Episode•January 19, 2026•25 min

EP254: Contractor Tech Stack For 2026

If you’re still running your business the same way you did five years ago, you’re already behind. Learn how contractors can use technology to save time, reduce chaos, and stop being the bottleneck in their own business. No hype, just real tools and systems that actually make day-to-day work easier and more profitable. In this episode, Brad talks about: Importance of documentation and note-taking tools Recommended devices Audio recording essentials Video recording options Editing software 3D scanning technology Utilizing AI for business efficiency Project management and CRM tools Importance of job site photo management Link to Resources: Grab your FREE document and text #Tech to 812-405-4610 This episode is sponsored by NEXT Insurance — the smart, simple insurance designed for contractors and small business owners. Protect your business with fast, affordable coverage you can set up in minutes. Learn more at NEXTinsurance.com/hammer Grab Brad's tell-all book: The Contractor Profit Blueprint https://thecontractorprofitblueprint.com Help us get the word out to other contractors by leaving us a review or sharing our podcast! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Transcript

0:01

I'm going to go over things that you can use in your business to make your productivity skyrocket and pass up your competition. Hey, it's Brad here. And before we get into the show, I want to tell you about today's sponsor, Next Insurance. You know, a lot of us contractors spend so much time keeping the jobs moving that we push off the boring stuff to the back burner. And insurance is usually at the top of that list. until the day you really wish you had it. A customer slips on a job site, a tool breaks right in the middle of critical work, a supplier screws up again and leaves you holding the bill. You can lose thousands overnight. And most folks only realize they need insurance when something's already gone sideways. That's why I really like what Next Insurance is doing. They've made business insurance ridiculously simple. You just answer a few questions online and next tells you exactly what coverage your business needs. And you're insured in minutes. No sitting on hold, no paperwork, no call us back later nonsense. Next is built for builders, contractors, tradespeople, or anyone running their own shop. And here's the kicker. Their policies start as low as $29 a month and you get your certificate of insurance instantly. which means you never have to delay a job because you're waiting on insurance. Protect what you've built and keep your business moving with confidence. Get covered in minutes at nextinsurance. com forward slash hammer. Now let's get back to the show. Hey, welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Brad Hebner, and today's episode is all about tech. I'm going to go over things that you can use in your business to make your... productivity skyrocket and pass up your competition. Now, if you didn't listen to last week's episode, I recommend you go back and listen to it. This is a continuation of that, but from the tech side. In last week's episode, I talked a lot about creating videos for your business, how to get ahead of the competition. I'm going to give you some tools and tech that you can use in order to do that and do it, make your life easier and add a little bit of professionalism to that. So let's jump right into it. It's not going to be a very long podcast. And I do have some things here I can show you. So if you're listening, you may want to go watch the video on YouTube. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll see some of these things too. At the end, I will give you an opportunity or tell you how you can get access to my link, to the list of tech. That way you can just, if you're interested in any of these, you can just download that and then click the links. There'll be clickable links to go and buy these things or pick them up yourself if you want to. Some of them, I even have some discount codes. If you use that link, you can get some discounts off of those items. So let's get into it. One of the things that is the most important you can do is documentation. Okay. And so I am, I'll just tell you, this may cost me some listeners. I am not an Apple guy. I don't like Apple at all. I'm an Android guy. Those, I know some of you are like, you know, you live, breathe and die Apple and you're, uh, you're part of their cult and you got to buy everything. I get it. So I'm going to give you some options here because I'm not an Apple guy. I don't use an iPad. Now an iPad, it's a very good option for taking notes and doing lots of other things in the field, right? If you're going and doing estimates, if you're running jobs, an iPad is a very usable, you know, good option for that. So an iPad is it. I mean, it could be an iPad Pro, whatever, different sizes, that's up to you. An iPad typically runs about a thousand bucks and goes up from there depending on the size and features and all that stuff. So an iPad is one option. I don't use an iPad. I actually use a Remarkable