Cash In On Home Repair Business

Hello again,

Summertime is a great time to get those roofing projects completed. When you start your handyman business, you may be ask to do some roofing jobs. If so here are a few tips to keep in mind.

Never cut corners. Cutting corners can save time and money in the short term, however in the long term it can cause you a lot more headaches. Make sure your insurance covers you for doing roofing work. If it does not, you should not do the work.

When replacing shingles, make sure you follow the manufacture guidelines for installation exactly. If you do not, and there is a problem, you could end up voided the manufactures warranty and causing a lot of problems for your customer and yourself.

Flashing needs to be layered underneath the shingles and not on top of them. Also, with flashing, it should be insstalled the the U shape facing the valley. Also be sure to use enough caulk and fastners when doing roofing.

If you live where it snows and ices during the winter, you need to be sure you prevent ice damming from occuring. Ice damming occurs when snow and ice melt then re-freeze at the roofs overhang. If this happens it can cause the roof deck to leak and that is obviousley not good.

The bottom line as with any repair you decide to do, make sure you follow the manufactures recommendation for the material you use and that you know what you are doing.

Have a great day.

Hello again,

In my last post I talked wrote about how we are already into the second month of the year and I ask you all where you are with your handyman business. After thinking about this questions for a bit, I believe the is a more fundamental question that everyone needs to ask them self: whether you are starting a handyman business or before doing anything else.

That question is: What is your why?

What do I mean by this? Why are you starting a handyman business? What do you hope to achieve? Is starting a handyman business in line with your purpose? You do have a purpose don't you?

Why are these questions important to ask. Because if you do not have a big enough why for what you are doing, then you will give up at the first time you run into an obstacle. Successful people not only know their why, but they write them down, and read it several times a day. Doing this will help keep you going when things get tough. Knowing your why will help you make better decisions with when it comes to your handyman business, your time, your money, and everything else you do.

So your assignment is to sit down today, not tomorrow or next week, today and figure out what your why is for how you spend your day. If you can not come up with a why, or it does not excite you, then maybe you doing the wrong thing. If that is the case, figure out what you why is and what you can do to accomplish your why.

Until next time,

Denise

Hello everyone.

Today I just want to take a few minutes and write about why I am doing this blog, and why I wrote the book Handyman to Businessman: How to start a Handyman Business.

I started blogging about this subject because for several years my husband and I operated a handyman business. We learned a great deal in the years we had this business and I want to help share what we learned. I also blog because I want people who are either thinking about starting such a business or have already started a handyman business to realize that this is a real business.

What do I mean about this being a real business? It is the type of business that almost anyone can enter into without a lot of upfront cost. This alone has its good and bad points, and its the bad points that cause problems for this industry as a whole.

Because it is so easy to enter, you have a lot of fly by night people starting handyman businesses. These people are the ones who go around and do shoddy work and/ or just plain scam people. This will then get reported on the news and its another black eye to the industry. What you do not hear about are all the good people out there doing good work and providing a much needed service.

Everyone needs to realize that this business needs to be treated as a real business. You need a legal structure, you need a separate bank account, you need to give great, and I mean great, customer service. You need to take this business seriously. If you do, then you can make money doing this. If you do not, then you will just end up giving everyone else in the industry another black eye.

That is why I wrote the book. (see link on the right) It will give you step by step instructions on how to get started and what it takes to have a great handyman business. Get the book, if you do not get mine then get someone else's, but be sure that is gives you straight talk about the industry, not just how to fix this and that. You need to know that this will take work, a lot of work, and you need to be prepare to spend the time to really build a great business.

Hope this helps. Until next time.

Hello all,

OK so we have our business up and running and you are getting customers. Now what? When you start a handyman business you need to be thinking a couple of steps ahead. What I mean by this is you need to decide where you want to take your business. You need a plan.

In a perfect world everyone who starts a business will write a business plan before they start their business. However, lets face it, most people who want to start a handyman business want to get it up and running quickly. Since this is a relatively easy business to start, many people will not plan for the future. Do not make that mistake.

Once you have started to get customers and bring in some money, you need to really do some thinking about what direction do you want to take your business. You need to have an advertising budget, you need to have a cash flow plan. In its simplest form this is making sure you have enough cash on hand to get through the slow times. Other items you need to consider, will you expand the work you do? Will you hire employees?

All of this should be written down, even if all you do is hand write it, so that you have some idea of what you want to do. You do not want to get into a bind then have to make important decisions like these.

There are a lot of books written about business plans and you can find many at your local library. I suggest that you pick up a couple and go through them. They will give you some good ideas on what you need to included in your plan.

However, do not let this important step go to long without getting it completed. Your business survival depends on how well you plan for the future.

Until next time.

Hello again,

Well we have covered a lot of ground in our first 4 steps. Hopefully you have completed them all and are ready for the next step, getting customers. When you start a handyman business you will need customers. (Of course.) How do you go about finding customers?

There are a lot of free ways to generate customers. You can start with your family, friends and co-workers. Ask your neighbors. Make sure you have business cards and pass them out. Put up flyer's around town. Join your local area Chamber of Commerce. Get in touch with real estate agents and see if they ever need someone to help fix up homes that are being listed or just sold.

The best way to obtain customers is through referrals or word of mouth. People telling others about your business is the best way to obtain customers. If you give great service, getting people to refer business to you should not be to difficult.

If you put your thinking cap on, I am sure you can come up with a lot of different ways to generate leads for your handyman business.

Until next time.

Hello again,

I am assuming that you have picked out a name for your business and decided on how you will set up your handyman business. What's next? When you start your handyman business you will need to decide what services you will offer and set your prices.

What is a good way to figure this out? What services your handyman business will offer will depend on what you can fix. Most handyman are a jack of all trades, they do a little bit of everything. However if you are not familiar with replacing lights, then you can either learn how to do it, or just not offer that service.

Sit down and make a list of what services you initially plan to offer. I say initially because this list will probably change over time. Start with what you know how to do, then go ask people what they need. Ask you family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, landlords, ask to see what need their is, but is not being filled by your competitors.

After you have done this, do some research of your competitors. Call them. Ask questions like, how much do you charge for this? What services do you offer? Do you do free estimates? Do you charge a service fee? How do they respond? What do they do well when speaking to you? What can you improve on?

You can learn a lot from researching your competitors. Take the time do to the necessary work. Have a plan. Just because you maybe starting a small business, starting a handyman business is still a business. Make sure you do your homework.

Until next time.