Mike Vidan

“Pricing based on what feels fair instead of what the work actually costs to deliver. A new contractor looks at a job, thinks about what he’d be happy getting paid, and throws a number out. That number almost never accounts for fuel, equipment wear, insurance, the phone time it took to book the job, or the drive time to get there. I’ve watched contractors work themselves to exhaustion for three or four years and wonder why they have nothing in the bank. The job isn’t the problem. The math is. If you don’t know your actual cost per hour to operate — not just your wage, your full cost — you will price yourself into the ground and never understand why.”

“Break it into what you know and what you’re estimating. What you know is your cost per hour to operate and how long comparable jobs have taken you. What you’re estimating is how this specific job will behave. My rule for anything unfamiliar: take my time estimate and add 50%. Not 10%, not 20% — 50%. Because the thing that takes you by surprise on a new job type isn’t a small surprise. I’ve learned that lesson expensively. The other thing I tell contractors: price the job, not the customer. Don’t look at the neighborhood and decide what they can afford. Price the work. Every time you price the customer instead of the work, you’re guessing at someone else’s wallet and losing track of your own numbers.”

“Earlier than most people think — somewhere around $75,000 to $100,000 in annual revenue is where the ceiling on hourly work starts to bite. When you price hourly, your income is directly capped by your hours. You can’t make more without working more. Flat-rate pricing breaks that ceiling because you’re pricing the outcome, not the clock. A contractor who’s fast and efficient at a job they’ve done 200 times shouldn’t be penalized for that speed. Flat-rate also removes the biggest conversion killer in home service, which is customer anxiety about an open-ended invoice. A customer comparing two quotes wants a complete number. Give them one.”

“Most contractors pass materials through at cost or close to it, and they call that honest. It’s not honest — it’s just financially illiterate. You drove to get those materials. You stored them, you transported them, you took on the risk that you ordered the wrong amount. The handling of materials is labor and overhead. A minimum 35% markup on materials is what I’d call the floor, and I’ve worked with very profitable contractors who go higher than that. What holds contractors back from charging the right markup is fear of losing the job. But I’ve never lost a job because of a fair material markup. I’ve lost jobs on labor pricing, on communication, on reputation. Never on a reasonable material line item.”

“Speed and specificity, in that order. The contractor who sends a quote first has already set the customer’s expectations. By the time the second quote arrives, the customer is already comparing everything to the first one. That’s a real advantage. But speed without specificity wastes that advantage. A quote that shows up in two hours and says ‘cleaning services: $250’ tells the customer nothing. The quotes that actually win jobs show the customer that you paid attention — you reference their specific situation, you break down what you’re doing, you give them a clear picture of what they’re getting. Speed gets you there first. Specificity closes it.”

“Same day. Not tomorrow morning — same day. If a customer calls me in the morning and I haven’t sent an estimate by that evening, I’ve already lost significant ground. Customers call multiple contractors for the same job. They’re not waiting for you specifically. Whoever sends a clear, specific estimate first is the one the customer starts comparing everyone else to. That’s a psychological anchor, and it’s real. The contractors I’ve coached who made same-day quoting a non-negotiable discipline consistently won more jobs without changing their prices, their service, or anything else. Response speed alone moved their numbers.”

“Four things: what the job is, what the size or scope looks like, when they need it done, and whether there are any access issues. That’s it. Most of the other questions contractors ask before quoting are stalling tactics dressed up as thoroughness. I’ve watched contractors spend 45 minutes on a pre-quote call collecting information that never shows up in the estimate. The customer doesn’t care about your process. They care about their problem. If you can get those four answers in five minutes, you have what you need. Send the number.”

“Give them a range and make the next step clear. ‘Based on what you’ve described, this type of job typically runs between X and Y. To give you a firm number, I’d need to either see the property or get a few photos — I can schedule that at no charge.’ That keeps you in the conversation without committing to a number you can’t stand behind. It also filters the job out if the customer isn’t serious. And here’s something I’ve found to be consistently true over 20 years: the customer who won’t give you the information you need to quote accurately is often the same customer who will dispute the invoice later. Protecting your ability to price correctly is the same as protecting your profitability.”

