Handyman Makes $1,000 Per Day (See How He’s Grown His Business).

UpFlip
112 followers
13 Video Views·Dec 10, 2022
Do you want to start your own handyman business
and scale it past $250,000 a year?
Well, Caleb Ingram from North Seattle Handyman
achieved this mark by only investing $5,000
into the business.
Today, we're talking to the man behind
the famous North Seattle Handyman
who manages to rake up to $25,000 a month
with only one full-time employee.
Caleb's also leveraged online marketing
to serve more than 100 customers a year
If you start a handyman business right now,
you will immediately get phone calls,
systemize, systemize, systemize.
I'm a believer in spending money to make money.
They're paying for themselves
because if your employees aren't actually making you money,
then there's no point in having them.
I have all of my cordless tools throughout here.
I have all my screws and all that stuff.
Today, he'll share with you guys
how you too can start a handyman business,
how he kept his risks small in the beginning,
the one thing that made his business successful,
and the mistakes he made along the way.
Put the word North Seattle and Handyman in their review,
and that helps with the Google algorithm.
They told me that I had to charge more,
and I listened to them.
One of your first purchases should be one of these,
being able to accurately quote
based off of emails and pictures.
Let's dive deeper into the details of the insurance setup.
I found that I made more money doing the small work.
The only way for me to make more money at this point
is to hire people.
All right, you guys, let's go talk to Caleb.
But before we do that, take a second,
like this video, subscribe to our channel.
We greatly appreciate that.
And let's dive into the interview.
I think he's right here, working away.
Hello, Caleb.
I'm Paul.
Good to meet you.
Nice to meet you, I'm Caleb.
Awesome, let's do this.
All right, Caleb, tell us when and why
you started the handyman business,
and what were the goals for your company?
Well, I started about four years ago,
and I originally was just trying
to get into the remodel business.
But once I started doing the handyman work,
I realized I made more money doing handyman work
than I ever would make doing a remodel.
Interesting, okay.
And that's, what was the reason
for you to just dive in completely?
The reason was just because my family was growing,
and I was working for a corporation,
and they gave me an opportunity to jump ship,
which I took, and just went running, you know?
That time came.
The time came, and I was ready for it.
You know, I was about 35 years old,
and I was mature enough,
and ready to try to start my own thing.
Caleb, tell us about the average monthly revenue
that you are currently having,
and tell us about the best month you had,
and then how do you define a bad month?
Sure, so when it was just me,
a great month would be around $25,000.
That's cost of goods sold included,
so there is some material in that,
but with two people, I would say a great month
would be about $40,000.
Does that fluctuate?
Absolutely.
Seasonality, cyclical?
It does a little bit.
The summer is definitely the hotter month.
I would say that in the summer,
I probably average closer to 40,
and then the winter is probably closer to 30 or so,
but it all depends on what you can offer,
and the weather does affect it to some extent,
but not in any way that impacts my life.
That's good.
What's your best month that you've ever had?
Best month I ever had was 50 grand.
50 grand, nice.
And how do you define a bad month?
Like is that break even?
Do you even have that?
I've never broken even.
I would say the worst month I had,
I grossed $15,000, yeah.
Okay.
Show us inside your van,
kind of like your setup,
and maybe any special unique supplies,
stuff like that.
Absolutely, so I have over here,
I have all of my cordless tools throughout here.
Sometimes it's more organized than this,
sometimes it's less,
it just depends on the job.
I have paint over here,
all my solvents and stuff like that,
caulks and nails up here.
I have all my screws and all that stuff,
and then one of the nice parts
about having a big-ass van
is you can fit a 12-foot ladder in it.
Better inside than outside?
What's the pro on that?
Well, if I put the ladder on here,
I wouldn't be able to go through
a drive-thru coffee spot.
Oh, okay, so you gotta get coffee
when you're going to the job site.
I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.
For me, in a van like this,
having small, compact tools
is a lot better than having something big,
because you're gonna be moving it
in and out of your van every day.
So I'm looking for things that are small and compact,
and I'm gonna spend my money
on something more expensive
if it has a smaller, compact thing.
