Growing Your Business

Adding a second crew you won't be leading

Adding a second crew as a contractor: picking a lead, getting scope out of your head and onto paper, quality checkpoints, and the payroll gap before the first check.

Business banking and credit for contractors

What a contractor needs to open a business bank account, why commingling costs you, and how to build business credit before you need a line of credit.

Buying or leasing a work truck

Deciding on a work truck for business: lease or buy, what a used truck really costs per year, and how Section 179 and job-site miles change the math.

Knowing how much work you can take

Contractor capacity planning in real numbers: how many billable field hours a week holds, how many jobs fit in them, and when being slammed means raising prices.

Your first employee, and payroll

What hiring a first employee for a small business really takes: the EIN and state accounts, payroll withholding and deposits, workers' comp, and payday cash.

Hire someone or subcontract it

Compare hiring an employee against subcontracting: what each costs per billable hour, how the IRS control test works, and the paperwork behind both.

The insurance you actually need

Contractor insurance requirements in plain terms: what general liability, workers' comp, commercial auto and tool coverage each pay for, and what they don't.

LLC or sole proprietor

LLC vs sole proprietor for a contractor: what the liability wall really covers, what an LLC costs to keep alive, and the signs it is time to file.

A personal brand in the trades

Personal branding for a tradesman is the sentence customers repeat when you are not there — what it costs to make it consistent, and whether it survives a crew.

Raising prices as you grow

Raising prices as a growing business: the backlog, win rate and cost signals that mean it is time, how big a step to take, and whether to price or hire first.

Should contractors specialize, or stay general?

Whether contractors should specialize or stay general comes down to your own job log, your local market size, and how cleanly your trade splits.

Systems before headcount

Before you hire, check whether the bottleneck is hands or process. How to audit a week, find where jobs stall, and build contractor business systems that scale.