“Driving to properties for estimates on jobs that don’t require a site visit. I’ve watched contractors spend three hours on the road to quote a $200 job they could have priced from two photos and a five-minute phone call. The math is brutal. If your time is worth $75 to $100 an hour when you’re working and you’re spending three hours on a pre-quote drive, you’ve already spent $225 to $300 in time to potentially win a $200 job. I’m not saying skip site visits entirely — for large or complex jobs they’re necessary. But most home service contractors are visiting properties they have no reason to visit, on jobs they’ve done a hundred times. Audit your own quoting process. You’ll find hours.”

“It depends entirely on the job type, and most contractors default to in-person far more often than their margins can afford. For standard, repeatable services you’ve done hundreds of times, phone quoting with photos is faster and just as accurate. For custom, complex, or high-ticket jobs where variables matter, an in-person visit is worth the time. The question to ask yourself is: what does this visit cost me, and what am I learning that I couldn’t learn from photos and a good conversation? If you can’t answer that clearly, you probably don’t need to go. The contractors who scale are the ones who learn to qualify over the phone before committing to a trip.”

“A helper, not a technician. Most solo contractors think the first hire has to be someone they can leave alone on a job site. That’s the wrong target. A helper who can do the physical support work, handle equipment, clean up, and assist on two-person jobs costs less, trains faster, and immediately increases your output because you stop doing $12-an-hour tasks with your $80-an-hour hands. As for timing: you’re ready to hire when you’re consistently turning away work or pushing jobs past a two-week delay. That’s the concrete signal. Hire before that signal is real and you’ll create a cash flow problem — you’ll be paying wages before the demand is there to support them.”

“You can’t prevent it through contracts — that approach usually just breeds resentment. What you can do is make staying more valuable than leaving. That means a real career path, not just a job. It means paying well enough that starting from zero doesn’t make financial sense. The contractors I’ve seen build loyal, long-term teams all did the same thing: they treated employees like partners in every way except on paper. They shared the numbers, explained how the business makes money, gave people a sense of ownership in the outcome. The employees who eventually left to start competing businesses almost always did it because they felt like a cog. They learned the skill, felt like they’d hit a ceiling, and saw no reason to stay. That ceiling is something you build or something you remove. Most owners build it without realizing it.”

“Most contractors look at the hourly wage and think that’s the cost of an employee. That’s roughly 70% of the real number. Once you add payroll taxes, workers’ comp insurance, and any benefits, a $20-an-hour employee is closer to $27 or $28 an hour in actual cost. Then factor in equipment they need, the vehicle use or mileage, the first 60 to 90 days of your own time spent training when their output is partial. In that ramp period, you’re paying a real wage for reduced productivity. I tell contractors to budget for a 90-day break-even period on a new hire. If your cash flow can absorb that without creating stress, you’re ready. If it can’t, you’re not ready yet — regardless of how busy you are.”

“Letting go of quality control. When you’re on every job yourself, you know exactly how it’s going to be done. The moment someone else is on that job site, you’re trusting your reputation to another person. That trust is the hard part — not the logistics, not the payroll, not the scheduling. Most contractors don’t actually let go; they hover. And hovering while someone else does the work means you’re getting the worst of both worlds: you’re not on the tools generating revenue, but you’re also not building a system that can operate without you. The transition only worked for me when I stopped trying to replicate myself and started building written processes that replicated my standard. Once the standard was documented, I could hold people to it without being there.”

“Documentation before and after every single job, without exception. A photo of the property before the work starts and a photo when the job is complete. That one habit does three things simultaneously: it keeps the crew accountable because they know the output is being reviewed, it gives you a dispute-proof record if a customer ever challenges the work, and it trains your team to think of quality as something objective and visible rather than something subjective. Beyond photos, a simple checklist specific to each service type eliminates ambiguity. When someone on your crew asks ‘did I do this right,’ the answer shouldn’t require a phone call to you. It should be on the list.”