So I have a couple fancy tools,
my chop saw is a Festool,
and I have a bunch of Festool rail saws
and stuff like that,
which is probably the top end of the tools.
I typically buy expensive tools
because I think that they work better,
and I'm a believer in spending money to make money.
What about your overhead on a monthly basis?
Where are you at?
What does it cost to run it?
Sure, when I-
Break it down for us.
Yeah, no problem.
When I first started,
I probably had about $3,500 in expenses.
And I was making, when I first started,
between $15,000 and $20,000 gross per month,
so it wasn't too terribly bad.
As I'm starting to grow,
you have to take on payroll and L&I,
and there's some expenses there,
but ultimately, they're paying for themselves,
because if your employees aren't actually making you money,
then there's no point in having them, so.
I would say, per employee,
you're gonna, in the Seattle area,
you're gonna probably pay around $6,000 a month in wages,
and then you also have to pay L&I and insurance for them.
But like I said, if they're not making you money,
then you're not doing it right.
Besides labor,
what's the next most expensive monthly expense?
Insurance, van insurance, contractor's insurance,
your bond, and all that stuff.
I typically just try to pay it all up front the first month,
so it's kind of a big-ticket item,
because I don't like paying everyday bills.
Gotcha, okay.
You guys, we just launched a podcast,
and I just wanna let you know that, in the podcast,
we dive into more details with people like Caleb,
successful business owners,
so do check it out, upflip.com forward slash podcast.
I have a job I gotta do tomorrow.
You mind if I pack up some tools?
No, yeah, let's keep talking.
All right, let's do it.
And asking you questions.
Let's talk about the skills that you need
to get involved in this industry, right?
So for somebody who lacks the experience,
but wants to get involved in this industry,
what can you tell us on that?
Well, I think that, as far as the skills of skilled labor goes,
if you're gonna do something like hang a TV,
you don't need that much time to do it,
but if you're gonna do a wide variety of things,
then it takes about 15 years to have that experience.
So it's really about how you can market your skills.
So define your skills.
Can you hang TVs and install faucets?
If yes, there's people who'll pay you money to do that.
Or if you're a lifelong carpenter,
there's people who'll pay you to do that, too.
So just over time, I guess.
What I struggled the most with in the beginning
was business systems.
I didn't know how to start a business.
I didn't know how to invoice.
I didn't know how to do any of those things.
So that's what I've been working mostly on
is trying to incorporate business systems,
and we've made quite a bit of progress doing that so far.
Okay, guys, later in the video,
Caleb will share with you exactly what systems he uses
that optimizes his business for best performance.
So keep watching.
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Is it a good time to get into this business,
being a handyman?
Why or why not?
I would say it's probably the best time
because, at least in the Seattle area
and a lot of other areas, people make $200,000 a year
and don't own a screwdriver.
So they'll pay pretty well to have somebody
that's professional and thoughtful
and wants to solve their problems.
So I charge $100 an hour,
and sometimes I make $100 an hour
for building IKEA furniture.
Sometimes I make $100 an hour for doing plumbing,
but sometimes I make $100 an hour for installing light bulbs.
You know, like, it just depends.
So, like, I think it's a great time.
And the hardest part, in my opinion,
is figuring out the business side of handyman businesses
because anybody that wants to start a handyman business
already knows how to do the skills, probably.
What they need to do is figure out how to run the business.
What resources helped you
in the first two years of your business
and where small business owners watching this can go to
to find help and do a better job
in operating and running their business?
Sure, online tutorials are great,
but I found having a business coach was really helpful.
You do have to spend some money on them,
but they'll help you make the decisions
that you're gonna avoid making.
You know, there's a lot of things
where you're just gonna want to hesitate on,
and a business coach will help you
to be a little bit more aggressive.
The coach I used was Rebecca Ellison.
She was terrific.
She helped me systemize all my systems.
She helped me figure out how to build a website.
She helped me in all sorts of things.
Give us an example of how exactly your coach
helped you make the right decisions.
Sure, so the very first part was
when I was trying to figure out
how to choose a name for my company.
