All Inclusive Handyman Retreat - 6 Reservations Left!

All Inclusive Handyman Retreat  – We still have 6 spots left for our “Handyman Oasis Cabin Stay” in February. Thanks to one of our channels most generous and supportive sponsors, NEXT Insurance, we have a cabin right down the road from Tombstone, AZ this year. NEXT has been gracious enough to pay for the entire weekend of February 7 – February 9 for some family time for all of us.  I’ll be hosting you, providing all the meals and doing all of the cooking and cleaning. If you would like to learn more or to sign up for the weekend you can do so here https://forms.gle/GVdSELSgpXqCfhys9 

This cabin stay weekend is the perfect way to get time with me and other like minded handymen to talk shop, trade ideas, or just relax with loved ones in a cozy cabin. We’ll all head down to Tombstone on Saturday for some good old fashioned touristy stuff too!

More importantly, please stop and take a moment to thank the sponsor of this weekend getaway by getting yourself a business insurance quote from NEXT insurance. Even if you’re already insured, it never hurts to see what competitors rates are. You might find out they’re the best option for your company. Whatever you do please don’t ever purchase anything from my sponsors that isn’t truly the best option for you and your company. You can get your quote from NEXT by clicking here https://nextinsurance.sjv.io/PyVJGN

Dryer Vent Cleaning – A Simple And Profitable Service

Well this isn’t exactly new to everyone, but my business has suddenly started getting requests for dryer vent cleanings despite the high price. We previously performed basic cleaning just at the dryer connection for $15 as part of a move out without trying to sell a full dryer vent cleaning. However we had a couple jobs in a row where a full vent cleaning was required due to the dryers not being able to dry clothes anymore. We bought the cheap little kit and knocked them out at an unusually high price of $150 and the property managers didn’t seem to mind. In fact, suddenly since we knocked out a couple, we’re starting to get more and more requests for what appears to be a backlog of clogged dryer vents. 

It appears that our property managers are figuring out that these full cleanings typically solve problems that were previously recurring work orders to call out appliance repair techs. Now, when they have a dryer not working efficiently it looks like they’re just sending those directly to us to clean the vent. We charge $150 and typically take about 45 minutes beginning to end. Not a bad rate! I’ll be adding this to my custom line items and likely advertising it as a standalone service in 2025. 

NEXT IS THE BIG CHANGES FOR 2025 – THIS IS THE YEAR OF GROWTH!

Business Change #1 – Charge More For 2025

First and foremost, I’ll be raising my prices more significantly in 2025 than I have in the past. Three years ago I officially bumped up my trip fee from $100 to $125 and I started trying to make sure that I was averaging at least $100 per hour (often more) for time spent on the job. Those changes were mostly just to get my pricing in line with the industry as I learned my way around the Property Management world.

Typically I’ve tried to slowly bump up my prices over time but inflation has been so bad that I’m going to have to go ahead and make a step change. This time around I’ll be raising my trip fee for small one-off jobs from $125 to $150. This means that even small jobs, no matter how easy, will cost a minimum of $150 just to show up. Typically my trip fee covers the first half hour (not an official policy) or less if the job commands a premium price such as electrical or plumbing.

My business is also increasing it’s own internal hourly rate this year. Please remember I do not charge hourly or provide any hourly rates to my clients. This rate is simply the minimum that I’m hoping to stay above as an average over time. Previously I’ve preached that $100 is a decent starting place for a typical busy city, and that $125 is where I am really happy. Starting January 1^st I’ll be bumping that rate up to $125 per hour as the starting place while looking for $150 per hour as the overall goal. 

One big question I’ve already received during my live streams is whether I’ll be contacting my Property Managers to inform them and how I’ll go about informing them. I will not be officially informing my Property Managers since we do not currently operate on a Trip Fee + Hourly agreement. I will simply start charging more and it will be up to them to notice and to initiate a discussion if they feel it is necessary. However I don’t anticipate any issues since my two largest clients have both increased their maintenance limits (the amount I can charge without pre-approval) during the latter half of 2024.

Another big question I’ve received is whether or not I’ll be updating my “Jobs List With Pricing” Spreadsheet and my “Custom Line Items or CSV” files for y’all to download. The short answer is yes, I will be updating everything throughout the year. The long answer is… it will take some time. I cannot yet take multiple full days to adjust my pricing for every line item. Instead I’ll be updating them as I move through the videos that I’ll be making for my new kits and processes. Stay tuned for more on that further down this newsletter. 

