The Handyman Startup Podcast

Owning a business has many benefits. It gives you more control over your time. It gives you certain freedoms that employees will never have. It gives you the potential to make a LOT more money. And you get to make all the decisions.

The possibilities are limitless.

However, those benefits have a cost, which is often higher than what you’re led to believe on social media.

Am I saying it’s not worth it to grow a business?

Hell no! It’s worth it. Even if you don’t achieve your ideal lifestyle, building a business challenges you, forces you to learn valuable skills, and builds character like nothing else.

However, if your expectations are too high, you’ll either burn out or give up trying to reach them.

As I’ve said many times before, business is a mental game. If you can win that game, you can win at business. If you lose that game, it doesn’t matter how much money you make; you will lose.

In this episode, I discuss a critical part of winning that game—managing your expectations. In the last episode, I discussed why high expectations are a recipe for constant stress and dissatisfaction and why intentionally lowering your expectations will reduce stress and help you be more effective and joyful.

In this episode, I talk about how.

Listen right here or on your favorite podcast app!

HS053 – The power of low expectations part 2 – Simple tips for less stress and more fun

I’d hate to lower your expectations, but that is the episode’s goal. Welcome to another episode of the Handyman Startup podcast. My name is Dan Perry, and today, I’m going to talk about managing your expectations. In the last podcast, we talked about why and the power of low expectations. Today, I want to talk a little bit about how to do that.

So back in 2010, way back in 2010, this is 14, almost 15 years ago, after another boring day at work, my friend recommended a book called The 4-Hour Work Week. At the time, I was living in a three-bedroom home that I had purchased a year or two earlier. I lived about two blocks from my office, and I hated my job. I was so disappointed with what a 9:00 to 5:00 turned out to be. I mostly sat at a desk all day in a big open room with five other desks and five other engineers working, and then my boss was right across the room from me. And there were some good things about my job. I mean, I got to do some cool stuff with engineering, and it leveraged my skills.

I was pretty good at it, but I just felt stifled. So, I read that book my friend recommended to me, and I remember being unable to put it down. Right after that first chapter, it hit a nerve. I sat on the couch and read it until my eyes turned red. Once I couldn’t read anymore, I put it down, picked it up again the next day, and I think it took me about two days to read that entire book. And this was a pretty big turning point in my life. I didn’t know that at the time, but it was because ever since that moment, I couldn’t be satisfied living an ordinary, boring nine-to-five lifestyle. I knew something else was possible. I had a clear definition of success, and I wanted it now. I didn’t quit my job right away because I needed the money and didn’t know what to do, but that book amplified my distaste for my job. It was like sticking a salty knife into an already festering wound. It made the experience of working my job worse. And as a result, I eventually quit my job.

After a while, I started getting worked up and depressed and had some health issues. I started a handyman business a few months after I quit my job. Since then, I’ve grown that handyman business and done well there. I created a YouTube channel, this podcast, my blog, online courses, and all these wonderful things that bring me income and give me more freedom than most people have. I’ve also helped many people in the process, which is awesome. I regularly get emails from people thanking me, which is awesome.

And on the one hand, I’m thankful for that. On the other hand, I think that content, specifically the four-hour workweek and a lot of the content you find on YouTube or Facebook about growing a business, I think it can be toxic. The reason is that it anchors your expectations so high, as I discussed in the last episode. If you haven’t listened to that, I recommend listening to that first before listening to this episode. Now, for some people like me, I couldn’t sleep at night living a mediocre life after realizing what was possible because I fell for the arrival fallacy that once I got that, then I would be happy.

The need it created to reach a certain level quickly caused me a lot of stress and disappointment. I beat myself up when I didn’t achieve amazing things. I lost sleep over silly things that don’t matter. I was imprisoned by the idea that it was impossible to be happy without passive income, and I sacrificed a lot of time to get there. I eventually succeeded. I’ve done some cool stuff, made great money, helped a lot of people, as I mentioned. If I had to do it all again, I might not change what I did, but I would definitely like to adjust my expectations in the process. And my perspective and my mindset. I could have enjoyed the journey much more, had less stress, and who knows, I maybe would have done even better.

So with this episode, I want to share a few ways that you can manage your own expectations. So hopefully, you can enjoy the process of growing your business more and not get so caught up beating yourself up if you’re not making progress as fast as you’d like or if things aren’t happening as quickly as you’d like.

Before we do that, let’s just briefly cover what I covered in the last episode. I talked about the power of low expectations. I talked about why high expectations are the perfect recipe for disappointment, stress, giving up, and really failing to enjoy the wins along the journey.

I talked about two major factors that amplify this, which are social media plus human desire. We always want more, no matter how good we have it. And then social media anchors our expectations even higher than they would already at an unrealistic level. We see amazing results without the work. It creates unrealistic expectations. But low expectations are actually more effective in many ways in many areas of life. Because if you have low expectations and you exceed them, you get to delight in small wins. It makes it a little more fun. It makes it easier to accept failures and hard work. It makes setbacks not as devastating and less stressful because you’re expecting them. It makes you willing to put in effort for less, which usually leads to better outcomes. In some cases, I wouldn’t say always putting in more effort for less makes sense, especially when it comes to pricing. I want to be very clear about that. You guys know my mindset on pricing your services high enough to make a profit.

Anyway, low expectations keep you in the game for long enough for small wins to compound. A good example of this is Warren Buffett. Interesting fact: he made 99% of his wealth after the age of 65. He’s like 92 now, I think. But that’s because of compounding. Small wins compounding year after year after year. He hasn’t outperformed everybody every single year. He’s just been playing so damn long that he has amassed so much wealth that he is the sixth wealthiest person in the world. So, ultimately, low expectations can be very helpful. And it’s all about being realistic in the short term and optimistic for the long term. Working hard consistently. It’s not about throwing your hands up and giving up. It’s about embracing that work as part of life, no matter how well-off you are. So do the work and don’t expect the world. Don’t expect it to be easy. Don’t expect to get to some point where you’ll be endlessly happy all the time. As much as it is hard to do that because it’s so ingrained in human nature, let’s talk about some tips to help with that a little bit.

In this episode, I’m going to explore some ideas for managing your expectations. This is probably more of an art than a science. This probably isn’t going to apply to everybody. Some people probably need to increase their expectations. I think this podcast is more created for those who are wired similar to me, where you want it all now. You tend to be impatient. You tend to stress yourself out trying to strive for these unattainable ideal outcomes. So, hopefully, in this process, you can start appreciating more of what you have right now. You can embrace the struggle along the way. And maybe even go further than you would have otherwise.

And the way that I see this, there are two parts to this equation. First is being optimistic about the long term and realistic about your short term results. So first, you have to have a tasty enough carrot to pursue to keep you motivated enough to continue to put in the work because it’s difficult to invest effort into something if you’re not optimistic about the outcome.

Now, Warren Buffett, for example, again, I talked about him building 99 % of his wealth after the age of 65. He was still very wealthy even when he was 30. I believe that when adjusted for inflation, he had $10 million when he was 30.

However, I want to bring up Warren Buffet again because he had a plan. He didn’t just take super high-risk bets consistently and keep winning. He took very low-risk bets. He practiced value investing, which he learned from Benjamin Graham. So he would find companies that were underpriced, buy them, and then hold them for a long period of time. And then, he leveraged the psychology of the market and how it acts irrationally, how people buy when they should be selling, and how people sell when they should buy. And he stuck to that process, mostly for the last 60 or, yeah, over 60 years now. And that’s how he amassed his wealth. But He had that vision. He had that carrot that he was going after, which was very clear, and he was playing the long game. And I’m not really saying that Warren Buffet is somebody that we should really model our lives after. I don’t know how happy he was. I don’t know how balanced his life was.

I don’t know any of the details of his relationships. I’ve heard that his relationship with his wife wasn’t great for many years, but I really don’t know. But the point is that we want to have a goal that’s clear and compelling to us, so it gets us moving every day and taking those actions, something that we want and we’re willing to wait for. Even if we have to wait 5, 10, 25 years to get there, we’re willing to work consistently to do it.

When you start thinking like this, it’s usually a change in mindset when you acknowledge that getting to the goals that you want, whether it’s a really successful business or better relationships, or just a certain type of lifestyle that you’re going after, recognizing that it’s probably not going to happen overnight. It might not even happen next year. It might take 5 or 10 years to get there. When you realize that, and you acknowledge it, and you accept it, but yet you’re still willing to pursue that goal, that’s a really good sign that that’s something that you want. So just going through this exercise by itself is a really good way to filter your goals and decide how important really is this specific thing to me.

And then, how does knowing that it will take a lot longer than I expect change how I’m going to pursue it day to day and my priorities right now? And for me, it makes me immediately sit back and say, Okay, well, I might as well try to have some fun. I might as well enjoy the process as much as I can and appreciate where I’m at now because I don’t really want to white-knuckle it all the way to the goal, especially if it’s going to take a while.

Another helpful thing to consider when setting these long-term goals is to ask yourself, are the odds stacked in your favor? Because if you don’t think that you have a high chance of getting there with patience and consistency, it’s going to kill your motivation. It’s going to be hard to show up continuously to do the work to get there. So you can ask yourself questions like, Am I leveraging my strengths? Even if I don’t quite reach my ideal outcome, will I be in a better situation than I am now? That I’ll be satisfied?