tablet. And if you're watching, I'm holding it up here. I got a Remarkable tablet. The reason why I like the Remarkable tablet is because it's strictly for taking notes. There's no apps. There's no internet. There's no email. It's just a note-taking tablet, and it feels like you're writing on paper, so you have that textile feel to it, and I like that. I have the original Remarkable. Now they have the Remarkable Pro tablet out, and that one's going to run you around $650 or so, depending on what accessories you get. Okay. So what I like about the remarkable, it does sync with the internet. So you can pull up files and stuff on your phone, on your computer if you're away. But I've always liked using the remarkable and it's, it does a great job of keeping notes and folders and organizing that for you. So I'm a fan of remarkable. A lot of my clients also use remarkables too in their business. So what's next? Well, let's get into like the video recording. If you're going to record videos, you need a good mic. Now, originally when I was recording videos, I just had my camera on my phone and no mic. It was okay, but it's so easy now to get a mic that works. So I use the Hollyland Lark M2 is the one that I currently use and you can pick it up for a hundred bucks. Super cheap. Is it the greatest, you know, audio? No. If you want to go get a Rode or some other, you know, high end, you can do that. But I like the Hollyland because it comes in a little case. It's a chargeable case. It's got two lapel mics and a receiver. And it comes with your phone attachments. So you can hook it up to your phone. There's one for USB, one for lightning. Depending on which package you get, there's a few different packages. And it comes in a little bag and a bunch of accessories. There's all kinds of wind socks and clips and necklaces and things that you can wear. You know, if you want to wear them different ways, you can put a clip on it so you can put it on your hat. I like to use the magnet version. You can see on the screen, they're very small. It's got a magnet on the back. I can literally just put it on my shirt just like that and take it off when I'm done. And it charges in the case. So I use the Hollyland Lark M2s very, very much. Like almost every day I use these. These are really, really good. And like I said, they will plug into your phone. They can also plug into a traditional audio jack if you're using it that way. It's very versatile. That's what I use for recording audio. And like I said, it will work on your phone or other devices, cameras, whatever. Now, cameras. What type of cameras should you use? Well, the easiest thing is use your phone. Just use the phone you have. That's the easiest thing you can do. And I've used my phone pretty much forever. Okay. Now, some of my... videos that I've recorded. I have a, you know, Canon DSLR camera. It's an older one. I don't really use that anymore because it's older, outdated, and it's harder to get up and set up. So I've used my camera for a long time and it works great. The problem with using it on the camera is like transferring files, getting them uploaded. So recently I picked up a camera. I did a bunch of research and what I ended up with was the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 camera. It's a tiny little camera, literally will fit in your pocket. It's 4K and it's got the stabilizer built in. So if you're watching again on YouTube, you will see this. It's got the stabilizer. You can turn the camera around if you're doing, you know, front facing camera or back facing camera. And you can do it in portrait or you can even do it in landscape. This is what I've been using. It's very easy. You have a micro SD card, you record, take the micro SD card, plug it in your computer, and now you have the files instantly. No more transferring files from your phone and waiting, you know, forever to get access to those files. So that's the one I would recommend. And they do come with like a creator kit that you can get. That is extra, but I would recommend getting that. I ultimately... did not buy the Creator Kit because I wasn't sure. But after going back to looking at the accessories, I just, I bought everything that was in the Creator Kit with the exception of the microphone because it does come with a lapel mic. So as a substitute, if you did not want to buy the Hollyland, you can buy the Osmo Pocket 3 and then buy the microphone that comes with it. It's just one microphone and there's no accessories. So there's a limitation there. But you can buy the extra battery, the tripod, those things that come with it. The Osmo typically sells for around $520. If you get the creator bundle, it's like $650, somewhere around there. And you can go on Amazon and find that or Best Buy or wherever. That's what I would recommend for a camera if you didn't want to use your phone. And you can take pictures with it too, by the way. So the DJI Osmo Pocket 3. Now, once you have the videos, what do you do with them? Well, you need to edit them. Whether you're doing it, your wife's doing it, or you're going to hire someone to do it, that's up