The Handyman’s Guide To Profit: Using Your Skills To Make Money In Any Economy by A. William Benitez

If You Are Making Repairs to Your Home, You Could Be Using Those Skills To Make Money.

This is no pie in the sky romancing about self employment. It takes good home repair and business skills to operate a business successfully and now you can learn exactly how to use your present skills to succeed financially in the handyman business.

The first step is to work out all the local licensing and sales tax issues. For a handyman business it’s critical to organized your vehicle and tools to start serving customers. Then you are ready to get people interested in your business so you can convert them into paying customers.

Look Professional

Even for a one person business it’s important to look professional. Create or purchase business cards and stationery. Have all the necessary contract documents prepared so everything is ready for business.

Prepare sample of your work in an album and a web site so prospects will see the quality of what you do. Photographs can serve for both the album and the site so your information is available 24/7. See a sample of a small business web site at: http://starting-a-handyman-business.com/ . This one is a simple blog.

Contact Everyone!

Now that you have everything in place, contact everyone including family and friends by phone, email, mail, text message, whatever method you believe is best for the person you are contacting. Make these personal message and tell them exactly what you are doing and ask them to tell everyone they know about your new business.

Advertise Carefully To Avoid Wasting Money

It is easy to over spend on advertising and get little if any benefit. Try to pinpoint your best prospects. Start with local weekly newspapers. Keep the ads in the paper for a few weeks. The same ad over several weeks may generate interest. Continue to run the ad as business comes in and until your backlog grows sufficiently.

Don’t overlook the Internet for advertising. Get your web site noticed by always mentioning it in every ad and your business card. Don’t just build your web site and forget it. Add to it every time you finish a good job. Ask the owner for a testimonial and permission to use it on your web site and ask if you can use them as a reference. Remember that prospects want to know what is in it for them not how wonderful you are.

Give Everyone A Business Card

Remember to have your business cards with you at all times because you never know when you will be sharing information about your business with someone. Together with your business card you should have some brief information about the work you do so that you can share that with anyone in just a few seconds. Be ready when you get the chance to make an impression.

Keeping Customers

Getting customers is important but keeping them is critical to your continued success. It can cost eight to ten times more to get a new customer as to hold on to one you already have. The first step for keeping customers is to value their business so they will tell others. You need a firm reputation for quality work and excellent customer service. People will only recommend you to others if you have made an impression. Remember that excellence doesn’t mean that you never make mistakes but that you correct mistakes willingly. Mistakes should be seen as an opportunity to truly impress customers with your excellence. Don’t make excuses, apologize and correct the problem immediately at no cost to your customer. If your experiences with customer service are like mine, hearing an apology sounds so strange that you remember. Take advantage of this situation.

Start promptly taking steps to correct mistakes even if the customer has not noticed them. Your customer will be surprised by the way the incident is handled and will tell friends.

To serve your customers even better, remember that there are more important things than being right. If you believe, as some people do, that being right is the most important thing, your business is certain to suffer financially. When things go wrong in any business transaction, the most important thing is how your customer feels when the incident is concluded. Even if it is a serious mistake, if you admit it, apologize, and promptly make it good, your customer will think just as much or more of you than if the mistake had never happened. This will keep them coming back and they will definitely recommend you to others. Good customer service pays off and it’s the right thing to do. Determine how you would like to be treated if you were facing the same situation and treat your customer at least as well.

About the Author

From age twelve I spent my summers and weekends working with my dad, a general contractor, building homes and buildings. I contracted my first home at age nineteen and built my own home by age twenty. For more than 30 years I have operated one-person businesses. Twelve years of my life were spent working for local government managing federally-assisted housing programs. I started as an inspector with a three month assignment and was Director of Community Improvement with 78 employees when I resigned to do writing and consulting.

Writing, Publishing and Consulting

During the 80’s I established Rehab Notes Library, a publishing company that published a monthly newsletter (Rehab Notes) with subscribers in all 50 states, Canada and England. I also did consulting and public speaking on housing related topics for agencies and organizations in cities across the country and testified before the U.S. Congress on housing issues.

I wrote and published nine guidebooks on the subject of housing rehabilitation. After 1980 when most federal funding was pulled from housing activities, I took advantage of my construction and business experience and started a handyman and woodworking business.

Over Twenty Five Years of Handyman and Woodworking

For over twenty five years, first in Tampa, Florida and then in Austin, Texas, I did handyman and
repair jobs and built hundreds of small and large cabinet and furniture projects for individuals, companies and government agencies. During these years I began writing books about my woodworking business experiences.

Positive Publishing

In 2007 I established Positive Imaging, LLC, to publish a children’s book for my wife and then begin publishing my own books on the handyman and woodworking business and also books written by others using methods I call positive publishing. To date we have published twelve paperback books, a half dozen ebooks, and presently have several books in various levels of completion.

Computer Experience

My computer experience dates back more than fifteen years and began in response to poor technical support for our computers. I used home study to acquire A+ and Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer Certifications.

I was born and raised in Tampa, Florida and moved to Austin, Texas in 1986, where I now live with my wife, Barbara Frances. We have three adult children, eight grand-children, and two great grandchildren.

Book Sales Page: https://www.createspace.com/3400416

Createspace Estore: https://www.createspace.com/3400416

Amazon.com Page: http://amzn.to/18WwYJ6

Handyman Blog: http://starting-a-handyman-business.com/

Home Repair Web Site: http://home-repair-business.com/

Excerpt Three:

Now, more than ever, people are choosing to stay in their homes instead of purchasing new and larger homes. This opens up a large market for people who have home repair and home improvement skills. Some of that work involves major remodeling that is most often handled by professional home improvement contractors. But much of it involves small jobs that could form the basis for a profitable business for someone with basic home repair skills.

According to a recent report on CNN News, the average hourly income for a handyman is now more than $17.00 per hour. This is well above minimum wage jobs and by developing additional skills this amount can be much higher.

Homeowners everywhere are regularly making repairs and improvements to their home. Most of them will need some help at one time or another. Purchasing this book reflects your interest in helping these thousands of home and business owners across the country to get these repair jobs done well and at reasonable cost.

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