My custom line items CSV and my Jobs List With Pricing spreadsheet can be downloaded here directly from my businesses Jobber account along with my other free business documents https://clienthub.getjobber.com/client_hubs/f45a32c2-ec8e-4b16-aa4a-372140c41206/public/work_request/new?source=social_media and then uploaded into your Jobber account, if you use Jobber. Once uploaded you’ll have all of my custom line items that I use for billing and estimating available for you to use directly in your Jobber account. Please keep in mind that I do not recommend using them as-is. You should review them and adjust the wording and pricing to better match your business first. 

I recommend downloading the “Jobs List With Pricing” on a more frequent basis, as you see me dropping more videos relating to specific jobs, kits, processes, and pricing throughout the year. Each time I drop a new video covering a new class of jobs I’ll also update the jobs list with pricing sheet for you to download. 

For more details about how to use my CSV files and the Jobs List With Pricing Spreadsheet you can also refer to these videos here. First, the “Jobs List With Pricing” video https://youtu.be/1JARs3HK5d8 Second the “2025 Pricing Guide” https://youtu.be/8C4Y_I-w740 And finally the “Know Your Numbers” Video https://youtu.be/eL2XcevNqzE  All of these videos are brand new and cover a lot of useful pricing information. 

To attend my free (never any paywalls on this channel)  webinars covering how to use these custom line items to streamline your estimating and invoicing process as well as my general administrative workflow, you can register here:

DECEMBER 28, 2024  https://streamyard.com/watch/sB7QrXhWYsBh

January 4, 2025 https://streamyard.com/watch/mRy2YzYawDSg

January 11, 2025 https://streamyard.com/watch/V2VJCQZbv4kJ

January 18, 2025 https://streamyard.com/watch/xu6caAqm5ZVm

January 25, 2025 https://streamyard.com/watch/K9tJeKeFTpCm

For a free 14 day trial of Jobber along with an exclusive 20% discount to use during the webinar click here https://go.getjobber.com/bulletproofhandymanBusiness Change

Business Change #2 – Shifting To W2 Hourly Employees

Note:  I will still subcontract complex larger jobs out to my experts unless or until I can find great W2 employees to take those jobs over.  Example: My paint and drywall guy will still do most of my larger drywall patches and full interior / full exterior paint jobs.

In an effort to build this business into something that can run without me, I’ll be officially transitioning to an employee model rather than a sub-contractor model for the majority of the simple handyman work.  This isn’t a rushed process, but rather a natural and organic growth that should move us one step closer to something that can franchised.  While I have no plans on franchising, a business that could be franchised is the kind of business that can stand on it’s own and can scale exponentially. 

I’ll be starting my son at $30 per hour which will keep him at a comfortable base income, but with the agreement that he has UNLIMITED overtime available.  I want him motivated to take over this company some day so I never want him viewing this job as a M-F 8-5 kind of job.  Being a business owner is 24/7. Any employees that I hire beyond him (which is very likely in the spring) will be hired on at a minimum of $15 per hour with no experience, up to $25 per hour with strong experience.  Any additional licenses they may carry will increase the wage accordingly. 

Shifting to hourly employees will involve many of the following changes:

1. Kits & Processes – You’ll see even more videos for my kits and processes in the coming months as I do plan to utilize my son as the test bed for developing and deploying the kits and processes.  I’ll be starting with the most common jobs (See “The Most Common Handyman Jobs For One Year!”  https://youtu.be/J9CcfOdvXhs ) and building the new kits and writing the new processes one at a time as we deploy and test them in the field.  As I build each new kit I’ll put out a video showing the kit, describing and demonstrating the process, and then uploading the documents for your usage as well.  

2. Documentary Content - As I build each kit and film the corresponding videos I’ll also attempt to include a separate “How Much To Charge” video along with providing the latest Jobs List With Pricing document to reflect the newest pricing in my documents.  (See “How Much To Charge For Door Replacement Or Repairs” https://youtu.be/efXDzCP6M6M )

3. Company Vehicles – With W2 employees I’ll need to either reimburse mileage or provide vehicles.  A few jobs per day could easily rack up as much as $50 per day in mileage for me to pay based on the IRS standard mileage rates.  This would be $250 per week or over $1,000 per month.  At that price it may be better for me to purchase used company vans.  This would also serve as a tax write off for the business while building up business assets in the form of fleet vehicles.  Be on the lookout for some new videos about buying company vehicles, fleet maintenance, gps tracking, commercial auto insurance and other topics related to using company owned vehicles.

