Tools I Use

People ask me pretty regularly what I actually use to run this business. Here it is. I am one guy with a van, so nothing on this list is enterprise software. It all has to be cheap, work on a phone, and not need a full day to set up.

No affiliate links on this page. Nobody pays me to be here.

Scheduling and invoicing

Jobkeepr is what I use to book jobs, send estimates, and get paid. I should disclose that I also built it, which happened because I got tired of paying $200 a month for software designed for a company with fifteen trucks. It is $39 a month for one person. If you are running a crew of one to ten and you keep bouncing off Jobber or Housecall Pro because of the price, it is worth a look.

If you are bigger than about ten people, honestly go look at the bigger tools. Jobkeepr is not built for that and I would rather tell you now.

Getting paid

Card payments run through Stripe inside Jobkeepr, so I am not chasing anyone down for a check. Most customers pay before I am out of the driveway. The single biggest change I made to this business was taking payment on-site instead of invoicing later.

Phone and texting

Almost every customer wants to text, not call. Being able to send "on my way" without handing out my personal cell number is worth more than it sounds. Anything that gives you a business number works here.

What I run is Lead Manifold. It takes the request form on this site, my business line, and any call I miss, and puts them all in one inbox on my phone so nothing sits until evening. Same disclosure as above: I built this one too. It is not self-serve yet, so read this as an answer to what I use, not as something you can go sign up for this afternoon.

The actual mounting gear

• Stud finder: a good one. The cheap ones will cost you a wall eventually.
• Laser level: non-negotiable. Eyeballing a 75 inch TV is how you end up remounting it.
• Impact driver: lighter than a drill and you will be over your head all day.
• Mounts: I buy them, I do not resell them at a markup. Most customers already bought one and it is usually fine.

Bookkeeping

Everything flows out of Jobkeepr into a spreadsheet, and my accountant handles the rest. I tried running full accounting software for a while and it was more time than it saved at my size.

Knowing if the website is working

AnalyticLunch is the traffic tracking running on this page, and it is how I check where I show up against the other mounting guys in Sacramento. Reports are $19 a month and the traffic script is free. That is the third thing on this list I built, so weigh it accordingly. If you would rather not take a tool recommendation from the guy who made it, Google Search Console is free and tells you most of the same things about your own site.

What I stopped using

I have tried a lot of scheduling apps. Most of them are built for companies with a dispatcher, and if you are the dispatcher, the driver and the guy sending invoices, you will spend more time feeding the software than working. That is the whole reason I ended up building my own.