Welcome, everybody to the first episode of the handyman success podcast. The purpose of what we’re doing here is really to bring on successful handyman Home Improvement contractors, home service providers that have a proven track record of success in their business, and pick their brain about what they’re doing, what’s working well, what’s not working well, all so that you can learn like about business and what they’re doing and maybe stuff that you can apply in your own life, your own business, but also to be inspired that, you know, whether you’re new, you’re in business for a while you’re struggling, you’re killing it, to hear from fellow business owners, and just be inspired by their story and what they have to say. My name is Jason Call one of the CO hosts with handyman marketing pros. And with me as a man who needs no introduction, Alan Lee.
All right. So excited to be here for the first handyman success podcast. So excited to be launching this content. Like Jason said, my name is Alan Lee, I own and operate, honestly, handyman services here in Sacramento, California. We are going on year number six. And I also own and operate a consulting business called the handyman journey. And Jason and I just had this fantastic idea of coming out with this podcast really, with the sole intent of helping people. So we feel extremely blessed to bring on our first first person that joining us, Paul Pacheco with pjp handyman services. He also does a whole lot more than just that down there in Texas. So, so excited to have you, Paul, how are you doing today?
Thank you guys. Thank you. I’m doing well. Oh, my name is Paul Pacheco. I’m the owner of pjp handyman and pro Jarvan cleaning. And I’m excited to be part of this and hoping we can pick each other’s brain. Yeah, but I’ve been in business now for three years. So yeah, I love it. This is I’m finally enjoying what I do. Awesome, awesome. Well,
with the intent of really digging into people’s business and finding out what their secret sauce might be. Let’s let’s go ahead and start. We’ll ask you to kind of, you know, tell us who you were. Tell us how you got started in the handyman business.
Okay, well, I got started getting tired of being in attics every day doing air conditioning. And I had a lot of air conditioning clients that I would notice they got other issues besides air conditioning their house. Before he knew it, I’d be like, Hey, I can fix Item A or Hey, did you know I can paint your door. And before you knew it, I started building up all kinds of clientele. And I was making more money doing these little Saturday jobs after work jobs. Then I was at my union $30 an hour AC job. So believe it or not that inspired me. And I started praying about it talking to my wife and listening to podcast. And there’s a lot of guys out there. And they made it sound like honestly, it was easy, which really wasn’t. Right, right. But that’s how it happened. I guess I happen on accident. I wasn’t like, Hey, I’m gonna be the best handyman in the world. That wasn’t my goal. My goal was to be an air conditioning tech. But it wore me out I got tired of air conditioning, and I started falling in love with doing home improvement. I’ve been fixing things since I was a kid. So that’s kind of how I grew into that. Like probably you Well, that’s automotive.
So you so you were in the AC the H back industry. How long were you in that for before you started your own business?
I was in there for eight years. And then I worked for General Motors for another seven. Oh, what did you do for General Motors? I did mechanic I started off washing cars and then I went to oil changes and then I became the certify the guy that certified all the cars. That’s what I did. I basically worked on all kinds of used cars.
Okay. Okay. And so So you talked about how business is not necessarily easy. What what are some of the struggles that you had at the very beginning? Starting Oh, man, before starting your business to
doing estimates running around all day, like a chicken with a head. not winning estimates, coming home, going to these estimates and coming down on my wife and saying, Hey, honey, I give out for asthma today. Well, how did it go? I didn’t sell one. That was a struggle. Another struggle was how do I get my name out there? I had all these referrals from church. Thank God I went to a mega church Cornerstone that helped me but I think that was a big struggle is getting my name out there. And that’s when I found Jason and he kind of helped me explode like Ellen. So awesome. Yeah, um, man, I know. We kind of
like was there like anything specific because I remember because we’ve worked together for like, I swear is like two years before you actually like took the leap and like left your job and you you already had like employees working for you and everything. Hi, I’m Annie, we’re still working in H bag. So we’re like, what was there anything like, specific or like that kind of made you pull the trigger? Because I felt like you were like, probably ready to like start it on your own like, a year ago because you had guys working for you. You were doing really well like money wise and marketing and everything was working well, but you stuck with your job. Was there like anything? Like what led you to like, finally bite the bullet and do it full time?
Well, to be honest, there was three things. I’m a Christian, I prayed. And it’s kind of my sound crazy. I wanted God to specifically tell me to quit my job. I waited two years, I never heard that voice. So I kind of would give them ultimatums, you know, the way we are say, God, if you give me enough to quit my job for a year, survive without a job, I’ll quit my job. He did that for two years, I had enough income to quit my job for two years. So ice, I still stayed there. I should have quit two years ago. You’re right. Another thing was, I asked to keep me busy for two weeks constantly for two months, in other words, that I’d have enough work for two weeks or two months straight. That happened to there was so many things that kind of kept pushing on me and telling me to quit my job. But I wanted to hear his voice specifically. And unfortunately, he never told me. But he did everything I asked. And then the third reason was my employer made me quit kind of, they knew I had a business. Because when you’re working for a nice company, and your phone is blowing off the chain, you know what I mean? The guys that I work with would be kind of, Hey, you know, you really need to decide what you want to do. And that was kind of God working through them telling me Hey, if this isn’t for you, I would have guys telling me that I’m I’m not a good AC tech, or I don’t focus so many. It was true. I wasn’t the best because I was focused on the business. And I was kind of double minded. And one day I told my pastor and he’s like, Well, why don’t you just quit, just quit. You’ve got enough money, you got enough income, that’s done everything you wanted to. And my boss told me that day, he said, You need to decide between pjp handyman or Johnson, the AC company. And that helped me I went back to my boss the next week, I said, Hey, Jared, I really appreciate you. And I prayed about it. I thought about it. And you’re right. I’m not fair to my company, by taking not being the best AC tech. And I’m going to quit to focus on my business. And that’s been the best decision I made. If anybody wants to start a handyman business. Don’t do it like me, but I recommend saving up enough money to survive a year. That way, if God forbid, Corona happens, which it made my business explode, as some people that didn’t. You have enough money, and you can relax and go to work and focus on getting clients and being the best handyman.
contractor. So I love what you said there, like focus on getting clients. That’s something that I I tell guys all the time, especially new businesses, like if you want to do this full time, treat it like a full time job, where it’s okay, so you’re just starting out, maybe you’ve got five to 10 hours a week of work. Well, if this is what you want to do full time, then well, you have like 30 hours left in your week, you need to be doing stuff like activities that will directly bring in work. So you know, you mentioned out there like getting jobs. So there’s so many different things that can be like shiny objects of like, ooh, I should look into this, you actually look into that. But the question for new like guys that are just getting started that aren’t full time looking, how do I get more work? Your time should be spent on what’s getting you work directly until you are booked? Correct. And I always respected Paul’s hustle. So we’re friends on Facebook. And so I see his stuff. And I remember like I still see them every once in a while on the weekends. You’ll be out driving with your dog, putting up fliers handing out business cards, or can you like explain like, from the start you did? Like I saw these posts, and then even now i’ll see you with like in the car like your book, you’re full time crazy busy, but you’re still out there, like getting your name out there. I mean, what do you like enjoy going out on those drives? Like is there a reason? Like I guess if you could just talk about that a little bit. I always just appreciate that hustle that you have there.
