Real advice for real work delivered monthly

Margins are getting squeezed from every angle. 

Fuel's up, materials are unpredictable, and your customers might be feeling it too.

Here’s what four successful business owners are tweaking to make a big difference to their bottom line.

→ Want to go deeper on the numbers side first? Watch Kelly Guerrero break down the five metrics that can make or break your profitability. 

"One way you waste a lot of money is when you send your technicians to the store."

I promoted someone to operations manager. He knows what materials to get, places the order ahead of time, puts all that information in the job, where to pick it up. That can save you $50–75 a day. We also like block pricing*, as it helps me make it simple for the customer.

– Greg Schmitt, Huge Home Pro

The move: Stop paying skilled labor to run errands. Pre-ordering materials and putting someone in charge of that process recovers hidden costs fast. And if your pricing has a dozen line items, it’s time to simplify. Block pricing can protect margins without confusing customers.

*Block pricing is a simple way to bundle a set amount of work into one upfront price.

"If there's pushback, they're just not my client."

We do price increases every quarter. If I do it annually, there's the 80/20 rule—we might lose 20%. So if I lose maybe one or two clients quarterly because of a pricing increase, that's fine. I think it’s become a norm that we’re increasing our prices, so there’s not a lot of pushback. We also do a lot of route optimization, and we have a cancellation policy. 

– Judith Virag, Clean Club Calgary

The move: Don't wait until the year-end to act. If it fits your business, smaller, scheduled price increases can be easier for customers to absorb—and easier to recover from if someone leaves. Set a pricing cadence, enforce your policies, and let customers decide if it's still the right fit.

→ "Your price is too high" doesn't have to end a conversation. Here's what to say (and what not to) when customers push back on your quote.

"We started hard auditing our lowest-paying customers."

Right before costs started going up, we were already working on route optimization. We reassigned them to the houses closest to them, so they're not driving 45 minutes to clean a house on the other side of town. On top of that, we started hard auditing our lowest paying customers and anybody that's going way over time with scope creep.

– Rosie Selvaggio, Hocus Pocus Cleaning Services

The move: Route optimization doesn't just save gas, it buys back hours. Pair that with a hard look at your client list, and you might find your most demanding customers are also your least profitable. That's where price increases can start.

"I felt really bad that people are using their vehicles. So I actually did a flat rate."

All of my technicians use their personal vehicles. In my state, there's no obligation to pay mileage reimbursement, but regardless if you drive 1 hour or 8 hours, I pay everyone $12 a day just for using their vehicle. That's helped a lot with the rising gas prices. And I've been buying supplies in bulk, working directly with manufacturers and distributors.

– Anthony Salazar, Poop Scoops for Noobs

The move: A flat daily vehicle allowance is predictable for your budget and fair to your team. On the supply side, buying direct and in volume is a simple way to protect margins when material costs won't sit still.

Heading into your next pricing or cost review, ask yourself:

→ If your costs have gone up, have your prices kept up? Most service pros (65%) raised prices in 2026.

→ Are you spending skilled labor on tasks that someone else (or better planning) could handle?

→ When did you last review your routes? Could your team spend less time driving and more time earning?

→ Which customers are helping your business grow, and which ones are quietly hurting your margins?

→ Are rising costs coming from suppliers? Could buying in bulk or directly help?

Tips from the field

Growth without systems is just a faster way to burn out.

Jason Zook grew Smile-A-Mile Painting from one truck to 40. On August 25, he's sharing the systems and operational changes that made scaling possible, with a free Growth Readiness Checklist for anyone who attends live.

Winning every job? That might be a red flag.

If customers are never saying no to your quotes, your prices are probably too low. Electrical pro Wilson Betances shares a simple pricing formula to figure out what you should actually be charging. Plus, why a 5% price bump can grow your profit by 25%.

Should you lease, buy new, or buy used vehicles? 

Beau Batcheller and Kyle MacDonald's take on building a reliable fleet without killing your cash flow: leasing usually costs more than it looks, a breakdown costs way more than just the repair bill, and if you're starting out? Two cheap backup trucks often beat one nice one.