I was gonna do something like Kayla Bingram
Handyman Services or something like that,
and she coached me into saying,
no, you want to target your area.
So part of the reason my name is North Seattle Handyman
is because A, I want to do work in North Seattle,
and B, if someone is looking for a handyman
in the North Seattle area,
they're gonna type in North Seattle Handyman into Google,
and that actually helped me
become the number one handyman on Google.
And then the other thing that she helped me out
quite a bit with was finding my target market.
So in order to do that,
we tailored my website to speak to those people.
We're speaking to people that have a lot of money
but don't own a screwdriver, right?
She helped me tailor my website to attract those people.
Very well, so business consultants,
coaches are worth every penny, the right one.
I believe so, yeah.
Let's talk about your website.
Sure. Is it important
to have a website for a handyman and, you know?
I would say it's what has made the difference
in my business is having some place
where people can go and see me virtually
increases my customer base about a thousandfold
because if I'm just working off of word of mouth,
then I haven't even put a drop in the bucket
of the people who can see me.
So some of the things that we use
are our branding right inside of the van.
Well done.
We use our website.
And then the final part is just trying
to do a good job for your customers.
If you can't do that,
if you can't do a good job for your customers
and communicate with them,
then they're not gonna come back.
In general, what's your recommendation
to other handymen watching you right now
in terms of websites?
I would say a Squarespace website
has been one of the best parts of my business.
We've focused really hard on it.
And right now I come up first when you go handyman Google.
Wow.
That has driven a lot of people our way.
With a website, if you get a marketing funnel in there,
then you will have your pick of the litter
and you will be able to say no to jobs
that don't make any money.
If you're just doing word of mouth,
then you're going to constantly feel
like you're up against a monetary wall.
And having a website really helps alleviate that pressure.
How much money are you spending
on an average month for marketing?
And let's talk specifically,
like what are you doing?
Absolutely. Keywords.
So we do a lot of things
where we try to stay relevant on Google.
And then I think Yelp is a great website
for handyman services in particular.
We hear that a lot.
I have a relationship with Yelp
and then I can kind of turn on my marketing as it comes.
So if I'm three months out
and I don't want to be,
like if I'm a handyman,
I don't want to be six months out.
No one's going to hire me for six months from now.
So I can kind of turn that on and off.
In general, if I want to turn it on,
it's about $600 a month,
but I will get about five times what I get right now.
And right now I get about five inquiries a day.
Any tips and tricks when it comes to Yelp and Google
to get the best ROI?
Yeah, so one of the things that we do
is we ask our customers to put the word
North Seattle and handyman in their review.
And that helps with the Google algorithms.
Interesting.
Okay, how did you,
is that again from your coach or how did that?
A lot of that comes.
So I've also hired a marketing director
part-time right now,
but hopefully full-time in the next six months.
And that's a strategy we came up with.
How do you set up an effective marketing funnel
for a new handyman business?
First one would be name.
My name is North Seattle handyman
because I work in the North Seattle area.
Next one would be target market.
So I want to target the people that I want to do work for.
The next one will be having a good professional website.
We use Squarespace.
It has been awesome.
And then the last one is having a customer management system
and that has helped us incredibly.
Awesome.
Tell us about how many customers
on an average week you service
and what's the average invoice?
Yeah, absolutely.
So I service between three and five customers
and on some weeks it'll be between five and seven.
My average invoice is anywhere between 500 and $1,500.
So I make about $800 a day by myself.
And then as I include other people,
I can make, I think the best day I've had
was a $3,000 a day or something like that.
Okay.
Are you on a per hour basis or how do you?
I offer them both.
It kind of depends on what somebody asks.
But if I'm gonna bid something,
I'm gonna sort of bid on the worst case
because, but I try to offer,
I try to be flexible enough
or and I try to explain that to a customer.
I say, I'm happy to give you a bid
but if you can trust me and we can do hourly,
I think you'll probably end up paying less.
So I try to give them options, but it's up to them really.
That's fair.
Tell me more about the build out of this van
and the importance of doing it.
So when I first bought the van,
I bought it for about 28 grand, but it was just a husk.
There was nothing in it except for obviously
the driver's side, all this stuff.
