On 13/03/2014 12:11, GB wrote:
....
I'm scared of heights - or more precisely of falling from heights...

Falling won't hurt you. Ending the fall might though :-)

Colin Bignell

On 13/03/2014 14:30, Bill Wright wrote:

Yes. Always have rubber johnnies and KY jelly in the van. And a bag to
pull over her head if she's a minger.

There's actually pretty good money to be made as a male escort. You
don't even have to be the best looker. We've had a shop customer that
did it for a few years.
Keeping business ladies company in the evening when they were down on
hotel stay aways. More of a "keeping them company and socialising" thing
than just being a hump for the night. Though some of that did happen
occasionally so we were led to believe...

Pete@

On 13/03/2014 12:05, Jeremy Nicoll - news posts wrote:
Nightjar wrote:

On 13/03/2014 04:16, John Rumm wrote:
...
One observation I have made looking at many business startups is that
they often fail because they owner does not do enough of the stuff that
he/she does not like doing. ...

One often quoted figure is that one in three start up businesses will
fail in their first three years.

And many of those are restarurants...

The recent BBC TV series "Restaurant Man" was interesting, in the way it
showed a bunch of people trying to set up restaurants. Many of them had
scraped together £20k or more of family money and then frittered it away.

Few did any marketing of their new business, and precious little testing of
their services (eg how they'd actually run the restaurant, who'd do what,
what the dishes on the menu would be, what they cost to produce etc) until
prompted to by the mentor. Some didn't even try some of this stuff until a
day or two before they opened, leaving no time to fix any of the problems.

Most of the lessons he drummed into people were really just common-sense,
and it was appalling how few had it - all the ineptness couldn't just have
been a result of devious editing of the footage.


I used to use a cafe that the owner sold to retire. The new owners came
in and decided to change it from a cheap and cheerful, order at the
counter, cafe, which it had been for decades, to a waitress service
restaurant, with a different menu. It closed about a year after changing
hands. It was in a slightly out of the way location and relied upon
repeat trade, which the new format rapidly lost.

Colin Bignell

On 13/03/2014 14:23, Bill Wright wrote:

Yes. You have to bite the bullet. And take the long view. By the way
I've recently been doing some fliers (I'm a graphic designer now it
appears!) for a firm. They put the fliers in the foyers of estate
agents, and pay the agent a fee for every contact. It seems to work.

Yup, estate agents are very tuned into anything that generates them
referral fees etc.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
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www.GymRatZ.co.uk wrote
dennis@home wrote
Stephen wrote

7. Anything I have missed out with my thinking?

Keep your job,

Not such a bad idea.
Keep the day job and offer services Sat. , Sunday and evenings.

Unlikely to appeal to someone who wants to work 9-5 and to have
6 weeks holiday a year.

Build up a range of clients, let word of mouth start working
(and the convenience of a weekend trader for customers)

Stash the cash in an account as a buffer for the point at which there is
too much work for weekend/evening hours, then take whatever holiday
entitlement is left all at once (4 weeks or whatever) and hand in notice
before end of holidays. (though the company should by rights only pay
for the proportional amount of holiday i.e. 1 day/xx days worked in the
current holiday year)

If there isn't enough work to take up the whole of the weekend after 6
months then forget it.

Still got the job and never left in the twighlight zone of no
employee-job and not enough personal work to cover out goings.

And be versatile.

On 13/03/2014 14:16, Bill Wright wrote:
Dave Liquorice wrote:

Don't claim a portion of your domestic costs against tax. Dangerous!

A single small amount of "Use of home as Office" against tax will go
unnoticed. What you don't want to do is trying to put 5% or whatever
of the household bills against tax or dedicate a room as your office.
It can become subject to Business Rates and there could be a "change
of use" implications.


If you claim say 20% of your domestic costs against tax, when you sell
up HMRC will want 20% of the difference between what you bought the
house for and what you got when you seld it.