Yeah, I’ve learned my number one. His thing to do in business is to be getting work and marketing. I’m not a marketing guy like Jason, but that needs to be number one in my head. How do I get more work? How do I keep going? How do I keep getting new clients keep building. I want to keep bringing employees on. There’s people out there that need work. Unemployment pays, but I want to keep hiring people, helping people changing the youth. I love hiring young guys. So I guess that would be it. Okay, that’s it. You know, new people, I enjoy that you’re right. I enjoy taking this cute guy out there looking for work, to be honest. And he sells people he sells. I’ve been to jobs. And this guy has helped sold the job. They’re like, Oh my God, he’s so cute. It builds a relationship. Everybody has dogs. Most people, they love dogs, especially a dog like this. So he helps sell jobs, it’s good to get them out. It shows it on normal. I’m not some contractor. There’s driving the awesome million dollar truck. I’m just a normal average Joe, like you. I’m a family man. Like, Alan, I have a baby. I want people to trust me when I go on that house. I show up with a uniform, I show up. I tell them hey, I’m pjp handyman, I fix a, b and c if your house. What do you want to do?
I leave it like that. That’s huge. That’s huge man, being transparent is probably one of the biggest things that we could do. You know, a lot of times, we try and pump ourselves up, make ourselves sound better than we are sometimes. But really, we’re just we’re just average people who have some tools and have some skills and we want to help people out. You know, we want to bless people with the knowledge that we’ve been given. So I think that’s huge. And I think to go back to your marketing hustle, like I love that, like we coined that term marketing hustle. Because I think the biggest problem that people have when it comes to marketing or finding work, and even with with anything, any struggle that they might have, you mentioned you haven’t you at the beginning, you had to struggle with estimates, right? Any, like people tend to get just good enough at something that sustains them. Right. And so the biggest thing, the biggest issue with marketing is when people get just enough work to sustain themselves, then they stop marketing. They feel like okay, I’m good enough. I don’t need to go out on Saturday anymore with my dog. And I don’t need to put out flyers, right? But it’s that marketing hustle that we need to need to continue plugging into. Because when we like, same with like, if you were gonna spend the night in the woods in the middle of Alaska, right, you’re gonna gather firewood, but they say when you think you have enough firewood, gather more light. Yes, you because you do not want to run out of firewood in the middle of the night you’re gonna freeze to death, right? Just like business. If you don’t want to run out of you don’t want to run out of clients in the middle of winter. Because you’re going to your business is going to go down, you know, so I think that’s huge. That marketing hustle is the key. I think that’s so so wise that you brought that up.
Make that your number one job, you know, I mean getting work market, whether it’s hiring Jason, but I even though I heard Jason and I have a full time marketing person, I still when I’m doing a job, I’ll make a post. Hey, I just clean this dryer vent. Check this out. picture of me and my worker. Boom, it takes me one minute. Hmm. People see that make that your job keep getting work, always thinking and I love
it. I love it. Like one thing I always trained my guys and my consulting clientele is that every single job take a before picture and an after picture. Because that’s that’s marketing right there. You are doing that work. If you’re like, there’s always there’s always unforeseen What do they call it in? What do they call it an investing when you when you have when you lose out on money that you don’t anyways, forgot about the term whatever. It’s okay. So seriously, there’s an unforeseen or I’m trying to remember that that dang terminology. There’s there’s an unforeseen cost when you don’t do something. So like opportunity cost, opportunity cost. Thanks so much Jason. Opportunity Cost, okay. When you go out and do a job, say you make 500 bucks on that job. Great. You made 500 bucks. But if you didn’t take a picture before and after you are missing out on an opportunity cost that is there for you to make more money on that job. If you simply took pictures of that job, posted it on Facebook every single day Instagram and Facebook every single day. Super easy, free thing that everyone can do like this, you are maximizing bad job to its fullest potential.
You are especially if it’s a job you enjoy doing. If it’s in jobs, we don’t really enjoy doing it. I don’t really price it. Yeah, don’t post those. Right. I don’t make a lot of money. You know, I think Alan you talked about do jobs you make money with. If I make money off that job, like my new one that I make a lot of money on is removing satellite dishes. That’s a killer. Money. I charge them 175 bucks. It takes me five minutes, sometimes half an hour. Now. I’ve been posting those and selling that job like hotcakes. Yep. Yeah, satellite dishes and no one
not many people use satellite anymore. So they have all these dishes that these ugly dishes that are on the top of their house that they want down. They want down and like
another thing I did, I made it an actual service. People can go on Facebook. I don’t know if these people know. You can create services on Facebook. They can book an appointment through Facebook. All you have to do is approve it. Now they could book a saddle I’m the only satellite dish remover in San Antonio. That service I’m doing those all week long. I got one tomorrow you know you do one of those a day I’d be happy
that’s awesome that’s a good so I love this topic because BJP handyman Papa Chico he has a whole other business that that’s like a sister company right p2p handyman so if you could talk a bit about pro dryer vent cleaning like I remember when you were like we talked about this you’re like hey, I want to do just like I want something for just dryer vents I make a killing like it’s it’s a great business line I love it’s easy to train somebody to go do it. So I guess explain like what got you into dryer vent cleaning was it that that initial thing of like, like satellites like man this is really easy and it’s really good money I want to do I want to open up a whole company for this was that kind of what it was for dryer vent cleaning?
Well, it started becoming my second number one selling thing instead of fences. I was selling more dryer vents. And I said hey, if I am a driving cleaning company, they’re gonna want to hire me better than a handyman because unfortunately a lot of handyman are known as jack of all trades. We do all kinds of stuff. Show it feels. Yes, you’re right. jackin a truck, whatever. You know, cheap guys don’t even have uniform. I said, I’m going to open up a dryer vent cleaning economy because there’s only 19 in San Antonio at the time, I’m going to rank that baby on the top. And I’m going to keep posting my work. I’m going to become the number one German cleaning company. I’m going to charge a little more, but I’m going to clean it right and that business every day I clean six dryer vents myself. And from that, that’s helping me get in the door and look at their house sell citing sell cocking job sell fences, that $100 driving thing. It’s I don’t make a ton off the $100 you know at 600 bucks a day but I do six but I make money when I go in there and I sell them other jobs and I keep my employees working I get my workers work. So it kind of happened on accident when I talked to Jason I said hey let’s open another business why not it’s simple in Texas to open a business thank God but that business to be honest pjp handyman is up here and revenue pro Jarvan cleaning every year is climbing and climbing. We are almost level with pjp handyman in revenue and it’s just me and and helper every day it’s mean another guy we work and do dryer vents yeah yeah it’s a good service Allah Ellen talked about I remember one time he did a video where he he ran into problems with it and I learned that day from that video don’t ever use that kit that he bought expensive kit I bought a you know professional kit right don’t cheap Yeah, don’t cheap up. But you know what? I started just like that like you. That’s the kid I used for three months. And I kept saying I’m going to put money aside. put money aside to buy me a good kit. Now I own five expensive kits for My Tech’s so I don’t know I guess it happened on accident. But the revenue there is killer. You I do six of those a day. I love cleaning garments. Most of them. Some of them are very dirty.