And the truth is, you don’t always know for sure, you don’t always know the ideal path to take in life. It’s impossible to. You’re always dealing with some level of uncertainty. But the last thing you want that uncertainty to do is stop you from taking some action and just keep you in paralysis by analysis.

So another helpful question here, if you’re not certain, is to ask yourself, Will I gain valuable assets in the process, even if I fail? So are you going to gain knowledge? Are you going to gain skills? Are you going to gain relationships that you can then lean on to move your life forward if whatever you try doesn’t work out over time and you realize that you need to change your strategy, which you often will.

So the first part is you have to have that tasty enough carrot to pursue and to be able to have that long-term vision to put in the effort and put in the work without expecting anything right away. Because we tend to prioritize fast results, so that’s the first part. Have a tasty enough carrot. Set your sights on a vision that is compelling to you, that you’re willing to work a long time toward, and that even if you fail, you’re going to gain something of value in the process.

Now, fortunately, if your goal is to start a profitable handyman business, that is a very low-risk goal. It’s one of those things that if you do apply consistent effort and focus on, it’s really hard to fail, and you can continue to grow it as big as you’d like over time.

And that leads to the second part of this equation, which is lowering your expectations. Now, really, what I’m after here isn’t for you to have low expectations or for me to have to have low expectations, but to have realistic expectations.

Unfortunately, in the environment we live in and the information that we’re exposed to because of social media and because of all the content we have access to and all these super successful people that we see all the time, lowering your expectations is usually something that requires conscious effort if you’re going to get to the point of having realistic expectations.

So how do we do that?

Okay, let’s talk about some quick methods. I’ll go through these relatively quickly.

The first one is to celebrate effort and process versus results in the short term. So, a lot of people get too focused on results immediately. How much money am I making? Oh, am I making any money? I just started this, but I’m not making any money. When am I going to make money? Really, at the beginning of anything, whether you’re starting to build muscle, or if you’re starting to lose weight, or if you’re starting to grow a business, you’re probably going to put in a significant amount of work before you notice any results at all. Or you might notice some results really quickly, and then that quickly plateaus, and now it’s like, Okay, it’s really going to take a long time before you get to the real result that you want. So that’s why it’s important to celebrate and measure effort and process versus results. So one example of this for effort. Okay, let’s say you’re focused on effort. You might measure how many focused hours you worked each week. Actually write it down every Every time you work an hour a week, celebrate that. That’s great. Maybe your goal is 10 hours a week. Awesome. If you can hit 10 hours a week toward that goal, great. And then focusing on process.

So were you doing things that move the needle? Are you avoiding something? Is there something you know you should do, but you’re not doing for some reason, and you’re not doing it because it will slow you down in the short term, but you know that if you do it, it will speed you up in the long term? Do you have any of those things?

I know it’s a complicated question there, but are you avoiding something is the bottom line. A third question you can ask yourself to make sure you’re measuring the process and following a good process that’s going to Work is asking, “if I continue this recipe for 1-10 years, will I see the progress that I want? Will I end up at the outcome that I want? Or are there shifts to how I’m doing things that I need to make in order to get there?”

And again, even with this process, don’t expect too much. Don’t expect too much of yourself. Don’t expect your process to be perfect. Don’t expect to work consistently. They have a consistent output of time every single week. That’s not realistic, either. But it’s still good to celebrate the effort, measure the effort, celebrate the process, and measure the process versus focusing on the results you’re ultimately trying to get, especially in the beginning.

Now, of course, at some point, you do need to measure your results, judge your results, and make sure that you’re doing the right things and you’re not wasting your time. You need to do things long enough to truly know if it’s the right thing before you pivot. A lot of times, people give up on something. They try it one time, and then they give up. Oh, that didn’t work. It’s like, Okay, did you truly give it enough time to get the results? And then another thing is, don’t keep doing something that isn’t working and will never work. So there’s the balance there, and it’s a little more challenging. It’s a very big challenge for a lot of people, which is why it’s good to have a mentor who can help you decide if your efforts are paying off and if they’re going to get you to your goal. And they can say, “Hey, this is normal. Yeah, just keep going.”

You’re actually seeing really good results when you might think that they’re bad. So, a good mentor is extremely valuable for that process. So again, focus on measuring effort and process versus the results, especially in the short term.

All right, moving on to the second tip for lowering your expectations, which is treating social media like medicine or potentially even like a toxic substance. Because social media can either be poison or therapeutic, depending on the dose, your mindset, and what you combine it with. If you take too much of it, it’s going to be toxic. If you don’t take enough of it, you might miss too many opportunities and fall behind. So there’s this balance that you might have to strike. I don’t think you need social media, although it can be great for inspiration, getting ideas, finding information, things like that. But it’s terrible for inflating your expectations, stoking desire and dissatisfaction with your life because you’ve seen all these other people who are killing it and doing way better than you. So you get FOMO, and you have to go do something else. It takes you off of your path and onto some other path, even though that other path isn’t necessarily going to make you any happier. It just looks more compelling because of the person selling it.

So here’s how I use social media currently.

I mostly avoid it. I try to avoid it as much as possible. Every once in a while, I’ll use it for inspiration, but in small doses and on rare occasions. I’ll be very specific about my goal and about the information I’m looking for. And usually, I try to be prepared to process what I see. So I try to think of it like, Okay, that looks really compelling. This is probably only part of the story. So I think of that. Or I think of that having what they have won’t necessarily make me any happier. Or I think, Sure, I want that thing that they have, but do I want all the things that came with it? Do I want all the things that it took to get there? And a lot of times, the answer to that question is no.

So again, treat social media like either a toxic substance or like medicine, where you need to hit it in the right dose at the right frequency, otherwise it’s going to be toxic. The third tip I have for lowering your expectations is to embrace FOMO, or the fear of missing out. And how do you do this?

First, you accept that you will miss out. You will make mistakes, and you will lose money as a result, and you’ll lose time as a result. You will miss out on potentially life-changing experiences almost every day. Today, there are infinite things you will miss out on regardless of how much you try not to. But you’ll miss out on even more if you let FOMO distract you and pull you in 20 directions. Because not only are you going to miss out on things because there are simply too many things to do, but you’re also going to miss out on making progress toward any meaningful goal in your life. So by trying not to miss out, you miss out on even more. And it’s really good to acknowledge that the perfect strategy is impossible. You are guaranteed to choose a suboptimal path. There are probably a thousand different businesses that you could start that would get faster, easier, and better results than the one you will choose, even if you spend 10 years trying to find the perfect business. And then, along your journey, you’re going to see others succeeding faster than you. So the best thing you can do is try to be okay with that.

Expect it. Expect a little bit of that disappointment along the way. Expect to feel that sense of missing out or that you’re doing something wrong. Everything sucks part of the time, whether it’s working in a job or trying to go after a business. So embrace FOMO. It will always be there. It’s never going away. However, you can limit it by avoiding certain influences that I already spoke about. But do your best to accept it and just move on.

The next thing to lower expectations is when you are trying something new. As soon as you’re trying something new, what if you assume something won’t work the first few times you try it? How would you approach it differently? If you knew it wouldn’t work out the first few times you tried it, maybe that was a new pricing strategy. Maybe it was a new marketing strategy, and maybe it was just something completely different. You knew it probably wouldn’t work. You probably wouldn’t get it right the first few times you did it, but eventually, you could figure it out. How would you approach it differently if that was the case? What if you took your current timeline for accomplishing something and then doubled it? Is it still worth doing, or is there a better alternative?

Because the reality is that most things take at least twice as long as you expect them to take. That’s why one of my rules for pricing and quoting jobs is I estimate how long I think it’s going to take, and then I double it, and then I price it based on that, because that’s usually the reality. So when trying something new, assume that it’s going to take longer, assume that it’s not going to work right away, and assume that it might be more difficult than you expected. And if you can, based on those assumptions, assumptions still proceed forward, then that’s great. That means that what you’re trying to do is worth it. If it doesn’t? Okay, if that’s the case, then I shouldn’t do this, then that might be the right decision to not do something. When I look back at starting my handyman business, I had pretty low expectations. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure it could work because I was only 28. I looked like a teenager. Nobody wanted to hire me. My friends didn’t even want to hire me at first.

But I really wanted to make it work, and I just kept trying because I didn’t have a better option. But my expectations were pretty low in terms of how much money I could make and what the situation was going to be like. But because of that, I worked extra hard on my marketing. I worked extra hard to try to provide great service and went above and beyond even what I needed to. But as a result, I started making progress, and then that progress was surprising. I was like, Oh, man, this is great! I’m making pretty good money. Now, had I been exposed to people who started a handyman business and five years later had a million-dollar business, I probably would have killed myself trying to accomplish that goal, thinking that it was just as possible for me to do when maybe it was. But the reality is the person who started that million-dollar business has 20 years of management experience, hiring experience, and business admin experience before they even started their business. So you can see how high and low expectations can totally change your perspective and your results.

Let’s move on to the next thing.

