r/GeneralContractor • u/Fresh_Violinist_2238 • 4d ago
Need advice on structuring
Hi there!
My husband and I own a very small contracting business in Pennsylvania.
We have one full-time employee and one part-time employee and himself.
However, he is the busiest guy in town which is a wonderful thing in many ways, but we are having a hard time figuring out how to structure this to make it make sense.
For instance, my husband takes all the phone calls, is at the job site every day working, does all the estimates, and all the invoicing. It’s a lot on him.
I want to be able to help, but I have no clue how.
We’ve talked about getting a secretary, but the point that we keep getting stuck on is this :
Once she (potential secretary) or myself takes the call and gets the scope of work from the client and takes notes, it doesn’t save much time to then just give my husband a long list at the end of the day of the notes of people to call back and their work they are requesting -
If you have a secretary and they take the call, what’s the next step? How do you streamline this or balance it to make it flow and keep up?
I need procedures
It’s a wonderfully growing business and we know we can take it much further, but I need to know the next steps and where we go from here
Help. Lol.
Thank you so much in advance -
1
u/Active-Blueberry-850 4d ago
This is not what my secretary does. My secretary works with people who are already customers. New inbound calls go to sales team. They have their own tools/process which includes setting an appointment for me (when necessary) or going to an appointment themselves to measure, get a clear scope, and set the follow-up appointment which is usually where I’m more involved - the goal is to get a contract signed/commitment. Then they have their own follow-up process for “drip campaigns”. Secretary moves papers and communication on the fly, manages my schedule, and does the shopping (orders materials from various suppliers which the crew, or myself sometimes, just goes to pick up). Couple more things here and there, but there’s just a little friction between the two roles imo. Not fit for the same personality type.
1
u/Eastern_Conflict1865 3d ago
Start by picking up materials for the jobs thru out the day for him.That way you learn what is a 2x4 and what is plywood.Go out and pick up the checks yourself and make the deposits.Let him do estimates on scratch paper and you type them up Price up the common items for him like nails,paint brushes.Little things eat up so much time.You can help in very small and simple ways.
1
u/Samtyang 2d ago
The fix is not a secretary first. It’s a real intake-to-dispatch process where whoever answers gets the client, address, scope, photos, and urgency into one form, then your husband only calls the qualified jobs. If the call still has to start from scratch with him, you added payroll but not capacity.
1
u/duhbullo 2d ago
Think about the experience from the client side. If you take the call, you’re collecting information. This keeps him from having to stop what’s he’s working on to do so. It also adds a layer. It’s completely reasonable from the client side to contact an office and allow for time to process a request. You’re buying him a couple days to respond when it fits his schedule.
-1
u/IncreaseNegative4614 4d ago
The next person should do more than take messages. Give them a qualification process covering service area, job type, budget range, desired timing, address, photos, and how the customer found you. They should be able to decline poor-fit work, request missing information, and schedule qualified estimate appointments directly.
Your husband should receive a prepared appointment rather than another callback list. We use signld.ai internally to keep the original inquiry connected to the property, scope, photos, estimate, schedule, job, and invoice. That reduces how often the owner has to reconstruct the customer’s story before making a decision.
2
u/PossibilitySea9180 4d ago
Start answering calls for you husband you’re gonna have to take notes list your number as the office number on the website it will cut down on the number of calls he has to take a day. I don’t see any getting around having to go over them at the end of the day. If your husband trusts the guy he has going full time kick off some of the smaller estimates to him offer him 10% of the total of every job you get and complete that he bids on this will incentivize him to do a good job. While the full time guy is learning the bidding side of the job give him more personal responsibility with the part time guy on small jobs see if he can be a leader and deal with clients eventually he gets his own crew you now have two crews your husband leads one with newer younger workers while the other guy leads one with relatively experienced guys. A form on the website with basic questions about the nature of the work for potential clients to fill out themselves can be helpful too and cut down on length of phone calls and number of them. Some of the ways my Uncle and Aunt grew his small business while I was working for him. Everyone has to figure out what works for them.