owner of Lyric Logistics LLC. I’m currently in the process of launching my transportation business focused on reliable box truck freight services for small and mid-sized businesses. One recent win I’m proud of is completing my grant applications and building out my business foundation, including my services, branding, and operations plan. It’s been a big step toward turning my vision into something real. I’m excited to be part of this community and learn from others while growing my business. Looking forward to connecting!Milwaukee vs DeWalt Tools, which one?
We’re Lock Nerds Locksmith, a Buffalo, NY-based company that’s always relied on Milwaukee tools. But we’re curious—what tools do other pros trust? We're looking for honest pros and cons between Milwaukee and DeWalt to see if it's time for us to reconsider our setup.
Suggestions for Jobber
Below is some suggestions I have for Jobber to improve use. This is reviewing the two past years of my company and the complications they have using it. Anymore? Keep it going! Create a filter in clients to separate residential and commercial. Display icon in clients for residential and commercial. Prompt you if a duplicate client is being created. Identical names especially for companies shouldn't be allowed. Option to turn off archived search results when using the search bar. Create a collect payment button for invoices instead of having to click edit invoice to collect payment. Under save invoice options add selection save invoice and mark as sent. Create an edit mode for products and services and for visits. You would click the button allowing you to change the text in the columns and toggle taxable or non taxable. when edit mode is turned off it will save any changes. You can also do a select box so you can deactivate or delete multiple at a time. For visits, dates should be an option in the edit mode. Length of visits should be an option in one off or recurring. Shouldn't just default to all day. Quotes have a bulk archive, this should be added to jobs and requests and for the quotes there should be options such as bulk archive, bulk approve. When converting quotes to a job there should be selection boxes to select which line items you want to convert. And once line items are converted and someone tries to do it again maybe a popup saying this has already been converted to job #______ are you sure you want to proceed? In Manage teams, allow you to create a password for your technician. Sometimes techs are in the field having issues and don't have time to verify and change a password. Administrators should have this option.Do You Train Your Team to Think or Just Work?
Every Monday, we hold a short training session with our team. We train on communication. leadership. & mindset. The reason being most tradespeople aren’t struggling because they can’t do the work. They’re struggling because they were never taught how to: Speak with clarity Handle conflict Lead a crew Represent the business professionally These tend to be the issues I see bottling up, either from our exit interviews or customer feed back or when things are misunderstood. Thats why I'm curious: Do you train soft skills with your crew?