Yeah. That you said that you had a really horrible one today. Do you mind telling us what went on with that one? Yeah.
Well, I when I go to this certain neighborhoods in California and Texas are have big huge mansions older when I show up to these neighborhoods. I already know they’ve never cleaned their Jarman. It’s gonna be horrible dirty. Sometimes they go up and then they have elbows. So even going to those elbows can be difficult. My worker was on it was a those flagstone roof those so those are very careful. You got to watch it to work on so he was up there and we cleaned that thing like four times and I couldn’t get it cleaned. I was this close to time to client Sir, I’m gonna have to cut your drywall because it’s so clogged because you straight up neglected it. Now I have to cut the drywall. Luckily, with my kid, I was able to put a spring on it and get through the and break it and clean. Oh, great. But I also cleaned his chimney. See I offer the chimney and dryer package. I go do my tech my helper goes and does the dryer. I’m doing the chimney. So instead of making 100 we’re making 200 and half an hour.
That’s great. And getting the rear end like what you touched on earlier you’re getting the relationship that now they know you you provided a great service great customer service, you know likable you know presentable and you’re the guy that they’re going to call for their next home repair. But you know oh Getting them on the dryer vent cleaning like calling them up next year at the same time, there’s a time for that annual dryer vent cleaning. That’s, that’s the beauty of that, like the dryer vent cleaning gets that relationship, you get that annual reoccurring revenue. And and the relationship that opens up like, who knows what?
Yes, almost every house I go to I tell you, if I go do it myself, if I sell stuff that they need, and I tell them, I put them in my calendar, see our phones or our miracle workers or your iPad. Whenever they tell me they want to do it yesterday. I’ll put it on my calendar the same day, and I’ll put yearly, Mr. Jones, and I write down in capital letters yearly. Next year, I know to call him Hey, I’m gonna call you. Now I’m going to do it for 10 bucks cheaper, but I’m going to keep doing it every year. And it’s going to be easier. You’re right. You need there’s so many things you could sell from a dryer vent. Like people don’t even do that. You can sell the vents. I have stocked events in my garage. If they have the aluminum vents, they don’t close all the way. You have to replace that I put a damper on it. It closes they make a dryer jack for the roof. It’s made for dryers a certain company sells it. And I installed roof fence those I charged them 350 that takes me an hour. So there’s just so much drier van cleaning opens the doors, whether it’s l&d doing gutters, maybe that’s his door opener, you know, I mean, right? Some guys like me, I don’t like to do it because I don’t like get my hands dirty. So I don’t like to clean out gutters. Yeah,
but even remodelers. So I we get we work with remodelers. And something I tell them and they originally find us mostly because it’s like, hey, I want to do Home Repair too. I want to do handyman services. And I tell them that handyman services is like your gateway into the remodeling the bigger stuff because anyone that needs a home repair at some point, they’re gonna need remodeling. And those jobs are so much cheaper to get there’s way less competition in the handyman space, cost per lead, all that stuff is so low, so why not pay less to get in that relationship, still make a profit on your home repair stuff. So there’s, you know, it kind of works the same as what you’ve got going with the dryer vent cleaning is just like, get in there and do what you can do super efficiently. And, you know, open up that relationship. So that’s awesome.
Yeah, I think I know one thing that that I struggled with for a few years, and a lot of my clients they currently struggle with is they feel like people, people tend to feel like you can only do the work that people ask you to do, right? They call you out for, you know, say replacing kitchen faucet or replacing the garbage disposal replacing it, and they just come in, they just give them an estimate for that. And that’s it. Right? It’s totally mind blowing, when we actually take a different stance as handyman or home service professionals and say, I know what a house needs. I know what and I and I tend to know what the overlooked items are. So let me partner with you to help you to see what your house needs, right? So we have created a 22 point home maintenance inspection that we we do at every single estimate. And that really opens the client’s eyes to be like, oh, wow, I need to clean my dryer. But like, that’s a huge one around here. I asked people and they’re like, you know, I’ve lived here for 20 years, and I’ve never had that clean. And I’m like, well, you’re supposed to have you know, once a year at least right? minimum 30 years. Yeah, it’s crazy. So those are like, or it’s just, it’s insane, right? You might even look under a kitchen sink and see that their faucet is just leaking like a sieve. They didn’t even know because they never go into their kitchen sink. Right? Yep. So it’s amazing when we as home service providers, actually partner with the client and say, Hey, I care about you. And I want to help your house, be a house that you love. You know, and these are the these are the items that I want to take a look at. So that you know, see if they need to be repaired or whatnot. So I think that’s huge, that sometimes we can get in with a very cheap, low cost item to help us create that partnership with the client. Because at the end of the day, we’re not just out there, Well, some people are out there just to make money. But if you’re out there just to make money, you’re not gonna last very long. It’s really about the relationship with the clients, you know, and wanting to help them out. So I love that you take that stance. I think that’s really,
really important. People are dying to give us money, to be honest, to take care of their house. And like I told my worker yesterday he went and did a dryer vent in and out and he sent me pictures and I noticed the siding was terribly cracked. You know where the caulking meets. They’re supposed to caulk the siding and only last three to five years. So I told him Why didn’t you tell her to practice it? Oh, I just want to get out of there. Right? That happens a lot with that’s one of my struggles are my employees. Yeah. And I know it because I did it at my AC company. get the job done. Go home. But the way you sell that stuff siding if the siding is cracked on the side of The house because the caulking is failing, you need to recommend re caulking it because it’s going to help glue down the siding. And it’s going to save their house from falling apart. Yep, people love that. Just don’t be afraid to sell what they need.
Definitely be afraid. And and I know we should get into your your problem with estimating or the struggle with estimating when you first started because one thing that I see pretty rampant through other handyman services is they’re they’re afraid to be this sleazy salesman. Right. What was one of your main issues with like writing estimates and maybe not selling them or not feeling as comfortable when you first started? Can you kind of go into that a little bit?
