Claim your Territory!
Hello Jobber Community, My name is Mario Visin, Founder of Group7 Home Services LLC. We joined the Jobber community with a spirit of collaboration, learning, and service to the home services professionals who keep our homes, neighborhoods, and communities running. I believe the home services industry is entering one of the most important seasons in its history. Blue-collar workers are becoming entrepreneurs by the thousands. Handymen, roofers, painters, landscapers, installers, restoration experts, and specialty trade professionals are no longer just working jobs — they are building businesses, serving families, and creating the foundation for generational opportunity. The home services industry represents hundreds of billions of dollars in economic activity each year. Large suppliers, big-box retailers, and national construction brands have created tremendous wealth from this industry. Yet the heart of the industry has always been the person swinging the hammer, climbing the ladder, knocking the door, answering the emergency call, and doing the work that homeowners depend on. That person is you. That person is me. That person is the blue-collar professional who deserves better systems, better connection, better opportunity, and a clearer path toward building a meaningful life through the trades. One thing I have noticed across many industries is that people often struggle to connect with one another in ways that truly make a difference. We are entering a time where connection and community will matter more than ever. The future will not only belong to the biggest brands or the largest companies. It will belong to those who learn how to connect, serve, collaborate, and build trust with one another. At Group7 Home Services, we are designing a Live-Work-Play vision for the trades — a curriculum and platform strategy focused on helping home services professionals serve one another, grow together, and build wealth through shared relationships, better systems, referral opportunities, and a service-first mindset. This is not just about jobs. It is about lifestyle. It is about family. It is about creating a future so compelling that the next generation sees the trades as a path of pride, ownership, entrepreneurship, and purpose. Strategy matters. Systems matter. Technology matters. But the real transformation begins when good people come together with humility, discipline, and a desire to serve the need before serving the self. I believe larger technology companies serving the trades, including platforms like Jobber, play an important role in this new era. The right technology can help blue-collar entrepreneurs run smoother businesses, communicate better with customers, organize their teams, and create more professional experiences for the homeowners they serve. But technology alone is not the full answer. The real power comes when technology, community, service, craftsmanship, and vision meet at the same table. Group7’s broader mission is Building Thriving Cities by helping people connect around housing, entrepreneurship, education, and local economic opportunity. We believe the home services professional has a major role to play in that transformation because every strong city begins with strong homes, strong workers, strong families, and strong relationships. I am a visionary, and I understand that vision must be protected, refined, and shared with care. But I also believe the home services industry is ready for a new conversation — one centered on dignity, ownership, connection, and a higher conscious level of capitalism where the smaller parts come together to create something greater than any one person could build alone. The big brands we know today started with a dream, a strategy, and a willingness to work for decades. The next great wave of wealth creation may come from like-minded people linking their common threads together, weaving a much larger blanket of opportunity for families, workers, entrepreneurs, and communities. Being part of a community is just the beginning. How we connect matters. Relationships are everything. Work like your life depends on it. Best, Mario Visin Founder, Group7 Home Services LLCShould I hire employees or use 1099 subcontractors for better quality?
We have 6 subs full time and it's burned us a few times. We go behind them on ~25% of jobs. We just got CompanyCam and that'll help operationally. But, I am considering going the employee route and paying hourly. What do you feel works best -- to maximize profitability, ensure quality, and reduce headaches?How do you train admin to think critically instead of just following a to-do list?
When I hired my first virtual assistant to take on some administrative tasks that run the business, it took me about 6-12 months to find the right training and tools to teach him how to do the processes. realized that I didn't just want a worker waiting on a todo list everyday, but I needed someone who could make critical thinking decisions. And then my training changed from to do lists, to showing him how to think and why, and allowing him to make some decisions to build his confidence and trust. Do any of you have any training tips for your admin staff to strengthen the processes?What kind of employee bonuses are you offering your team?