“Their own network first. Every contractor has a circle of people who already know them and would give their business a shot — friends, family, neighbors, former coworkers, people from church. Those first 10 customers don’t come from advertising. They come from directly asking people you already have a relationship with to give your new business a try. The reason this matters beyond just getting paid is that your first 10 customers are your review foundation. If you do good work and ask those customers for a Google review, you can have 8 to 10 reviews before you’ve spent a dollar on marketing. Those reviews are what make the next stranger trust you enough to call.”

“I’d rather see a new contractor spend zero on paid advertising and put that same money into their Google Business Profile setup, a clean way to collect reviews, and a simple process for following up with every customer after a job. The contractors who burn through ad budgets in year one and wonder why they’re not growing usually have the same problem: they’re sending paid traffic to a profile or website that doesn’t convert because the reputation infrastructure isn’t there yet. Get your first 25 to 30 reviews. Get your Google Business Profile complete. Get your close rate above 40%. Once that foundation is solid, paid marketing amplifies what’s already working. Before that, it just accelerates the problem.”

“They’re the same thing now. A Google review is word of mouth that scales — one customer’s experience told to every person who searches for what you do in your area for the next several years. A referral from a happy customer is powerful, but it has a ceiling. That referral reaches the three to five people in someone’s network who happen to need your service. A Google review reaches everyone indefinitely. The contractors I know personally who have built the most consistently profitable businesses treat review collection as seriously as they treat the quality of the work itself. The job isn’t done when you leave the property. It’s done when the customer has posted a review.”

“Because they’ve never measured it. If you don’t track how quickly you respond to inquiries versus how often you win those jobs, you never see the pattern. The pattern is this: most customers who contact a home service contractor contact more than one. The one who responds first — with a clear, confident, specific reply — anchors the comparison. By the time the second contractor calls, the customer is already measuring them against the first response. I’ve seen contractors lose jobs not because they were more expensive or less qualified, but because they called back the next morning instead of that afternoon. Same price, same quality, just slower. Slower lost.”

“Not showing up when they said they would — and not calling when they’re running late. In this industry, reliability is the actual product. The quality of the work matters, but a customer who’s been waiting two hours past the scheduled window has already formed an opinion before you’ve touched a piece of equipment. Most contractors don’t call when they’re running behind because they’re embarrassed. That embarrassment costs them more than the phone call would. A two-minute call that says ‘I’m running 45 minutes behind, I’m on my way’ preserves the relationship. No call and two hours late destroys it. And when that customer leaves a review — which most of them eventually will — the review is not about the work.”

“Systems and the willingness to stop doing everything yourself. The contractor at $100,000 is usually excellent at the craft and personally executing most of the work. The ceiling is their own hours. The contractor at $500,000 has built processes that other people can execute consistently without needing the owner present for every decision. None of those processes are complicated — they’re mostly just written-down versions of what the owner already does in their head. The other difference is almost always pricing. In 20 years of watching contractors grow, I have never seen a contractor break $300,000 while underpricing. You cannot discount your way to scale. Volume without margin is just exhaustion at a larger number.”

“Earlier than most contractors think. I’ve seen operators try to run a $150,000-a-year business out of a notes app and a text thread, and they’re losing jobs because they can’t respond fast enough, losing money because they have no visibility into their actual costs, and losing customers because follow-up falls through the gaps. The rough threshold I’ve seen consistently is around $75,000 to $100,000 in annual revenue. At that point, the time and money lost to manual management reliably exceeds the cost of whatever software would fix it. The business is complex enough that the organizational overhead of doing it all manually has real dollar value — and that dollar value is typically much larger than the contractor realizes.”

“Here’s the test: are you winning every job you quote? If you’re closing more than 70% of your estimates, your prices are too low. The market is telling you there’s more room and you’re not taking it. A healthy close rate in home service is somewhere between 40% and 60%. If you’re closing more than that, raise your prices until you’re not. If you’re closing less than 30%, either your price is genuinely out of range for your market or your marketing is pulling in the wrong people. Most contractors I’ve worked with who thought their marketing was broken actually had a pricing problem — they’d positioned themselves as a low-price option, and the inquiries they were attracting were price-shopping leads. Fix the positioning, not the ads.”