Bill

AFAIK that only applies if you claims 20% of the mortgage. 20% of
lighting, heating etc is OK.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 14:38:38 +0000, Fredxxx wrote:

A single small amount of "Use of home as Office" against tax will
go
unnoticed. What you don't want to do is trying to put 5% or
whatever
of the household bills against tax or dedicate a room as your
office.
It can become subject to Business Rates and there could be a
"change
of use" implications.

If you claim say 20% of your domestic costs against tax, when you
sell
up HMRC will want 20% of the difference between what you bought
the
house for and what you got when you seld it.

Not heard of that but I guess which tax bill you are putting the "Use
of Home as Office" against. If it's your personal tax bill rather
than the companies it's not in the company books...

Of course it pays to rent!

Unfortunately the law says an expense must be wholly and exclusively for
business.

If you put it against the company rather than you...

I'm a sole trader so there isn't a me/company distinction but my
accountant always puts a few hundred quid "Use of Home as Office"
against tax into my tax return.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 12:51:28 +0000, John Rumm wrote:

Its still a routine deduction made by accountants for directors of Ltd
companies working from home (at least partially). So long as the space
used is not wholly and exclusively used for business, then business
rates / change of use ought not be an issue.

That is my understanding as well. So keep that bed in the spare
bedroom you use as an office.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 13/03/2014 18:56, Stephen wrote:
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem
for me as it is not possible to lipread on phones. So I would prefer
customers to email me. I'm content to have a 3G enabled Apple Ipad in
the van for this purpose.

You would have to make it a selling point; to avoid interrupting my
work, I don't take phone calls while working. I suspect it will cost you
business though.

In a similar vein, many customers have smart phones so they could take
pictures of the job and email it to me to make my job of quoting easier
and/or more accurate without losing working time driving over to teh
potential customer, viewing the job, writing up a quote & posting etc etc....

I think that would be a serious mistake. You need to see the site for
yourself to see problems that may not be obvious from a photo.

Quotes are part of the job and you need to factor in the fact that you
have to make them and that some, possibly many, won't be accepted.

Colin Bignell

Dave Liquorice wrote
John Rumm wrote

Its still a routine deduction made by accountants for directors of Ltd
companies working from home (at least partially). So long as the space
used is not wholly and exclusively used for business, then business
rates / change of use ought not be an issue.

That is my understanding as well. So keep that bed in the spare
bedroom you use as an office.

I doubt something as trivial as a bed makes any difference.

On 13/03/2014 18:56, Stephen wrote:
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem
for me as it is not possible to lipread on phones. So I would prefer
customers to email me. I'm content to have a 3G enabled Apple Ipad in
the van for this purpose.


I think you will struggle..

Traders who are using mobiles or other anonymous communications
(mobiles, email, personal numbers) are a no-no, you just never know who
they really are and can't be sure how to contact them if you need to.

You really need someone to answer the phone and answer questions.

"Stephen" wrote in message
...
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem for
me as it is not possible to lipread on phones. So I would prefer customers
to email me.

Bet that would be a hell of a problem.

You might be able to get more by using facebook,
I have noticed that some of the local handymen
do use that to get business that way.

I'm content to have a 3G enabled Apple Ipad in
the van for this purpose.

Some of ours even have free social networking.

In a similar vein, many customers have smart phones so they could take
pictures of the job and email it to me to make my job of quoting easier
and/or more accurate without losing working time driving over to teh
potential customer, viewing the job, writing up a quote & posting etc etc.

True.

Also, customers don't like taking whole days off from work waiting for
handymen to turn up. So perhaps some kind of automated text messaging
service like Taxi's have to say "The handyman is on his way to you, his
ETA is XXX mins" Allowing customer to nip home from work, let me in, I do
the job, let me out and the customer goes back to work.

Yeah, should work well. And the other way too, just tap on the
address in a facebook 'inbox' and have the ipad offer to route
you to the address using the Apple mapper.

Talking of flexibility, what about adjacent neighbours deals. i.e. neither
neighbour has a full days worth of jobs. I'd turn up do half day at one
house, the other half day at next doors, and charge then a full days rate
for both houses and they pay half each? and share half the call out
charge? after all, I'd rather work than drive about.

Might be hard to coordinate tho.

