Building the perfect tech stack for a trades business feels like a Sisyphean task. As quickly as you get it figured out, something changes — your team grows, prices increase, no one ever uses the tools — and it feels like you’re back at square one.
But there are a few things you can keep in mind to make software purchasing and adoption much less stressful for you and your team.
We sat down with Eric Weddle, co-founder and CFO of Weddle & Sons Inc., to talk about how he approaches software selection and adoption for his multi-state roofing, exteriors, and solar business. He said that once you’ve identified a business case for adding software to help solve a problem, consider these things.
1. User Experience is Priority #1
Your software’s only useful to your business if it gets used. That’s why it’s important to choose tools that are intuitive enough for your teams to pick up and use from day one. Software should make the actual work of field and office teams easier.
Eric shared that in the past, you had to spend more time learning and onboarding tools. But now, because there’s a seemingly endless number of options and widespread smartphone use, your employees expect their business tools to be as intuitive as the non-work apps they use.
A core idea Eric emphasized was that revenue is not generated in the office: money’s made by the sales teams at kitchen tables and by production teams on roofs. So these teams’ opinions and experiences with apps take precedence when selecting tools. If a tool doesn’t improve their job functions, they won’t force adoption.
Putting it into practice:
- Demo an app first to see how intuitive it is to you. If you’re having difficulty with it, there’s a good chance others on your team will too.
- Pull in a few key people (branch, site, and sales managers) on your team and create sandbox environments to see how it would work.
- Once you’re ready to roll it out company-wide, give teams some time to transition their workflows to the new app. But don’t allow them to avoid full adoption if the new tool lacks all the functionality of the tool being replaced.
2. Know the Difference Between Nice-To- and Must-Haves
Every software change involves giving up some workflow or design that everyone’s grown accustomed to. Eric shared how teams can “fall in love” with certain features of their current tools, making change difficult. But the key is determining whether what you’re gaining significantly outweighs what you’re losing.
Case Study: Swapping CRMs
Two years ago, Weddle & Sons decided to change their CRM. Their previous process relied on highly customized, high-maintenance automations that connected their CRM to CompanyCam, Box, QuickBooks, and others. But as they continued to scale, the stack required more maintenance from Eric to keep it running.
So after working through the steps above, they decided to switch to Acculynx. In doing so, they give up some of the standalone tools their team was used to, such as a scheduling tool that one branch had particular difficulty giving up. But what they gained was a direct pricing integration with their main suppliers, which reduced 4- and 5‑figure errors caused by inaccurate cost information.
Because the switch made some standalone tools redundant, they offset additional subscription costs; they didn’t need two file storage systems or three ways to capture eSignatures.
But Eric said you should eliminate tools cautiously while keeping the user experience in mind. He shared that they could have ditched CompanyCam as part of this move, but given the high adoption and usage of CompanyCam across his teams, they decided that the potential redundancy is more valuable than the line-item savings.
3. Review Annually, but Stay Current
The Weddle & Sons conducts an annual business and technology review at the end of every year. During this slower time of year, you should:
- Evaluate what worked this year but won’t scale to next year’s projected size
- Identify what didn’t work well and needs replacement
- Review all software expenses and decide on the need
- Check on pricing discounts you may be able to get
But that doesn’t stop their team from adding tools throughout the year to address tedious, time-consuming tasks. Eric shared that he’s always looking for something new and taking calls with various tech providers who reach out. Staying product-aware throughout the year helps him quickly address issues that arise from pain points he hears from the office, field, and sales teams.
Using AI to Simplify Process
One of the tedious tasks Eric handles is managing subcontractor certificates of insurance for their own business insurance audits. Each sub has their own agreements, expiration dates, and insurance information, and keeping this all straight is a chore.
Eric is evaluating tools like Claude Code to build a web interface that allows subs to share these documents securely and enables him and his team to parse them, collect all important information, and have it ready for audit season.
Are you adding or changing any tech to your business this year? Head over to this community thread to see what others are adding to theirs.
If you’d like to get more tips like this from business leaders like Eric, join us for our free monthly webinars on the last Wednesday of every month!