So let’s say when you’re looking at past wins, you look at the past wins that you had in life. One of the worst things that you can have for your mindset is to succeed on your first try with ease. That’ll just wreck you. I always feel so bad for these celebrities who were super famous when they were kids. So they reach this pinnacle of attention and admiration, and they can’t do anything wrong. Everybody loves them. And then later on in their life, nobody cares. And how sad.

Their expectations have been anchored so high based on their past experiences. And now they have to deal with this life of just being a regular person. And it probably went through a lot of emotional distress to accept that fact. So I think one of the worst things that can happen is if you succeed on the first try with ease because you’re not going to appreciate it as much. You’ll think it’s going to be easy to replicate. If it’s in business, you’re probably going to spend all your money, and then you’re going to have to do it again, and it’s not going to be as easy the second time, and it’s going to be harder.

So when you look at past wins – past things that went really well – ask yourself, how did you get lucky? How could things have gone differently or not as good? What things can you identify that if they didn’t exist or you didn’t find them, you wouldn’t have succeeded? Because usually there’s one or two of those elements that if that thing didn’t happen, if you didn’t meet that one person, or if you didn’t see this one piece of content at this right time, then you may not have succeeded, and you wouldn’t have been as lucky as you were. You might not have timed it the right way or something like that. When you look at your past wins, try to look at why maybe you got lucky and why it might have been easier than it should have been for you because of luck so that you’re not anchored to that consistent level of success.

Then, lower your expectations about lowering your expectations. Doing this is not going to make your life easy. I don’t think life is easy for anyone all the time, regardless of how they make it look on social media or how much wealth they have.

Everybody goes through challenges and struggles at times, and no amount of mental tools or anything are going to completely solve those problems, although they can help. Additionally, it’s going to take time and consistency for any of this stuff to actually work and pay off, and you won’t always remember to do it, so be okay with that. And then, even if you accomplish your goals, don’t expect to be endlessly happy or content.

Right now, I’m reminded of an email I recently read from Alex Hormozy, which, at the beginning of the email, says, “When I was 20, I wanted to be a millionaire. Now that I’m a millionaire, I want to be 20.” So, just let that sink in for a minute.

That’s such an interesting mindset. It’s like, what do you have right now that you should probably be appreciating more than you are? And why not just appreciate that now while working toward these other goals that you want?

Now, much of this stuff might sound negative or pessimistic. However, I have a different experience with it, and also my intention with it is not to be negative. Because for me, thinking of this, it gives me permission to enjoy right now instead of delaying my happiness until I achieve some goal that if I’m completely honest with myself, is non-essential.

It helps me enjoy time with my kids right now. It helps me enjoy whatever project I’m working on. It takes the pressure off for certain deadlines that I may have set for myself. And I’m sharing it on this podcast for those of you who have a pretty good situation. Of course, your life is always going to have problems. But, like me, you’re often sucked into the vortex of wanting more right now. And one of your biggest barriers to joy is thinking that you need more to get it.

And again, this isn’t for everybody. I’m not trying to tell people how to live their lives or anything like that. In some cases, if you’re going through real hardship or struggle, I definitely believe that you can improve your life in a long-lasting, meaningful way. And in some cases, making small changes right now can immediately improve your life in the short term and set you on a positive trajectory.

So, to wrap this up, let’s briefly summarize these tips.

The post The power of low expectations part 2: Simple tips for less stress and more fun appeared first on Handyman Startup.

In “Same as Ever,” Morgan Housel shares how, for the last 150 years, on any given day, the stock market went up only 50% of the time. Yet, over any given year, it rose 68% of the time. And even better, over any 20-year span, growth was seen 100% of the time.

With this, he illustrates that you often experience failure or loss in the short term. But, if you stay in the game long enough, you’ll almost certainly see a gain.

It’s like playing poker when you’ve stacked the deck in your favor. You’ll lose a few hands but eventually come out on top.

Which is also true for growing a business.

As I’ve said before, growing a business is hard. And it’s not for the reasons many people think. It’s not so much about coming up with some brilliant revolutionary idea or having the IQ of Einstein.

99% of the tasks you perform when growing a business are easy – at least, no more difficult than a typical job.

The real challenge is winning the mental game: Dealing with the pressure of making decisions amidst constant uncertainty, staying motivated without a boss breathing down your neck, maintaining focus, and pushing through when things get hard.

If you can win that mental game, chances of success are high.

So, let’s talk about one critical aspect of doing just that, which is managing your expectations.

With this article (and podcast), I aim to convince you that keeping your expectations low is one secret to winning the mental game.

I’m excited about this concept because I believe if you take it seriously, it can…

Listen to the podcast version of this article here, which includes extra content. Listen right here or on your favorite podcast app!

HS052 – The power of low expectations

First, let’s talk about…

Many of us start our businesses for more freedom and control so that we can enjoy our lives. However, entrepreneurs often end up with a business that consumes their minds, even in their free time.

They want freedom, and what they end up with is constant stress.

I don’t think that’s the case for everyone, but it’s more common than ever.

Its cause is a combination of several factors. For the sake of this article, I’ll focus on two of them that I see as most relevant.

We always want more.

No matter how much we have, we want more. The funny thing is how we fool ourselves.

We think that once we achieve our next goal or acquire a certain amount of money, we will finally be happy and content. Yet, most billionaires are still out hustling for more.

That’s because of a well-known feature of our psychology, the arrival fallacy.

No matter how much we have, the goalpost keeps moving further into the distance.

You may think you’ll be content once your business generates consistent income. Then, when you get there, you realize you’d like to make a little more money and work fewer hours.

Once you accomplish that, you realize you want to take it even further. If this goes on for long enough, and you work hard enough, you may eventually build a multi-million dollar business. And when you get there, you’ll probably want more.

Is this bad?

Not necessarily. It’s just human nature.

That’s when you get hit with constant disappointment, even when you’re doing well.

And that’s where the second factor comes into play…

Social media is amazingly effective at stoking desire. We see all of these people doing amazing things, and it anchors the expectations for our own lives.

Social Media distorts our perception of reality. Since everyone shares the best of their lives, we constantly see people doing better than us, and we rarely see the struggle that got them there.

This is especially true for entrepreneurs. Hundreds of successful entrepreneurs online make millions per year and live amazing lives (at least, that’s what they show). Then, they tell you that you can do the same. They stoke your desire and anchor your expectations at a super high level.

For example, you may see someone running a multi-million dollar business offering to teach you how to do the same.

They usually make it look easier than it is and imply that you can get results fast, essentially anchoring your expectations much higher than reality.

Sure, with their help, you may get there faster and easier. However, getting there will still take years of struggle, hard work, and failure. In reality, following in their footsteps is ten times harder than it seems, and success is nowhere near guaranteed. Those super successful people have been at this for at least a decade and often started in a better situation than you.

Yet, our minds don’t think through all of this. We see the big houses, fancy cars, nice tans, pretty women, and lots of fun, and we think, “I gotta get some of that.”

Then, since we see so much of it, we feel that NOT having it means we are a failure or that getting it is much easier than it is. Again, this anchors our expectations higher than reality.

It’s the ultimate first-world problem.

Then, these high expectations lead us to think results should and will come faster than is possible for most people. So, we try to do too much too fast, fail to meet these expectations, and still feel terrible even when we are making progress.

They slowly eat away at your confidence, joy, and willpower.

Results usually take longer than you’d like, whether you are trying to lose weight, build muscle, or grow a business.

The problem is that if your expectations are unrealistic, you’ll think you’re doing something wrong. You’ll be tempted to give up and try a faster and easier way. In your search for gold, you’ll dig 100 shallow holes with nothing to show.

In your search for physical health, you’ll jump from one gimmick to the next as your confidence dwindles.

And it gets worse. Even if you are killing it compared to most people, you won’t feel successful if you don’t meet those high expectations. You’ll burn yourself out striving for an unattainable ideal outcome.

Often, this leads to people giving up before they break through.

Charlie Munger (Warren Buffet’s right-hand man) once said the secret to happiness is lowering your expectations. After doing some deep thinking on the subject, I have to agree.

If you have low expectations, you’ll be willing to work harder for less. As a result, you’ll experience more progress and the positive emotions it generates.

You’ll be delighted with small wins instead of relieved you didn’t fail.

Setbacks (which are inevitable) will be less devastating because you’re expecting them to happen.

Meeting or exceeding your expectations consistently will boost your confidence, fill you with positive emotions, and keep you in the game long enough to win.

The result will be less stress, higher satisfaction, and even more success as your hard work compounds over time.

Let me be clear: I’m not saying that you should be pessimistic. I’m hoping to convince you to be more realistic about your short-term results.

For example, you can build a business that gives you a high income, purpose, and control over your schedule.

You can build muscle, lose weight, and get closer to your ideal body.

You can build stronger and more fulfilling relationships.

Just not immediately (and nowhere fast as you’d hope for).

If you can maintain a realistic perspective in the short term and keep expectations low, you will improve your chances of success.

If anything, this is an argument for being more optimistic because low expectations can be a tool for increasing effectiveness.

One benefit of high expectations is they get you moving. The idea that you can have it all now with little effort is seductive. It can wrap you in its spell and have you do things you wouldn’t otherwise do.

But that is only a short-term win. Getting started doesn’t matter if you don’t see it through long enough to see results. In fact, constantly trying new things and failing can be detrimental to confidence.

