My Favorite Tools

I’d like to start off by talking about a few of my favorite tools:

· Cordless Brad Nailer - This thing is so useful! It’s obviously great for things like installing baseboard and trim, but I also use it to tack things into place temporarily in a way that I can easily and quickly remove them. The main goal is to get rid of the need for a large compressor and this does the trick.

· Hammer Drill - My main go-to drill is a simple and affordable DeWalt dual purpose drill/hammer drill. This thing is outstanding for small simple tasks like drilling into a cement foundation for installing bypass door guides, bifold door anchors, and gate latches. I also keep a 120V plug in hammer drill for larger masonry projects. The cordless versions have a shorter life span so I try to reserve them for the light duty work.

· Titanium Shears - These titanium shears have quickly become my favorite. I’ve gone through dozens of brands, shapes, and sizes, all of which I trashed quickly. This pair here made by Wiss has stood the test of time for the last 4 years and they’re still as sharp as the day I bought them!

· Gorilla Ladder - I love this ladder! It’s small, but it will get me up to where I can reach most standard ceilings for light fixtures. It’s well balanced with a perfect spot to carry it in the middle without crushing your fingers. It’s sturdy too.

·  Cordless Compressor - This small DeWalt compressor cost me $260 and enabled me to never have to carry my large compressor ever again. Sure if I ever end up framing a shed I might need to bring along the big one, but until then, this little guy does everything I need without extension cords and without taking up too much space in the van. Fast And Light!

One last note, although it’s not a tool, I purchase rags in bulk at Home Depot all the time and I’m never without a clean stack. They come in handy a dozen times a day and don’t cost much at all. Just fill up a garbage bag with dirty ones over the course of a month and toss them all in the wash when full.

Splitting Up Large Punch Lists With Maintenance Limits

Most property managers have an agreement with their home owners that they will not need to seek approval for jobs totaling under $350 for regular maintenance or $650 for emergencies. This is called a Maintenance Limit or a DNE (Do Not Exceed). Some have different price targets but they pretty much all have this type of limit. When you’re new to the handyman business you might be stressed and trying to figure out how to do $450 worth of maintenance for $350, but there are three alternate solutions here.

1. Split the job up. Focus on the most important tasks first such as any leaking water, inoperable smoke detectors or other safety equipment, and doors or windows that won’t lock. Complete the tasks that endanger the home or the tenants of the home. Track your pricing throughout so that you can draw the line and stop once you’re about to exceed the maintenance limit. Note: Make sure that your property manager is on board with this. For the remaining work you can take your measurements and pictures or pull your paint samples to make your next trip more efficient. Once the initial tasks are completed you can invoice and give the property manager the option of approving the remaining work immediately or transferring the remaining work to a new work order to be completed the next month.

2. If the property manager is generally easy to reach on the phone you can build an estimate on your phone quickly with individual line items to be approved or denied in Jobber and send it directly to their cell or email for immediate approval. Oftentimes tenants will point out other issues that were not on the original work order, which I would also add to this estimate for them to approve or deny. Don’t forget that many of the tasks such as leaks can be classified as emergencies, raising the total pricing window up to $650. If you have a great rapport with your property manager you might even take a verbal approval but I recommend doing everything in writing with signatures if you’re not very embedded with their company. 

3. The last option that you will hopefully not need to exercise is to simply take all of your measurements, photos, and paint samples and leave the job without doing any work while still having everything you’ll need for your return once the work is approved. Again, in this situation, you’ll have everything you need for your return trip without an extra trip to Home Depot. I HIGHLY recommend looking around the home for additional punch list items to be completed and talking to the tenant to make sure that they have reported all of the maintenance issues. Once you have your list and pictures you can write up one full estimate for the job and send that out to the Property Manager for approval. Again, I recommend using Optional Line Items with the Jobber software so that your PM can quickly and easily approve the tasks that they want done with transparent pricing.

If you’re not familiar with Jobber CRM, I do host Free Webinars to teach the basics and there are plenty of deep dives on my channel where I take you into the software to show you everything it can do for your business. You can register for the next Free Webinar on Sunday, September 8 here https://streamyard.com/watch/PMuXBJium9z4 or the following Suday, September 15 here https://streamyard.com/watch/eRC93p58UJbZ

If you’d like to follow along during the Webinar you can click here for a free 14 day trial with my exclusive 20% discount. https://go.getjobber.com/bulletproofhandyman

 On another note, Jobber will be unveiling  a ton of  new and exciting features at a live online event on September 25. Some of these new features are going to be REALLY EXCITING for many of you, especially if you’re just getting started. Additionally, Jobber has recently launched new “individual plans” that are about 40% cheaper than the pricing you’ve seen in the past. Most of their plans are almost half the price that they once were, and this is not a temporary discount. It’s just the new pricing for individual owner/operators! If you’d like to join me at the online unveiling event you can click here to register! https://go.getjobber.com/Bulletproof-Handyman-JobberNow

Open Spots Still Available At The “Handyman Oasis Campout!”