Yes. There’s a lot of shows I had even to this day, I’m still working my estimate process out. One of the struggles was, what do I charge? How do I figure that out? Because I would always think, okay, a fencepost is going to take me four hours. So it should take Derek my employee the same amount of time, right? I’m happy with 40 bucks an hour back then I was. So I did 40 times four. That’s it. Right? I wouldn’t make a lot of money. You know, I mean, is sometimes I would make money sometimes I wouldn’t. I one of the biggest struggles I had, I didn’t know how to weed out the tire kickers on the phone with the estimate process. I have learned now, how to ask questions on the phone with estimate. Hey, okay, you want to get your fence done? How soon? Do you want to get it done? Oh, I need it done. Like next week. Okay, I’m not your guy. I can’t do it right now. I’m sorry. Other questions? What’s your kind of budget or timeframe? You know, how much are you thinking that’s gonna cost? They might say, oh, should be 100 bucks when I know it’s going to be 2000. So those now help me say, Okay, look, to be honest, it’s probably going to run you 1500 to 2000 per side of your house to replace the fence. To be honest, if you’re not willing to spend that we may not be a good fit, right? So those are all things that I’ve learned in the process, how to get rid of people that want to waste your time and take away from my family take away from my kid, take away from me spending time on my wife. I don’t want to take their time away or mine. You know, I mean, we may not be a good fit, we might be too expensive. Alan Lee may be cheaper. That’s just I mean, we’re in different markets. You know what I mean? But maybe only these cheaper maybe you to call Alan Lee? You know what I mean? Right? So yeah, that’s one thing I struggle with and wasting gas going to all these estimates. Right now. I haven’t done an estimate. It’s been a while. All my estimates are done through the phone. I’ve been doing fences. I’ve been doing painting for long enough. Whenever, like, let’s say I asked Alan. Hey, Alan, you want to paint your house? Can you send me a picture of it real quick. Alan Lee sent me four pictures. I tell Alan, hey, it’s going to cost you 2500 to 3200 to paint your house. Are you good with that? Half the times a client say yeah, I’m good with that. Hmm, then we entertain that process sooner. And I’ll go visit him and give him the official estimates. Love it. Love it. And I do charge if I go to a house, I charged $49 it’s called a consultation fee. I call that you’re taking time away from my family and my baby fee. Yeah, I’m gonna go to your house. We’re, we’re good at what we’ve been doing. We’ve been around long enough. I want to respect your house and your time, and I’d love you to respect mine. I charged $49 when I tell them I’m going to charge them $49 you know, most of them. Do. They send me pictures right away. There you go. Yeah, I sell the job. I’m doing a $7,000 fence Saturday 7100 off for pictures. Well, I asked him Hey, do you got the measurements? He told me it was 221 feet. I gave him the price. He signed the contract we’re going Saturday to replace the fence you know what I mean? It’s That’s awesome.
So so so that was kind of new for me like I love picking that up like about like the key to saving a lot of your time is asking the right questions so that was like that was some gold right there as far as like nailing down what questions you ask that’s gonna save your time and make you more profitable. So it kind of ties in with the probably one of the biggest if not the biggest problem that I see and I work with with marketing right but i still identified their problem is pricing that because I talked to guys that are there full time and they’re booked out, but they don’t have any money to invest in marketing for further growth which indicates like their pricing is wrong, right. If your book full time and you have no money to invest in your business, then your pricing is not correct. So if you don’t mind like explaining like your pricing journey, you know Like where you started? Did you start way too cheap? Did you get too expensive? Like, are you in a good place right now? If your pricing if you could kind of talk about that a bit?
Yeah, in the beginning, I was just charging whatever I felt probably what Alan Lee did what most people do, right? Just charge? Hey, I’m making $30 an hour if I charged 60 doing any man, that’s awesome money. But little Do you realize that’s not because I got a paid job by my taxes. I gotta pay my marketing guy Jason. That’s 5% I gotta pay my web. My guy lady that does Facebook. I got to pay my phone lady that answers the calls when I can my emails. So, man, that’s kind of how it happened.
Yeah, so I always see like, what is it homewise that you can look up like the price of stuff like, like, how much should I charge for this? Right? What is your market? What is your business? How many people do you have on payroll? Who’s doing your social, like you have a social media gallon office manager? So you know, that’s never gonna give you the price. Like you need to come up with your price.
Yeah, I agree. Alan Lee had a good pricing way that he did. I think he has a video too, right? Yeah, video on pricing,
I got a little more than that. I got a book coming out. There we go. I got excited to buy it at the end of June 2021. And, and this is like, exactly what I’ve been focused on this, this, the whole beginning of this year is pricing. And I love I love some of these conversations, because it really comes down to core values and understanding who you are as a business. It starts way beyond before you actually come up with a number. Sorry, I’m gonna kind of geek out a little bit because I absolutely love this topic. But you’re good. So it happens is by establishing your business core values, because you need to understand who you are. And why you do what you do. Right? Like pjp handyman, right? You want to spend time with your family, you want to be a family, man, you want to love on people, you want to help people with their homes. So So when when you’re actually talking about doing a job for someone, it’s not it’s not a case of just, hey, am I too expensive for you or not? It’s a case of, hey, do you respect my core values as a person, that wanting to spend time with my family, but yet wanting to help you out as a person? Like they there needs to be that mutual respect, you know, and when you actually come up with your core values, it’s very quick and very easy to figure out if that client is your ideal client or not. And I think those are the I love those questions that you brought up, like, How soon do you need this done? And your budget? Right? Yeah. And oftentimes, you can also adversely, rather than asking those questions, you can you can pinpoint a bad client, by them asking you those questions too soon. So they start out and say, hey, how much are you an hour, or I need something done this Saturday, right, you know, instantly, that they are more concerned about themselves than they are about my family. Whereas I want someone where I’m concerned about them and their family, and I care about them in their home. I want them to also be concerned about me and my home, you know? Yes. So it goes way deeper than pricing, and I absolutely love it. And so, and some people might be like, hey, Alan, this is this is that’s Bs, like, you can’t find clients like that. But no, once you find clients like that, your business is going to be sustained forever, like, it’s going to be absolutely phenomenal, because you’ve actually found people that you’ve connected with on a deeper basis than just Hey, what’s your price? You know, yeah, um, and like Jason said earlier, that you have to know your price, because my price is not your price. You know, Joe Schmo in Alabama is not your price, like, you know, like, a price differs, everywhere you go, there are those that you can go to that will help you figure out kind of a base price like Jason brought up home wise, calm, that’s a great thing for here in the US, it doesn’t really doesn’t work in Canada. But that helps you kind of get a base information of what your pricing is. But absolutely love that. Sorry, I geeked out a little bit there. But I have a, I have a book a really in depth book that’s coming out at the end of June 2021, about pricing. And really, it breaks down gets into your core values so that it’ll help you establish your core values, breaks down your pricing of how to establish your hourly need. And then it gets into you know, economic things like demographic and, you know, stuff like that and helps you figure out your exact pricing, but absolutely love it. Like, that’s, that’s so cool. I love it that you that you talked about your family like that. That’s huge, because I think you have to you have to stand firm and who you are as a person, you know, and yeah, yeah. And you and I really admire that. So that that
meant and you got to listen to a client to when you’re doing that estimate. What do they want, you got to start picking their brain. And once you find that need of why they want to do this dance, why they want to paint their house, focus on that need. Watch, you’ll sell it. So I have to make at least 50% on every single job. That’s minimum. If Derrick goes and does a job, and I paid Derek 150, I need to make at least 300 on that job. That’s the way I can the minimum. I have to. If not, why have Derek do the work? Derek is my actual employee, I might as well keep doing Jarvan because I’m making good money. I don’t need them. But that’s why I have to charge a certain rate, at least 50% markup? Definitely, definitely, that’s a minimum, if you have to know your number. Yes, you’re right. How much do I need to take care of my house to take care of my wife to take care of my family, my bills, my dog, my Pampers whatever, I gone? If not, why do work for them. It is nothing worse than losing money on a job. It happens. or working for free. Nobody wants to and I never ever make my employees work for free. So yeah, when they screw up half the time, this is over and over, I’m still going to pay them. So clients should ask for our time because Alan, you’ve been doing this for years like me, we’re just like computer guys, engineers, just like Jason who works with his, I guess you say his head. We work with our hands. And we’ve been doing it for a long time. People should pay us for that knowledge that we’ve gained. Right? I’m always on YouTube. I’m always learning. I’m studying. Allen, I’m studying. You know, I’m listening to your videos. I’m studying other contractors. So So also be afraid to charge
so that gets into let’s let’s kind of lightly touch on this because I love this in the pricing discussion. Charging hourly versus charging by the job. Have you done both? And which one do you currently do?
