A. William Benitez - The Handymans Guide to Profit

Introduction

W hen I wrote this book in 2009, the economy was in trouble and thousands of jobs in various industries were being lost every day. Unemployment across the country had surpassed nine percent and in some communities, it had passed twelve percent.

Unemployment compensation programs were overwhelmed with applicants for assistance and many people have reached the end of their eligibility and still dont have a job.

Many took significant pay cuts but are glad to have something to pay their bills and avoid going under. Even some with jobs were losing their homes because their mortgage payments were no longer affordable. For many Americans, it was a bleak picture.

Many of these individuals had home repair (handyman) skills they could use to increase their income promptly and with little investment. Home repair and improvement was and still is a multi-billion-dollar business. The profusion of Home Depot, Lowes, and other home improvement stores across the country is a reflection of the popularity of home repair.

Even though things have improved since then, people are still wisely choosing to stay in their homes instead of purchasing new and larger homes. This opens up a large market for anyone who has home repair and home improvement skills. Some of that work involves major remodeling and is most often handled by professional home improvement contractors. But much of it involves small jobs that could form the basis of a profitable business for those with basic home repair skills.

At that time, a report on CNN News indicated the average hourly income for a handyman was more than $17.00 per hour. Even though wages are still flat, home repair is paying more now 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 a reasonable cost.

In this book, home repair business and handyman business are interchangeable. This business is often referred to by either name and both mean the same thing. The term handyman refers to a person who performs various repair jobs on a home or office. This could be either a man or a woman. Anyone with basic home repair skills can use this book to make money and establish a financially successful small business.

If you have already been making repairs to your own home or helping out friends and family to get their home repairs done, you have the basic skills needed for this business. This book will help you expand those skills and make the best possible use of them by developing them into a profitable business.

The handyman business shows so much financial potential that there are already franchise opportunities available. Just Google handyman and check it out for yourself. Joining a franchise is certainly is one way to get started, but you can do your own thing and keep much more of the profit by using the information in this book. This also allows you to control your own activities and maintain pricing at a more competitive level. Chapter One discusses the first step which is to determine if the business is for you.

Once you determine that running a part time or full-time home repair business is for you, an in-depth inventory of your skills is critical. Obviously, different people have various skills and even various levels of those skills. To do the best possible work and insure a profit for yourself and the satisfaction of your customers, you need to recognize the things you do best and the weak areas where you need additional or improved skills. Chapter Two helps you discover your best skills and shows how to develop others.

H ome repair requires a fair collection of tools, but it's not necessary to have the more expensive commercial duty tools to get started. Your present collection of tools is probably quite adequate for most home repair work. Chapter Three will help you to make the best use of the tools you already have and explain how to make the best use of consumer level tools if you must purchase more. Chapter Four covers how to set up a work vehicle to help you be prepared for any job.

O nce your inventories are complete and you feel ready to get started with the business, its time to determine all of the licensing, accounting, and tax issues you will face. This varies greatly depending on the community where you live and the level of work you will be doing. It certainly wont be the same for someone who is doing small jobs on the weekend as for someone working the business full-time. The important thing is to get all of this worked out before contacting a single customer. Chapter Five helps you make certain to adhere to community requirements for your business. And, to make certain you meet all Internal Revenue Service tax codes, it describes the best ways to handle the necessary accounting procedures for any successful business.

N ow you are ready to get started with the most important step of making your business visible to as many people as possible. To succeed businesses need customers and Chapter Six helps you to get started with basic, low-cost, marketing and advertising methods that will bring in customers promptly. It also covers the critically important topic of keeping customers. While getting new customers is important to any business, it costs much more to get new customers than to keep the ones you have.

C omputers are an excellent tool for managing many aspects of a small business including marketing, accounting, tax preparation, and research. Chapter Seven contains valuable information about using your computer and a list of excellent free software you can use to help run your business efficiently and effectively.

O ne of the most important and seemingly complex topics in any business is how much to charge. It is critical to get this right because charging too much will cause you to lose jobs and not charging enough will cause you to lose money. Either way, your business will suffer. In Chapter Eight you will find a concise method to determine how much to charge with a solid secondary method to help you check your prices after carefully calculating them. This chapter also helps you determine when to raise your prices so you can always get the highest possible prices for your work.

S ome jobs will be so small that you can complete them in one to three hours and a verbal agreement between the two parties is sufficient. This is especially the case for small jobs that do not require the purchase of materials. Other jobs will be much larger and may take several days and require the purchase of various materials to complete. These are the kinds of jobs that require a contract and perhaps even drawings and specifications.