I can go part time with my exisitin gfull time job so I'd have an
insurance plan if the handyman thing fell apart.

Can you go full time again at your option if it doesn't pan out ?

On 13 Mar 2014, RJH grunted:

On 13/03/2014 00:16, Dave Liquorice wrote:

I do see a 9-5 M-F wage slave. 7 working hours a day for just 5
days/week isn't working in my book. Working is 6 days/week 12hrs at
work plus travel each end of the work period.

While I'm aware that many do work those hours, nobody should have to.

Too right. Personally, I made a conscious decision some years ago and
went self-employed so now I work the hours I want to. Far fewer hours
per week and less income; and my life is far, far better as a result.

--
David

"Nightjar" wrote in message
...
On 13/03/2014 18:56, Stephen wrote:
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem
for me as it is not possible to lipread on phones. So I would prefer
customers to email me. I'm content to have a 3G enabled Apple Ipad in
the van for this purpose.

You would have to make it a selling point; to avoid interrupting my work,
I don't take phone calls while working. I suspect it will cost you
business though.

In a similar vein, many customers have smart phones so they could take
pictures of the job and email it to me to make my job of quoting easier
and/or more accurate without losing working time driving over to teh
potential customer, viewing the job, writing up a quote & posting etc
etc....

I think that would be a serious mistake. You need to see the site for
yourself to see problems that may not be obvious from a photo.

I think it would be better to quote using the photos and then
when you get the job, point out the problem when you show
up to do the work and discover its not as simple as it appeared
to be from the photos and give them the option of paying a
higher price or not starting the job.

Quotes are part of the job and you need to factor in the fact that you
have to make them and that some, possibly many, won't be accepted.

Still makes sense to minimise the time wasted doing
them with photos/video from their smartphones.

On 13/03/2014 19:52, Rod Speed wrote:


"Nightjar" wrote in message
...
On 13/03/2014 18:56, Stephen wrote:
....
In a similar vein, many customers have smart phones so they could take
pictures of the job and email it to me to make my job of quoting easier
and/or more accurate without losing working time driving over to teh
potential customer, viewing the job, writing up a quote & posting etc
etc....

I think that would be a serious mistake. You need to see the site for
yourself to see problems that may not be obvious from a photo.

I think it would be better to quote using the photos and then
when you get the job, point out the problem when you show
up to do the work and discover its not as simple as it appeared
to be from the photos and give them the option of paying a
higher price or not starting the job...

Which would get you a reputation as a rip-off merchant.

Colin Bignell

Nightjar wrote:

I think it would be better to quote using the photos and then
when you get the job, point out the problem when you show
up to do the work and discover its not as simple as it appeared
to be from the photos and give them the option of paying a
higher price or not starting the job...

Which would get you a reputation as a rip-off merchant.

Yes. A lot of aerial installers quote low, turn up, claim problems,
quote much higher. It really ****es people off.

Bill

On 13/03/2014 20:02, Nightjar wrote:
On 13/03/2014 19:52, Rod Speed wrote:
I think it would be better to quote using the photos and then
when you get the job, point out the problem when you show
up to do the work and discover its not as simple as it appeared
to be from the photos and give them the option of paying a
higher price or not starting the job...

Which would get you a reputation as a rip-off merchant.

Is correct. Unless you overquote on all jobs, so losing work, and give a
refund if it takes less time than expected.

Any attempt to increase the price once an estimate or quote has been
accepted by the client is not a good idea. On the other hand, on
occasions where I've been asked for less than the quote, I've been
pleased, and so am more likely to use that tradesman again.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On 13/03/2014 19:17 Nightjar wrote:

You need to see the site for
yourself to see problems that may not be obvious from a photo.

You also need to see who the client is and work out whether or not
they'll be worth the trouble...

--
F

On 13/03/14 18:56, Stephen wrote:
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

They can SMS.

dennis@home wrote
Stephen wrote

Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem
for me as it is not possible to lipread on phones. So I would prefer
customers to email me. I'm content to have a 3G enabled Apple Ipad in
the van for this purpose.

I think you will struggle..

Yes, but not for the reason you mention below.