I’ve tried hourly. I’ve never had good luck with it. Because I want to tell you I’m gonna charge 150 or 100. If I were to tell, probably even Jason that you would probably freak out. Right? That’s what I feel. I’m worth the minimum seven. So there’s a Sir, I’ve tried it flat rate is way better. I could go install two extra lights for $69 each make 130 bucks in an hour. Right? For sure. I already Tom 75 an hour. They’re probably going to have me doing other stuff. Yeah, I don’t like charging already. It works for some people. It does not work for us. Definitely, you know, yeah.
On that point, too. Like for me as a as like, you know, the homeowner, like they’re calling you to get something done. They’re not calling to have you for Oh, I got my handyman coming for three hours? No, I haven’t come in to fix my fence. And so in my mind, and this is what I always recommend. I know, Alan, I think largely recommends this. And of course, it’s always case by case with your marketing your business, what you found works for you. But the project in makes sense because they’re paying to get something done. It doesn’t matter. You know, if you come in and clean the dryer vent and boom, it’s like man, that was an easy job. 10 minutes or 15 minutes, whatever it is like that. Or it takes an hour or however long it took for that trouble one today. Like they’re they’re calling you ever to get something done. And what is that worth? It’s worth more than your time. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I
think that’s so important. And I use this example in the book if, you know, say you charge by the hour, right. And when you first start out, you charge, let’s pull a number out of thin air 50 bucks an hour, okay, and you go to replace a kitchen faucet, it takes you an hour, right, so you get 50 bucks for that job. This is just for all the people who are all for charging by the hour, which if that works for you, that works for you. But can you make 50 bucks you work out, right? But when you say three years down the road, you’re still charging hourly, 50 bucks an hour, you go to replace that same kitchen faucet, you get it done in 30 minutes. So now you’re only making $25 for that same kitchen faucet, you as a seasoned professional, someone who has learned tricks of the trade, learn how to work quicker learn how to work smarter, learn how to work more efficient, should get paid adequately for that job. So instead of instead of charging by the hour and only making 25 bucks off that same kitchen faucet because it took you half an hour, you should charge 50 bucks for that kitchen faucet and make $50 in 30 minutes. You know, that’s that’s the payment for the knowledge because there’s only so much we could do with our hands. But at some point we need to start working with our mind. You know, that’s really when it comes into play is we start we start understanding how things work a little better, we start understanding how to do things quicker, and therefore we we have the ability to make more money than we did at the very beginning. So love that love it. So have you kind of found the same things Paul in your business.
Because like I said I would want to charge a high rate Part of the hour another way I explain it to people when they’re like, Why do you not charge by the hour? Because we don’t, I don’t. Because if I said, Derek there, and I’m paying Derek by the hour, what do you think is gonna do? Right? Probably going to take his time. But if I pay him by the job, I do pay my text by the job, too. They’re gonna go in there, hustle, make sure it’s done, right. So you don’t have to call back and fix for free, right and move on to the next. That way, you can go back and be with your family. Then we’re fast, though. Another way explain is, hey, we’re fast. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid. I’ve been taking stuff apart. So as Derek Victor’s a retired Marine, he knows how to fix these, this is what we do, you’re paying for the experience, we’re not gonna steal from your time or your family.
I love it. I love it. Just another act. For me. Another slight coaching thing on that is, you know, you had mentioned earlier that sometimes it’s hard to get your employees to recommend certain items, one thing that you could do is because you’re paying them by the job, right, you can give them a certain cut of the job that they recommend. So say if they recommend you knocking around the exterior of the house, you can have it built into their contract, they get 5% of that job, you know, yeah, additional on what they would. So that really encourages them to upsell more items, or really take the role of wanting to help the client out more, you know, than just being Okay, I’m done with the job. I’m gonna go home, you know, so that that’s just a little tidbit there.
I have a question. So I think this is an awesome, like this topic right here. So my question for Paul, if is, how many employees do you have, like right now? And you can if you could kind of explain to you pay them like a percentage of the job you just come up with? Like, I know that I’m gonna pay you this for the job. And then also, Where’d you find your team? Like, how do you find like, because I get the impression that your guys are very reliable. So if you can kind of talk about your team a bit, and, you know, that’d be awesome.
Yeah, right now, I have six employees. There’s crystal, who does my Facebook, she I’ve been following her. She worked for another roofing company. And I’ve been following her for a while. She’s always on Facebook. She’s always there. And I said, I need to hire somebody like that. And I would always say, I’m gonna hire this girl. One day, she’s gonna be working for me. Sure enough, I found her. So she also responds to my emails, all the website, I get so many leads from my website and handyman SEO from Jason. She’s Her job is to respond to them, email them, ask for pictures schedule the job. So that’s one employee. My technicians I have Derek who I grew up with were from New Mexico. He’s an awesome worker. He is very similar to me. He’s, he’s fast. He’s been fixing things since he was a kid. He grew up in a town where you fix things. So like I say, me and him have a background together that we grew up together. So he’s been with me. He got hired on an accident because he had a landscaping business and was going through a bad divorce. And all sudden, I would have him work on Saturdays. And before knowing he actually told me that, you know what, I think I’m gonna start working for you. I was like, Okay, let’s do it. And then Victor is Derek’s best friend. He’s a retired Marine. He wanted to do it part time, I would hire him when I needed him. Victor came on and he’s been with me. He’s already been to Christmas party. So he’s been here two years. I’m Kevin, his family. He’s related to my wife. I did what a lot of people say you shouldn’t do and hire family. He’s young. He’s 23. He’s a great worker. I’m very had good, good experience with him. He has his issues when you’re 23. He likes to party. But in the trades, you’re gonna deal with it. So yeah, and Patrick is another guy who I just hired. He’s an older gentleman or army guy. I love hiring veterans. They’re the best workers I’ve had. He was an apartment maintenance guy. So he got hired from a window guy I refer work to his window guy, another contractor. And he’s like, Hey, I know you’re looking for help. This guy came here looking for work. I think you should hire him. I called him in I met him. I liked him. And I hired him to do dryer vent cleaning. But that didn’t work out. And I ran I found out that he’s afraid of roofs. So you can’t clean dryer vents if you’re afraid of roofs. Yeah. So I made him a handyman. He’s good at lights. He’s good at plumbing. He’s good at all this little stuff. So those are my basic employees and they’ve all got hired by themselves. Honestly.