I recently listened to this Masters of Home Service episode with Cory Byron (WiringByron). It got me thinking, how are you all handling employee bonuses? Has your current approach improved team performance, or have you faced challenges? Share your experience below! Give the episode a listen if you want to learn about: Building a simple bonus system that's easy to manage Common issues a bonus plan can address How regular communication keeps your team motivated Never miss an episode of Masters of Home Service. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Quickest Firing I've Ever Done (And What I Should Have Done Differently)
In the trades, we talk a lot about "hire slow, fire fast." I've lived by that principle — long applications, phone screens, in-person interviews, and working alongside our team for a couple of shifts before anyone flies solo. As a skilled labor company, I need to know someone is reliable before I trust them on their own. So when I let someone go recently after just a handful of days, it wasn't a surprise to me. What was a surprise was how much of that situation I had created myself. Here's what happened: I'd gone through the full process with a candidate who looked great on paper — strong experience, excellent finish work, exactly the shower remodeler we were looking for. There was a lot of back and forth on his start date since he was wrapping up another project, and when he finally said he could start on a Friday, I jumped at it even though my schedule was a mess that day. Instead of doing a proper onboarding, I handed him off to my operations manager and told myself we'd sort out the details later. We didn't sit down together to go over expectations, I never walked him through Jobber, and — maybe worst of all — I never confirmed that his new hire paperwork was actually completed. I sent it. I just never followed up. He worked a couple of shifts and the feedback was decent — promising, but still being evaluated. Then Tuesday came, and because we hadn't properly briefed him on the schedule or made sure he understood how our system works, he showed up to a unit turnover job with no context. He felt blindsided, and honestly, I get it — he came on as a bathroom remodeler. His reaction, though, was the problem: attitude with the crew, visibly disengaged at our team meeting, and a text to me saying he couldn't trust us. That was enough. I let him go, and I'm confident it was the right call — his attitude made it clear it wasn't going to work. But I also have to be honest: we didn't give him — or ourselves — a fair shot. The lesson I'm taking away isn't just "fire fast." It's that hiring slow has to extend all the way through onboarding. I was so eager to get him into the pipeline that I skipped the very steps that exist for good reason. If I couldn't carve out the time to do a proper onboarding — paperwork signed, systems explained, expectations laid out clearly — I should have pushed the start date until I could. Going forward, I'm building out a simple onboarding checklist so that no matter how busy things get, nothing gets skipped just because I'm stretched thin. A great hire can become a problem hire real fast when you don't set them up to succeed.How do you handle coverage when employees are out on vacation?
We’re dealing with this right now. Our best employee is moving out of state, which already puts us in a transition period. At the same time, 2 of our employees are taking vacation, so we’re going to be under capacity for the next few days. That means my wife and I are picking up the slack. And realistically, it’s going to be some very long days of scoops. This is one of those parts of running a route-based business that doesn’t get talked about enough. When everything is fully staffed, the schedule looks fine. Then one person leaves, someone gets sick, someone has PTO, the weather throws things off, or a route runs long, and suddenly you realize how thin the operation actually is. I don’t blame employees for taking time off. People need vacations. They have families, lives, and things outside of work. But as the owner, you still have to figure out how to protect the customer experience when capacity drops. A few things I’m thinking through right now: how much extra capacity should we have built into the schedule? when should we stop accepting new jobs temporarily? when does it make sense for owners to jump back in? how much notice should we require for vacation requests? should we cross-train more people across routes? how do we avoid burning out the rest of the team when someone is gone? The hard part is that smaller service businesses usually do not have a deep bench. One or 2 people being gone can completely change the week. This is also making me think more seriously about building routes and hiring plans around capacity gaps, not just normal weeks. Because normal weeks are easy to plan for. The stressful weeks expose the weak spots. When employees are on vacation or you’re temporarily short-staffed, do you: - reschedule customers? - have owners cover the work? - limit new jobs? - bring in part-time help? - build extra capacity into the schedule year-round? - something else?Pre Hiring Test - What We Use
Link to my Self Assessment I wanted to share something that's really worked for me in prequalifying candidates. Not saying I don't hire duds but this helps me save a little time and I can go back to it in the interview. Basically we start by reviewing their resume with pictures -then they get sent this self assessment. That's it. Pretty simple. What I'm looking for when I get it back is not a bunch of fives. If someone rates themselves a five in everything, that's actually a problem for me. What I want to see is an honest picture. When a guy comes back and he's high on a few things, low on a couple others, and somewhere in the middle on the rest — that's the guy I want to talk to. Because we all have gaps. Nobody does everything at the same level, and the people who are honest about that tend to be honest about everything else too. We have room for all kinds of skill levels. We might be hiring with a specific need in mind, but more than anything we're looking for good people. The skills can be built on. The character part is harder. The other thing the assessment tells me, and this one's just as important — did they actually do it? You'd be surprised how many don't send it back. There's a mentality in the trades sometimes where a guy figures he can just show up and go to work and that's all that should be required of him. And look, I get it. But if someone won't spend ten minutes on a form when they're trying to get a job, that tells me something about how they'll handle the other stuff that comes with working on a crew — the communication, the small details, the parts of the job that aren't swinging a hammer. The ones who fill it out, especially the ones who are thoughtful about it, those are the guys who are serious. It doesn't have to be long or complicated. It just has to be done. Once I have it back, it makes for a much better conversation too. I'm not sitting there grilling somebody — I'm just asking them to tell me about their own numbers. It takes the pressure off and I learn a lot more than I would from a standard interview. It's a small thing, but it's made a real difference in who I end up bringing on.Upsides and downsides of hiring a summer helper?
I am thinking about hiring someone to help me in the busy season and the idea of a high school kid as a summer job sounds like a promising idea. I wouldn't have to pay them a crazy salary, they are like sponges with information and they are typically more physically full of energy. I wouldn't be able to send them on their own, but they could help me get a few more jobs done in a day. I am wondering if anyone has tried this and what would be the pros and cons of doing it?
