How do I start a tire shop with limited funds and no supplier contacts?
Hello I’m Devin and I have been working for myself for over three years doing handyman, pressure washing, tree cutting. Pretty much anything outdoors that need to be done and just burnt out and tired of doing it always wanted to start a new and used tire shop doing oil changes as well. Little minor things like brakes and windshield wipers and bolt lightbulbs for headlights I finally bought two brand new machines tire changer and balancer got most of the tools that I need lacking just a few things but having a hard time with funds, of course, and trying to find some way of being visible in the community I’ve tried Facebook and other social media apps haven’t had much luck hardest thing for me is to fork out so much money for used tires at one time and not having the help of knowing who to contact for getting new tires so any insight would be wonderful thank you in advance
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??👉 “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!The first "NO" - How to handle customers who say your prices are too high when starting out?
After months of planning and calculating, I've finally launched my skid steer business. I've got most of my hourly rates set for the services and felt like they were pretty competitive but reasonable. Then the first opportunity to bid a job comes. Tell them the rate with a four hour minimum and small mobilization fee (that way I make sure it's worth the trip). There's the small pause and then the "Well, I haven't really looked around at prices for this type of work but I was really trying to stay around this much" Odd feeling getting told no for the first time. A little deflating but more potential on the horizon. How did you guys handle the early stages of people essentially saying your prices are too high?
How do HVAC companies improve their quote conversion rate and follow up with leads?
How do you get better at sales? I’m only turning over 20% replacement quotes. Do you have an automated follow up system? I also provide two different financing options. Is there a way to track to see if you’re bottlenecking in rejections vs following up?
Seeking Advice: Building a Pricing Strategy and Ideal Customer Avatar for MTAC Plumbing
Hi Everyone, This is Markus from MTAC Plumbing, based in Kitchener, Ontario. After 2.5 years in business, I’m reaching out to fellow plumbing companies for advice and insights. As a relatively new business, we’ve been saying "yes" to all types of customers and work. We’ve worked with small general contractors on home renovations, direct service calls with homeowners, small commercial fit-outs, reworks, and even a few custom new construction homes. One challenge I’m facing is narrowing down my ideal customer avatar. Without that focus, I’ve struggled to create a solid pricing strategy and price book tailored to specific types of work. I’ve consumed a lot of content—coaching programs, podcasts, and even paid for some trades business coaching—but I’m constantly torn between different approaches. Should I stick to flat rate/lump sum pricing, or go with time and materials transparency? Overhead recovery is another area I need to lock down, along with deciding whether to lean into truck/service charges or a higher hourly rate with minimum-hour strategies. Currently, my price book in Jobber feels clunky and difficult to use. It’s challenging to organize by service types (e.g., Service, Renovation, Commercial), and there’s no way to create subfolders, making navigation harder. From my experience, homeowners in my area often see flat-rate pricing as a dealbreaker. I’ve trained our admin to explain that a plumber needs to assess the job on-site because of plumbing’s many variables. For common issues, I’m considering building out flat-rate pricing for simplicity, but most clients still want an upfront range or at least a disclosed hourly rate before scheduling. I’m looking for advice from this community: How do you structure your pricing and organize your price books? Do you use flat rate, lump sum, or time and materials strategies, and how do they work for you? What’s the best way to build confidence and efficiency in pricing to ramp up billables while keeping processes streamlined? I appreciate any insights or feedback! Best regards, Markus MTAC Plumbing
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!
