Post here if you want to increase your post count

[XDJON]

Just a few more posts and I will hit 100. Does this milestone call for a meaning full post or should I just waste the 100th in the post that never ends?

[kevin7]

Originally Posted by XDJON

Just a few more posts and I will hit 100. Does this milestone call for a meaning full post or should I just waste the 100th in the post that never ends?

Well, it sort of depends on how you feel about it. You could make it fun with a 'if I gave you 100$ what would you do with it' type of post. Ofcourse, you'll have to be prepared for people calling you a post whore.

[MasonXD]

I couldn't let my very first post be all alone.

[Nerves]

good morning boy's and girls...

[griz]

Post count now increased by 1

[So Flo]

tec and krackels,
Thanks for the response/input.

There are a couple companies that are more like a handyman service, not so much a referral service.
There is one model I have looked at http://www.homeownersreferral.com/ that seems to have ironed out all the issues surrounding the business. What I plan upon doing is to buy their base package, then probably tweak it to my liking.

I have a ton of contractors lined up...being in the facility management business (we also manage all projects up to +/- $1 million for the university) puts me in direct contact with a number of contractors each day. I have talked with most of them and they are on board with it now. I wanted to start this years ago (pre hurricanes) and did not, then the hurricanes came and no contractor could keep a schedule and I did not want to jump in during a time that my customers may likely get dogged by my subs. Now things are leveling out again, the fly-by-night's are gone, and since the housing market has slowed a bit, homeowners are more likley to remodel than to simply move.

My target audience is the middle to upper-middle class. In Palm Beach County, there are so many stories of the uber-rich failing to make good on construction contracts...essentially stating, "go ahead and sue me to try to collect, I have a team of attorneys standing by to squash you (contractor) into the ground like a bug" ...so I am not looking at them.

My thought is really that I need a place that I am completely in charge of in order to take/make the time to start the referral service. If I take over a store in operation, I can direct my service calls to the store on a seperate line and not be afraid to take a call if I need to. Where I am now, I am so damn busy, that even carving out 15 to 30 minutes a day to return calls for a side business would be quite difficult. Also, with a pool supply store, I could hire a young person to manage it a few hours a day that would allow me to visit with potential customers, spec jobs, etc.

I plan upon using the store as a marketing point for the other business, since many of my customers will be part of my audience. Otherwise, I intend upon hitting the Val-Pak direct mailing pretty hard. The cost is not tremendous, and it gets me into a lot of homes. I know that I read through the coupon packs, so others must as well.

Finally, I am considering testing for my General Contractors license, not to use it to actually self-perform any work, but to add credibility to the work I am referring/managing.

Originally Posted by tec

Are there any other companies doings this locally/regionally that you know of?
If so, can you contact them and pick their brain?
Are there any franchises offering this service?
Have you heard of http://www.score.org/ ?
Do you have contractors lined up? Have you checked their previous jobs/work?
Have you checked their BBB membership/rating, if they have one?
Would you be a BBB member?
What type of liability do you open your company up to be referring a contractor to a homeowner? Can the homeowner sue you? and have a chance at winning a claim against you and the contractor if the contractor screws the homeowner.
Contact your insurance representative and ask them, AND ask a lawyer. Yea it will cost you, but better to pay1k now then 15k down the road.
Do you have a target market bracket picked out? uber rich, middle class, etc?
If so, what form of media advertising are you going to use? TV, radio, print (weekly/monthly/val-pak, direct mail, etc) (when I advertise my handyman services in a new neighborhood, I have to blanket that area 2-3 times a month for 3-4 months before I start getting some substantial returns)

I think, IMHO, that the idea/concept is great. Most of my customers call Me for referrals to services they know I do not provide, but they trust me and want to know if I can help. I provide names of the CURRENT contractors. I say current because most of them are changing for many different reasons, or one of them has burned me, which, when that happens, the customer generally calls me, and I, to keep the customer for me, have to make it right somehow for the customer, to keep my reputation intact. I may not need to do this, but I do anyway, because it builds more customers when you fix other contractors mistakes.

As I have mentioned, in addition to running my business, I have started working for a insurance restoration company(currently ranked in the top 500 in the nation) to augment the loss of income from my wifes business loosing some of her accounts. We actually do quite a bit of work fixing the mistakes that other contractors make, from the smallest thing to rather large mistakes.

For example, a 20 year old restoration company did a fire loss/water loss job, rebuilt the house from the studs up. They Failed to install returns on the HVAC. Plumbed the toilets with hot water. Failed to INSULATE any walls or ceilings, etc.etc.etc. This was a reputable company, I used to do business with the founders of the company, they were good people. Then they retired and gave the business to their son.....who was a moron and ran the company, and reputation into the ground. But during his reign, he made a lot of enemies and did a lot of bad work for people, including insurance company's, who trusted his reputation based on his company's history.

Moral, keep close ties to your contractors, keep listening to what the general buzz is about their work/ workmanship/ workmen/ and ability to pay their bills.

[tec]

Originally Posted by XDJON

Just a few more posts and I will hit 100. Does this milestone call for a meaning full post or should I just waste the 100th in the post that never ends?

At one hundred posts, you need to hold a karma contest, you know, give away something tangible for free to one of the members here, you know, preferably me.

I'll take a 1000 rounds of 45 ammo please and thank you.

[So Flo]

Originally Posted by tec

At one hundred posts, you need to hold a karma contest, you know, give away something tangible for free to one of the members here, you know, preferably me.

I'll take a 1000 rounds of 45 ammo please and thank you.

Yeah, what he said!

[eric_t12]

One time i posted on this thread, and it said that i had posted on this thread, and it said that i had posted on this thread, and it said that i had posted on this thread, and it said that i had posted on this thread, and it said that i had posted on this thread, and it said that i had posted on this thread, and it said that i had posted on this thread, and it said that i had posted on this thread, and it said that i had posted on this thread, and it said that i had posted on this thread, and it said that i had posted on this thread, and so on, and so on...

[xray]

oh yeah great idea tx, xray