to you. But if you're doing it yourself, then I would recommend a couple different editing softwares that are either free or inexpensive. And the first one would be, if you have the Osmo Pocket 3, it comes with its own internal editor on the phone app. So you get a phone app that connects to the camera, and then you can edit your videos right inside the DJI software. If you don't have that, you can use CapCut. And CapCut originally was for like TikTok videos. Now you can download it as a standalone software. It's free or paid depending on what features you want. And so you can import it into CapCut, do all your editing, and then export it to whatever platform you wanted to. So CapCut is the one. I still use CapCut with videos too if I need to do something externally from the DJI. So the cap cut works really well. That's for editing. Okay. Now, those are things that are going to be like strictly for, you know, video and editing and then your field notes, those kinds of things. There's one other camera that I would highly recommend that you look into if you're doing remodeling or interior work. And that is going to be like a 3D scanning camera. Now, most people know or may have heard of a company called Matterport. They kind of pioneered this technology, either LIDAR or whatever scanning technology they're using, where they can scan a room and then spit out a 3D image,2D image. It can take measurements, all that stuff for you. The problem with some of the Matterport cameras is that they're really expensive. And the cost that you have to pay to get the scans. is also really expensive. So recently a company came out to challenge Matterport and that company is called iGuide. So if you just go, and like I said, I'll put these links in the note that you can get, the document you can download. I'll have a link in there. But iGuide has come out and challenged Matterport at a more economical price. Now the camera is still not cheap. OK, but the software and what do you what it costs to translate these images into files you can use is much, much cheaper. And it gives you more control on what type of files you want. You may want a simple 2D scan and it costs very little or you may want a very complex 3D scan. And that's going to cost a little bit more. So you have a lot more control over your costs for producing these scans.

11:20

Hey, just a quick time out from the show. If you're a frustrated contractor who's dealing with low profit margins, stuck working on the tools every day, or doing free estimates for people who are never going to hire you in the first place, I invite you to my private contractor community. the profit club where contractors just like you are adding two to three times more profit each year without producing any more jobs and finally getting completely off the tools to never do another free estimate again. So if you're ready to increase your profits, stop doing free estimates and get off the tools, then all you have to do is click the link in the show notes to learn more about the profit club and see how it can easily two to three times the cash in your pocket. give you a proven sales process that will convert more jobs with ease and get you off the tools once and for all. And the best part is you can do all of this without having to produce more jobs than you currently are. Click the link to learn more. Now let's get back to the show.

12:15

The iGUIDE camera, the one they currently have is the Plan X R1, and that's going to cost you about $2,600. Now, some of you are like, that's way too much. I'm not going to. you know, spend that much money. I'd rather spend 30 to 45 minutes measuring everything in a kitchen. I'd rather spend an hour taking every measurement in a kitchen. And you're not thinking from the perspective of, I could set up a camera. and let it scan while I'm having a conversation with the customer. And by the time we're done talking, the scan is done. And then now I can submit that. And within an hour or the next day, I now have a 3D,2D scan with measurements to a certain degree of accuracy that I can use to order materials. So it doesn't take long to see the benefit of this because once you scan it, You turn it in, you now have a drawing. If you do it manually, you have to spend time taking measurements, going back to your office, and then drawing that yourself or hiring someone to do that for you. And it can be just as costly. So in the long run, having a software and camera system like iGUIDE can save you tons of money. But more importantly, it can save you tons of time. And it's going to make you look like a professional whenever you can spit out a... an image and give it to your customer. Okay. So the iGUIDE Planix R1 is about $2,600. Now I don't have those cameras. I have not used it. However, I do have clients who have used it and they have had good results with that and they like it. And it's as an alternate again to the Matterport camera. I have clients that use the Matterport camera and they like that just as well. Okay. So either one of those, but I like the iGUIDE. a little bit better simply because of the options for your