So, will low expectations limit success?

Maybe, but only if you are complacent. I’m not saying to be complacent. You can shoot for big goals and have low expectations for the short term.

Lowering expectations isn’t about throwing up your hands and saying, “screw it.”

It’s about being realistic in the short term and understanding that there is no free lunch. There is no reliable, fast, and easy way to riches. If you want a better life, you have to work for it.

Lowering expectations is about embracing that work is part of life, no matter how well-off you are.

So you gotta work hard.

Here’s how I define hard work. It’s not killing yourself with long hours or doing hard manual labor until your feet and hands ache.

It’s doing the work that moves you toward your goals, even when you don’t want to.

Difficult things include pushing through fear, learning new skills, taking calculated risks, and trying new things. Sometimes hard work is taking a much needed vacation. Sometimes hard work is having a tough conversation with someone. Sometimes hard work is looking at the way you are doing things and realizing you need to make a change.

Working hard consistently allows you to make progress. According to the progress principle, a sense of progress can significantly contribute to your happiness, productivity, and creativity.

Plus, it helps you move toward the things you want (even if you don’t expect them).

Lowering your expectations may sound like pessimism in disguise, but it’s quite the opposite.

It’s about accepting that there is no fast, easy, and risk-free way of solving many problems or achieving big goals, freeing you from worrying about finding one.

It’s also about accepting that life is not easy, regardless of circumstances or your success, so you can appreciate your situation and problems.

It’s about acknowledging that getting ahead in life is hard, otherwise everybody would do it.

So, you might as well settle in, enjoy the process as much as possible, and just get to work.

When you do, you can accomplish amazing things, just not by tomorrow.

The post The power of low expectations appeared first on Handyman Startup.

As a professional handyman, I’ve completed many jobs that paid well over $200 per hour and some that paid less than $20.

In this podcast episode, I share five of my least profitable jobs.

Why?

Because those are the ones with some of the biggest lessons.

Pricing mistakes are common for handymen. Too common.

In fact, pricing mistakes cost me over $50,000 in my first year in business. That’s a lot of cheddar.

By simply avoiding many pricing mistakes, you can make a LOT more money. This is especially true if you are within your first few years in this business.

So sit back, grab a cup of joe, and enjoy a bunch of stories about my epic pricing failures.

HS051 – My top 5 LEAST profitable handyman jobs (and the mistakes that cost me big)

Welcome to another episode of the Handyman Startup Podcast. My name is Dan Perry, and today I’m going to share five of my least profitable jobs that I’ve done as a pro handyman. I’ll share what those jobs were, why they weren’t profitable, and the mistakes that I made that led to me losing time and money on those jobs.

Now, pricing mistakes are very common during the first few years for most new service providers, and many of them can be avoided with the right insight and approach. Fixing or avoiding these mistakes is one of the easiest ways to boost your income as a pro handyman. I’ll say that again. Avoiding Simple pricing mistakes that almost everybody makes is one of the easiest ways to boost your income and make more money in less time as a pro handyman. If you’re just getting started, I think you’ll find this episode very helpful. And learning from my mistakes can easily save you thousands of dollars over the course of the next year, and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of your career.

Now, before we jump into the content today, I’d like to mention that this is a monthly podcast. If you’d like to learn more about starting a handyman business that can replace your income, generate over $100,000 per year in profit, and give you more control over your schedule while allowing you to do services you enjoy without having to hire employees, without having to work more than 40 hours per week, then head over to handymanstartup.com/free. There, you can sign up for my free email newsletter where I share updates and exclusive content you can only access if you’re a subscriber. Plus, I put together a free startup kit that you’ll receive once you sign up. In that, you’ll learn 10 profitable handyman services you can start offering right now, common business mistakes that new handymen almost always make and how to avoid them, and my number one marketing strategy for filling your schedule with profitable jobs. So pause this right now, open up your web browser, visit handymanstartup.com/free, and sign up for my email newsletter. It’ll only take a minute, and you’ll be all set to receive that free startup kit, plus exclusive content and updates shared only with my subscribers.

All right, let’s jump right into five of my least profitable jobs ever. Now, a quick caveat here. These jobs were mostly done in 2012 and 2013, when I was just starting my business. Since then, we’ve seen inflation total about 35% since then. So $100 back then had the same purchasing power as $135 now. Or to put that a different way, you’d have to have $135 now to buy the same stuff that you could buy for $100 back in 2012. So these prices might be even lower than what you’d expect for 2024. But just keep that perspective when I am sharing the numbers.

All right, job number one. This was a painting job that I did for a friend of a friend, and this was the first job that I ever did as a handyman outside of jobs that I’d done for a couple of friends and on my own home. So this is like the first one. And this was for a young couple. They just had a new baby. They’re living in this two-story home, and they needed their upstairs master bedroom painted, the hallway painted, and the guest bathroom painted.

They also wanted a baseboard and they had a drywall repair downstairs. They call me; they know I’m just starting my business, and I take all the measurements and exchange pleasantries. Then I go home, and I have no idea how much to charge for this. I called up somebody I knew who was a contractor, and I asked him, How would you quote this job? And he said, Well, painters usually charge by the square foot. So you just find out whatever the rate is in your area, multiply it by that, and you come up with a number for that. The same thing applies to the baseboards; you multiply whatever the rate is by the linear feet, and you charge by the linear foot. For the baseboards, you charge for painting by the square foot. So I’m like, Okay, great. So I sit down, I write it up. I come up with this quote, I think it’s like $900. I can’t remember the exact number. But I thought, Wow, that seems high. Okay, $900 just to paint a couple of bedrooms. It’s almost $1,000 just for some painting and on the baseboards. It seemed high to me.

It’s not something I would personally invest in. But anyway, I submit this quote. I do the job, and the job ends up taking me way longer than I thought it would. It took me an entire week to do this project. I was there for eight hours minimum each day, running up and down the stairs, hustling as hard as I could, trying to do really good work, but it was a lot of work. And it took me a full week. If you run the numbers, you will see that there was about $200 or $300 in materials for that project. I think more like $300. So I made $600 for an entire week of work. And if you do the math, that’s only $15 per hour. Plus, I felt rushed and stressed pretty much the entire time I was doing the project. And then, to top it off, the customer didn’t even seem happy about it when I was done. They probably knew they got a serious discount, but they also probably thought it would take way less time, and then I would do it in a day or two like a professional painter probably would have.

I didn’t get any referrals from this job. That customer never hired me again. I didn’t make very much money. I mean, it was a pretty bad situation. I didn’t enjoy that. It was my first job. It was early December when I was first starting my business. Now, looking back at that project, I would have charged probably more like $6,000 for a similar project. But realistically, I’d probably turn it down because I don’t like painting jobs. I don’t take on painting jobs anyway. I wouldn’t have even quoted the job.

So, what mistakes led to this? What were my mistakes?

Now, the number one mistake here was that I was too eager for the job. When I was quoting processing this job, I was thinking, I need to make absolute sure that they say yes to this so I get this job. This is my only job. This might be my only opportunity. And I was thinking irrationally at that moment, processing it as if it was my only opportunity. And if I didn’t get If I were to get that job, somehow my business was going to fail or something. I don’t know what was going on in there, but I was too eager.

And whenever you’re too eager for a job, and you need that job, that’s almost always going to lead to bad pricing decisions. Another mistake I made was quoting based on a different business model. I operate a handyman business that provides a variety of small repairs. So I can’t necessarily compete with a painting company that has benefits different from those of working with me. I’m the guy that you call to do everything. I’ll do a wide variety of projects. You only have to call one person. There are other benefits behind that. So, my pricing model isn’t going to be the same. Whereas a painting company is going to hire cheap labor to do that job, so they’re going to be able to make it profitable despite charging a little bit less, maybe charging those rates. Plus, there was a bunch of stuff that I missed out. There were a whole bunch of additional factors that I should have factored into my pricing. For example, sanding the paint, a lot of the prep work that I needed to do, removing the old baseboards, painting the baseboards, the fact that it was upstairs and I had to go up and down the stairs, the fact that they had furniture in there that I had to move around while I was doing the project, which made it way more difficult to work.

I think they still had their bed in the middle of the room, so I had to work around that while I was doing this project. So there are all these different factors that should have significantly increased the price, even if I was pricing it based on that different business model.

The third mistake that I made was that my pricing was more based on fear versus the numbers that I needed to hit to make a profit. I was too worried about having a good price versus saying, Here’s what I need to charge to run a profitable business. And that’s a mistake that a lot of people make. So that’s job number one, one of my first jobs. Did I learn a lot? I’m not even sure I learned all that much from that job. I learned that I probably wouldn’t take on a painting job like that with their furniture in the house and that if I did, I would probably need to charge more. But I was still pretty new. I wasn’t even sure that that was a pricing mistake as much as I thought it might have been a lack of skill. But it wasn’t a lack of skill. It was definitely how I was looking at that job and the pricing mistakes.

