Home Hero Podcast

Grant Tims and Nick White from Screws Loose Services share how they grew their Tucson home services business—from scraping together an extra $500 a week while living in a trailer to building a booked-out company.Grant talks about the early hustle, what didn’t work (including thousands of flyers), and the practical changes that helped move the business forward: answering the phone, improving follow-up, and raising prices. Jason Call and Coby McManaman guide the conversation through the systems behind that growth, from marketing and in-home sales to AI tools that help with specific tasks.In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why flyers and door-to-door outreach didn’t bring in customers
• How answering calls and sending quotes promptly helped improve the customer experience
• Why the team shifted to an assessment-based sales process with a two-hour arrival window
• How a $172-an-hour rate factored into a $4,000 job
• What their AI agents do, from researching commercial prospects to screening job applicants and preparing for upcoming work

Grant and Nick also share how their customer-service backgrounds shaped their standards, why they see AI as a tool rather than a shortcut, and how they’re building systems to support future growth without losing the human touch.For handyman, contractor, and home-service business owners, the takeaway is practical: focus on the fundamentals, solve real problems with systems, and earn trust by showing up ready to help.

👉 Schedule a free, no-pressure strategy call: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com
👉 Grab the free 3-in-1 Handyman Playbook Bundle: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com/playbooks
👉 Join the Home Hero Business Owner Community: facebook.com/groups/homeherocommunity
👉Test the AI Receptionist: https://handymanmarketingpros.com/services/ai-receptionist/

New episodes of the Home Hero Podcast every week. If you got value from this one, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more home service pros find the show.

Pricing on your website is no longer just a trust signal, it’s becoming a search signal. If you’re a home service business owner wondering whether to show prices, ranges, trip fees, or nothing at all, Jason and Coby break down the potential benefits, risks, and ways AI-driven search is changing the decision.Jason shares why search engines and AI tools are increasingly surfacing pricing information, and why even a simple range may help your business appear in search results and recommendations. Coby brings the contractor’s perspective, sharing how website pricing helped set expectations and filter out tire kickers—and where it also created friction when each job came with unknowns.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why pricing may affect your visibility in search and AI recommendations
• How price ranges, minimum fees, and trip fees compare with pricing calculators
• When showing prices can build trust—and when it may deter potential customers
• Whether project posts with approximate pricing offer a useful middle ground
• How to avoid boxing yourself in when every job has different variables

The right approach depends on your business. If you’re busy and want to filter for better-fit leads, pricing may help. If you need more inquiries or are still figuring out your costs, putting prices front and center may not be the right move yet.For owners in handyman, remodeling, roofing, and other home service businesses, this conversation offers a practical way to weigh transparency, lead quality, and online visibility before deciding what to publish.

👉 Schedule a free, no-pressure strategy call: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com
👉 Grab the free 3-in-1 Handyman Playbook Bundle: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com/playbooks
👉 Join the Home Hero Business Owner Community: facebook.com/groups/homeherocommunity
👉Test the AI Receptionist: https://handymanmarketingpros.com/services/ai-receptionist/

New episodes of the Home Hero Podcast every week. If you got value from this one, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more home service pros find the show.

In this episode of the Home Hero Podcast, Jason Call discusses the significance of Google Business Profiles for local businesses, particularly in the handyman and home service sectors. He provides insights on how to optimize these profiles to enhance visibility and attract more clients.

👉 Schedule a free, no-pressure strategy call: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com
👉 Grab the free 3-in-1 Handyman Playbook Bundle: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com/playbooks
👉 Join the Home Hero Business Owner Community: facebook.com/groups/homeherocommunity
👉Test the AI Receptionist: https://handymanmarketingpros.com/services/ai-receptionist/

New episodes of the Home Hero Podcast every week. If you got value from this one, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more home service pros find the show.

In this episode of the Home Hero Podcast, Jason Call and Coby McManaman interviews Alan Lee, a prominent figure in the handyman industry.