scans in the lower price. Okay, so that's job site measuring. Let's jump into software. Now, there's lots of software out there, guys. Lots and lots of software that you can use. But I'm going to talk about a few that I think are game changers and are a requirement for your business. Okay, the first thing that you should be using, and I talked about this on the last podcast. is you need to be using AI. So go get you a ChatGPT subscription. It's like 20 bucks a month. It's very, very cheap. And start using it for everything in your business. Just before I got on here, I was putting together, we're doing a workshop. By the time this airs, you may have a week or two for the workshop. But I'm putting together a workshop and I put in there, who's putting on the workshop, the name of their company. I took a photo off their website, the person that's presenting. And then I had it, you know, had the background removed. And then I said, create a image that I can use to promote this on social media. And it spit out a image for this workshop that was 10 times better that I could ever do myself or hire someone. And it was done in less than 30 seconds. So stuff as simple as that can save you hundreds of dollars. If I hired a professional, it may cost me 50 bucks to have that design. If I try to do it myself, it may take me two to three hours to do it. If I have an employee do it, who's a little more, you know, has a little more skill, it may take them an hour. Anyways, it cost me, you know, $20 a month. Okay. That's less than a dollar a day. And it was done in 30 seconds. It's a game changer. You have to start using AI. Okay. ChatGPT is the one I use. I've also used other ones. There's Claude and Grok and new ones coming out every day. But you can, you know, Gemini, always different ones. I don't really care which one you're using. I've just always used ChatGPT because I like the interface. It's easy to use, so on and so on. So that one is one that I would definitely recommend, ChatGPT. Now, let's move into more project management and CRMs. If you don't have a way to track your leads. and track where people are in the sales process. For example, if you don't have a way of knowing that customer A is waiting on you to send them an estimate and customer B is waiting on a phone call back from you and customer C is waiting on, you're waiting on customer C to respond about some certain materials that you want to order. And all of these people are in different parts of the pipeline. If you don't have a system, To track that, it can be very chaotic in your business. And this is where perfectly good leads go to die, right? In your text message box, in your email, whatever it is you're currently using, and you don't have a way to keep track of that. You take that as the initial problem, and then you can have the ability of automations. So now when you move a client from one stage to a next, it will automatically do certain things for you. So having a CRM, a customer relationship management tool, that's what it means, customer relationship management. If you have a CRM, it makes this part of the process so much easier. There's lots of other benefits that go into CRMs. There's lots of CRMs out there. Some of you may be using them. Some of you have never even thought about it. I would recommend using a CRM if you're not to keep track of that and to automate a lot of the process. Okay, so I recommend a CRM called Hammer CRM. That's going to run you about $149 a month, $150 a month. And there's lots of additional things that go with that. You can have automated review collection. Some of you may use NiceJob, which is a review collection software that costs about $80 a month. You can completely replace that one with Hammer CRM because it has its own review automation process built in. Right. And there's a bunch of other features I'm not going to get into. But Hammer CRM is a good option for managing your sales process, your leads and automating a lot of that as well. It also helps with your marketing, like email marketing, things like that. So a good CRM is going to help you with that. Now, let's talk about pictures on the job site during the project. Well, CompanyCam, CompanyCam. I use CompanyCam for many, many years and they've done a great job of tracking. your pictures per project and how they organize it. CompanyCam starts at $79 a month for three users and then it goes up depending on how many users and features you want. CompanyCam, many times I tried to get rid of CompanyCam because I didn't want the added expense. I could never get rid of it. It was just so good. I never found an alternative to get rid of it. Okay, so. It's definitely going to help you with communication, eliminating problems, eliminating confusion, eliminating he said, she said stuff, you know, who's did this and this. Company cam can help you with that a lot, a lot, a lot. So that's a good picture one. Now let's talk about project management software. There's two project management softwares that I use. And I've used a bunch of different ones. But there's two that I recommend now. If you're a general contractor, remodeling