All right, second job. The next job I want to talk about was a deck repair that I did. Now, I don’t remember how I got this lead, but I go out there, visit the customer, and they need some deck repairs. Basically, their deck that’s on their second story, the joist hangers are starting to pull away from the ledger board that’s attached to the house. So they’re worried that their deck will fall down, basically. And you could see it was pretty bad. And if you tried to nail them back, it really wasn’t working very well. So they wanted me to figure out a way to support this. So what I ended up deciding to do after consulting with another contractor was cut some blocking, nail the blocking to the ledger board, and then nail the joists to the blocking from the side at an angle, and just basically support it like that. So I had to cut all these blocks and nail them in.

After I write up an estimate, I’m sitting there looking at it, and I’m like Man, this seems really expensive, based on how long I think it’s going to take and the wood and the lumber involved.

I start massaging the numbers, trying to lower the price because it just felt uncomfortable for me to charge that much when there’s no way that I would pay that much.

The job ends up taking twice as long. I don’t make very much money. I don’t remember the exact numbers. But more relevant here are the mistakes that I made quoting that project. Not that I wouldn’t take that project on again, and not that I did anything wrong with my repair, but the pricing mistakes were very clear to me now. The first pricing mistake I made was I allowed the customer’s perception of difficulty to determine my price. When I was quoting the job, he was saying things like, Oh, I just need these nailed up here, nothing major, just something to keep it from loosening further or falling down. I don’t think it’s going to be a big project, just something whatever you can do. And so from his perspective, this is an easy project that shouldn’t take very long. And I allowed his perception influence how I looked at the project and also determine how long I think it should take or how much it should cost to do, which is another huge mistake that happens pretty often when a customer looks at something.

“This is just really easy. I just want to add a new room to my house. It’s not a big deal, nothing major, just a small room, maybe a little bathroom over here, too, and maybe I’ll throw in a few windows, too.” They just really have no perspective on how challenging it is, or they think it’s overly simple, or they know that they’re going to manipulate me psychologically by doing that. Who knows? But either way, I let their perception influence me on how easy the project should be, how the project should be done, which is another mistake, and then how much I should charge.

I’m the expert here, right? I should be the expert. I’m going to quote it how I know it needs to be done, to be done right, and I need to quote enough to where I make a profit.

Another mistake I made here was that I quoted a new project without doubling my estimate. So one of my rules that I eventually figured out was that if I’m doing a new project, I’m going to sit down, I’m going to write out my estimate on how long I think it’s going to take, multiply that by whatever rate I’m trying to hit, and then double it because it always takes twice as long as you expect it to.

So that’s a deck repair job. I didn’t get any bad reviews or anything like that. The person was pretty happy with it. I did make some money, so it wasn’t a total failure, but there were definitely some clear mistakes on that project.

The next project I will talk about was pretty much a complete disaster. So, some lady requested a lead on Service Magic, which is what HomeAdvisor used to be called back in the day when I started my business. They changed their name to HomeAdvisor. So I got this Service Magic lead, and I knew that if I don’t respond to these leads immediately, Then I’m going to lose the job because most of these customers who look for small jobs on platforms like HomeAdvisor or Angie, the first person they get on the phone with that sounds like they’re competent and nice and is going to do the project, they’re going to hire them. They don’t necessarily want three quotes on a small project. That’s too much wasted time for them. So I knew it. So I called her immediately. I call her up, I talk to her. She says, Oh, I got this gutter and it’s leaking, blah, blah, blah.

I’m like, Okay, well, my minimum service charge is $75. How does that sound? I’ll be over there at this time. And so says “Oh, that’s way too expensive. I’m on a fixed income.”

So I was like, Okay, how about $40? So I said, Okay, go over there for $40. I didn’t have any other projects on my schedule. I really wanted the job. So I go over there, I do the job. It takes me well over an hour and a half. It’s way more difficult to get to than I thought it would be. It’s different than what she explained on the phone. It takes me way longer than I expected. It was a pretty frustrating situation. I ended up just charging her the $40 because I didn’t want to upset her. And I leave, and then three or four days later, I get a one-star review on Service Magic, and I’m like, What happened? I gave this lady a huge discount. I did the service for way less than it should have cost. She also gave me a negative review because her gutter was leaking in a different area. It was a total mess. I barely made any money. It was super frustrating to do. And then I get a bad review.

So I made a few mistakes that led to this. And the first one was being desperate for the job. I shouldn’t have been so desperate that I’m going to lower my rates and charge less because that usually doesn’t lead to a very good situation. Now, at some point in your business, it pays to have that desperation because it’s going to cause you to take on jobs that you wouldn’t normally take on that are going to be learning lessons for you that might add to skills that are going to pay off later. It’s hard to say that’s totally a mistake, but in this case, it was. But my biggest mistake there was I wasn’t prepared to navigate that situation. I was still under the idea that anyone and everybody who needed a home repair was my customer, and that if I was too expensive for them, that was my problem. But later on, I realized that not everyone is my customer. And no matter how awesome I am, some people are just never going to pay a decent rate for a service like that. They just want the lowest price, and maybe they won’t even hire somebody to do it, even at the lowest price. So, I wasn’t really prepared for that conversation or that whole situation.

Another mistake I made was lowering my standards based on what I quoted. So, instead of inspecting the entire gutter system, because I charged enough to offer above and beyond-service, I would have found that other issue and avoided that bad review. However, since I didn’t charge enough, I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as I could. I ended up getting a bad review, which was emotionally devastating while I was starting my business, and I didn’t even make very much money.

So the gutter repair job. That job was not fun.

Now, let’s move on to my least profitable job, number four, a custom shelf job. So, one of my friends hired me to build some custom shelves and hang them on the brick wall in their home. And so I was looking at this project. I was like, Oh, that sounds like a It’s a really cool project. Not only do I want to do this anyway, even if it was for free, but this will be a cool experience.

Maybe I’ll get some good pictures for my website. So I’m sitting here writing up the quote. I’m going to price out all the lumber, price out how much it’s going to cost to stain the shelves, how long it’s going to take to install them, how long each step is going to take. And I’m looking at this quote. I’m looking at like, man, that sounds way too expensive. And so, of course, I look back, massage the numbers, and lower them down based on something that seems more appropriate to me. How much would I pay for some custom shelves or just shelves in general? How much would I be willing to pay for some shelves like this? So, I ended up quoting $300. I don’t remember the exact number. I think the materials cost about 75 at the time. And then it ended up taking me about 10 hours over a few days to build the shelves. Then, I had to go install the shelves on a brick wall. So, in the end, I ended up making $20 per hour on this project. And I will say it was enjoyable in some way. I like working with my hands, of course.

But again, this is a business, right? You got to make money. It’s not about doing something you enjoy as much. It is about that, but also, you have to make the money!

The mistakes I made on this project were mainly that I based my quote on what I thought shelves were worth versus what I needed to make a profit. Whenever you approach a situation with that, it’s almost always going to lead to underpricing. Instead, I should have just looked at it like, Okay, it will take me this long. It’s going to cost this much of materials. This is how long it’s going to take me. Okay, I’m going to charge this much. Even if it was $3,000, that’s the price that I should have given and allowed them to make the decision at that point. Not trying to force, not trying to bend math into my favor, and just bend time in some way by rushing or being more efficient to somehow make this thing work that I desperately wanted to work. So, I was making decisions more based on fear, again, than numbers.

Now, a lot of people who are listening to this right now are probably thinking, “Well, what if I don’t have a lot of leads coming in? What if this is the job that I have right now? This is my only opportunity. I don’t have a lot of leads coming in, so I need to take this job to make some money.”

And I understand that perspective. Sometimes, you will need to take a job that’s less than optimal to make a little money to get some cash flow to run your business. I get that. However, the problem with this is that it’s short-term thinking. It pays in the short run, but it hurts you in the long run because there’s an opportunity cost to every job that you take for suboptimal profits. So let’s say you take a job that’s a week long, and you’re underpaid for that entire job. Well, if you would have instead taken that entire week to work on learning a new marketing strategy and implementing that marketing strategy for your business, then maybe next week or even next month, you’re going to have a lot more leads to choose from, so you don’t have to take these suboptimal jobs. Sure, you’re not going to get paid for that time immediately. You’re probably going to have to pay money to learn or implement that strategy, and you’re going to be working for free to do it. However, the long-term payoff is going to be much more valuable. So, the opportunity cost is always there when quoting a job.

Moving on to my least profitable job number five. And this job was to replace a battery in a smoke detector. And again, this is during my first few years in business, so I don’t have the confidence. I didn’t have a mentor teaching me about pricing psychology, minimum service charges, and all that. So this customer calls me up. They’re an existing customer. Like, Hey, we got a smoke alarm going off. It’s on the second-story ceiling. We can’t reach it with any of our ladders. Can you come out and change that? And I’m like, Sure. I’m on the spot. So I’m like, All right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Yeah, I’ll just charge 60 bucks. So I say, 60 bucks? She’s like, “Great, okay. Come over for 60 bucks; fix this for us. Sounds great.”

So I go over there. I drive 30 minutes across town in my truck, load all my tools into my vehicle, go 30 minutes across town, get there, and do a good job. It takes about 10 or 15 minutes. Then another full half an hour back. So I’m at least an hour and 15 minutes, considering the phone call, I’m an hour and a half into this project now. So I’m not making very much money here. This wasn’t that big of a deal because I didn’t waste that much time. It wasn’t that big of a deal. It was for an existing customer.

