Mostly from people at supply houses and lumber yards. They know how to tell if a contractor is good or not. Or if we catch wind of a good contractor doing gre

Mostly from people at supply houses and lumber yards. They know how to tell if a contractor is good or not. Or if we catch wind of a good contractor doing great work for another builder, we'll go inspect their work and then try to get them to jump ship and work with us. Trade school information won't help us any because we're hiring contracting companies. We don't hire individuals unless it's for something specific that can be handled by one individual like kitchen installs. Highly skilled tradesmen are often like really good lawyers. Just because they're good at their craft doesn't mean they'll necessarily be good at running their own contracting business (or law firm). So being a successful contractor really boils down to being able to properly manage your skilled labor (and keep them content) while also keeping things on budget and following the critical path. The single most common mistake I see with most contractors (and most all small business owners in general) is the fact that they think "hey, I own this business, therefore I should be the highest paid person here." So they don't take care of their labor and they end up losing them to someone who will take better care of them. They think that they own the business so they must provide the most value to the company and should earn the most. That's rarely the case in real life though. When I was a contractor out on my own, there were plenty of times when I was paying some of my employees more than I ever took home. The President of the company I work for now isn't the highest compensated member of our team.