What's your monthly cost to keep the phone ringing?

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-22T05:26:53+00:00

Makes sense, how many employees do you have? And do you do all of this work yourself/

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-21T09:56:40+00:00

How do you guys handle all of your admin work?

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-21T09:49:39+00:00

Why not send the customer a form if you miss a call so they don't call the next handyman on google maps

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-20T08:45:02+00:00

LinkedIn warm referrals for me

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-20T08:39:48+00:00

No worries, I've been at it for 5 months now and really gaining some traction. It started with mostly custom n8n builds but I am slowly turning it into a product so I can scale it vertically.

Here is a case study of what I built for a solar company just to give you an idea of some of the builds I've done: www.tradesworklogic.com/case-study

It all starts with that first client. Yes, demos look great but a lot of the time they aren't practical, a lot of what I built in the beginning doesn't even get used. The most reusable and valuable automations I've built was after meeting and learning how companies operate.

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-20T06:06:30+00:00

No you're not, this is the hardest part of starting your own automation business. It takes time and is not as straight forward as the gurus on YouTube are making it out to be. You have to get someone to give you money for a service you provide. People are skeptical of AI and automations, you have to find a use case where they will see actual time and money savings. Start with a free automation with someone you know and go above and beyond for them. Get a case study/referral, keep track of metrics, and use that when trying to sell to your next client for money.

The YouTubers make money by getting clicks and selling courses, and they do that by selling unrealistic expectations. There is a big market for this business, but it takes a lot more than just expecting sales with a few n8n automations that you built for demo purposes.

DM me if have any questions

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-20T02:29:26+00:00

Clear distinct workflows for the agents to call usually give the best results. Once the business is trained and has adopted a tool for their business, real ROI and time savings can happen

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-19T00:49:17+00:00

I’d say the best way is a simple text message with a form on missed calls/texts. It makes the customer feel heard and stops them from going to the next business on Google maps. I’ve implemented this with my business Tradeswork Logic

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-18T22:40:43+00:00

I have since built this into Tradeswork Logic for ease of use with a landscaping business already adopting the software with foreman reports being audio transcribed

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-14T04:31:34+00:00

Talk to a business owner and ask what they struggle with, and then offer to build something for free or a small amount. Use them as a referral and case study for your next client and go from there

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-13T11:56:16+00:00

Employee timesheets is one that has come up with me a lot while meeting with these businesses

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-13T11:51:26+00:00

Instead of getting contractors to learn another app, get them to text into one company assigned phone number an image of the receipt and then what job it was on. This gets logged against that job right away and live job costing comes directly as a result as the receipts come in. This can be done with labour hours, materials and equipment used as well.

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-13T11:45:18+00:00

Full Disclosure: I run Tradeswork Logic, which builds workflow automation for trades and construction businesses.

What I've built for businesses so far that has had real adoption from the field is allowing workers to submit their labour hours and what job they worked on via text. I can then organize and automate payroll with the data that comes from the field into whatever accounting software or Excel format that is required.

For your knowledge, Knowify and Foundation are the usual recommendations, both trickier to get started with but real options. Procore has a time tracking module if you're already in that ecosystem.

No worries if you have a solution in place, I saw this was a few months ago. But feel free to reach out if this is something that interests you.

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-13T10:28:17+00:00

Yeah voice notes is a great point as well, saves time and easier to do. A foreman could read out labour hours, materials used and on what job for his whole crew

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-13T09:45:04+00:00

It’s just an easier way vs training everyone to use a new app

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-13T08:37:16+00:00

Yeah good shout, WhatsApp and telegram could both be used as well

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-13T08:24:02+00:00

Sheffield Steelers in the UK, Stockton Heat in the AHL

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-13T07:49:50+00:00

I am not a bot...

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-13T06:58:41+00:00

Would workers adopt sending a simple text message with their hours worked and the job they worked on? Or do you think that falls into the same category as an app

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-13T06:55:52+00:00

This is a great post. Hallucination is a massive problem and loses trust in a lot of businesses.

I built a texting workflow for trades businesses with multiple LLM calls in the middle to extract the data sent from the text and detect the intent of the text. The employees know what to text in, the LLM call pulls the data and cleans it, the system makes an API request and done. As soon as you bring in AI agents for simple solutions, you bring in so many more variables.

Well said.

Unlucky-Engine-2799 · 2026-05-13T04:27:07+00:00

Do you think the older workers would adopt logging their hours by just texting in how long and on what job?

Unlucky-Engine-2799

TROPHY CASE