Traders who are using mobiles or other anonymous communications
(mobiles, email, personal numbers) are a no-no,

Most who use them disagree.

you just never know who they really are and can't
be sure how to contact them if you need to.

You can always ask them for their details when
they show up to do that work, before they start.

You really need someone to answer
the phone and answer questions.

Not anymore. The world's moved on.

On 13/03/2014 20:40, Tim Watts wrote:
On 13/03/14 18:56, Stephen wrote:
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

They can SMS.

The fact remains that most potential customers would rather talk to
someone, even if it's not the person about to do the job. Maybe use an
answering service? Once the initial contact is made, then things get easier.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On 13/03/2014 20:43, John Williamson wrote:
On 13/03/2014 20:40, Tim Watts wrote:
On 13/03/14 18:56, Stephen wrote:
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

They can SMS.

The fact remains that most potential customers would rather talk to
someone, even if it's not the person about to do the job. Maybe use an
answering service? Once the initial contact is made, then things get
easier.

And another thing, when I worked in the office for a landscape gardening
company, and later on a coach company, and left the answerphone while we
had lunch or were otherwise engaged, 99% of calls that got put through
to the answerphone rang off without speaking.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

Nightjar wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Nightjar wrote
Stephen wrote

In a similar vein, many customers have smart phones so they could take
pictures of the job and email it to me to make my job of quoting easier
and/or more accurate without losing working time driving over to teh
potential customer, viewing the job, writing up a quote & posting etc
etc....

I think that would be a serious mistake. You need to see the site for
yourself to see problems that may not be obvious from a photo.

I think it would be better to quote using the photos and then
when you get the job, point out the problem when you show
up to do the work and discover its not as simple as it appeared
to be from the photos and give them the option of paying a
higher price or not starting the job...

Which would get you a reputation as a rip-off merchant.

Only for the uncommon situation where the photos are misleading.

Its really no different to the situation you often get with cars,
where its just not feasible to provide a cast iron quote to fix
the observed problem except by quoting a price that means
that it covers the worst case. What most do is ask someone
to fix the problem and get them to ring you and check if
you want to pay for replacing something that is more than
a normal repair cost, before doing the more expensive
replacement than what might have been needed.

It makes no sense to insist that you will always inspect
the job in person before quoting, because that just
means that you waste a lot more time quoting and
so need to charge more for the work you do get.
And when you have to quote a higher price because
you do your quotes so expensively, you will inevitably
lose work because you inevitably quote a higher price.

Makes more sense to wear the occasional misleading
photo or video or to say that you can't see clearly
enough to quote electronically and to just do a
personal visit for those quotes rather than all of them.

Most of the quotes are likely obvious where you can
see that the tap is leaking and can see what type of
tap it is and so know what is involved in fixing it etc.

Bill Wright wrote
Nightjar wrote

I think it would be better to quote using the photos and then
when you get the job, point out the problem when you show
up to do the work and discover its not as simple as it appeared
to be from the photos and give them the option of paying a
higher price or not starting the job...

Which would get you a reputation as a rip-off merchant.

Yes. A lot of aerial installers quote low, turn up, claim problems,
quote much higher. It really ****es people off.

But there are downsides with always quoting in person,
and always quoting higher than your opposition does
because its costs them a lot less to do the quote.

Its not as if you will always try to charge more with
all jobs when you show up, you only do that when
it turns out that you couldn't see the real problem
in the photo or video. When say someone tells you
that they can no longer unlock a door and you can
see from the photo what sort of lock is involved,
and just do the job for what you quoted, you have
avoided the real cost of showing up in person for
every quote.

John Williamson wrote
Nightjar wrote
Rod Speed wrote

I think it would be better to quote using the photos and then
when you get the job, point out the problem when you show
up to do the work and discover its not as simple as it appeared
to be from the photos and give them the option of paying a
higher price or not starting the job...

Which would get you a reputation as a rip-off merchant.

Is correct. Unless you overquote on all jobs, so losing
work, and give a refund if it takes less time than expected.

Any attempt to increase the price once an estimate or
quote has been accepted by the client is not a good idea.