How do you pay them? You pay them by the job? Are they w two employees are 10 99.999999 and how do you pay them?
I pay Derrick by the job. example, let’s say that siding job for example, I told Derek or Victor Hey, if you get cash, I’ll split it with you. So example the siding job, we recap the siding was 450. Victor came and brought me 250 bucks in cash, and I gave him the other 250. If they give me cash, I’ll cut it right in half. It might be crazy. I pay them good. But that’s how I get them to keep hustling. If it’s online, then it’s a percentage. If they pay me with a credit card, if they pay me with a check, then it’s usually a percentage. It’s a flat rate, whatever, to be honest, I feel the job is worth to them.
So it’s a fluctuating rate. It’s not setting. Okay.
Yeah, a technician working for me averages anywhere from 700 to 1200 a week. Right? That’s what they make that an average. And that’s good money. That’s more than I made doing air conditioning. Yeah. That’s great. Yeah. finding the best way to find employees is to ask the guys that you’ve got that are top notch salaries, top notch workers, they’re the if you want to good worker, you need to ask your good worker to get his friends and rewarding. Give them 1000 bucks be like Hey, Derrick, matter of fact, I didn’t give Derek nothing. But I should maybe I will now cuz he got me Victor who’s been with me for two years. You know what I mean? Right? Get your workers to find you good workers and bless them with some dollars. Best way to find workers, definitely check their Facebook. Number one is check their Facebook. I have been through so many interviews, the first thing I do is I go to their Facebook. They got naked women on their boobs are smoking a joint. Dude, they’re deleted, and I will not hire them.
Right. Right. I love it. So so what are let’s hop into some of the things that I I’m very passionate about. So what are some of your goals for the next slide, say your goal and from one year from now, five years from now and 10 years from now what would you say are your your goals for that?
Cause you don’t mind to like on the front end. Like as far as like how you’re quantifying the goals like employees revenue, whatever it may be, like if you can kind of walk through to like a little bit like, you know, like your first year in business, kind of like how long you’ve been in business where you’re at now in revenue and then looking at looking at what you’ve got planned for the future just to give people listening like an idea of like this this journey because you know where you’re at doesn’t happen overnight, you know? And, and so it’s been awesome to kind of be a witness to to your journey, but if you could just kind of give a lay of the land a little bit on the whole goals, whether it’s revenue employees, all that good stuff for anyone listening.
Yeah, when I started off, it was part time. You know, I did I’ve been doing this for five years. I’ve quit full time last year during COVID I quit in March. So when I started doing part time, the first year, the first year of business I made 144,000 part time. That’s not profit. That’s revenue. What I made the second year I made 176,000 I was like Wow, that’s amazing. I put off almost half that money away I put away in the bank. So when I quit the job I already had 120,000 in the bank ready for when I quit now. It was ready for me to go work. What’s your What was your profit margin those first couple years? The first couple years I made 62,000 the first year in the bank. Okay, second year 68,000 was around around there okay. Yeah, pretty darn good. So now I now with pjp handyman we’re making pjp handyman is that we’re right now the toll road is 426,000 that’s what I make. Wow. Awesome. So for this year Yes, this okay. Okay cool. With pjp handyman on that 250,000 and pro German cleaning I’m at 176,000 you see with people with the German clean I almost caught up to my handyman business. So those are things I’m trying to fix now Why? Why is pjp handyman not making as or why is the driver thing making so much and the handyman is kind of stagnant? Those are things you know you got to iron out your little issues. So I always try to profit from the jobs I do 50% by example today I made 1200 bucks I’m putting 600 bucks away I put that in the bank
is that include when you say profit does that include your comp like your owners compensation like your your what you take from business and wages or yes that like as a total like wages plus, my actual profit is should I want to be 50%
agree it’s that total my total wages everything. I always take it out. I read a book called profit first. Yeah, it talks about taking your profit first. And I always give, you know, like my tie everything but your profit, it needs to come out. Automatically, I always take out 10% guaranteed no matter what every job that goes to my profit account. And I have different accounts that teaches you about different accounts, growth, marketing, there’s Baby, I have a baby fund, you know, wanted to have a baby. So I put money in their truck fund, there’s certain accounts that I have that I pull money out of the business to take care of my needs. Awesome.
Yet anyone listening like profit first, that’s a game changer. Like I have personally just implemented this year. And I wish I did it like four years ago now. I mean, it’s a game changer. Like it really, really is even at the most basic level of you have your main account, and then just create a profit account and 10% of everything goes right to that and you just don’t touch it. But it sounds like you you’ve really followed the system and broken it down to what makes sense for you and take it very serious. I know Alan is very big into being what I guess it’s being intentional with your money cuz that’s like our that’s like our job like that is us being good stewards of what we’re doing right is just taking good care and allocating it with intention like that those funds. That’s awesome that you break that out.
Yeah, like what Dave Ramsey says, If you don’t tell your money, where to go? It’ll go wherever it wants, and you won’t know where the heck it goes. Yes. So that’s why it’s important to take your profit. Yeah, cuz I think one thing that that I’m really, that I really admire you for pjp is that you know, your numbers from your first year, even though you were part time. That’s one thing that I slacked on my first year. And at the end of my first year, I’m like, I don’t know how much I made, you know, but I got money in the bank. Right? But I’m like, I don’t know. So that’s one thing that I’ve widely introduced into my business and my coaching clients is tracking, you have to track your numbers. Because if you don’t track your numbers, you don’t know where you’ve been. And you don’t know where you’re going. You know, yep. So. So from that the second part of the question, let’s go ahead and go into some goals, like where do you want your revenue to be? Or even how many employees do you want to have like a year from now, or five years from now? I think that’s a great.
