The Clueless Business Owner - Marketing Class

Lesson 4: A Marketing Guide for the Handyman Business

Tammy Hawk-Bridges

Post COVID I have noticed there seems to be an influx of handyman businesses. Most seem to be doing this business model as a side hustle or just focusing on building referrals within their local communities. Which by the way BOTH of those things are fine, if its just a side hustle fine - if its just a local community thing fine.

But what if it isn't fine? What IF you really want to create a profitable and viable business? Perhaps even something that is viable enough to involve your family in? Perhaps even create a legacy business you can one day leave to your children?

What if you ARE ready to take that step? What IF you want to be more than just a guy driving around in a truck with a toolbox?

In today's podcast I will discuss exactly what that would look like - at least from a marketing perspective.

Section Markers: 


3:52 High Search Equity -  If your potential new customer goes online to find your services, you have search equity. A handyman business model has very HIGH search equity.

4:06 Real Data  - I will share with you some real data behind the handyman model search based on area demographics. The market where you are (your demographic) determines the potential demand for your type of service. It is data like this that provides a roadmap to help you make the decision to start a business.

5:42 The Consequence of Using Bad Data - It's super important to use data and hard core facts before entering into any business venture. You wouldn't base an entire business model for example on data that was created during a fluke, or a crisis.

 7:24 Comparing Apples to Apples - The handyman industry and other home service niches saw a huge surge during the Covid era and this caused big profit jumps. It's important not to compare your 2023 numbers to the COVID era because it's just not an apples to apples comparison. Instead look back to the years prior to Covid.

8:10 Marketing to YOUR Demographic - If you're not marketing your business to your ENTIRE demographic you are missing out on tons of leads - leads that could keep your business strong and from suffering any cashflow issues.

8:48 Search Share - You already know you have a high search equity business. The real question is what is YOUR search-share?Every month handyman near me is searched a certain number of times based on your demographic area. The question is how many of those searches is your business getting? If you say 20% for example, that is how much search-share you have.

9:46 A Lesson in Mindset - What happens when you take 28 entrepreneurs - give them the exact same business model to run and access to all all the same tools and resources? Do you think they all will be successful? If you said yes - you would be very very wrong.

11:25 The Dividing Factor of Success or Failure - The dividing factor is the mindset. The successful business owners had a growth mindset whereas the struggling in the group had a fixed mindset.

12:34 Growth VS Fixed Mindset - A definition and examples on the two mindsets so you can decide which one you indentify with the most.

16:20 Marketing Strategy - Here are the 6 tools to creating a lead generating marketing strategy and an explanation of each.

29:14 What Marketing Tactics to Avoid - Avoid investing in secondary search aggregation websites. What a secondary search aggregation website is and how it can be harmful to your business. Also, what to do instead.