The Handyman Startup Podcast

The busy season for home services peaks between May and September, but it starts to ramp up during springtime. This is your best opportunity of the year to build momentum for your business. In this episode, I share four simple actions you can take this week to set yourself up for a profitable and enjoyable busy season while building momentum into the slow season.

This is low-hanging fruit that can make a meaningful difference to your success.

Tommy Mello is the CEO of A1 Garage Doors, which he founded and grew to over $200 Million in annual revenue. In this episode, he generously shares his sales processes, how to train employees, how to book more jobs, and many other tips he's learned on his business growth journey. This episode is packed practical tips and motivating insights that will give you an advantage over your competition.

In this episode, I talk about one of the most important business topics. Starting a business isn't just a matter of skill, expertise, or abilities. And it's definitely not a matter of luck. You don't have to be the smartest, hardest working person in the room, but you do need to do two things. Put in consistent effort over the long term and work on the right things. However, doing that is much harder than it would seem. In this episode, I share four common reasons people fail to grow a business and how you can easily overcome these pitfalls. This episode will help you grow your business and make you a more effective person in general.

Here's an example of a service that is both profitable and in demand: Aging-In-Place services. In this episode, I interview Pat Lund, creator and executive director of Age Well At Home - a non-profit business focused on helping aging adults live in their homes safer and for longer. We dive into why these services are in high demand and how to take advantage of the opportunity while helping your community. We cover getting customers, the most common services, pricing, and more.

Hiring employees to scale your business has many benefits. You can make more money, have more leisure time, and delegate things you don't enjoy. But is the sacrifice worth the reward? That's what I dive into in this episode. I talk about the advantages of staying solo and hiring employees. Then, I share some additional considerations that most people don't think about when making tough decisions like this.

Hiring your first employee requires a small shift in mindset and a heavy dose of courage. In this episode, I interview Rick McFadden to learn the ins and outs of hiring employees for a handyman business. As someone who has managed over 300 employees throughout his career, Rick has some powerful insights that will give you confidence and help you be more successful when building your team. Rick owns Enhance Property Maintenance which has nine employees and is on track to generate $1M in revenue this year.

In this episode, I interview Bryan Clayton, founder of GreenPal, who went from pushing a lawn mower to building a $10 Million per year landscaping business in Tenessee. He shares his most profitable landscaping services, how to maintain motivation over the long term, the benefits of scale, and much more. Bryan has an interesting perspective on growing a business and compares it to playing the video game Super Mario Brothers. His lessons can be applied to any home service business even if you don't plan to grow a landscaping business.

As a pro handyman or contractor, creating estimates is a valuable skill that pays to learn. For any given project, it may only take a few minutes to create an estimate, but you are locking in your fate for how profitable that particular job will be in those short minutes.

In this episode, I share nine proven tips that will not only help you make more money, they will save you time and make business more fun.

Get an inside look at investing in a handyman franchise with this interview with Collete Bell, VP of Franchise Development for Ace Handyman Services - one of America's top handyman franchises. Colette has over 20 years of experience in the handyman business. She helped start Handyman Matters with her Husband, Andy Bell, and they grew it from scratch for 18 years until it was acquired by Ace Hardware and rebranded as Ace Handyman Services.

Ace Handyman Services is one of, if not the, largest handyman franchises in the country, with 378 territories in 46 states at the time of recording.

In this interview, we dive into the details and discuss the benefits of the franchise, the day-to-day of a typical franchisee, the cost to get started, and even the profit of the top-performing Ace Handyman Services locations.

Business is a mental game, and success is often a matter of mastering that mental game. Setbacks and unexpected challenges are expected when growing a business and can wreak havoc on your confidence, motivation, and peace of mind if not managed.

In this episode, I share some of the setbacks that I've dealt with and continue to deal with as a business owner and how to deal with them effectively so you can maintain your motivation, confidence, and peace of mind even when things go wrong.

Starting a business is hard, but not because of a lack of information or resources. The real challenge is managing your psychology and pushing through the challenges. By mastering this mental game, you will not only become far more successful, but you will enjoy the process and reduce your stress.