Ryan Englin on Whole Squad Eats: How to Hire Better People Faster for Your Home Service Business

I went on Whole Squad Eats with Phil Risher to talk about why home service businesses keep burning money on hiring when the real problem is retention, onboarding, and how they treat their people.

Phil and I connected fast on this one. He ran a home service company with 28 technicians. He lived this pain. And his first question was the one I hear everywhere: how did you get into this space?

The short version: I grew up watching my dad run himself ragged as an owner operator. I started a marketing company to help contractors fill their customer pipelines. Then a bunch of clients told me they didn't need more leads. They needed more techs. I helped an HVAC contractor in Phoenix fill four trucks in three weeks. Then every one of those techs left within six weeks because the company had zero onboarding, zero communication, and zero clue how to keep people. That failure is what built the Core Fit Hiring System.

We spent a good chunk of the conversation on something most contractors miss completely. Recruiting is a marketing activity. The same principles that fill your customer pipeline fill your candidate pipeline. But here is what I told Phil: when you lead with customer marketing first, it's hard to attract good employees. When you flip it and lead with employee marketing first, customers line up in droves.

I gave him the example I use all the time. Go to a plumbing company's homepage and it screams "Your emergency plumber, available 24/7, on call, middle of the night." A customer loves that. A candidate sees it and thinks: I'm taking a phone home. My wife is going to be pissed. I'm missing my kid's baseball game. You're repelling the exact people you want to attract. Flip the message. Lead with how you invest in your people, train them, give them clean uniforms and new trucks. The candidate sees a team worth joining. The customer sees the best technicians in the market. It does double duty.

Phil asked me straight up about the labor shortage. I don't think we have a labor shortage in the trades. I think the labor shortage is a myth that sells newspapers and clicks and makes Indeed billions of dollars a year. What we have is a retention crisis caused by an inattention to engaged employees.

We talked about the three reasons people leave: they don't feel valued, they can't stand their leader, or they're burning out because the company is short staffed. Almost every time, it's all three. But the one that bubbles to the top in service companies is "I don't feel valued." And owners think a paycheck equals value. It does not. An hour of working for you is not the same as an hour of missing a kid's baseball game. You can't put a price tag on that.

The fix sounds dumb because it's obvious. Ask your people what's important to them. Why do they get out of bed every day and leave their family to come work for you? You'll hear things that have nothing to do with work. I want to buy a house. I want to get out of debt. I want to go on vacation without putting it on a credit card. Then invest in those things. Sign them up for Smart Dollar or Financial Peace University. Thirty dollars a month per employee is infinitely cheaper than losing that person to a competitor.

Phil shared a great example. His company hired an English tutor for their Spanish-speaking technicians. I told him don't stop there. Teach your English-speaking leaders Spanish too. Meet your people where they are. We have clients who put everything in Spanish and their hiring problems disappeared.

Then we hit Indeed. Phil asked the $10,000 question. Here is what I told him. Indeed's tagline is "We help people find jobs." Not "We help employers find good people." You are their meal ticket. When you call and say you're not getting enough candidates, they tell you to spend more money. Every single time.

Only 3 to 5% of the job market is actively looking. A full 70% is passively looking. They're not on Indeed. They're stalking your social media, checking your careers page, talking to friends. If your website doesn't have a "Join Our Team" button as prominent as your "Call Now" button, you're invisible to 70% of the market. I still see companies in 2025 asking candidates to download an application and fax it. Fax it.

We spent real time on onboarding. I told Phil what I tell every client: onboarding is not HR paperwork. I compared it to moving in with someone. My wife taught me there's a right way to fold a bath towel. There's a direction the toilet paper goes. There's a spot for the shoes. Every business has the same kind of preferences. They're not right or wrong. They're just different from what the new hire is used to. If you spend the first two weeks teaching someone how to think like you think, doing things your way becomes natural and intuitive. That's the foundation of our 2412 Launch onboarding process. Two weeks to learn the culture. Four weeks to learn the systems. Twelve weeks to own the role. And the employee leads their own checklist from day one.

Phil asked about one-on-ones and I shared our Core Fit Conversation. It flips the traditional evaluation on its head. The employee gives the supervisor feedback, not the other way around. How can I serve you better? How can I communicate with you better? How can I support you? That's the conversation. Not a leader reminding someone of their shortcomings from three months ago. Why is it that your employees can do 10 things right and never hear about it, but do one thing wrong and they never hear the end of it?

Phil asked how long this takes. I told him the truth. Plan about three years. This is a culture shift. You will lose people who don't fit anymore. But you will start seeing results in the first couple weeks. Rewrite your job ads. Treat every application like a customer lead. Phone call, email, and text within 15 minutes. Do that one thing and watch your results change without spending another dollar on Indeed.

If you liked this conversation, I go deeper on all of these frameworks on Titans of the Trades.