They discuss Alan's journey from being an automotive technician to establishing a successful handyman business, the lessons learned in pricing, and the importance of value perception in attracting clients. In this conversation, the speakers discuss the importance of building trust and value in business interactions, emphasizing how perceived value influences pricing. They also explore the complexities of debt management in business, sharing personal experiences and strategies for using tools effectively to enhance productivity.

Key Topics:

• Alan Lee's entrepreneurial journey
• Lessons on pricing and value perception
• Strategies for managing debt in business
• Tools and equipment essentials for handymen
• Marketing and customer trust building
  
  👉 Connect with Allen Lee: https://handymanjourney.com/

👉 Schedule a free, no-pressure strategy call: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com
👉 Grab the free 3-in-1 Handyman Playbook Bundle: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com/playbooks
👉 Join the Home Hero Business Owner Community: facebook.com/groups/homeherocommunity
👉Test the AI Receptionist: https://handymanmarketingpros.com/services/ai-receptionist/

New episodes of the Home Hero Podcast every week. If you got value from this one, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more home service pros find the show.

The conversation delves into Coby's tool journey, from initial homeowner tools to specialized equipment. It explores the decision-making process for tool purchases, the balance between renting and buying, and the impact of tool choices on business growth. Coby shares insights on tool expenses, specialty tools, and the importance of aligning tool purchases with the business vision. The conversation also touches on the financial aspects of tool purchases and the impact on business operations.

Takeaways

• Tool purchases should align with the purpose and vision of the business.
• Consider the frequency of tool use and the associated costs when deciding to rent or buy.
• Proper categorization of tool purchases as expenses and understanding tax implications is crucial for financial management.

👉 Schedule a free, no-pressure strategy call: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com
👉 Grab the free 3-in-1 Handyman Playbook Bundle: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com/playbooks
👉 Join the Home Hero Business Owner Community: facebook.com/groups/homeherocommunity
👉Test the AI Receptionist: https://handymanmarketingpros.com/services/ai-receptionist/

New episodes of the Home Hero Podcast every week. If you got value from this one, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more home service pros find the show.

Ben Alexander shares his journey from running a $35 million HVAC division to starting and growing Hank's Handyman Services. He discusses the challenges of pricing, scheduling, and scaling a handyman business, emphasizing the importance of understanding material costs and profit margins.

Takeaways

• Pricing complexity in the handyman industry
• Scheduling challenges and strategies for managing job requests
• The impact of material costs and profit margins on business growth Tier levels for technicians
• Creating a career path
• Challenges of hiring and training in the handyman industry
• Importance of systematized training
• Difficulty of sourcing skilled labor in the handyman space Systematizing the business is crucial for growth and scalability.
• Avoid shiny object syndrome and focus on core business operations before expanding into new areas of service.
• The sweet spot for growth is around 10-15 trucks, and a revenue range of 3-5 million is manageable and sustainable.

👉Connect with Ben: thetradeworx.com

👉 Schedule a free, no-pressure strategy call: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com
👉 Grab the free 3-in-1 Handyman Playbook Bundle: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com/playbooks
👉 Join the Home Hero Business Owner Community: facebook.com/groups/homeherocommunity
👉Test the AI Receptionist: https://handymanmarketingpros.com/services/ai-receptionist/

New episodes of the Home Hero Podcast every week. If you got value from this one, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more home service pros find the show.

The conversation delves into the significance of answering the phone for business owners, addressing the pain of unanswered calls, dealing with spam calls, the value of answering the phone, training and benefits of AI receptionist, mental space and anxiety relief, flexibility and customization of phone answering, and encouragement to answer the phone.

Takeaways

• Importance of answering the phone for business success
• The mental space and anxiety relief provided by AI receptionist services

Hosted by Jason Call and Coby McManaman of Handyman Marketing Pros

👉 Schedule a free, no-pressure strategy call: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com
👉 Grab the free 3-in-1 Handyman Playbook Bundle: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com/playbooks
👉 Join the Home Hero Business Owner Community: facebook.com/groups/homeherocommunity
👉Test the AI Receptionist: https://handymanmarketingpros.com/services/ai-receptionist/

New episodes of the Home Hero Podcast every week. If you got value from this one, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more home service pros find the show.