contractor, maybe even a specialty contractor, I highly recommend JobTread. JobTread is one that I recommend. They've been a sponsor of the show in the past. They just do a great job of really delivering a ton of value for a very affordable price. It starts at $200 a month for one user. And then it's like 20 bucks a month for every user you add. It's very affordable and it does a ton of stuff, a ton of stuff. A lot of my clients, like an overwhelming majority of my clients use JobTread for their project management software. Okay. A lot of them are using JobTread and HammerCRM together. Because most project management softwares like JobTread, they're not designed to track, you know, leads and deal with that aspect of it. They're really good at project management. They're not so great at the customer relations side. And so that's where the CRM works. And so if you use those two together, a lot, again, a lot of my clients use those two together. It really is the ultimate combo of making sure your clients and leads are just, you know, well taken care of. So JobTrade is the one I recommend. Now, if you're a landscaper or you do like excavating something around outside and earth, I would recommend a different software. And that one's called SyncedUp. And the owner of SyncedUp, the founder, he was actually on my podcast a couple of years ago. Wes is the owner. I've been to one of their conventions that they put on. It's a great company. The software. Does a really, really good job on the estimating side, specifically for like materials and, you know, people in landscaping, excavation. It does a great job of that. It's a little bit more expensive, but it's still worth it. That starts at like $3.59 a month. So synced up is my recommendation if you're in landscaping or excavating, you know, potentially if you're doing like lawn care, although I think it's a little overkill for lawn care. But anything outdoors like that, maybe deck builders could potentially work for that as well. Those are the main tech stack that I would say that you need to have to really crush it in 2026. There may be lots of other options. And I'd like to hear from you. If you think there's something that you absolutely have to have and I didn't mention it, tell me, send me a message, comment on my videos and let me know what those are. You know, I didn't talk about like laser measuring devices, laser tape measures. You know, I had a Bosch laser measure. I use it all the time. Maybe you say that that's a must have. There may be other things that you say are a must have. And maybe you know something that's tech that I don't know that could help others out there. So give me your feedback on these things. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to have this document ready so that you can just download it. I'm going to use the same method I did on my previous podcast. I'm going to change it a little bit. So if you text the word hashtag tech, okay, hashtag tech to 812-405-4610, and we'll put this in the show notes as well. Just text the word tech to 812-405-4610, hashtag tech. And we'll send that out to you. We'll send that document out to you. And that way you can download it and have the links. Like I said, some of these like JobTreads synced up, some of them have discount codes. So like if you use the discount code, you will actually save off of your subscription or the cost of that item. So I would recommend using the discount code if you're wanting to use those things, right? But that's it. That's the tech stack that it's kind of a must have in your business. I gave you a few different options. You tell me if I missed something, more than happy to go back and admit I missed something or add it in future podcast episodes. But I wanted to throw this out there to follow up from the last podcast on creating video, because really right now, that is the most important thing you can be doing in your business is creating video. And if you go with the Osmo Pocket 3 and the Hollyland Lark 2, it's a no brainer. You're going to be able to start crushing out some videos and some content, which is going to make you the expert. I appreciate you hanging out with me. One little change in the show for this year is I really want to interview contractors. I really want to interview you. So if you've been in business and you've had some success, it doesn't matter if you've been successful at sales, if you've created a different process that no one knows about, if you've done a great job of hiring and building a culture, if you know a lot about branding, if you know something about the construction industry that you want to share with others, reach out to me. I'd love to have you on the show. And we can interview and talk about those things so that other people can benefit as well. So I'm looking for contractors just like you so that we can interview on the show and spread the good news for everyone else. Thanks for hanging out with me, guys. I look forward to the next one. You know where to find me. Just search the socials for the Hammer Grind podcast. And remember, until next time, profit is not a dirty word.