But there were a couple of mistakes that I made in this situation. First, I thought I needed to provide that service to keep the customer. I felt that I needed to give them a discount, and I needed to do the job right away and solve their problem. Otherwise, they would never hire me again, and they would find somebody who would. So that’s a mistake right there because that’s undervaluing myself. And another reason that’s a mistake is that customer never hired me again in the future.

So they never hired me again anyway, despite the fact that I lowered my prices, lower than my minimum service charge, handled their job immediately when they called me, and did it with a smile. And they still didn’t call me back for any more projects in the future.

Again, this is a lack of being prepared. I was put on the spot with my pricing over the phone, and I wasn’t prepared for that interaction. I didn’t know how to address that situation. I hadn’t planned it out in advance. And that’s something that happens often, is if you don’t have your pricing dialed in before you interact with customers, you often are going to make these knee-jerk reaction decisions that are optimal that lead to lost income. Sometimes that lost income is maybe a hundred bucks, like in this case. Sometimes, that lost income is several thousand dollars on a bigger project where somebody puts you on the spot, and you’re just like, Okay, yeah, that sounds good. And then you agree to it, and then now you’re stuck. So it pays to have that stuff figured out in advance.

I hope this was helpful for you. To learn more about setting your prices, determining your pricing strategy, talking money with customers, and all things handyman pricing, I highly recommend my pricing course, $100K Handyman Pricing. Now, obviously, I’m biased, but having that information when I started my business would likely have led to over $100,000 in additional profits during my first couple of years in business. I see this as the easiest upgrade you can make to your handyman business, whether you’re doing just a couple of jobs on the weekends on the side for friends and family, or if you’re starting a full-time business. These things that you learn in this program are going to help you make more money instantly on the next job. Pricing is based on psychology more than anything else. The psychology the customer brings to the interaction, the psychology you bring to the interaction, and then the combination of the two. When you really understand that and you internalize these concepts in pricing, it gives you so much more power, so much more confidence, and so much more clarity to make more money in less time.

I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Thanks for listening. I’ll see you in the next episode.

The post My top five least profitable handyman jobs appeared first on Handyman Startup.

How would you like to know an easy way to grow a business where…

You get to do the work you enjoy most daily, plus the freedom and fulfillment of a profitable business.

Sound compelling?

Of course, it does. But it’s ridiculous.

If starting a profitable business was that easy, everyone would do it, competition would quickly outpace demand, and it would be hard again very quickly.

Starting a business will always be challenging, as it should be. You want it to be challenging, so the rewards are worth it.

But, there are easier ways to start a business than others, and that’s what I discuss in this episode.

Listen to the podcast version of this article, which includes extra content. Listen right here or on your favorite podcast app!

HS050 – Starting a business the easy way

I was talking to a handyman last week. He was in a tough situation. He had a full-time job. He was offering handyman services on the side. He was commuting to a different city for his jobs and wanted to build his handyman business full-time in the city where he lived.

But he felt there was too much competition and wasn’t sure he could make it work. He also knew that if he were going to make it work, he would need to establish an online presence to generate enough customers to keep his schedule full.

So, he started building his website. He got through the first couple of steps but quickly ran into a snag. It was more challenging than he expected, and he wasn’t sure how to proceed.

Riddled in uncertainty and frustration, he gave up to find an easier way.

As a result, he was no closer to escaping that situation and having that full-time business in the city where he lives.

There’s no judgment here. I’ve done the same thing many times. I also admire him for continuing to seek a solution, which is why we were speaking in the first place.

But here’s what often happens when trying to grow a business.

A task you are doing is harder than you expected. Maybe that’s naming your business, filing for an LLC, building your website, or attracting your first customers. It takes longer than you expected. It’s more confusing. It costs more money than you thought it would.

So you start to doubt yourself. You start to lose motivation. You wonder if it’s worth it. You wonder if you’re cut out for this. You wonder if there’s some easier way out there. And you want to give up. Then you start to think, maybe there’s some secret others know I don’t.

And so, often, that leads you to give up. Over the years, I’ve consulted with many who run into this roadblock. They want a more profitable business. I tell them a solution, and immediately, I see it on their faces.

Their reaction says, “Well, that sounds hard. I don’t want to do that. I don’t know how to do that. I can’t do that. Isn’t there an easier way?”

Again, this often leads to giving up or waiting for things to be easy (which rarely happens). So, they consume more information, do more research, and try to gain certainty when the reality is that certainty does not exist.

You will never be 100% certain.

And yes, maybe there is an easier way to move forward, and you should look for it. But most of the time, there isn’t an easier way, and waiting for an easier way keeps you stuck.

If you keep waiting for things to be easy, nothing will change.

Almost every time I’ve created significant growth within my business, it’s because I faced a challenging situation head-on. It’s not because I found an easy way or had some advantage.

For example, when deciding which business to start, I read several books on career options and how to find my purpose. I desperately wanted somebody to tell me, “Here’s what you should do, man. This is what you’re good at. You should do that.”

But nobody could. I had no other option than to stick with the problem until it was solved, which took me months. It was uncomfortable, but I had no choice but to push through until I felt good about a decision.

Eventually, I decided to start a handyman business. When I started my business, nobody wanted to hire me because I looked like a teenager. People would disregard me because I looked so young. They assumed I didn’t have enough skills or experience. To be fair, they were probably right.

But I still wanted to start my business, and I’d already quit my engineering job. So, instead of giving up, I dove into digital marketing. I studied it. It was hard. I was uncertain if it would work, but it was my best chance. So, I focused on it. I did things that other handymen wouldn’t do, and I thrived as a result.

Another time, I didn’t know how to price my services, and I felt like I was wasting my time making way less money than I could be with my handyman services.

At the time, I was podcasting, blogging, and running my handyman business. I didn’t have kids then, so I had more time to do these things. But while doing my handyman services, I knew I wasn’t making as much money as I could be. I knew I was underpricing jobs. I spent way too much time figuring out how to quote a job. I had too many gaps in my schedule between jobs.

I was leaving a ton of money on the table, but I didn’t know the solution.

I searched for advice and couldn’t find a good solution. Eventually, I got to the point where I was like, “Man, I’m not getting anywhere. I’m just spinning my wheels.” So, I had to do something challenging.

I stopped podcasting. I cut back on my handyman services and made less money while focusing on figuring out how to price my services more profitably.

It took me about nine months, but I ended up writing the first book on handyman pricing.

That book sold well over a thousand copies, and I eventually learned even better pricing strategies, which I used to build my pricing course “$100K Handyman Pricing.”

As a result of facing the challenge instead of waiting for an easy way, I started making more money as a handyman. I started scheduling my services more efficiently, making more money and less time. I was able to sell these programs to help other handymen make more money in less time.

That was a huge breakthrough. But it wouldn’t have happened if I had just kept trying to do the same things I was doing (which was easier).

Again, every time I’ve seen growth in my business, it’s because I went through one of those challenges, which was always difficult.

Any time I’ve waited for something to be easy, I’ve made little or no progress. And trust me, there have been many of those times.

Everyone is always looking for an easy way to grow a business. But here’s why you want it to be difficult to start a business…

Easy leads to competition.

The best example of this is crowded ski slopes. If you’ve been skiing over the last decade, I guarantee your favorite mountain is way busier than it was ten years ago.

Many argue that convenience, low-priced season passes, and corporate greed have ruined skiing.

Ease is what ruined skiing (at least on Friday-Sunday at major ski resorts).

But, when skiing is not easy, it’s far less crowded and, in my opinion, more fun.

Just going during bad weather will cut the crowds in half. Or, even better, if you’re willing to get a backcountry setup, you can access fresh powder more consistently. It’s just not nearly as easy.

Any challenge weeds out a tremendous portion of the population.

With business, you want challenges and obstacles to weed out competition.

If starting a business was easy, everybody would do it, and supply would rapidly outpace demand.

But that’s actually impossible because there’s a natural balance. As supply increases faster than demand, competition increases, making it more challenging for businesses to stay in business. The people who aren’t willing to make the sacrifices and do the hard things give up, which balances things out.

And that’s why it continues to work; it’s not easy.

Many businesses work hard to create artificial obstacles to keep people out of their market. They want it to be hard for you. One example of this is contractor licensing regulations.

Who do you think is the biggest fan of contractor licensing regulations that limit you from being able to do plumbing, HVAC, or electrical without a specialty license?

It’s the people who have a license!

They want as few people to have those licenses as possible so they can charge higher rates and make more money.

So, when you hit one of these challenges along your business journey, look at it as an opportunity. It means that a certain percentage of the people trying to start that business will automatically be weeded out, and all you have to do is keep going to gain an advantage.

When trying to get customers, you have many options. Most people opt for the easy path and pay for leads. Welcome to the crowds! Enjoy paying too much for leads and fighting for scraps.

But if you’re willing to do some things that other people aren’t willing to do, like the things that I teach in Handiman Marketing Machine, you’ll be cruising down a much less crowded and more profitable road.

There’s a counterintuitive truth if you want to make growing a business easy. The easy way to grow a business is to stop looking for the easy way and start looking for advantages.

If I were to change that slightly, I would say, “Stop looking for the easy way and start working for advantages.”

