5 Questions to Ask Before Your Next Technology Purchase

If you’ve been to an industry event recently (or spent five minutes in a contractor Facebook group), you’ve felt it: the noise. New AI tools. New automations. New “game-changers” that promise to fix your biggest bottlenecks.

And according to Powerhouse Consulting Group co-founders Jenny Benbrook and Pam Duffy, that noise is creating a real problem – contractors are saying “yes” to too many tools, too fast, and ending up with a tech stack that doesn’t actually work for them.

As Pam put it, the industry is drowning in chatter: the best new product, the best workflow, the tool that skyrocketed profitability. Nobody wants to miss out. But the result is often the opposite of progress: redundant spend, low adoption, exhausted teams, and tools that never deliver ROI.

So before you buy “one more thing,” here are five questions – grounded in Jenny and Pam’s perspective – that can save you thousands of dollars and months of frustration. If you’re ready to dive deeper, take our quick, free tech stack assessment.

1) What are we actually trying to accomplish this year?

This sounds obvious. It’s also the step most contractors skip.

Jenny’s point is simple: you can’t build a technology plan without starting with a business plan. You need clarity on where the business is today and where it’s going next, because that determines what technology even makes sense.

Determine:

Are you trying to grow revenue? Increase margins? Add a new market or business unit?
Is your goal memberships? Conversion rate? Dispatch efficiency? Hiring speed?
What will “success” look like in 12 months?

Without clear goals, tech purchases become reactive – driven by FOMO instead of strategy. With clear goals, you can put “blinders on” and filter tools through one lens: does this support our plan?

2) Do we know our real tech budget (and what we’re already spending)?

Jenny shared a reality check that hits hard: contractors almost always know their marketing budget, but very few can confidently answer one question:

“What is your software/technology budget this year?”

That’s a problem, because tech (just like marketing) can be a growth lever. But only when it’s managed intentionally.

Pam and Jenny repeatedly see contractors paying for:

Tools they never fully implemented
Licenses that aren’t being used
Subscriptions that evolved into redundant functionality

Pam joked contractors sometimes call those tools “donations” – money leaving the business with nothing to show for it.

So figure out:

What you’re spending today across ServiceTitan, add-ons, and third-party tools.
What’s redundant?
What’s underused?
What percentage of your growth plan are you willing to reinvest into technology?

A tech plan without a defined budget usually becomes a tech pile.

3) Are we buying something ServiceTitan already does?

This is one of the most common (and expensive) patterns Pam sees: contractors purchase third-party tools that duplicate core ServiceTitan functionality.

Why it happens:

A vendor’s demo is compelling
A peer swears it changed their business
The contractor didn’t know ServiceTitan could already do it
Or they’re not using ServiceTitan well enough to get value from what they already pay for

Jenny emphasized that ServiceTitan can “evolve past where the company is at” if it isn’t intentionally managed. When that happens, contractors assume they need more tech – when what they actually need is better adoption and optimization of the foundation.

Ask yourself:

Have we fully evaluated what ServiceTitan can do natively (or through Pro products)?
Are we using it consistently across teams?
Are we buying a tool to avoid fixing a workflow problem?

Tech should solve real constraints – not cover process gaps.

4) Do we have the time, people, and discipline to implement and manage this?

This is the “forgotten path,” as Jenny calls it.

The biggest misconception in software is that it’s plug-and-play: buy it, integrate it, and watch efficiency appear. In reality, technology requires what Pam described as the unglamorous work: change management, training, ownership, and ongoing administration.

Jenny offered a great analogy: treat technology like a new employee.

You wouldn’t hire someone, sit them at a desk, and say, “Good luck.” You’d:

onboard them
train them
check in
evaluate performance
ensure they work well with the rest of the team

Software is the same. If no one “owns” it internally, adoption stalls, data becomes unreliable, and the tool becomes shelfware.

Designate team members to:

Own this tool internally
Train the team
Monitor adoption
Handle updates and workflow changes

And, ensure your team has the capacity, or if they’re already stretched thin.

If your thought is “we’ll figure it out later,” the tool will almost always underperform.

5) How will we prove ROI (and when will we reevaluate)?

Pam emphasized something every contractor should write down before signing a contract:

How will we measure whether this tool is actually working for us?

Because every software company can claim ROI. It’s your job to verify it – using your numbers, your workflows, your reality.

Pam also shared a practical benchmark: Powerhouse wants to see at least 70% adoption of a product you’re paying for. If you’re paying for 100% of the tool, but using 30–50%, that’s not a tool problem – it’s an implementation and management problem.

Ask:

What does success look like (conversion, speed, margin, capacity, retention)?
What metrics will we track?
When will we check progress (30/60/90 days)?
Are we committed to an annual tech-stack review?

Jenny closed the loop with the bigger “why:” unmanaged, redundant, or underused tech creates waste, and waste leads to lower profit—either directly through overspending or indirectly through lost productivity, turnover, and tech fatigue. In their experience, contractors can lose a significant chunk of tech spend simply due to waste.

The Bottom Line

Contractors aren’t wrong to be interested in new tools. The tech landscape really has changed – fast. As Jenny said, what used to be “get the most out of your FSM” has exploded into an entire ecosystem of third-party tools in just the last 18 months.

The goal isn’t to reject technology. It’s to stop buying it impulsively.

A strong tech stack isn’t the one with the most tools…it’s the one that:

aligns with your goals
fits your budget
avoids redundancy
gets adopted by your team
and proves ROI over time

If buying more tech feels tempting, start with these five questions. They’ll cut through the noise and help you build a plan that actually works. If you want to see how your tech utilization stacks up, take PC G’s quick, free assessment!