Finally, as if we haven’t talked about Jobber enough already, don’t forget that they’re sponsoring “The Handyman Oasis Campout” down here in Arizona September 20 – 22! This is a free service to you where I’ll be hosting you as my guest. The invitation is open to any and all channel subscribers along with their friends and family. I’ll be providing all of the gear and food. I’ll be setting up and taking down the entire camp for you. I’ll also be providing fishing gear and bait and doing all of the cooking and cleaning.  

This will be a full service camping trip thanks to Jobber! We still have plenty of spots open so if you think you can make it down here by September 20, you can click here to RSVP your group https://forms.gle/VEuxNbvdB5Fz7WtLA and click here to view the event on the Facebook Events Page https://fb.me/e/2kqGmSoLu

How To Handle CRAZY Clients

We had a tenant once that we called “Bitter Orange Crazy Lady” because… well… she was crazy! The Property Manager warned me in advance that this lady was crazy and not to feel bad if she ran me off. The first trip was for a sliding screen door. This should be a 15 minute job, but not with Bitter Orange Crazy Lady. She wanted to get right up into the job with me. She scanned the digital code on the box to bring up the installation video on YouTube and wanted me to watch it with her to install the door step by step. I politely declined a hundred times over the course of the next 30 minutes and she was NOT HAPPY. 

However, once she saw that my job was to install a door rather than to install a door HER WAY, she finally relented. I fixed a couple of other very minor issues that she asked about for free just to make her happy and she actually called the Property Manager to report that I was “the first good handyman” he had sent to her. Apparently she had already run off a handful of “bad handymen” in the last few months.

Then… it was time for round two. She immediately submitted a new work order for some non-existent mold near her front door and of course she was in a hurry to schedule. At that time I consolidated my scheduling to the evenings every other day or every few days. Instead of waiting on me to call her, she called me to schedule while I was on my way to a job. I politely informed her that I couldn’t do scheduling at that time because I wasn’t home with my scheduling materials. She insisted multiple times and I continued to POLITELY decline. 

Eventually she hung up the phone on me abruptly and called the Property Manager to get him to intercede, which he also politely declined. Finally, she demanded that I never be sent to her property again. Sounds Good To Me!!! The property manager was happy in the end since I got the actual legitimate work done, which no other handyman had been able to do. 

A few months later her lease came up for renewal and the Property Manager politely declined to renew her lease. 

The End…

Scheduling With Arrival Windows

Quick Tip: Schedule your jobs with arrival windows. I’ve touched on this in the past. Arrival windows are standard in the home services industry. If you’d like to start the job at 9am then schedule an arrival window for arrival between 9am and 10am. Do this with every job throughout your day and the intricacies and nuances of each job won’t impact your schedule too badly when things go wrong. Interestingly, when I scheduled for precise arrival times in the past the clients would be angry if I was 10 minutes late, but when I schedule a window they usually praise me for having a window of 1 hour because most other businesses have arrival windows spanning from a few hours up to a whole day. They appreciate knowing that they only need to wait around for one hour instead of half the day!

Can I Interview You?

Interviews

I’m trying to jump back into interviews with channel subscribers again! Our community is thirsty for knowledge and advice and I can only provide that from my very limited experience with my particular niche serving Property Managers. 

Believe it or not, they want to hear from everyone regardless of experience level or background. It doesn’t matter if you are just now getting your plans together to launch your business in a few months or if you’re already an experienced 30 year contractor, as Rick Sutton (an amazing interview that I just published this week) was.  You can watch that interview here https://youtu.be/6kLoRYw4dTs

Everyone has something to bring to the table, even if it’s just ideas and smart questions. If you’re interested in being interviewed for the channel please send me an email at [email protected] with the word “Interview” in the subject line and I’ll reach out to get you scheduled! 

Accidents On The Job

Given enough time, things will go wrong. That’s just life. No matter how careful you are, Murphys Law will eventually catch up with you. If you’ve damaged the clients property, or caused injury to anyone other than yourself, you’ll likely need to consider filing an insurance claim. The first step should be to analyze what it’s going to take to remedy the situation. If it’s nothing more than a hole in the drywall to be patched you should consider not filing a claim because this is something that you can fix yourself or you can sub it out affordably. 