Looking for advantages is important. You need to find those advantages. But ultimately, you’ll spend more of your time working to obtain those advantages because they won’t be something you stumble into. They’ll require time, effort, and sacrifice.

Starting a handyman or home service business is far easier than most businesses.

But starting or growing a business will never be easy, and you don’t want it to be. You want it to be challenging to weed out competition.

And next time you run into an obstacle and think, “This is too hard. There must be an easier way.” Go ahead and look for an easier way because there’s no reason to make it harder than it needs to be. But if you don’t find one, lean into the challenge. It’s your ticket to gaining an advantage.

If you’re ready to start your handyman business or take your business to the next level, grab your unfair advantage right here.

The post Growing a business the easy way appeared first on Handyman Startup.

Mounting TVs can be a lucrative service for any handyman.

That’s why I’ve invested time to promote and specialize in this service. And in this article and podcast episode, I’m going to share five business lessons I’ve learned after mounting well over 100 TVs.

And by the way, these lessons apply to any home service.

Listen to the podcast version of this article, which includes extra content. Listen right here or on your favorite podcast app!

HS049 – 5 Indispensable Business Lessons From Mounting 100 TVs

I mounted my first TV in 2012 for a middle-aged woman who found me on Craigslist.

I was surprised by the request when she called since I’d never mounted a TV before. So when she asked how much it would cost, I blurted out the first number that came to my head.

“Seventy-five dollars,” I said with fake confidence.

To my surprise, she agreed, and I scheduled the job for later that day.

When I knocked at her door, I was anxious (and probably awkward) because I wasn’t sure what to expect.

To make it even worse, she sat on the couch, watching my every move as I fumbled with the instructions.

It took me well over an hour (about twice as long as it should have), but I completed the project, and she paid me with a smile.

At first, I figured this was a fluke job because it was so easy, and I didn’t think many people would pay for this service.

I was wrong.

A couple of weeks later, I signed up for Service Magic (now called HomeAdvisor) and started paying for leads. I received my first lead to hang a TV shortly after signing up. I quickly jumped on the lead and told the customer it would cost $100 (again, just a number I pulled out of thin air on the spot).

The customer said yes, and I put it on my schedule. Later that day (my schedule was wide open), I arrived at this wealthy attorney’s estate and immediately realized the job was over my head.

The TV was a gigantic 80″ monster. I couldn’t put this thing on the wall by myself.

But I was already there, so I went to work anyway. Once the bracket was attached to the wall, I asked the customer to help me lift the TV to place it on the wall.

I felt very unprofessional, but she didn’t seem bothered. Again, she paid me with a smile and hired me for many more projects over the coming years.

Again, I felt like this service wasn’t something I could consistently offer. First, I didn’t think many people would need it, and second, I figured that few customers would tolerate helping lift the TV they paid to have installed.

Wrong again.

Over the next decade, I’d mount over a hundred TVs for hundreds of customers. During that process, I learned several valuable business lessons that can be applied to any home service.

Here are some of those lessons.

Despite doing thorough research before starting my handyman business, I’d never heard anyone discussing mounting TVs (again, this was back in 2011).

This service wouldn’t have crossed my path if I didn’t start my business. Only by immersing myself in the handyman business did I make this discovery.

This is true for countless insights I’ve gained by going deep with the handyman business.

Another example is marketing. My #1 most effective marketing strategy, responsible for 90% of all leads I’ve received in the last decade, was something I discovered after testing a strategy I’d learned from an online marketing course I took a year earlier.

But by immersing myself in marketing and doing it myself, I uncovered gold.

That marketing strategy now keeps me as busy as I want to be for my most profitable jobs with virtually no time or money.

I would never have discovered this strategy if I had just stayed at surface-level education, such as watching or listening to other people talk about marketing. I had to go deep, immerse myself in it, and do it myself.

But many people don’t take action. Instead, they watch YouTube videos, estimate the results they might get, and decide the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

So they do nothing and, consequently, don’t learn anything.

When you actually DO something yourself, that’s when you learn. That’s when your perception of the world shifts. That’s when new possibilities open up.

When you engage in the world and try things (instead of living vicariously through others), you make discoveries that no one is talking about online, propelling your business and freedom forward.

I’ve learned a lot from mentors, and I continue to read books, invest in my education, and learn from others. But, most of my most profitable decisions and discoveries resulted from taking action.

So, lesson #1 – Do things. Stop thinking about starting a business and try it. And then stick with it long enough to go beyond having just a surface-level understanding.

Stop thinking about raising your prices and try it. See what happens and what insights you gain.

Stop thinking about building a website and get to work.

It’s easy to look at a business idea and get discouraged by all the competition, but when you do that, you’re already beaten.

The truth is that there is always competition, but there is also always opportunity.

The competition for mounting TVs seems pretty steep. First, Best Buy’s Geek Squad seems to have a monopoly on the service. Then you have Costco, HelloTech, Walmart, Home Depot, and other big players offering the service.

It seems impossible for a one-person handyman with a small marketing budget to make any meaningful money from this service.

Yet, I continue to generate new leads every month WITHOUT paying a dime to advertise. I could easily get more if I wanted to invest in some advertising.

If I were an outsider, I’d assume trying to get customers for this service would be a waste of time. The only reason I know it’s not a waste of time is I’ve seen the reality myself by immersing myself in it (back to lesson #1).

When you see competition, view it as a signal that a given service is in demand. Competition indicates that people actively pay for the thing you want to sell.

That’s a good thing.

Also, you don’t need a 100% market share to make money. You just need a small chunk of the pie.

As a new handyman, it’s easy to get caught worrying about small stuff like having the optimal tool bucket, driving the ideal vehicle, or looking stupid in front of a customer because the project takes longer than expected.

And sure, those things probably do have an impact.

But the majority of your time and effort should be on two things:

If you provide excellent customer service and do immaculate work, your customers won’t care if you drive a Honda Accord or if your cordless drill is eight years old.

If you take longer to do something right, customers will quickly forget about that extra time and mainly remember your great work.

If you mount a TV straight and securely to the wall in the exact spot the customer wants, they won’t care if you use a $30 mount from Amazon.

Sure, you may be able to charge more if you can expertly explain the benefits of a full-motion mount, but that is secondary to the main thing, which is doing the job well and being a pleasure to work with.

It doesn’t matter how many fancy features or extra benefits you add to the project if you don’t execute the basics.

Take the example of having the customer help lift the TV. This is clearly not ideal. Ideally you’d have a helper so the customers wouldn’t have to be involved. But as it turns out, that’s OK. A helper is just an extra benefit that goes beyond the basics.

This problem can be easily solved by asking the customer if someone will be available to help lift the TV before you schedule the job. Great communication is one of the easiest ways to improve service.

While mounting TVs, I’ve learned that most customers just want me to show up on time, mount the TV so it’s perfectly level, and have the peace of mind that it won’t fall off the wall.

Anything else is just a bonus.

It pays to be the best.

Once you execute the basics, continually level up your game and strive to be the best.

Never get complacent.

Sometimes, being the best can be as simple as investing in the right tools.

If there is a tool that will make me better at mounting TVs, I will buy it.

One example is a borescope.

This tool allows me to drill a small hole in the wall and then stick a camera in that hole to find studs or see what is behind the wall.

Most TV mounting companies don’t have a borescope because it’s unnecessary for 95% of jobs.

The magic of this little $200 tool is that it allows me to mount TVs to faux stone walls above a fireplace without drilling 20 holes to find a stud.

This makes me look more professional, increases my capabilities and confidence, and allows me to charge a premium.

One customer called me to mount TVs in a 100-year-old home with lathe and plaster walls. He tried to get other companies out there, but nobody would touch it.

I knew it would be a challenge (I’d never done it before), but I was dedicated to being the best at this service, and I viewed the challenge as a way to differentiate myself.

The project took a bit longer than expected (luckily, I charged a premium), but I learned a new skill in the process, and I’m now confident for the next century-old home I encounter.

When you commit to a specialty, it is much easier to justify buying expensive tools or honing your skills to become the best.

But even if you don’t specialize, always try to level up your game.

Many new entrepreneurs are afraid to test new marketing strategies. They want to ask twelve people for their feedback before they “waste their hard-earned money.”

This is the wrong way to look at it.

Sure, in the short run, you may lose some money. Your effort may not pay off. So, in the worst case, you learn something.

But the more likely scenario is that your efforts will pay off, and you’ll learn something.

For example, I recently tested a Performance Max campaign in Google Ads. I didn’t think it was paying off until I got one of the best leads of the year from a wealthy CEO who needed many handyman services.

Another example is Home Advisor. I hated paying for leads, and I’m very happy that I no longer need to, but if I hadn’t tried HomeAdvisor, I wouldn’t been able to fill my schedule during my first months in business.

With each marketing strategy I try, I notice I get a different kind of lead that I probably wouldn’t have reached otherwise.

This inevitably gives me more ideas for attracting more of those customers.

Sometimes I lose money, but that’s just part of the game. The good thing about this game is that the odds are stacked in your favor, so it’s not gambling. It’s a calculated risk.

This advice comes with a couple of caveats, though. First, don’t try too many things at once. Otherwise, it’s too challenging to gauge the results. Secondly, whatever advertising method you are testing, don’t half-ass it. Do it well. Otherwise, no matter how good it could work, it probably won’t.

