Between Being a Handyman Versus Having a Handyman Business or a Handyman Franchise

As you plan your handyman business, you'll need to figure out what size of business will be best for you. Just being a handyman is very different than having a handyman business, or buying a handyman franchise. There are pros and cons to each option. For the purposes of this article, we aren't talking about legal business structures, but more of business model strutures.

Let's start with the simplest setup: you decide to become a handyman. What I mean by that is that you aren't going to buy a handyman franchise, and you aren't going to hire a lot of employees. As a handyman, you are looking at doing most of the work yourself and probably sticking to a relatively small group of loyal customers. You don't want to become the biggest handyman service provider around.

The benefits of "just being a handyman" are:

You can earn a good income even with this simple setup

Avoid the headaches of hiring, managing, paying and firing employees

Be more selective about the work and the clients you take on

Set your own hours

Be able to take time off as you like

Not require much advertising, business location or other overhead costs

The drawbacks to "just being a handyman", as opposed to having a full-fledged handyman business or franchise, are

You can make more money if you grow your business and hire employees

As your business grows you can hire people to do the stuff you don't like to do

As your business matures further, you can hire people to manage the entire shop so that you really have to come in

You can still set up the business any way you want, and market it any way you want

You can handle customers and charge for work any way you want

The drawbacks to having a full-scale handyman business as opposed to "just being a handyman" are

You'll be spending a lot more time managing your business than you spend fixing things and seeing customers

You'll have a lot more people management issues and "office politics" stuff to deal with

You'll have a significantly higher overhead - both payroll and probably a retail location

You'll be competing with other, larger businesses that have corporate resources

You'll need more business expertise, like a CPA and a lawyer and possibly a contractor's license

You'll need much more insurance

The final option is to buy a handyman franchise. In some ways, this can be viewed as a compromise between being a handyman and having a full-scale handyman business. The benefits are that you'll have a business out of the box - all your marketing, human resources and business policies are already spelled out for you - there's much less to figure out as you go along. This is also exactly the drawback of a franchise - if you don't like rules and want as much freedom as possible to run your business, the restrictions of a franchise may rub you the wrong way.

It is agruably easier to start as an independent business, then move over to the franchise model. The franchise model should give you some immediate name recogition - the licensee should be paying for good national or regional advertising to boost all the franchise locations. To move from a franchise to an independer business would lose your name recognition with everyone but your customers. This may not be such a big hit - if you're running a good shop, you'll be getting the bulk of your business from local referrals anyway.

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Handyman Clients: How to Find the Best Ones

Are You Cut Out to Be a Handyman?

Tools for a Handyman Business

Payment Options for Handymen

How To Advertise a Handyman Business

Customer Service Tips for Handymen

Choosing a Name for a Handyman Business

Record Keeping Basics for Handymen

Being a Handyman Versus Having a Handyman Business or a Franchise

Getting a Website for Your Handyman Business

Getting Paid Upfront: Deposit Policies for Handymen

How Much To Charge Per Hour

Should You Charge by the Hour, or by the Job?

Insurance for Handymen

Handyman Business Book Reviews

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