Did JobTread Really Pay A Bonus to Every Team Member at R.L. Rider Remodeling?

Meet Michaela Swope, estimator with R.L. Remodeling in Lansing, MI. Before JobTread, the company relied on a patchwork of different systems that resulted in “flailing and putting out fires every day,” Swope recalls.

The new platform was a game changer. Less than a year after implementing JobTread, R.L. Rider was able to completely eliminate its line of credit and award “fantastic” bonuses to team members. The savings and increased efficiency also allowed the company to throw a 100-year anniversary bash. “This is something we would not have been able to afford due to how much slippage we had,” Swope explains.

Not only was it a financial boon, many of JobTread’s convenient features were a welcome surprise for the whole team.

R.L. Rider Remodeling's Outdoor Project

For example, shortly after getting started with the platform, a draftsman called Swope to say how much he appreciated the photo mark up tool that’s embedded right in the software. He told her that he called up the owner and they “got together and just started marking up plans.” The feature has reduced errors in the field and streamlined communication with both carpenters and homeowners.

The R.L. Rider team also saw huge value in attending JobTread Connect. In 2025, the user conference brought together more than 800 construction professionals, and Swope came away feeling inspired and ready to implement the “cool stuff” she learned from remodeling colleagues based all over the country.

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Here are some key takeaways from our discussion with Michaela:

What platform were you using before? How has your process changed now that you're using JobTread?

The platform we were using before, which I doubt anyone has heard of, was Rapid Home Estimator. It was basically Excel, but in a file you downloaded on your computer. Frankly, it was not nearly as in-depth as JobTread.

We couldn't use it for communication. We couldn't use it for documenting any of the files. Couldn't use it for any scheduling. It was purely for drafting scope of work for the contract, and then everything else was done through text messages, through paperwork, through literally flailing and putting out fires every day.

R.L. Rider Remodeling's Kitchen Project

JobTread has made it so that our team can communicate in one platform. The clients can see what's happening on their projects. Sometimes we have clients who aren't in town while we're working on things so them being able to see the pictures and the posts from the daily logs is super beneficial for them and for us, so we're not having to reach out to them.

We did Friday follow ups previously where we had to personally call and email every single client that we were working with to give them an update on their job. Now, JobTread helps us do all that. We can see the quotes that we got for a project. I'm not, as the estimator, guessing on what a potential cost was for a line item.

What is my plumber cost? I can see what those real costs look like.

Do you want to elaborate on what you’ve done last year and successes?

I'd say JobTread was pretty crucial to our successes in the past year. In the past three years that I've been with the company, we really started to implement JobTread in 2024, but I started developing it in 2023, building out the cost catalog, and then starting to build some of those processes inside the system. And because of the way that we can now break down the costs and communicate more effectively, we were able to eliminate our line of credit.

So we paid that off and then we became profitable, just point blank profitable. Instead of losing money every year, having to pull from our line of credit, we were able to give our team fantastic bonuses at the end of the year, reward ourselves, reward our clients. We were able to have a 100 year anniversary party in 2024, which is something we typically would not, or in the past, would not have been able to afford due to how much slippage we had.

What have you enjoyed about Connect? And what would you say to somebody who was interested in coming?

The thing I appreciate most about coming to Connect this year—it's my first year here, and I have only been in the industry for three years. My only experience in the construction industry has been with my company, and I was really looking forward to getting perspectives from other contractors, other people in the industry, other mindsets that people take in their approaches with employees, with their processes, with how they want to build and scale their businesses.

It's something that I can't necessarily get from our competitors. We're so close to them and some people don't want to give out their secrets. Whereas here you're getting people from all over the United States who all want to help each other grow and get better and see implementation of JobTread and just cool stuff all the time so we can all be super successful.

Is there anything [additional] you'd like to share? Any stories that stand out to you or meaningful memories about JobTread?

So this one was not too long ago. I feel like it stands out. [It was] a big story for us, and it really just was something that was crucial in how we communicate with our team and how we keep people on the same page through JobTread. A few months back we had started working with a draftsman who was doing our floor plans for construction and making sure we were writing down all those details on the plans. He called me a couple months ago, and he said, “Michaela, I just found something super cool.” And I was like, “All right Jacob, what is it?” He goes, "There's this button on the pictures and you can just draw all over them.” And I was like, “Yeah, you can mark up whatever.” And so he calls the owner, he calls me, and both of them just got together and they just started marking up plans.

R.L. Rider Remodeling's Bathroom Project

We have pictures of existing houses and what we want to demo. We do whole home remodels, it’s a huge part of our business, [and] figuring out what we're going to remove and what we're going to save has always been a hard point of communication to get across to our carpenters. There are times where they accidentally remove something we wanted to keep because there was just one line missing in the contract.

Now what the owner and the draftsman do is they go into the original “Before” pictures and they start marking up. “This is the area we need to remove.” “This is the area we need to save.” So if the carpenters pull up the photos—or during our handoff meetings our pre-project start walkthroughs— they can look at those pictures and say, “Look at this picture. Look at what our plan is. This is our plan of action.”

And it makes it easier for everybody to communicate, especially if Cam or Jacob can't be in those meetings with us. You know, we as the team have that information on what they were thinking right off the bat.

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