Brand new?
I bought it with about 35,000 miles on it.
But once I bought that, I had to invest into some shelving
and the shelving cost me about $6,000.
And it was a big ticket item,
but it has made my life so much easier.
The two things I'm six foot four,
having a van that I can stand in is amazing for me.
And then the other thing is being able to be organized
in a van like this makes a world of difference.
So I invested in this padded flooring.
I invested in all these.
Around the front here, I have a bunch of different kits
that I can pull out for different jobs.
So if I have like a bunch of hollow wall anchors
or if I have a bunch of plumbing parts,
I can just pull them all out and pick through them.
I probably use something different
in this van every single day.
So I have a lot of tools, but I use a lot of tools.
Your initial investment, how much was it
and how did you allocate the money to get going?
Initial investment was $5,000 or so.
A lot of that was just in buying computer
and office supplies.
And then it was getting a bond and a license.
From there, I had a couple of friends
who needed some work done
and my sister helped me start a website.
And within three weeks, I had people calling me to do work.
Nice, okay.
Caleb, tell us about the equipment
that you would expect to use.
Do you need anything specialized
or can you just do your job
with basic stuff from Home Depot?
When you first start out, you can absolutely do something
with a pickup truck and a set of tools.
As you grow, I've always tried to reinvest
into my business from the beginning.
No matter how much money I made,
I try to put more money into the business than I took out.
So the biggest piece of equipment I ever bought was my van
and that has paid for itself 10 times over.
The rest of it are drills and saws
and all the stuff that you would use built-in stuff.
And most people that are interested in handyman business,
I would assume, have some tools.
Gotcha, nothing that's out of this world as far as tools.
Absolutely not.
You gotta order out of some specialized place
that'll make your job easier.
Eventually, I think it's a great idea
to buy a sweet-ass van.
Okay, so that's the best tool.
Let's talk about and understand what kind of supplies
you use as a handyman.
Any advice on finding the right suppliers
that'll give you the best value?
What can you say on that?
So from a handyman perspective,
most of the work that I do,
I just go straight from the person's house to a supplier.
So I use Home Depot and Lowe's a lot.
And then locally, we have the Dunlumber here.
If you have a good lumberyard that has a lot of things,
they're invaluable.
But the most important thing for me
is that they're spread out across the city
because I'm spread out across the city.
I'm not working in a neighborhood.
I'm working in a city.
So if there's a lumberyard, but they only have one location,
it makes it a little bit more difficult
to have a relationship with them
because I might be in South Seattle one day
and then I might be in North Seattle the next day.
And I don't wanna drive an hour and a half
to go get something.
I need something that's, the proximity is key for me.
Okay.
Talk us through the process of scheduling a new customer
and how far in advance are you booking out?
So we have an online portal
that our customers put as much information as possible
that we ask of them.
And we make it required that they put this information in.
They give us a bunch of pictures
and I get that all in an email format right up front
so that I don't have to waste a ton of time
going to people's houses.
I'm doing a two hour job
and it takes me an hour to get there and back to bid a job.
Then it's a waste of my time.
So our systems have been very sort of motivated
towards being able to accurately quote
based off of emails and pictures.
The answer to your other question
where we tend to be about six weeks out.
We have two people right now
but I could increase my marketing revenue a little bit
and we would easily be able to have enough work
for four or five or six people.
How many employees do you currently have
and what do they do and what's their average pay?
What are you paying them?
So for a handyman tech I pay between 30 and $35 an hour
and right now I've cycled through them hiring.
It's pretty competitive in the Seattle area right now.
So trying to find the right people
just trying to get them to come to you is a challenge.
And then for office staff I pay between 20 and $25 an hour
for admin.
One of the biggest challenges in scaling
is scaling yourself from one to three or four
but once those three or four people are in place
they can be generating revenue while you peel off
and try to work on all of your other systems,
your hiring systems and all that stuff
and we are sort of in the middle stages of that right now.
We're creating, we're gonna create a market to handyman
so we wanna figure out how do we sell ourselves
to our potential employees.
Is there certain tools that you use more than others?
Can you describe that?
