3 Things You Need to Get Right to Hire Great Employees for Your Contracting Business

Updated
August 28, 2025

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Alright, guys. In this video, we're gonna talk about how to properly recruit top talent, top tradespeople to help you grow your service business.

First thing: mindset. Mindset is everything in this and I'm gonna tell you why. A lot of contractors that I talk to—and I see posting a lot in online groups—the mindset is, “Hey, I'm offering this job and nobody wants to come work for me. Nobody wants to work anymore.”

And that’s simply not the case. Why? Because I guarantee you in your market, five or ten miles down the road, there is a company doing maybe ten million dollars a year doing the exact same thing you’re doing, and they have no problem hiring people. That’s how I know people like to work.

Now, with mindset, you wanna make sure you view this the right way. Back in the 1950s, maybe you put a job out there, you put an offer, and people would flood in and want to work for you. Today, it’s different. There are so many amazing companies out there that, in order to hire and train people, you have to be a salesperson.

The same way you treat leads in your marketing, you need to have a lead list of potential employees. You need to be planting seeds, building relationships. The hiring process is now a sales process. You are selling yourself. You are selling your business. You are selling your culture and your vision.

And if you don’t already have that vision and culture—if you don’t know where you’re going—stop watching this video. Go figure that out first. Because if you don’t have that, people aren’t going to want to work for you. That’s just how it is.

So number one: mindset—it’s a sales game.

Number two: advertising and branding. There are many places you can go online to recruit: ZipRecruiter, Indeed, Monster, Facebook, LinkedIn. You can post every day about how great your company is. There are so many different tools and channels.

If you’re having trouble hiring, ask yourself: are you fully taking advantage of them? Have you Googled the best places to advertise for hiring? Have you tried working with a recruiting company?

And then, what’s your message? Is it just a boring “Need someone with ten years of experience, here’s the pay”? Or is it, “Hey, this is what our company is doing, we’re proud of it, and we want amazing, positive people to come on board. We’ll train you and help you grow”?

Keep in mind—if you’ve done all the marketing and advertising and you’re still not having luck—the market is telling you something. Most of the time, it’s that candidates are seeing better offers somewhere else.

Maybe you need to offer a sign-on bonus. Maybe you need to pay more. And if you can’t, then you need to either specialize or charge more.

If you specialize, your employees have a narrower focus, which makes training easier and lowers initial costs. If you charge more, you can afford to pay more for top talent. Listen to the market. If you still can’t hire, then you have to adjust—either pay more, specialize, or add big incentives.

Number three: onboarding. A lot of companies hire someone and then just drop them in. The new hire shows up excited, and instead of structure, they get tossed a small task and left alone. That’s not a great first experience.

You should have it clearly laid out: their role, their training, and their first days planned. Treat them like royalty. Have the team send welcome messages. Make them feel valued and excited to be there.

I’ll share a story. I once worked for a construction company where, on my first day, they handed me drywall mud and a knife, showed me a corner real quick, and left me on my own. I had never done drywall finishing before. I was the model employee otherwise—on time, professional—but I quit within four months. Why? Because I didn’t get proper training or support. I ended up working at McDonald’s instead. The pay was lower, but there was structure, rhythm, and a system. That mattered more.

So treat onboarding seriously. Train people well. Make them feel welcome. Celebrate new hires publicly—take a picture, post it online, show the world that your company values its people. That creates a reputation that attracts even more talent.

Finally: specialization. If your business “specializes” in twenty different things, training takes twenty times longer. Your employees’ focus is split and they become dependent on you forever. But if you focus on one thing—say bathrooms, kitchens, or basements—you can create a system, train consistently, and build mastery. That way, you can train someone in months instead of years.

So—mindset, advertising and branding, and onboarding. Get these three things right, and you’ll be able to hire great people.

If you agree or disagree, leave a comment. I’d love to hear your thoughts. See you in the next video.

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What makes Service Allies different from other HVAC Facebook ads companies?

What makes us different from other Facebook ads companies is the pains we take to make the leads good quality. This includes the way ads are written, images that are used, the video ads we create, qualifying questions we ask in the lead form, and getting feedback from you to know which campaigns are getting the best quality leads.

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It depends on 1) how low we can get your cost per lead and 2) your monthly ad spend budget. Lead costs typically fall between $25 and $75 per lead. If you spend $5000 per month on ads, that would mean between 200 and 66 leads. The more populated your service area is, the higher the scaling potential.

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What if I'm not on Facebook or don't have a business page?

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We get leads by running ads on Facebook. Ads are like Facebook posts, except you pay Facebook to show your ad to a specific local area and demographic. If you currently don’t use Facebook, or don’t have a Facebook page, that is no problem. We’ll set up a page on your behalf to run ads from.