A 90-day roadmap for any tradesperson going out on their own. Legal foundation, pricing systems, getting customers, building a repeat engine — written by a licensed electrician who's actually worn the tool belt.
No email required. No paywall. Just a download.
Each phase depends on the one before it. Skip a phase and the next one breaks. Work them in order, and by Day 90 you have a real business — not just a guy with a truck.
Be legitimate, protected, and bankable before you swing a hammer.
Stop guessing what to charge. Start pricing like a business.
A predictable pipeline of inbound leads without spending on ads.
Stop reinventing the wheel on every job. Build the systems that scale.
This playbook isn't a magic formula and it isn't a sales pitch. It's the roadmap I wish someone had handed me when I started — written for any trade, applicable whether you're an electrician, plumber, HVAC tech, carpenter, or any specialty under those.
It's free because the trades have a real problem with new contractors failing in year one — not from lack of skill but from lack of business basics. If this helps even a few people not become that statistic, it's worth giving away.
You don't need to give me your email to read it. Just download it.
Most small-business advice is written for SaaS founders and Etsy sellers. This is written specifically for people whose business involves showing up at job sites, swinging tools, and getting paid to solve problems in the physical world.
Licensed this year. Ready to go out on your own but unsure where to start. This playbook is sequenced specifically for your situation — 90 days of clear, stepwise work from legal foundation to first $10K month.
You've spent years on another outfit's truck. You know the trade cold. The playbook fills in everything they never taught you — insurance, quoting, contracts, Google Business Profile, the stuff that separates a good technician from a profitable contractor.
You've got customers but you're working 70 hours a week and wondering where the money went. The playbook is reverse-engineerable — skim to Phase 2 (pricing) and Phase 4 (knowing your numbers) and fix what's broken.
Written so the core principles apply to any trade. Where something differs — insurance premiums, best marketing channels, busy seasons — you'll see a sidebar that calls out the trade-specific angle. No wasted pages for trades that don't match yours.
Each phase has a day-by-day breakdown with a one-page checklist at the end. Print the checklists, tape them to the wall, cross things off as you work. That's the whole system.
Two weeks of paperwork now saves you years of cleanup later. Every single thing you do for the next 89 days will be harder, slower, or impossible if your legal foundation isn't in place.
Covers: license verification, LLC vs. sole proprietorship vs. S-corp decision framework, the $1M/$2M general liability insurance minimum and why going lower is a mistake, workers' comp rules and the 1099 vs. W-2 classification trap, EIN setup, business banking and credit, bookkeeping systems that don't suck, and a one-page end-of-phase checklist you can tape to the wall.
The most expensive sentence a new contractor says is "I'll figure out the price when they call." Pricing in your head, on the fly, in front of a customer is how you end up with a calendar full of unprofitable jobs.
Covers: when to charge hourly vs. flat rate and why most contractors eventually switch, how to calculate your real break-even labor rate (usually 30–80% higher than what contractors charge), building your first price list without spending a month on it, estimates that actually close, three-tier Good/Better/Best pricing, deposit policies, invoicing cadence, and the no-pay-no-work rule that protects your cash flow.
The trades are one of the few industries where you can build a steady pipeline of leads without spending a dollar on advertising. The bad news: it requires consistent effort in the right channels, not random posting everywhere.
Covers: Google Business Profile setup and optimization (the single highest-ROI piece of free marketing real estate for any contractor), the three free lead channels that actually work, the exact review-request script that gets responses, playing Facebook Groups and Nextdoor without getting blocked or reported, building your first website on a weekend or having one done for you, and turning one-time jobs into a compounding referral flywheel.
By Day 60 you should have customers, revenue, and a basic rhythm. Phase 4 is what separates contractors who plateau at "busy and broke" from contractors who actually build a business.
Covers: written contracts that hold up, change-order discipline that stops scope creep from eating your margin, follow-up sequences that turn quotes into jobs, when and how to hire your first helper or subcontractor, the four weekly metrics that tell you whether the business is actually growing, and what a $10K month looks like for different trades (high-ticket installs vs. mid-ticket service work vs. high-volume small tickets).
Yes. There's a download button on this page that gives you the PDF directly. No email, no form, no paywall. If you want to subscribe to the occasional new-product email, the signup is in the footer — but it's not required for the download.
No. The playbook is written to apply across any trade — electrical, plumbing, HVAC, carpentry, remodeling, roofing, landscaping, handyman services. Where something differs by trade (insurance premiums, best marketing channels, seasonality), there's a sidebar that calls out the trade-specific angle. The core system is universal.
Honest answer: probably not. $10K months are absolutely achievable in year one for contractors who work the playbook, but the specific timing depends on your trade, your market, and how aggressively you execute. The 90-day framework gets you to the point where a $10K month is realistic and sustainable — not necessarily arrived at. Think of it as the structural work that has to be done before consistent revenue follows.
I did. I'm Jason — a licensed electrician who's been in the trades for years and has watched too many good tradesmen fail at the business side. Tradesman Office is where I build the tools I wish someone had handed me when I started. Everything is tested on real job sites, not theorized in a boardroom.
The playbook mentions some of my paid tools where they're directly relevant (the Break-Even Calculator for pricing math, the Price Books for flat rate, the Forms Bundle for contracts). Those aren't required — everything in the playbook can be done with free tools or built yourself. The paid products are shortcuts for people who'd rather not build from scratch. Take or leave them.
Yes, please. Send it to anyone who's starting out, post the link in contractor Facebook groups, share it on Reddit, link to it from your own site. It's free because the trades have a real problem with new-contractor failure, and shared knowledge helps.
I plan to refresh it roughly once a year — significant updates when codes change, when tax rules shift, or when something in the business-building landscape evolves enough to matter. Minor fixes happen as readers flag them. If you notice anything outdated or wrong, email me at help@tradesmanoffice.co.
Twenty-nine pages. Four phases. Ninety days of clear, sequenced work that takes you from "going out on your own" to running a real business.
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