Sure, so I typically have bags
where I'll keep subsets of tools in
and then I'll always have all of my battery powered tools.
I have probably 13 or 14 different drills
and grinders and all that stuff
and then in here I like to keep,
this is actually a great tool,
it's called an oscillating tool.
It's one of the Swiss Army Knives tools.
One of your first purchases should be one of these.
Outside of that you always have to have
your cordless drills, your tape measures
and then your flat bars and hammers and all that stuff.
You could do a lot with just this bag.
Just this bag, okay.
Just this bag, you could install TVs,
you could do plumbing work,
you could install light fixtures,
you could do any number of things.
Let's talk about your $100 hourly rate
because you mentioned it a few times in the video.
How did you come to that?
Is that average for handyman in this area and in general?
Sure, when I first started I was gonna charge
$60 or $70 an hour but I had a couple of friends
that had done service businesses
and they told me that I had to charge more
and I listened to them.
So I started and people just started taking me up on it.
I've always tried to offer value for that
so if I get to somebody's house,
I'm not on my phone, I'm not doing anything else,
I'm serving that customer and I'm working really hard
to make sure that I'm using their time well.
So to those who are watching now
and are charging 50 to 60 bucks,
what would you tell them?
I mean, it sounds like you could charge more but.
I would say that you're always going to be up
against a financial wall.
$100 an hour is perfect for middle to upper middle class.
If you charge 40 to $60 an hour,
your clientele is actually going to be
probably more detail oriented than $100 an hour person.
I see.
They're going to be trying to get more out of you
at 40 to 60 than somebody that you're charging $100 an hour.
So at least that's what I've found.
Okay.
What are the pros and cons of running this business
out of your home?
Have you considered getting a dedicated space
somewhere else?
We will probably get a dedicated space
in somewhere between one and three years
depending on our growth.
But right now with one van,
I mean, my van is my office pretty much.
I work out of the van.
I have a small office in my house
and I can get a 20% tax rate off
by having something in my house.
So it doesn't make any sense for me.
Like I ran the numbers and it didn't make any sense.
So I stay at home until it actually,
until it makes financial sense
and you have enough people and enough vans
that you have to have a place to park them all.
What's the point?
What about insurance?
Do you need any specialized insurances?
What happens when you're on the job
and you damage something
or your employee gets hurt?
Let's dive deeper into the details
of the insurance setup.
So in Washington State,
you can be licensed as either a handyman
or a general contractor.
I am licensed as a general contractor.
I do have to pay more in insurance for that.
The handyman distinction would be less,
but you're allowed to do less things.
And that insurance covers,
like I said, the damage something.
That's right.
If you break something,
you damage something,
you do anything,
you have a choice to make.
You can either pay it out of pocket
or you can involve the insurance companies.
If I damage something small,
I pay it out of pocket.
It's the cost of doing business.
But if I were to have a large scale problem,
then my insurance would pay for it.
I'm gonna challenge your memory here.
Do you know what the cost for insurance is?
Oh yeah, sure.
So my bonds,
I think I have a bond for $10,000
and I think I paid $200 a year for it.
So it's not too bad.
And then my insurance,
I think it's around four grand or so.
Monthly?
For the year.
And what are the coverages though?
It's for a million dollars.
How much?
A million dollars.
A million bucks.
All right, you guys,
it's Blitz time with Caleb.
Let's dive into it.
Let's do it.
First question,
what's your favorite business book?
A Betraction by Gina Wickman.
Okay.
What's the weirdest thing
that you have seen in somebody's house?
I've seen a lot of porno mags.
That answers it.
I think that answers it.
Okay.
What was the final thing
that pushed you to start working on this business?
Starting my family and needing to support them.
What's the biggest misconception people have
about your position, your role?
Well, I would say the biggest misconception
about Handyman in general
are that they are,
is this sort of Craigslist Handyman kind of thing.
So like you can make Handyman
be whatever you want it to be.
I made it into a professional service
or you could make it into someone
that makes 15 bucks an hour.
It's up to you.
Question from Ahad.
Thank you for submitting your question.
What are your plans for the next five to 10 years?
