Ryan Englin on The Turnaround Boardroom Podcast: Recruit, Hire, and Retain the Best Service Technicians

I sat down with Paul Maskill on The Turnaround Boardroom Podcast to talk about why trade contractors keep losing good people and what to do about it.

Paul asked me how I got here, and I told him the truth. I watched my dad ride the revenue roller coaster my entire childhood. He'd build to 40 or 50 employees, then crash back down to 10. I spent afternoons and weekends at his shop. He taught me electrical, plumbing, all of it. I loved the work. I hated what the business did to him. So I turned my back on it, went corporate for a decade, hated that too, and started a marketing company to help contractors like my dad generate more revenue.

Then an HVAC contractor in Phoenix called me in July. 120-degree heat. They were booking AC repairs three weeks out because four trucks sat empty in the parking lot. They didn't need more leads. They needed people. I applied the same marketing principles to their recruiting, and within three weeks all four trucks were filled with two more on order. That moment changed everything. I shut down the marketing company and went all in on helping trade contractors hire better people faster.

Paul and I dug into the biggest mistakes contractors make when recruiting. The number one issue: they still think it's about money. It's not. Study after study proves people don't leave jobs for money. They leave people. They leave toxic cultures, broken promises, and bosses who never say thank you. A person who leaves you for a dollar more an hour is just glad to get away. That dollar is the excuse. The real reason is everything else.

We talked about how most companies treat job postings like a window sticker on a car lot. Bulleted lists of requirements and pay rates. Zero compelling narrative about what it's like to work there. Compare that to a Corvette commercial. No price, no specs. Just the roar of the engine and people living their best life. That's how you attract the people you actually want. Recruiting is a marketing activity, not an HR exercise.

Then we hit the speed problem. Zip Recruiter says the average job seeker applies to 21 jobs in the first week. If an application sits in your inbox for a week while you fight fires, someone else already picked up the phone and made the hire. We encourage a 15-minute maximum response time. The best way to make that happen is an applicant tracking system. Everyone listening already has a CRM for customers. An ATS does the same thing for your recruiting pipeline. Automated emails, text messages, scheduling. It costs less than $100 a month and eliminates the excuse of being too busy.

The conversation shifted to onboarding, and I didn't sugarcoat it. Onboarding is 90 days. Minimum. The first two weeks focus entirely on teaching new hires to think like you think. No solo jobs. They ride along with a mentor and learn how your team communicates, behaves, and treats customers. Weeks one through four, you teach them to do like you do. The full 12 weeks, you teach them to win like you win. Five-star reviews, upsells, clean CRM entries, profitability on every job. That's our 2412 onboarding launch. And when those 90 days end, you start the cycle again because things change and people change.

Why is it we always have time to do it over but we never have time to do it right?

Paul asked about retention, and I gave him the simplest advice I know. Find out why your top tech is your top tech. Not what they do. Why they do it. What's the personal motivator? Saving for a house? College for the kids? A dream trip? Money is never the goal. Money is the means to the goal. Find out what that goal is and help them achieve it. They will never leave you.

I shared the story of a client whose younger hires wanted to start nonprofits and leave a legacy. The company sent them to SCORE and Better Business Bureau training to learn how to build a nonprofit on the side. Everyone thought those employees would leave once it took off. Nobody left. Because no other employer would ever pour into them like that.

Paul asked for one action item people can take in the next 24 hours. Here it is. Go ask your accountant how many people you had on December 31st and how many W2s you issued that year. If the W2 number is bigger, you don't have a hiring problem. You have a retention problem. Fix that first.

If you liked this conversation, I go deeper on every piece of the Core Fit Hiring System on Titans of the Trades. And if you want the step-by-step playbook, grab a free copy of Hire Better People Faster at corematters.com/freebook.