In this episode, Jason Call and Coby McManaman break down what to do before the slow season hits and what to do once it does. Coby ran his own remodeling crew in Michigan before coming over to the marketing side, so a lot of this is what he actually did to keep work on the books from Thanksgiving through the new year.

What we get into:

→ Why late August and early September is the window, not November
→ Christmas light setup and teardown, and when adding a service is a red flag instead of a smart play
→ Working your ghosted estimates from the last six to twelve months
→ Email and text campaigns to your database, framed around the holidays instead of around you needing work
→ Personal outreach to your best clients without sounding like you are begging for work
→ Realtor and property manager punch lists on vacant houses before the first of the year
→ Booking your big projects backwards so you can pull clients forward instead of pushing them out
→ Using the slow time to fix your estimate process, your customer experience, and your job costing

Hosted by Jason Call and Coby McManaman of Handyman Marketing Pros

👉 Schedule a free, no-pressure strategy call: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com
👉 Grab the free 3-in-1 Handyman Playbook Bundle: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com/playbooks
👉 Join the Home Hero Business Owner Community: facebook.com/groups/homeherocommunity

New episodes of the Home Hero Podcast every week. If you got value from this one, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more home service pros find the show.

The conversation addresses the issue of spam calls from individuals claiming to work with Google or Apple Maps. It advises against engaging with these calls and highlights the deceptive nature of the services being offered. The discussion also explores the affiliation of these callers with Google and emphasizes the importance of ignoring such calls.

Takeaways

• Ignore cold calls offering Google or Apple Maps services
• Affiliation with Google is often a sales tactic and not a genuine association

Hosted by Jason Call and Coby McManaman of Handyman Marketing Pros

👉 Schedule a free, no-pressure strategy call: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com
👉 Grab the free 3-in-1 Handyman Playbook Bundle: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com/playbooks
👉 Join the Home Hero Business Owner Community: facebook.com/groups/homeherocommunity

New episodes of the Home Hero Podcast every week. If you got value from this one, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more home service pros find the show.

Michael Oakes started out coaching basketball and teaching health education in New Jersey. Then he moved west, took a job at a startup called Federal Express when there were six or eight people in the entire Western Division, and spent the next few decades learning business the hard way.

He co-founded a same-day delivery company before most people knew what same-day meant, turned it into a national franchise called 1-800 Courier, scaled it to $40 million in revenue, and discovered that the profit at the bottom was close to nothing.

That last part is the reason this episode is worth your drive time. Michael has been Jason's business coach for almost ten years, going back to the day Jason pulled a Sundance Coaching business card off the wall at an auto shop while spending most of his savings on an unexpected car repair. He had no revenue yet. He hired a coach anyway, which put his business net negative on day one, and he still calls it one of the best investments he has ever made.

In this episode:

• Why $40 million in top line meant almost nothing, and Michael's rule that business is a sport and net profit is how you keep score
• The three filters he puts in front of every decision (time, money, and is it right), plus Coby's confession about the hours he spent designing a logo instead of writing the estimates he owed clients
• Why "busy is a disease" and what Michael makes his clients say instead when he asks how their day is going
• The eight pillars every business owner has to keep an eye on, and why being great with your hands only covers one of them
• Hiring for character and attitude instead of skill, and why a culture problem is almost always an owner skill problem
• Jason's three layers of coaching (one on one accountability, industry-specific group coaching, and leadership coaching), which one to start with, and Coby's honest take on doing it backwards
• Michael Jordan's passing drills, the flu game, and what fundamentals actually look like in a home service business

Whether you have never worked with a coach or you are wondering if the group program you joined is the right fit, this one gives you a clear picture of what real accountability looks like and what it does to a business over ten years.

Hosted by Jason Call and Coby McManaman of Handyman Marketing Pros

👉 Schedule a free, no-pressure strategy call: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com
👉 Grab the free 3-in-1 Handyman Playbook Bundle: https://go.handymanmarketingpros.com/playbooks
👉 Join the Home Hero Business Owner Community: facebook.com/groups/homeherocommunity

New episodes of the Home Hero Podcast every week. If you got value from this one, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more home service pros find the show.