How to run a handyman business successfully

One best thing about a handyman business is that there is no limit to what you what service one can provide.

With a base set of carpentry, mechanical, plumbing and electrician skills you can diversify a handyman business like no other.

Even if you don’t have the skills yourself, you can still start a handyman business. You can locate other handyman businesses in your area and create subcontract relationships with them.  Thereafter, you can market and sell your services and have someone else do the work.

If you have some of the skills you can always outsource the ones you don’t have. For example if you specialise in interior carpentry and painting and you find out that some of your customers also need lawn care, create a relationship with a lawn care business and mark up their services and sell it to those customers.

Alternatively you can negotiate a certain fee from the handyman you are going the referrals to.

It is also possible for you sharpen your skills and add more services as your handyman business grows.

Other skills you can acquire by reading the Do It Yourself (DIY) books and by browsing the internet using search engines like Yahoo and Google

You can just go to these sites and type in key words like, “How to replace windows, how to do basic plumbing, how to wire a light switch, etc.

You will be amazed about how much information you can get out there for free.

How to get work for your handyman company?
Visit places that sell household things and other home furnishing companies and get on their subcontractor list.

But before getting that far, you must .remember that starting a business is hard work and can be frustrating especially at start-up stage. The biggest problem you are likely to face is cash flow and need to be good with that in order to succeed.

To avoid this as a budding entrepreneur, you can keep your current job and do your handyman business on weekends and after normal working hours.

This will help you to see if you have all the necessary skills to succeed. Make sure before you quit your job that you have enough money set aside to give yourself an honest chance at success. Even if you have a few jobs or customers lined up, the pay may not come as quickly as planned and you must have a back-up plan for that.

You must have a plan how are you going to pay bills and employees including yourself; sending invoices to customers, paying your taxes and all of the other office functions associated with running a business. You must also arrange parts and materials suppliers.

As a small service business owner where you might be doing all or most of the work you will need a contingency plan in you become incapacitated or get sick.

You should at least know another handyman you can trust whom you can refer you customers to when you can’t help your customers.

Buy necessary equipment in order to do your jobs effectively. Buy some software programs that can also teach how to do certain things.

Once you have the program make sure you go through the training modules. The time you spend will return the investment many times over.