The Handyman's Guide To Profit

By A. William Benitez

When the economy crashed in 2008 millions lost jobs, many struggled for years and it's repeated in 2020 during this pandemic and many are still struggling to catch up either without jobs or with low-paying jobs. Unemployment figures have gone down but that's deceiving because many are still working two or more jobs to make ends meet. Companies are still cutting back to reduce cost and increase profit and technology is replacing many jobs. And, once the a job is gone, the money stops. Unlike jobs, the handyman business is here to stay. As long as there are homes, apartments, offices, and other buildings, repairs will be needed and you can do them with limited skills and tools.

 

I faced having dwindling savings and no time to find a job. I didn't own a truck but I purchased and outfitted a small trailer with all the handyman tools I needed, most of which I had from working on our home, and hit the ground running. After just a few inexpensive ads I was working everyday and making a decent living. At first most of the jobs were small and could have easily been handled by someone with limited experience and that was good because money flowed promptly. As time passed I started taking larger jobs and gradually moved from just handyman work to small remodeling jobs. Finally, I purchased a pickup, rented a small shop, and progressed to larger woodworking projects which I continued for over twenty five years.

 

My book, The Handyman's Guide To Profit, contains complete details and instructions for starting and successfully operating your handyman business. Based entirely on first-hand experience so you avoid costly mistakes. Like losing a good job, a business failure can be traumatic and impose a serious financial hardship but with a few handyman skills anyone can quickly start making money. I know that first hand and my book The Handyman's Guide To Profit: Using Your Skills To Make Money In Any Economy, 2020 Revised Edition, can help you do the same on a full time or part time basis.

 

If you are in an unsatisfying employment situation, my book, The Handyman's Guide To Profit, 2020 Revised Edition, can help you start immediately making money with your home repair skills. Based on more than 30 years of personal, first-hand, self-employment experience in home repair and woodworking, it's a complete course on succeeding in the home repair business. I cover every step from getting started to the day-to-day operation of the business using methods that worked for me for many years. This is no pie in the sky romancing about self employment. It takes good home repair and business skills to operate a business successfully and now you can learn exactly how to use your present skills to succeed financially in the handyman business.

 

The Handyman's Guide To Profit - 2020 Revised Edition helps you avoid losing money and many other potential problems encountered during your business startup. I won't tell you that this is easy to do. It,s a lot of work but my book covers everything that worked for me for over 30 years.

 

With that information you will work effectively and profitably and enhance your present skills while operating a financially successful full-time or part-time handyman business. You can start small and either grow a larger business or simply stay small and use your skills as a lucrative sideline. The choice is yours.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mikael Publishing
• Release date: Feb 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201090449

A. William Benitez

From age twelve I spent my summers and weekends working with my dad, a general contractor, building homes and buildings. I contracted my first home at age nineteen and built my own home by age twenty. I’ve operated one-person businesses for more than 30 years. Twelve years of my life were spent working for local government managing federally-funded housing programs. I started as an inspector with a three month assignment and left as Director of Community Improvement with 78 employees twelve years later to do writing and consulting. Writing, Publishing and Consulting I established Rehab Notes Library, a publishing company that published a monthly newsletter (Rehab Notes) with subscribers in all 50 states, Canada and England and nine books on housing related topics. I also did consulting and public speaking on housing related topics for agencies and organizations in cities across the country. After 1980 when most federal funding was pulled from housing activities, I took advantage of my construction and business experience and started a handyman and woodworking business. Over Twenty-Five Years of Woodworking For over twenty-five years, first in Tampa, Florida and then in Austin, Texas, I built hundreds of small and large cabinet and furniture projects for individuals, companies and government agencies. During these years I began writing books about my experiences. Positive Publishing My company, Positive Imaging, LLC at http://positive-imaging.com, does what I call positive publishing for my books and the books of other authors. To date I've published over a hundred print and ebooks and presently have several books in various levels of completion.   

Book preview

Introduction

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

Unemployment compensation programs were overwhelmed with applicants for assistance and many people have reached the end of their eligibility and still don’t have a job.

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

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

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

At that time, a report on CNN News indicated the average hourly income for a handyman was more than $17.00 per hour. Even though wages are still flat, home repair is paying more now and by developing additional skills this amount can be much higher.

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

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

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

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

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

Tools and Work Vehicle

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

Licensing, Accounting, and Taxes

Once your inventories are complete and you feel ready to get started with the business, it’s time to determine all of the licensing, accounting, and tax issues you will face. This varies greatly depending on the community where you live and the level of work you will be doing. It certainly won’t be the same for someone who is doing small jobs on the weekend as for someone working the business full-time. The important thing is to get all of this worked out before contacting a single customer. Chapter Five helps you make certain to adhere to community requirements for your business. And, to make certain you meet all Internal Revenue Service tax codes, it describes the best ways to handle the necessary accounting procedures for any successful business.

Getting Started

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

Using Your Computer and The Internet

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

How Much To Charge

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

Contracting Jobs

Some