Once you file a claim your insurance rates will increase and oftentimes it’s more affordable over the long term to take the hit and not have your rates increased. However, if there are any injuries to the clients or tenants then you’ll want to file immediately because these can turn into something much bigger than they initially appear. Additionally if the damage you’ve caused looks like it could add up into the high single digit thousands or tens of thousands of dollars then I’d also suggest filing a claim. 

If and when you do decide that a claim needs to be filed, do it immediately. Insurance companies have a bad reputation of not paying out, but that hasn’t been my experience listening to all of you who watch the channel. Typically if you file a claim fast, they will get there fast, often same day or next day. Insurance companies don’t want these things to drag out with lawyers and court cases. The experiences that y’all have told me about almost always end with a check being written almost immediately. Sure, they may not like having to pay out, but they would rather pay out a fair amount immediately than to spend additional thousands of dollars on attorneys fees and run the risk of a judge ordering absurdly high payments to a professional victim. 

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank NEXT Insurance for sponsoring this newsletter. They are the reason I’m able to take time from the business to sit down and build the newsletter for all of you. If your business is not insured, or if you’d just like to get a quote to see if NEXT Insurance can save you money, you can click here for a free quote. https://nextinsurance.sjv.io/PyVJGN

Age In Place - The Next Big Thing For Home Service Providers

The concept of aging in place, where seniors choose to live independently in their homes as they age, is not just a trend but a growing necessity. This shift presents a unique business opportunity for us and other home service providers. Here's how you can position your Bulletproof Handyman Business to be prepared for this upcoming industry.

 1. Understanding Aging-in-Place Needs: Seniors require homes that are safe, comfortable, and accessible. This often means renovations for ADA compliance, including wider doorways, ramps, grab bars, and modifications to kitchens and bathrooms. Knowledge in these areas can set you apart.

 2. Embracing Smart Home Technologies: The integration of smart home devices can significantly enhance the lives of the elderly. Offering services like installing voice-activated controls, automatic doors, and safety systems not only adds value but also positions you as a forward-thinking provider.

 3. Building B2B Relationships: Real estate companies focusing on senior living or properties adapted for aging in place are potential clients. These firms need reliable handymen for both initial renovations and ongoing maintenance, offering a stable income stream through long-term contracts.

 4. Leveraging Government and Non-Profit Programs: There are various programs, like HUD grants, aimed at helping low-income seniors modify their homes. By partnering with or being recommended by these programs, you ensure a steady flow of work tailored to accessibility and safety upgrades.

 5. Marketing to the Right Audience: Your marketing should emphasize safety, independence, and comfort. Highlight how your services enable loved ones to remain at home longer, resonating with both seniors and their families who are often the decision-makers.

 6. Certification and Training: Investing in training for aging-in-place design and ADA compliance can enhance your service offerings. These certifications not only improve your service quality but also build trust with clients who are investing in significant home modifications.

 7. Community Engagement: Engage with local senior communities through workshops, seminars, or partnerships with senior centers. Offering free home assessments for aging-in-place needs can also generate business by demonstrating your expertise and care.

 Now is the time to start learning the ADA regulations and to start looking closely at where the funding comes from so that you can position yourself to be the go-to provider if and when the opportunity presents itself.

Free Marketing With Social Media

The most overlooked avenue of marketing has to be social media! I’m in a great position here to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t due to the vast number of you who constantly email me to let me know how things are going. One of the patterns I’ve seen is that those who take the time to get their business on every social media channel, along with getting their clients to subscribe or follow, get tons of business this way.

Once they’re subscribed or following you, they get constant reminders that you exist. That’s really all it takes. Imagine your client with a small punch list of things that are building up. They plan on eventually calling someone, or eventually taking a Saturday to do it themselves but they never quite get around to it. Then, all of the sudden on a random Wednesday night a video of your latest project scrolls into their feed. You just got free marketing, or at least all it cost you  was a few minutes of uploading.

If any of you currently have social media for your business, or even if you’re trying to grow and build your own channel as a side business, please let me know and send me a link to your channels. I’ll happily like and subscribe. Better yet, join me on a live stream and I’ll share your link with the community as well! There is plenty of room for all of us to succeed and that’s what I want to see, everyone succeeding.

And Finally… I Love You Guys, I Hope You’re All Out There Killin’ It, And I’ll See You On The Next One!