It is in fact quite common with car problems where it turns
out to be a more expensive fix than it could have been when
the fault finding is done and its known what the problem is.

Just as true of handyman work where you don't always
know whether its will be a simple fix or a more expensive
fix until you have started doing it. It makes no sense to
insist on a quote that will never be exceeded because
that means that the individual doing the work has to
quote for the worst case. Makes a lot more sense to
have a more informal system where they ask you if
you want to pay for the more expensive fix if it turns
out that that is what is needed once its started.

On the other hand, on occasions where I've been
asked for less than the quote, I've been pleased,
and so am more likely to use that tradesman again.

I don't insist on a quote where its not feasible to
be sure just what needs to be done even with an
inspection in person. Makes more sense to have
the individual ask you if you want the more
expensive fix done before doing it when it
becomes clear that it will need that once
the problem is fully diagnosed.


If there really was one perfect approach,
we'd see everyone doing it like that.

The real world is more complicated than that.

"F" news@nowhere wrote in message
...
On 13/03/2014 19:17 Nightjar wrote:

You need to see the site for
yourself to see problems that may not be obvious from a photo.

You also need to see who the client is and work out whether or not they'll
be worth the trouble...

But that is a very expensive approach to quoting and means
that you have to quote a higher price than someone who
uses a more efficient approach to quoting.

In article , Stephen
scribeth thus
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

They want to speak to you. I can't think of any who'd bother with
mailing!..


reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem
for me as it is not possible to lipread on phones. So I would prefer
customers to email me. I'm content to have a 3G enabled Apple Ipad in
the van for this purpose.


Totally deaf?, Can't you have an earpiece for the phone or mobile?..


In a similar vein, many customers have smart phones so they could take
pictures of the job and email it to me to make my job of quoting easier
and/or more accurate without losing working time driving over to teh
potential customer, viewing the job, writing up a quote & posting etc etc.

Well they could but they prefer you to come to them..


Also, customers don't like taking whole days off from work waiting for
handymen to turn up. So perhaps some kind of automated text messaging
service like Taxi's have to say "The handyman is on his way to you, his
ETA is XXX mins" Allowing customer to nip home from work, let me in, I
do the job, let me out and the customer goes back to work.

Could work!.. Delivery drivers have been known to do that..


Talking of flexibility, what about adjacent neighbours deals. i.e.
neither neighbour has a full days worth of jobs. I'd turn up do half day
at one house, the other half day at next doors, and charge then a full
days rate for both houses and they pay half each? and share half the
call out charge? after all, I'd rather work than drive about.


It doesn't work like that, well from what I've seen of it anyway..

I can go part time with my exisitin gfull time job so I'd have an
insurance plan if the handyman thing fell apart.

Up to you..
--
Tony Sayer

In article om,
dennis@home scribeth thus
On 13/03/2014 18:56, Stephen wrote:
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem
for me as it is not possible to lipread on phones. So I would prefer
customers to email me. I'm content to have a 3G enabled Apple Ipad in
the van for this purpose.


I think you will struggle..

Traders who are using mobiles or other anonymous communications
(mobiles, email, personal numbers) are a no-no, you just never know who
they really are and can't be sure how to contact them if you need to.


Landline number and divert that to the mobile when not in the orifice...



You really need someone to answer the phone and answer questions.



--
Tony Sayer

On 13/03/2014 19:17, Nightjar wrote:
On 13/03/2014 18:56, Stephen wrote:
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem
for me as it is not possible to lipread on phones. So I would prefer
customers to email me. I'm content to have a 3G enabled Apple Ipad in
the van for this purpose.

You would have to make it a selling point; to avoid interrupting my
work, I don't take phone calls while working. I suspect it will cost you
business though.

and/or use a PA service to handle calls and take bookings. There are
plenty about that will answer with the correct script for the business
being called etc.




--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

Stephen wrote:

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem
for me as it is not possible to lipread on phones.

I think you'd have to have a permanent answerphone message to the effect
that "Thanks for phoning, but because I'm deaf I need you to send me an
email"

On 13/03/2014 18:19, Dave Liquorice wrote:

Unfortunately the law says an expense must be wholly and exclusively for
business.