Definitely in a year from now, I want to have another two employees. Okay. My 10 year goal, I need to be out of this picture. I am tired of doing so much. Sometimes you get worn out. So I know Alan Lee talked about a lot about replacing you. So every year I want to replace another job title of mine. You know what I mean? Whether the dryer vent technician, in two years, I am working on training, guys to take over me doing dryer vents. Because when the owners out there in the business, I am stealing from the business straight up. Because other technicians could be doing dryer vents, I could have another employee, I could be focused on given estimates. I can be focused on responding to stuff, putting out fires in my business. So one of my main goals is me getting out of the way in 10 years, I need to be out this business needs to be running by itself. Because I can’t sell the business without me. Unfortunately, if I try to sell it right now, it ain’t worth nothing without me. Because I make the baby run without me. I mean, I guess you could still make some money. But I am really needed right now. And it’s something that you know, Alan talked about a lot. So I’m working on next year, getting rid of that dryer vent cleaning technician, Paul, and bringing in an outside guy to take over. You know what I mean? Love it and getting crystal who answers my emails answered, responds, does my estimates. She’s ready to help. And I need to get her to start implementing the phone call. I’ve been working on that she’s, she gets half the calls, and the other half goes to me. So that’s another goal. But revenue, I want to be a millionaire. Just like I’m sure Elon wants to be a millionaire. The way I’m going to be a millionaire in 10 years is to bank 100 grand every year in that bank. Put that money aside. So that’s another goal I have I want to be a millionaire. I want to bring in a million dollars in pjp handyman and pro Jarvan cleaning together. We’re almost there. I mean, we’re almost a half a million. You know, I
love it. I love it. That’s one thing that we talk about a lot and we teach we teach people a lot is when you think of your business, like some people might be listening and they might be like, well, I’m just starting out. I’m just one guy in a truck and I don’t ever see how I could get to that point, you know? Well, you have to your mind has to make this switch of like focusing on your business as it is now to where it is in 10 years. That’s why it’s so important to have those goals because If you could think of this is where I want my business to be. I wrote a little note here 10 years, Paul out, right? That’s it now, you know, and when you have a concrete goal like that, you know what you’re working to, and then you can just, you basically break it down. Okay, I got 10 years to get to this, I got 10 years to get to a million. So what does that mean? I need to increase my business by X amount every single year, until I get to that point, like, it gives you some concrete stuff. So what are what are the concrete steps that you think, or that you foresee yourself taking in order to get to that 10 year goal, or even the one year goal?
The one year goal is for sure, like I said, getting rid of my responsibilities. I do too many things like every single business owner, start hiring people, even though it might hurt financially, in the beginning to take over my duties. That’s the only way this business is going to flourish. I am really good at selling. So yeah, that’s something I need to do. So getting rid, getting rid of a lot of my responsibilities. That’s number one.
That’s a I recently heard that a business owner is like biggest Achilles heel as far as growing is not being able to give up what you’re good at, like the owner will hang on, like, I’m really good at selling, right, Paul, you’re really good at selling. But one of your biggest Achilles heels to actually growing your business is at some point, you have to give that up. And even though someone might not be as good as you like, you can train them provide them systems to be pretty dang close. But I just thought that was pretty insightful. You know, giving up what we do well, is really hard, but required to take it to that next level. Definitely, yeah,
it hurts and trying to figure out how to do that, in what steps you know, I’m working on all that. And, you know, I find a lot of different businesses and seeing what they do how they did it. But for one is having the personal assistants take over a lot more of those roles. And when she gets too busy bombarded, she tells me, I bring in another one and another one and just keep adding to the beast, make the system run without me. That’s my 10 year goal. And I’m working towards it every single day. Pull out, pull out, I’m sure Alan wants to be out. Oh, yeah. I
mean, I and I could totally attest to what you’re saying is, you know, fill people in on things that you’re good with, like, we just had, we just had an employee leave. So I’ve been filling out filling in a lot in the field, more than I usually do. Because I my I’ve worked myself out of my job where now My job is to sit in the office all day or go out meet with clients, and right up essence, that’s my job. And I realized how much I actually miss working out in the field. Right. But it’s so sometimes it gets very mundane sitting in the office just writing estimates all day, but it’s what’s required to get me to that next level. You know, it’s what’s required. Like, have you ever read the book, The E myth revisited by Michael Gerber. Okay, that that book is the absolute phenomenal that helps you, you know, outline what your business organizational chart is, and how to basically work yourself out of that out of the business. Like, that’s the ultimate goal, you know, so absolutely phenomenal.
was another question, I thought was another question you wanted to hit. Oh, and the reviews? I think, Jason, if you Oh, yeah.
So this actually, let’s let’s cover this last. So we got like another like five minutes here before we’ll we’ll shut it down. I mean, we could probably go for like another five hours. I feel like But yeah, I wanted to, I want to hear from you like it like from the numbers you gave like with your revenue, like you’re growing at least like 40% 50% per year. Yeah. So like, what has worked well, and what are you doing to like, consistently bring business in bring in leads. I know you’re an awesome salesman. So what’s really worked for you to build up like the reputation you have build up like the amount of leads and phone calls that you get a website leads all that stuff? Like, what’s worked, I know you mentioned, you know, we talked about you’re hustling on, you know, marketing hustle with the signs and meeting people. What else is really went into pjp Pro dryer vent strategy that has, you know, given you feel this growth.
Yeah, I could tell you what didn’t work in the beginning, when you’re first get started a handyman. That’s a good tip for guys that I didn’t know. Everybody’s going to try to tell you and promise you all the work in the world. Home advisor, Yelp, print media schools. I sign up with every school that called me, Panda golf, the golf things, you know where they are, you know how many calls I got from those cereal. I fell for that one too. I spent, I spent 3500. The first year on that. If I would have spent on Facebook ads or Google ads. Man Who knows where I’d be today. So he kept me mindful where you Get your leads from. If something sounds too good to be true, it’s not. You don’t I mean, what has helped me get leads? Jason for sure. He’s my Google guy. He handles Google. He does my website. He’s that guy. I just send them to the website. The other way I get my leads is Facebook, believe it or not. 70% of my dryer vents come from Facebook, a Facebook post posted in Facebook groups. I am always doing that. Did you know you can post up to nine Facebook groups with one post. You could share to a lot and bombard them. They might get a little upset. But that’s okay. You’re gonna get work you do. Your family.
All right.
I’ve got a family vlog. But whatever. You got to get work. I have to feed my family. So Facebook has been key joining groups and posting this is the way you’re supposed to have it on the allowed date. Put it on your calendar example me? Sure it’s see below post on Wednesday. 10am. Post. That’s what Krystal does her job and she took that job from me. And now she’s on Facebook all day. That’s her job. somebody’s looking for a handyman. Hey, call pjp anyone looking for a friend, she throws My name out there, including our customers. The other thing, every job that you go tear it off for in a good way. You go kick butt, you knock it out of the park, you know that customer loves you. They’re raving fans. Ask them Hey, Mr. Jason, Jason Lee. Jason. Mr. Jason, would you mind giving us a review on Google? Have you ever used Google? That’s the key? No, I don’t have a Gmail account. Okay. No, no, don’t do it. Go on Facebook. Please give me a review. Have you used Yelp before? What’s Yelp? I asked him for a Yelp review. If they’ve never used it. yelp is gonna hide it and throw it in the trash. It’s hard enough to get a Yelp review. I finally got a bad one out of all the 12 that I’ve had. But Yelp is a beast that is very hard to get reviews. So getting ranked on Yelp on Google. That’s my number one goal in the beginning. That was my goal. How do I get to the top there? Whenever people are looking for handyman? We need to show up. And I told Jason that when in the beginning, I was like, hey, I want to be up here. And the beans I do all it takes time. And we started building the beast. And now when you Google handyman, people call me from 45 minutes away. I’m like, how did you find me? I just searched Google handyman. You had the best reviews? Yeah. You guys like this?