We're going to try to grow the business and scale up.
So our plans are to be at a million dollars
within a year and a half.
And in 10 years,
we want to be a $10 million company.
Awesome.
This is from Adrian Walker.
Best part of being a business owner?
Freedom.
So, well, not having a boss.
Now, your customers are your boss to some extent,
but you get to choose them.
This is from Aria A.
How did the pandemic affect your business?
The pandemic grew my business, believe it or not.
I have probably grown 15% since the pandemic began.
People want to do work on their houses.
You know, they have extra money
and they want to do it in their house.
Awesome.
How do you know how long a job will take?
Walk us through the process of estimating correctly
and not overbooking yourself and, you know, that process.
So you're going to, when you first start,
you're going to overbook yourself.
Inevitable?
Inevitable.
And so it's about paying attention and revising.
But there are also a lot of great resources out for you.
We use HomeWise and they,
it's kind of like having a book time for a car.
They'll tell you what is industry standard in your area.
And then you can use that as a benchmark,
but then you kind of have to play off of that and say,
okay, this is what they say it's going to take.
How long is it going to take me?
And can I either give a better price to my customer
or take a little bit more profit off of it?
Okay.
Are you taking any different new steps
to continue to scale your business?
If so, what are those things that you're doing?
Absolutely.
Because of the success of the website,
I have pretty much tapped out my ability
to make money by myself.
So I've started to try to hire.
I'm bringing out a business partner
and then I've hired a marketing director
and we're working on handyman systems.
So we want to offer people that are new
to handyman businesses and service businesses
sort of an easy way in to the business side
of handyman businesses.
How do you plan to do that more specifically?
Well, we have a website coming out
and we will have some online classes
and tutorials and all that kind of stuff.
What is demand like for handyman
and where would a new handyman look
for more connections with customers?
If you start a handyman business right now,
you will immediately get phone calls
from real estate people
and like people who are managing condominiums.
Wow, so that high.
And that's by just starting a business.
They will get your phone number
because there's so much demand,
at least in our area in Seattle,
there's so much demand that I wouldn't hesitate
to guarantee that you will have some work.
People will be knocking on your door.
You really don't have to do a ton.
Now, the whole point of getting good jobs
is creating that website and doing all that stuff.
That's how you get your pick of who you want to work for.
So if you just want to work for a contractor,
you can make a relationship with a couple of contractors
or you can make a relationship
with a couple of real estate people.
But typically, they're going to charge 30% on top of you.
So if you want to go direct a customer,
which is what I do, and charge what they charge,
that's why I can charge $100 an hour
because I am not using a third party.
I go direct a customer and that makes me more money.
Okay, yeah, as a real estate agent,
man, I only have like two people on my contact list.
I'm like, where are the handyman
that actually know what they're doing,
they're on time and they're professional like you.
So boom, that's awesome.
Too bad you're not in Bellingham.
So it's you and another full-time employee.
Yep.
Curious about your workload.
Is it hard to get time off as an owner?
It's pretty hard to get time off like on a weekly basis
because there's a lot going on.
But the nice part about owning your own business
is if you schedule it,
you can take as many vacations as you want.
So I probably work 50 to 50 hours, 55 hours a week.
But I'll take a week vacation every three to four months.
So there's parts of it that are hard,
but by the end of it, if you're running a business well,
I think that what you're doing for fun
is running your business.
That's kind of what I do for fun nowadays
is try to grow and figure out how to run my business.
That's awesome.
I have other hobbies too,
but that's the major one right now.
What's your favorite hobby?
My favorite hobby is Scrabble.
I love playing Scrabble.
Little chess every once in a while.
Nice.
And then I love watching the Seahawks too.
Awesome, we love the Seahawks.
Go Hawks.
And you guys, if you're enjoying this video,
please take a second, subscribe, like this video,
and you will support Caleb as well by doing that.
What else can you share with us
in terms of hiring employees, finding the best talent?
What do you look for to find the right team?
So we try to focus on our core values.
And rather than trying to hire somebody
with the right skillset that has different values than us,
we're gonna look for people that have the same values as us
and then train them up on the skills.