4. Systems – Employees will require systems and I’ll be sharing mine as I stumble through the process of creating them.  Ideally I’ll have an Office Manager (more on that in just a minute) who will be able to utilize my custom line items and jobs list to import and assign each new job.  The custom line items will come with instructions for which kits to bring.  The kits will come with inventories, tools, and instructions for other required tools or materials, and instructions on how to do the job.  The instructions should hopefully come with links for Bulletproof Handyman videos on how to do the job if the employee forgets their training.  (More about training later too).  Once refined, we should have a system that will automate 90% of the most common jobs, leaving only 10% to be attended to personally by myself or my manager.

5. QuickBooks – Although I already utilize QuickBooks for my payroll and expense tracking, I’m currently using it on a very personal and individualized basis.  With hourly employees I’ll need a much more deliberate usage of QuickBooks to ensure that every expense documented and tracked appropriately.  It is likely that my employees will need access to a company card or company account while on the road which will make QuickBooks even more necessary.  Expect for me to finally dive into the functionality and use cases of QuickBooks and to be making some more refined content on how a small trades business can harness this software for profit and streamlining.  You can check out QuickBooks here https://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-101021170-13526858

6. Office Manager – Most importantly, I’ll be needing to invest nearly all of my time into developing processes, systems, kits, inventories, and work flows and I’ll hopefully have the time to film and share all of this with you. This will require that I have an office manager or else I’ll be spending my time managing the administrative work rather than actually building the business. I do already have someone in mind and hopefully we’ll start something part time in the next month or so. Her job will be essentially everything involved with receiving new jobs, importing them into our Jobber software, assigning the jobs out, scheduling, follow ups, invoicing, and most of the communications with our clients. 

7. Heavy CRM and Software Reliance – We’ll likely dive even deeper into the functionality of Jobber and some of their connected apps to fully utilize the employee management aspects as it pertains to scheduling, expense tracking, gps tracking and timesheets, commissions, job documentation, etc…

8. Employee Training – My prior military and civilian aviation training taught me a lot about  the importance of training and specifically the systemization and documentation of training.  We’ll definitely be developing a training program that documents and rewards employees for completing training and making themselves more valuable to the company.

Business Change #3 – Opening Our Doors To Home Owners

2025 is all about growth. As much as we love our Property Managers here, there is a lot of growth opportunity out there for our hourly employees to perform simple jobs that are mostly predictable.  Our growth model will likely happen by bringing on one employee at a time without enough work to keep them fully busy. They can utilize this time to train. However, once they have most of the skills in place, we’ll need more work to keep them busy. Part of this work will come from home owners and will likely include the following aspects:

1. Credit Card on file and/or payment before service. We’ll start with requiring a card on file at the very least. 

2. A new DBA (Doing Business As) Our current company name is designed to appeal to property managers, who are looking for logistics and nothing more. For home owners we’ll likely need a new name along with all of the legal paperwork to operate as two separate DBA’s under the single LLC.

3. Marketing And Branding – Also for home owners, we’ll need to worry about our image so we’ll also be looking into a new logo and a whole new branding kit. This will include uniforms for employees, wraps for the work vans, and all new business cards and stationary. I do not have any affiliate relationship with this company, but I do love smashinglogo for building branding packages.

4. Website & Optimization – Home owners are most likely to find our business by searching online than any other means. This means we’ll need a professional website along with all of the optimization that comes with it to make sure that we’re near the top of the search results. Currently I’m using Wix for my handyman business website as well as for the Bulletproof Handyman website due to the insanely good AI generation abilities and easy editing. I’ll be diving more into building out the best possible websites in a DIY fashion, likely continuing with Wix, but I also hear rumors that GoDaddy is going to finally upgrade their AI experience so there may be more to come on that. For now, I recommend letting the Wix AI build your website and then just replacing a few pictures and descriptions. You can check them out here https://wixstats.com/?a=89872&oc=129&c=2244&s1=

5. Online Booking & Automation – Having employees means needing to keep their schedules full in order to be profitable. One of the ways I’m hoping to do that is to expand the list of simple and predictable services that unskilled employees can accomplish and making those bookable online. Currently Jobber does offer online booking and it will take into account your current schedule and location, drive time, etc.. The goal is to have a website that pulls in home owners for simple predictable jobs and then uses Jobbers AI receptionist to fully book these jobs into the blank spots on the calendars. The online booking is available with or without the AI receptionist, but I’m super excited to show y’all more on this AI receptionist. I’ve tested her out pretty good and she can answer the phone, answer questions, and book jobs and book estimates. This will likely play a major role in the future of this business!

Let Me Know What You Want Most

Merry Christmas! From My Family To Yours, And May Your 2025 Be Full Of Growth Both Professionally And Personally.