If you put it against the company rather than you...

I'm a sole trader so there isn't a me/company distinction but my
accountant always puts a few hundred quid "Use of Home as Office"
against tax into my tax return.

They do pretty much the same for Ltd companies - lumping an extra few
hundred in the directors loan accounts to offset the costs.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 13/03/2014 22:24, John Rumm wrote:
On 13/03/2014 19:17, Nightjar wrote:
On 13/03/2014 18:56, Stephen wrote:
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem
for me as it is not possible to lipread on phones. So I would prefer
customers to email me. I'm content to have a 3G enabled Apple Ipad in
the van for this purpose.

You would have to make it a selling point; to avoid interrupting my
work, I don't take phone calls while working. I suspect it will cost you
business though.

and/or use a PA service to handle calls and take bookings. There are
plenty about that will answer with the correct script for the business
being called etc.

Probably the best answer, if the cost is acceptable. They will take the
phone calls and translate them to email.

Colin Bignell

On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 22:56:28 +0000, Nightjar wrote:

and/or use a PA service to handle calls and take bookings. There are
plenty about that will answer with the correct script for the business
being called etc.

Probably the best answer, if the cost is acceptable. They will take the
phone calls and translate them to email.

I used to use a voicemail service that did that. thinks Spinvox. They
went titsup, but... googles

Yep, there's still something similar :- http://www.voxsci.com/

On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 03:43:43 +0000, Bill Wright wrote:

Stephen wrote:


1. When you started, how did you build up your clientele? did you
advertise, leaflet houses or did you manage to build up by word of mouth?

Do everything! Church magazines adverts are good.


My local Age UK hold a list of tradesmen: not necessarily "approved" by them -
but certainly recommended.

On Fri, 14 Mar 2014 07:53:16 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

snip


But there are downsides with always quoting in person,
and always quoting higher than your opposition does
because its costs them a lot less to do the quote.

Its not as if you will always try to charge more with
all jobs when you show up, you only do that when
it turns out that you couldn't see the real problem
in the photo or video. When say someone tells you
that they can no longer unlock a door and you can
see from the photo what sort of lock is involved,
and just do the job for what you quoted, you have
avoided the real cost of showing up in person for
every quote.


As a user of such services (not a handyman at all !!) if I contacted someone
and asked then for a quote - and they said send some photos and I will give you
the quote - I would avoid them with a barge pole.

I want someone to visit me: ask them some questions, and also assess the person
myself. Does the guy turn up in a van, a car or on a pushbike? All an
indication of the professionalism of the tradesman.

I want a fixed price for doing the job after their assessment.

On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 19:52:24 GMT, Lobster wrote:

I do see a 9-5 M-F wage slave. 7 working hours a day for just 5
days/week isn't working in my book. Working is 6 days/week 12hrs
at
work plus travel each end of the work period.

While I'm aware that many do work those hours, nobody should have
to.

Quite agree, if there is that amount of work surely there must be
enough productivity to pay for two people, bearing in mind that some
one doing a 72 hour week should be getting 30 hours of overtime at
1.5T...

Too right. Personally, I made a conscious decision some years ago and
went self-employed so now I work the hours I want to. Far fewer hours
per week and less income; and my life is far, far better as a result.

Agreed again, when I was a staffer and had little choice about 72
hour weeks it was a fur lined rut. Being made redundant and going
freelance has greatly improved quality of life but the lack of
disposable income, ie. "money for toys" not shelter, food and warmth,
is a bit of a PITA.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 13/03/2014 18:56, Stephen wrote:
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem
for me as it is not possible to lipread on phones. So I would prefer
customers to email me. I'm content to have a 3G enabled Apple Ipad in
the van for this purpose.

I have a land line because customers don't trust 'mobile only' traders
much. I don't ever answer it, because punters ring at such odd hours.
7:30 on a Sunday morning, 11:45 at night etc.

When I get in from work I pick up & return calls received that day.