Can you share with us what are your core values?
Yeah, core values are trust first,
value your customers' time,
and what's the last one?
It's work for your customers.
And you look for that in everybody you interview.
Absolutely.
So rather than having somebody that has different values,
then we want to bring them in and try to train them up.
What's the most challenging thing for you as a handyman
and what's the most rewarding thing?
Most challenging is definitely scheduling.
If you're gonna service five customers a week
and something runs long and you're booked out six weeks,
then you might have to reschedule 25 people.
So that can be really challenging.
And that's where having a great system comes in handy.
If you're just trying to do that off the top of your head,
you're gonna miss a lot of things.
But if you have everything in one place,
if you have a piece of software that can inform everybody,
it makes something that's hard
into something that's doable.
If I didn't have that,
I think I don't know that I would have ever stuck with this
because you do have time overruns.
And if you can't effectively reschedule people,
then you're gonna hate your life.
Scheduling, okay.
What about rewarding?
What are the rewards of this business for you personally?
Yeah, for me, it might sound corny,
but it's just being of service to people.
I take pride in the fact that there are some people out
there, if their toilet stops running
and they need somebody to call, they call me
and I can help them.
And I enjoy making money from that,
but it's not all about the money.
Part of it is helping my neighbors and countrymen.
What type of jobs does a handyman do?
Are there jobs that you absolutely won't take
from a financial standpoint and things like that?
When I first started out, I did a lot bigger jobs.
I would get into the medium-sized remodels
and I found that I made more money
doing the small work than I did.
One of the other things we have done recently
is in the first couple of years,
I was doing a lot of exterior work
and we're in the Pacific Northwest and it rains a lot.
So we targeted our marketing to try to advertise
to more interior work.
And that's nice because it just keeps me
out of the rain a little bit.
You wanted to get out from the rain.
A little bit.
I don't mind a little bit, I'll do it,
but if given the choice, I'll be inside.
Seattle is rainy.
So it's something that you can easily do, right?
In terms of shifting who you want to target.
Absolutely, yeah, it's even easier
if you have a website and you can target market.
And that comes from the combination
of having a business coach, having a website
and having target marketing.
Earlier in the video, we told you
that Caleb's gonna share an incredible tip
to the success of his business when it comes to systems.
So Caleb, why don't you specifically share
what those things are
and what turned your business around?
Sure, so when a client is looking
for North Seattle Handyman,
they get routed to my website.
They input all their information in
and that goes to a Google form.
Once that Google form goes to that,
we have a third party software called Zapier,
which connects other parts of the business.
They send that to an email for me
that gives me all that information upfront
so I can see it all in one email thread.
It also sends it to my customer management system.
And in that customer management system,
what that does is it keeps everything in one place.
So I can invoice, I can talk to the other customers
through that system, I can schedule through that system.
I can do everything in one spot,
which makes it so that if I have to change things,
I can do it easily and efficiently.
Okay, and what did that do to your business ultimately?
I mean, it's made it so that I can't,
I've hit my ceiling.
The only way for me to make more money
at this point is to hire people.
And that customer platform is called Field Pulse.
Field Pulse, yeah.
Field Pulse, okay.
They've been great.
What are you spending monthly on the subscriptions
for these three, four platforms?
Maybe a hundred bucks.
That's it?
Yeah.
That's not much.
So for those not using it,
they're really missing out on-
I would say so, yeah.
In conclusion, any just general advice
to young entrepreneurs, people currently in this industry
looking at this video,
what would you tell them?
Just three pieces of advice.
Three pieces of advice.
One is get started.
Go to your friends, go to those people,
but start a website.
Two is treat your customers like people
and they'll treat you like a person.
Third piece of advice is systemize, systemize, systemize.
The more you systemize, the easier life becomes.
Awesome.
Caleb, this has been wonderful.
We learned a lot.
We've learned a lot.
So thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
Thanks for coming out.
I trust you guys enjoyed this really fun episode
with North Seattle Handyman.
Took away advice that you will implement
and execute a new business starting right now.
Take a second, like this video,
subscribe to our channel.
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We do this for you.
And thank you for watching.