There will always be more information you can learn from books, videos, podcasts, etc.

But if you’re constantly waiting to start your business until you know everything, you’ll end up a very knowledgeable wannabe with no real wisdom.

So, go out there and do something. You never know what you might learn. If you aren’t sure what to do, you can follow my step-by-step guide to starting a profitable handyman business here.

The post 5 Indispensable Business Lessons From Mounting 100 TVs appeared first on Handyman Startup.

Here’s an inspiring interview with a handyman who started his business just over a year ago.

After receiving an ultimatum from his boss, Evaristo Gomez left his secure job as a finish carpenter’s apprentice to grow his handyman business full-time – even though he had a wife and young child at home to support.

That takes courage.

And his bravery paid off.

Today, Evaristo is the proud owner of a thriving business that not only surpasses his previous job in terms of income but also grants him the flexibility to be there for his family whenever they need him.

And that’s just a little over a year in!

Evaristo is the proud owner of A Pleasant Handyman Service, which serves residents of Winlock, Washington, and surrounding areas.

After buying a 1930s-built home, Evaristo was overwhelmed by his growing list of repairs and lack of skills. When a contractor came in and helped him address the issues, his peace of mind returned.

From that moment, he was inspired to do the same for others. So, after working in several jobs in the construction industry, he eventually went out on his own and started his handyman business – where he focuses on bringing a pleasant experience and peace of mind to his clients.

And since he’s experienced so much success with his business, he’s been inspired to help others at his church start home repair businesses as well.

The post Pro Handyman Shares His Story After One Year In Business appeared first on Handyman Startup.

Credibility is essential to gaining new clients and growing a business.

But, this topic is often misunderstood by people new to the home repair business.

Pros tend to overvalue certain credibility boosters, like having a contractor’s license or having lots of experience, and undervalue other methods for boosting credibility.

This often results in competent people being too scared to start their businesses because they don’t think they can make it work without the proper credentials.

Additionally, people often make the mistake of assuming that credibility is some objective truth when, in reality, it is a subjective perception.

And because it is just a perception, it can be easily manipulated.

Manipulating credibility is one of the main purposes of marketing.

This has many unfortunate implications, such as unqualified people successfully selling low-quality services and ripping people off.

However, there is a positive side as well.

For those who are more than competent to provide quality handyman services yet lack the typical experience or credentials, you can pull the right marketing levers to instantly boost credibility and fill your schedule with profitable jobs.

That’s how I started my business.

Despite looking like a teenager and having very little home repair experience, I established credibility and built a profitable handyman business relatively quickly.

And in this podcast episode, I share how I did that and other powerful ways to build credibility.

HS047 – How to quickly gain credibility

The post How To Quickly Gain Credibility appeared first on Handyman Startup.

It’s officially spring, which means the busy season for home services is about to ramp up.

If you’ve been in business for a while, you already know that the peak season for most home services is during the Spring and Summer, peaking around May through September.

If you didn’t know, now you do.

So, it’s time to get prepared.

In this article and podcast episode, I share four simple actions you can take right now, to not only make more money this summer, but to leverage the busy season to build momentum into the winter.

Let’s jump right in.

Listen to the podcast version of this article, which includes extra content. Listen right here or on your favorite podcast app!

HS046 – Four Simple Ways to Make More Money This Summer

A good CRM/field management software is essential to running a professional handyman business.

It will make you look more professional, help you provide better service and communication, keep you organized, and more.

Basically, It will help you make more money.

However, one feature of a good CRM that is particularly useful for building momentum is automated review requests.

Reviews are a critical pillar of online marketing for home service. You should always focus on getting more of them.

However, it’s challenging to remember to always ask for a review, and even when you do, unless it is super easy, most customers won’t do it, even if they love your services.

That’s why automated review requests are so useful. A good CRM will automatically send each customer a text and an email requesting a review with a link to leave the review.

That way, all the customer has to do is click the link and leave a review. Plus, they have a nice little reminder to improve their chances of leaving one.

Here’s the CRM I use and a list of other good ones.

There are many benefits to using a good CRM, so if you’re still on the fence about using one, just do it. You can always cancel later if you don’t think it’s worth it.

But the more likely scenario is that you’ll feel silly for not trying one sooner.

Speaking of online reviews, the first place to focus on online reviews in 99% of cases is on your Google Business Profile.

Any online review is great, but a review on Google is the best.

You can learn more about Google Business Profile here.

If you haven’t already set up your profile, do that immediately. That way, you can link your CRM to your profile and start racking up those five-star reviews.

This process only takes an hour to two, plus up to a week to get verified. So do it now. That way, you can establish some reviews while busy this year, making it easier to attract customers during the slow season.

If you haven’t updated your Google Business Profile for a while, now is a good time to do that so you can ensure your business information is up to date and spruced up. Spending just fifteen minutes here could lead to several high-quality leads over the next few months.

The last thing you want to do is bog yourself down constantly while worrying about how much to charge, if you are charging enough, or if you are charging too much.

That wastes way too much mental energy.

It also leads to making less money.

It’s best to enter this busy season with clarity and confidence – especially with pricing.

And the best place to gain clarity and confidence with pricing home repairs is right here. Yes, there is an investment required, but it will easily pay for itself in a matter of days or weeks. Heck, maybe even with your next project.

Dialing in your pricing will not just help you make a little extra money, but a LOT more money. It’s not rare for me to see someone double their profits by implementing those strategies.

If you’re going to be working hard this summer, you might as well squeeze as much profit out of your hard work as you can – that way, you can invest into growing your business, take vacations, or just feel more secure financially.

Don’t step over dollars to pick up pennies.

Learn how to profit from your effort.

Your customers will thank you, and so will your wife.

I’m not talking about learning sophisticated sales techniques or constantly selling things to customers.

I’m talking about having a good answer to one simple question:

“What services do you offer?”

When first-time customers hire you, they may not realize that you offer other services. If they like your services, they will often ask you what else you do.

It’s easy to stumble on this if you aren’t prepared. So, spend fifteen minutes or an hour writing down your answer. Think of the main services you’d like to promote. Practice your answer so you are confident when customers ask.

Don’t be afraid to mention how you are different than your competitors and who your services are best for.

As a bonus, prepare a handout that lists your services and describes the benefits of hiring you.

This is a great way communicate what you do and to let customers know that you are interested in working more for them. Don’t just assume they know you want more business. Let them know!

The busy season can sometimes be overwhelming, making investing time into working on your business difficult.

However, by preparing these four things right now (which won’t take that long), you will set yourself up to make more money, look more professional, and have more fun this summer.

You’ll also build momentum for your business that will take you into the upcoming fall/winter season.

The post Preparing For The Busy Season: Four Simple Ways to Make More Money This Summer appeared first on Handyman Startup.

Every once in a while, I encounter someone who transforms my perspective on what is possible in business.

Tommy Mello is one of those people.

After reading his book, Elevate, and interviewing him, I find myself waking up early in the morning eager to implement new ideas for my business.

If you don’t know Tommy, he is the founder and CEO of A1 Garage Doors, a 200-million-dollar company based in Phoenix, Arizona. A1 Garage Doors is now in 22 states and growing at an insane pace.

If you can read Tommy’s books and meet him, you can see why he has succeeded. He works hard, cares for his employees, and constantly seeks knowledge. He consistently maintains a bigger vision for his company and thinks differently than most business owners in the home service industry.

It was a pleasure and an honor having him on the podcast. Give this episode a listen, and I guarantee you’ll find something you can apply to grow your business.

Tommy is the founder and CEO of A1 Garage Doors, the largest privately owned garage door company in the nation that does over $200 million in revenue and operates in 22 states.

Tommy has been in the home service industry for 17 years. He’s also the host of The Home Service Expert Podcast and the author of two Amazon Best Sellers, Elevate and The Home Service Millionaire.

Tommy is a genius at building systems, scaling businesses, motivating employees, and creating a culture that attracts top talent. When it comes to growing a home service business, few can rival his expertise.

I’ve only captured some of the valuable information Tommy shared with me. I recommend listening to the full episode and investing in his books.

The post How to sell your services, book more jobs, and grow a $200 million home service business with Tommy Mello appeared first on Handyman Startup.

You only need to do two things to grow a profitable home repair business.

That’s because the handyman business is a PROVEN business model. There are thousands of handymen all over the world already doing this.

Simply follow best practices, put in the work, and do that consistently, and as long as your city is big enough to have a hardware store, you will eventually build a thriving business.

However, that is MUCH easier said than done.

That’s because there are many pitfalls along the way that sap motivation, focus, and time, making it impossible to grow a business.

These pitfalls are why competent, motivated people fail to build a business they love.

So, in this podcast episode, I discuss four of those pitfalls and how to avoid them so you can finally grow your business to the level you want.

If you’d like 2024 to be the year where you finally reach your business goals, then I highly recommend listening to this podcast and taking notes.

HS044 – Avoiding Common Pitfalls: Four Reasons Competent People Fail In Business

I’m confident that if you implement the protocols in this episode, you will make substantial progress toward your business goals this year.

The post Avoiding Common Pitfalls: Four Reasons Competent People Fail In Business appeared first on Handyman Startup.