“Not documenting my processes early enough. Every system I had lived in my head for years. When I started hiring and trying to grow, I had to rebuild everything from scratch each time because nothing was written down. A system that only exists in the owner’s head isn’t a system — it’s a dependency. The business is dependent on you being present, which means you can never actually step away from it. If I could go back, I would have started documenting my core job processes the first day I was consistently booking work — not years later when I was already overwhelmed and trying to manage people at the same time.”

“Because that range is exactly where doing everything yourself stops working, but hiring and delegating feels too risky to commit to. The owner is too busy to grow and too nervous to let go. It’s not a demand problem or a marketing problem at that stage — it’s a trust and systems problem. The fix is always the same: document the process for your most common service, hire one person you’re confident in, prove to yourself over 60 to 90 days that the output is consistent without you on-site, then repeat. Every contractor I’ve seen break through that ceiling did it the same way. The ones who stayed stuck kept waiting for the right moment to hire. There’s no right moment. There’s just the decision.”

“You don’t argue. You listen, then you show your documentation. If you photographed the property before and after, you have an objective record of what the work looked like on both ends. If you have a signed estimate with a clear scope, you have an agreement. Most disputes end in five minutes when you can show a customer a photo of what the property looked like before you started and what it looks like now. The contractors who have the most painful disputes are the ones who have no documentation — they’re relying on memory and verbal agreements against a customer who is also relying on memory. Documentation is not bureaucracy. It is your protection, and it costs nothing but the habit.”

“One follow-up within 48 hours of sending the estimate. Not 24 hours — that can feel desperate. Not a week later — by then they’ve already moved on. Forty-eight hours is the window where you’re still in their decision process without looking like you need the job. The message should be short: ‘Just following up on the estimate I sent — happy to answer any questions or adjust anything if needed.’ That’s the whole message. No pressure. No discount offered upfront. If there’s no response to that, one more check-in after another week. After two attempts, move on. Contractors who chase quotes indefinitely train customers to delay decisions because they know the pressure is coming. Stop chasing. The right customers respond.”

“Tell them when the next service is recommended before you leave the job. Don’t wait for them to think of it. Don’t wait for them to call you. Before you wrap up, you say: ‘This type of service typically needs to be done every X months to stay in the best shape — I’ll reach out when we’re getting close to that window.’ Then actually do it. Most contractors are waiting for the phone to ring. The ones building $400,000 to $500,000 businesses with strong margins are the ones making the calls. Recurring revenue doesn’t build itself. It gets built by contractors who decide the relationship doesn’t end when the invoice is paid.”

“Ask for the review. The window right after a job is complete — when the customer is standing in front of the result and they’re satisfied — is the highest-value moment to ask. Most people who would leave a positive review don’t do it without being asked. They move on with their day. A simple message after the job: ‘We really appreciate your business — if you had a good experience, a Google review means a lot to us.’ That’s it. The contractors I know personally who have the strongest review profiles didn’t get there accidentally. They asked every customer, every time, within 24 hours of finishing the work. That discipline, sustained over two or three years, builds a competitive advantage that is very hard for a new competitor to replicate quickly.”

“Because unhappy customers don’t complain — they just don’t call back. They tell a few people, they move on, and you never know what happened. I’ve seen contractors with genuinely good work lose a regular customer and assume it was price. It wasn’t price. It was that the crew was rude one time, or showed up late twice in a row without calling, or left the gate open. Small things that the customer mentioned to nobody, that never showed up in a review, that the contractor had no idea about. The fix is proactive follow-up: a call or text a few days after the job asking directly, ‘Is there anything we could have done better?’ Most people won’t volunteer a complaint unprompted. Most people will answer honestly if you ask. That answer is worth more than any amount of new customer acquisition.”