The Hiring Problem No One Talks About
What to fix when your jobs are booked—but your team’s breaking
A while back, I was talking to a plumbing company owner who’d been in business for 20+ years. He told me, “I don’t need more leads. I need more techs.”
I’ve heard that line a hundred times since. And it’s not just plumbers. It’s HVAC, electricians, even landscapers and roofers. They all hit this wall.
You solve your lead flow problem…
You solve your call booking problem…
And suddenly, the bottleneck shifts.
Now it’s staffing.
But here’s what no one really says out loud:
Growing a home service business isn’t just about hiring—it’s about becoming the kind of company people want to work for.
I’ve worked with hundreds of local service companies, and I can tell you—scaling isn’t just a marketing problem. It’s an operations and identity problem.
Some teams just can’t grow because they don’t have the right foundation.
They’re throwing bonuses at hiring, running ads for new techs, adding incentives—
but the right people still aren’t coming.
Why?
Because great employees want to work with teams that have their act together.
That communicate clearly.
That make decisions quickly.
That take care of each other.
And here’s where I’ve seen the best in the industry make a smart shift:
They stop trying to do everything themselves.
They delegate the things that distract them—including lead generation—to people who live and breathe it. I highlight this because that’s what I do for home service companies - specifically search marketing.
Not because they can’t figure it out.
But because their time is better spent building culture, hiring the right people, training the next lead tech, or scaling a second location.
The best owners I know don’t just delegate tasks. They delegate outcomes.
That includes growth outcomes.
They partner with experts to handle their marketing machine—so they can stay focused on building the kind of company someone wants to stay with for 10 years.
And here’s the part I’ve wrestled with personally:
That kind of team starts at the top.
The biggest hiring challenge in the trades isn’t a talent shortage.
It’s a leadership gap.
I say that as someone who’s made every mistake in the book—from hiring too fast, to delegating too little, to waiting too long to replace the wrong person.
So if you’re in a place where leads are flowing and booked jobs aren’t the issue, but your growth has stalled—it’s probably time to look at the team, not the traffic.
And not just the job postings or comp plans.
I mean the way your company shows up internally.
Are your people aligned?
Is your leadership clear?
Do new hires feel like they’re joining something on the rise?
Because no hiring ad, bonus offer, or recruiter can fix a culture problem.
But when the culture’s right—
when the company has momentum, clarity, and purpose—
the right people don’t just apply.
They show up early.
They stay.
If that’s a challenge you’re in the middle of—
Or if you’ve scaled to $3–5M and are wondering why it’s suddenly harder than before—
You’re not alone.
You’ve probably solved search.
Or maybe it’s time to delegate that part so you can focus on what only you can do.
Because this next stage?
It isn’t just about marketing.
It’s about leadership.
And you don’t have to do it all yourself.
We went deeper on this in a piece over on the blog—especially around how delegation fits into ops. Read that here
Thanks for being here.
—Josh