So pjp handyman has 190 free Google reviews. 100% or five stars. 100% of them are five stars. That’s that’s a non Google. Yeah, I have never seen a perfect 5.0 rating with over 100 reviews. I’ve never, that’s amazing.
I thank God, because we’ve done we’ve had our issues. We’ve lost money we’ve had to pay for jobs. I’ve had workers show up drunk. I mean, I’ve gone through all the stuff that contractors go through. But you got to follow up with them just it’s so easy. A lot of people ask for review, and they say oh, yeah, sure, sure. They never do it. A follow up email or text. Hey, sir, Mr. Jason, would you please mind doing that review? It really helps me here’s the word help you and find clients like no. I said help me find good clients like you. They want a good contractor. There’s not going to burn them and run with their money. That’s how I got my reviews. I asked them everybody’s not going to give you a review. I hate to say they give reviews when you screw up. That’s when they give a review. Or people that you never work for give you a bad review. That’s how I got my first battery. I never did a job for the lady. But yeah, she gave me a bad review. So yeah, you get a bad review. squash it with positive every time I’ve gotten a bad review on Yelp. I’ve gotten some it gets me angry to where I am because my new job to squash that negative review with so much positive I make that my job every client I tell my workers Hey, go get me some reviews. I’ll pay you 20 bucks. I pay my workers 20 bucks if they bring home a five star review. Christmas Derek had 180 bucks. Victor had 40 that’s money it is.
So that’s excellent. That’s excellent. pay your workers. I love it. I think that’s so huge. And that’s absolutely fantastic that you have that many reviews and they’re all five stars. Like that’s, that’s a testament so yeah, Jason I think we’re about gonna be wrapping up here correct? Yeah, yeah. Uh,
I wanted to get Paul’s. You know, the last like, you know, giving advice or tips What would you say to? I mean, there’s lots of new businesses I know like guys that are thinking about starting, so let’s focus on them. Because I think the guys in business probably if they’ve made it this far, they’ve gotten a ton of gold. So what would you say to like new businesses, guys that are thinking about getting started? Like, what would your like advice to them be?
My advice would be to do what I did make, go knock it out of the park, please those clients, be fair, do what you’re saying you’re going to do. And don’t take on too much work. Everybody says that don’t take on what you don’t know how to do. And ask them for review. Build your reviews up. That’s how your business that’s down here on the bottom here, let’s say pjp. handyman. Let’s just pretend I’m up here. You’re down here right now, because you just started, you need to start asking for reviews. So your ratings can go up, show your Google Analytics. So Google can start pushing you more up and start bringing your business up to the top reviews is number one of the beginning. And being on Facebook, having your wife, get your wife or girlfriend, whatever to post on Facebook for you. Hey, nobody likes doing stuff for free. You don’t like going to houses for free. You don’t like doing websites for free? You don’t I mean, nobody does pay somebody to do Facebook, if you don’t have the time. If you do have time. You need to join every single neighborhood group as you can. And you need to focus on that and post what you do good. Don’t focus post what you’re not good at. I’m not good at plumbing. To be honest. We’re not supposed to do plumbing here. So I don’t really do plumbing. Sometimes I’ll hire plumbers. So don’t do what you can do. And don’t fall for all the lead scams. You’d be better off hiring somebody like Jason. He’s reasonable. Get your website that’s gonna make you look like you’re already legit. Your Way up top. Yeah. That’s a good tip and save money. Save. keep giving if you’re a Christian. You go to church, give to God. And you watch. That’s what I did. So anyway, yeah.
Awesome, man. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for sharing all Paul. You have anything to add? I mean, I’m personally like, yeah,
this was so awesome. I think I hope that anyone listening has really gotten some value. You know, from from Paul. I mean, Paul, thank you so much, man. Like you’re you’ve dropped some serious like, you know, gold nuggets here for anyone in like the handyman trade so truly, it’s it’s an honor like it’s it’s so awesome to be here with you and for you to be able to share all that for the people listening.
Yeah, absolute gold. Really appreciate you. I think, just want to put it out there for all the listeners that are listening. We have we are in in conjunction with starting this handyman success podcast. We are also starting up a mastermind group on Facebook, called the handyman success mastermind. And it’s really revolves around two things. It revolves around marketing and business growth. That’s really what we’re focused on. And the whole goal is to help handyman and home service providers grow in those two aspects. And obviously, this is this is just all a big conglomerate, of doing this type of stuff that helps people just like you, whether you’re starting out whether you’ve been in business for five years, whether you’ve been in business for 10 years, we can all relate with the premise of we all have something to learn from someone else. Maybe we’ve been in business a little bit longer than each other. But it doesn’t mean that we yet we have some we definitely have something that we can learn from someone. So we are going to continue to bring on people like Paul, people who are successful in their crafts. They won’t always be handyman. They might be contractors, they might be remodelers. But we are just so excited to be launching this. So make sure that you go to Facebook. Check us out where the handyman success mastermind group on Facebook. We will put a link in the description if you’re watching this on YouTube, or on Spotify or anything like that. So we’ll make sure you get a link for that. But that would be my last thing to add. Do you guys have anything else Dad? I’m all set.
Yeah. Papa Chico. pjp, handyman pro drive and cleaning San Antonio. Thanks again for coming on, man. It’s been an awesome time.
I appreciate y’all. And like I say if ex heroin addict like me can do all this stuff. You can. Don’t let your history destroy where you can go now. Amen. It’s possible, man. There’s so much work. Go get it. I know Jason L and he talks about there’s so much work out there. Whatever, we can share it. I don’t mind sharing with my competition. It’s fine. There’s plenty out there. We are a dying trade to be honest. Kids don’t go to high school and say hey, I want to be a handyman. It’s watching podcasts like this that make them say, Hey, I can make this kind of money. Maybe I should do it. Yeah,
well Alan one huge gold nugget that I wanted to leave you with was some that Paul said reminded me it’s it’s something that Simon Sinek says. It says Don’t be don’t don’t strive to be the best, but be strive to be unique, right? Like I love what Paul’s done right? Like there’s not very many dryer vent, you know, cleaners out there, there’s not you know, like, how can you provide something that isn’t being provided out there already. You know, it’s it’s very easy to be the best in your field, but it’s a little bit harder to be unique. But if you use the unique route, you will make a whole heck of a lot more money and you will help a whole heck of a lot more people. So don’t strive to be the best strive to be unique in what you’re that’s interesting. Yep, that’s another drop. Alright guys, thanks again. God bless, guys.
Links:
Paul on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/pablo.pacheco316/