It's not always possible to answer the mobile, hands might be covered in
Gripfil etc, so I stop for 10 mins at lunchtime & on the way home to answer.

I get quite a lot of e-mail enquiries & some text message enquiries.

In a similar vein, many customers have smart phones so they could take
pictures of the job and email it to me to make my job of quoting easier
and/or more accurate without losing working time driving over to teh
potential customer, viewing the job, writing up a quote & posting etc etc.

I have done that & it works OK. Google Earth is useful as well.

Also, customers don't like taking whole days off from work waiting for
handymen to turn up. So perhaps some kind of automated text messaging
service like Taxi's have to say "The handyman is on his way to you, his
ETA is XXX mins" Allowing customer to nip home from work, let me in, I
do the job, let me out and the customer goes back to work.

Never faced that scenario. I do call/txt if I'm going to be more than
10 mins late

Talking of flexibility, what about adjacent neighbours deals. i.e.
neither neighbour has a full days worth of jobs. I'd turn up do half day
at one house, the other half day at next doors, and charge then a full
days rate for both houses and they pay half each? and share half the
call out charge? after all, I'd rather work than drive about.

Again, never come across that scenario.

I can go part time with my exisitin gfull time job so I'd have an
insurance plan if the handyman thing fell apart.

Good plan.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

On 13/03/2014 21:45, tony sayer wrote:
In article , Stephen
scribeth thus
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

They want to speak to you. I can't think of any who'd bother with
mailing!..

What about Text messages, a.k.a SMS?

reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem
for me as it is not possible to lipread on phones. So I would prefer
customers to email me. I'm content to have a 3G enabled Apple Ipad in
the van for this purpose.


Totally deaf?, Can't you have an earpiece for the phone or mobile?..

Yes, born profoundly deaf in bopth sides. I need to lipread as well....


In a similar vein, many customers have smart phones so they could take
pictures of the job and email it to me to make my job of quoting easier
and/or more accurate without losing working time driving over to teh
potential customer, viewing the job, writing up a quote & posting etc etc.

Well they could but they prefer you to come to them..


Also, customers don't like taking whole days off from work waiting for
handymen to turn up. So perhaps some kind of automated text messaging
service like Taxi's have to say "The handyman is on his way to you, his
ETA is XXX mins" Allowing customer to nip home from work, let me in, I
do the job, let me out and the customer goes back to work.

Could work!.. Delivery drivers have been known to do that..


Talking of flexibility, what about adjacent neighbours deals. i.e.
neither neighbour has a full days worth of jobs. I'd turn up do half day
at one house, the other half day at next doors, and charge then a full
days rate for both houses and they pay half each? and share half the
call out charge? after all, I'd rather work than drive about.


It doesn't work like that, well from what I've seen of it anyway..

I can go part time with my exisitin gfull time job so I'd have an
insurance plan if the handyman thing fell apart.

Up to you..

On 13/03/2014 22:26, Andy Burns wrote:
Stephen wrote:

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem
for me as it is not possible to lipread on phones.

I think you'd have to have a permanent answerphone message to the effect
that "Thanks for phoning, but because I'm deaf I need you to send me an
email"


or send me a Text message....

On 13/03/2014 22:56, Nightjar wrote:
On 13/03/2014 22:24, John Rumm wrote:
On 13/03/2014 19:17, Nightjar wrote:
On 13/03/2014 18:56, Stephen wrote:
Thank you every one for all your comments, I have learned a lot.....

I've had a few more thoughts.....

Do customers make voice calls to Handymen or do they email instead?

reason I ask is that I am deaf so voice calls would be a *BIG* problem
for me as it is not possible to lipread on phones. So I would prefer
customers to email me. I'm content to have a 3G enabled Apple Ipad in
the van for this purpose.

You would have to make it a selling point; to avoid interrupting my
work, I don't take phone calls while working. I suspect it will cost you
business though.

and/or use a PA service to handle calls and take bookings. There are
plenty about that will answer with the correct script for the business
being called etc.

Probably the best answer, if the cost is acceptable. They will take the
phone calls and translate them to email.

Colin Bignell


or to text message.......