When do you know when to start hiring?
Here at GB Plumbing, we knew we should be starting to hire when we were working over 70 hours a week and not seeing any slow down with jobs coming in. We’re now up to 3 trucks, and are looking to hire again as things continue to keep growing and we want to continue to provide more services to our community.Do you utilize battery-powered tools?
Handheld battery-powered tools have come a long way from their first iterations, especially over the past few years. I've started making the switch away from gas-powered equipment throughout the last few seasons for my business and have found the switch to be positive for my workflow and bottom line. This is a trend I believe will continue as batteries become more powerful and long-lasting. Are you utilizing any battery-powered equipment and, if so, do you have any favorites you'd like to share??How Much Should You Really Be Charging?
The number one question I receive is tied directly to the fact, most contractors are still guessing when it comes to pricing. Overhead. Profit. Labor rate. Trip fees. They think just because they throw a number they hear their competitors use, thats all that they need. It may work, but how and what do you divide these funds is just as important for your business health. If you don’t know how to do the math, you’re not building a business. You’re surviving check to check and think you need more work, when you do not. So here’s the plan: This Tuesday & Thursday on IG, I’m walking you through our Contractor Price Builder Worksheet FREE on instagram live. We will cover: - How to calculate your real hourly rate - The difference between markup and margin - Why profit is a non-negotiable - And how to price with confidence Join the session. Bring your numbers.
Marketing companies that ruin your business
So we’ve been in business 3 1/2 years now and have been relatively busy we have our showtimes but for the most part for the small company we have we can pull in about 100,000 a month that is before we transfer marketing company which was highly rated and Seemed fun. It was costly though and after several months 5 to 6 months of draining my bank account there was nothing to show for it. There was no work for us. Our business got lost somewhere and website Wonderland unfortunately when I called and asked them and requested help I was ignored and given a rude statement, they drawn my yelp , they took my calls calls. I have no schedule for the last one. This has happened to anybody else. What do you do to pick up again? How do you start all over?
Direct Call Leads
We only pay per qualified conversation with homeowners. After a few years of hunting down bad contacts, getting ghosted and wasting money on ads and ad managers we internally built out a system that only costs money when a homeowner directly calls us looking for our services. It’s been a gamechanger and we even started selling these calls to other roofers and other industries/home service companies because there’s no real risk. Either you talk to a homeowner who wants you to come out, or you don’t pay. They can be kind of expensive but our ROI is at about 3.4x for a while now using it so I’m never going back to our old methods…unless someone has a lower risk option that doesn’t consume a ton of time.New Google Search Features: Online Estimates Filter and “Have AI Check Prices” — what does this mean for service pros?
Google has recently started rolling out new pricing-related features in local home service search, and they could impact how service businesses get discovered. Two early changes we’re seeing: “Online estimates” filter Google is beginning to surface an Online estimates filter in some home service searches. Early signs suggest businesses that provide clear, machine-readable pricing or instant estimates may be favored over generic contact forms. “Have AI check prices” or “Ask AI for Pricing” feature Google is also testing an AI feature that gathers pricing on a homeowner’s behalf by using AI to call businesses and collect price quotes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=illIa8LSfY0 These features are still new and evolving, but they raise big questions about pricing transparency, estimates, and local search visibility. We’re curious: Have you noticed either of these features in your area yet? Do you currently show pricing or estimate ranges online? Do changes like this make you rethink how you approach pricing and Google visibility? Would love to hear what service pros are seeing so far 👇
Technician Performance Report
I am just coming over from service titan.. One report that is really important to me is technician performance report we had. We could see their avg ticket, their daily avg, month to date sales ect... a report that I can see how much a tech has invoiced for is imperative. Any chance this is coming? How are you other business owners tracking how your tech's are doing? I don't want to pay the guy who is doing bare min. the same as the guys who are taking their job seriously well organised and hustling.How do you utilize reports in your business?
I am curious to hear which reports you consider most valuable in your business and what actions are taken based on those reports if anyone is willing to share. Are there reports that you use regularly in Jobber or reports that you wish were part of Jobber? If so how do you utilize the information that the reports provide? Are changes made based on the reports? Is the data used to create the reports monitored internally for consistency? Thanks for sharing all input is helpful!
Acorn Integration?
We use enhancify. We considered Wisetack. However, we require down payments and don't like that payment gets released after work gets completed. We stumbled across Acorn and saw they integrate with HouseCall Pro. On their quotes, they offer a monthly finance rate the customer could get if they used Acorn (estimated rate of course). Is this a possible integration in the future, or is there something similar? tia
