If you’ve ever dreamed of taking your amateur home improvement skills to the professional level, there’s never been a better time to do it than now. As the population ages, homeowners are doing less and less work for themselves, all while the pool of skilled labour in Canada is insufficient and shrinking. But demand alone is not enough to ensure success as a renovator.
There are other unique skills and approaches necessary for a profitable renovation business that have nothing to do with manual work. You need to find projects efficiently, develop repeat clientele, and make sure that the financial side of your venture is solid. That’s where the seven essentials you’ll get here are so important.
1. Learn to Count All Costs
One big reason small businesses fail is that owners don’t recognize all the costs that need to be covered by their fees. This is why you need to keep close track of your time, materials and expenses, especially at the beginning as you figure out how to turn your labour into money.
The most important question to ask yourself after each job is simple: “How much did I make, free and clear, per hour on this project?” It’s vital that you have answers like this as you price projects, and to make this happen, you need to be able to answer these questions:
How long did it take to do the actual work?
This is easy to keep track of but vital. Use a stopwatch app on your phone, then record the details somewhere. I use a Google Doc page for each job I have on the go. Keep this figure separate from other time you’ve spent in support of the work for reasons I’ll explain next.
How long did you spend in support of the work?
This means all your time driving to and from the job, any research you did deciding on materials and approach, and time spent meeting with a client and talking about the project. It makes sense to keep overhead costs separate from production costs so you can analyze where you’re spending your time and
how you might make things more efficient moving forward.
How much money did you spend getting the job done?
This means out-of-pocket expenses for materials, overhead for a little office space and computer use in your home, plus costs associated with travel and tool use. Tip: The easiest way to count vehicle costs is to take your fuel costs and double them.
This is a handy way to make allowances for repairs, insurance, etc. Keep and claim all receipts because it will reduce your taxable income. Too many renovators starting out fail to cover all costs, but all costs will eventually have to be paid. If you don’t know all these costs and charge enough to cover them, you’ll
end up unprofitable and forced to find some other kind of work. Generally, charging $50 to $60 per hour for all hours (production and overhead) is the bare minimum to cover costs while leaving something left over for you.
Contract Price or Hourly Fee?
Until you gain experience accurately estimating projects, charge clients for time and materials. As you do more work and study the numbers, you’ll gain a reliable sense of how long things take and what you need to charge to cover costs and profit. When you know enough to charge a contract price for entire jobs, and your reputation grows, it allows you to profit from your speed and experience and make substantially more per hour — even double or more compared with time and materials. Why shouldn’t you benefit from your growing competence? Always charging by the hour puts all the benefits of your experience and speed in your clients’ pocket, and that’s not fair to you.
2 Work With a Pro for a While
During my high school years, I started a small business doing renovations and building furniture for people in a workshop I set up in my parents’ basement. I’d never worked professionally in any trade, but I thought I had developed the skills needed. At least until I went to work in an actual cabinet shop that is. It didn’t take long to see that based on my self-directed learning, I wasn’t working nearly fast enough, and I didn’t know many of the time-saving tricks pros have developed out of necessity.
The year I spent working alongside professionals showed me how to work at least twice as fast and why this is important. As a self-taught renovator, you’re in the same boat I was. Hiring yourself out to a successful pro for even six months is a very worthwhile approach, and it will pay off forever after you go out on your own.
Think of it like renovator school, but instead of paying tuition, you get paid to attend. As you work under someone, take photos and notes about what works, especially what doesn’t. Sometimes even established
renovators don’t see the weak areas that you might.
3. Build a Website
Almost everyone uses the web to find things they want, which is why having a website is important when homeowners come looking for renovation services. A Facebook page is easier to set up than a website, but it doesn’t present the same professional impression or offer the same options.
If you’re serious about building a small business, you can count on a proper website to raise you beyond most of the competition. The good news is that if you’re smart enough to figure out how to renovate, you’re more
than smart enough to build a website with one of the online website builders such as Wix, Jimdo or others.
Any successful website for a renovator needs only four pages. Think of your site as a digital business brochure: Home, About, Gallery, Testimonials and Contact are the only pages you need.
4. Choose Pro-Grade Tools
Most homeowners buy tools and equipment based on their own low-expectations as amateurs, and this level of stuff can be enough to get you going as a professional. But you’ll also have to add more tools to your collection as you take on jobs, and this is where thinking like a pro matters.
High-end, namebrand tools are the most expensive, but the purchase price of these is minor compared with the production lost by a homeowner-grade tool that fails or one that doesn’t have a high output. You can’t starve a profit out of renovation work, so don’t get cheap when it comes to tooling up.
5. Visually Document Your Results
As a renovator, your work is your resume. That’s why you need to think of every job as a promotional opportunity that brings future work. First, you want to impress your clients with regular visual updates.
This makes them more likely to hire you again or recommend you to others. It’s also easy to do. Some images or a quick video sent every week by text is powerful, yet hardly any renovators do this.
The second reason to document your work visually is so you have things to show prospective clients during initial meetings. You should also use these visuals on the Gallery page of your website.
6. Gather Testimonials
Nothing is as powerful a sales tool as genuine, written testimonials from people who like your work. Ideally, these people would be okay including their name and even a photo of them. Create a testimonial sheet as a PDF so you can easily send it to prospective clients. In my own work, my testimonial sheet has proven to be the single most effective sales tool I use.
7. Build a Business Not a Job
Just because you work without a boss doesn’t mean you own a renovation “business.” Many small renovators have only created a job for themselves and not a true business. What’s the difference? Two simple factors.
First, a business is only worthy of the name if you can cash in by selling it to someone someday, then move on to some other venture or retirement. The second feature of a true business is that it can make money for you even when you’re not working.
Let’s say you get sick or want to go and see your kids on track and field day at school. What about vacation time? Won’t you need some money still coming in when you’re not on the job?
The simplest way to make your renovation more than just a piecework job for yourself is by finding and hiring helpers you can trust to keep the work moving even when you’re not present on the job site. Don’t try to make this happen during your first year of business because you don’t know enough to choose helpers accurately. Don’t forget that you’re not just building work for yourself, you should also build a business that can be sold.
Canada needs more good renovators, and you won’t find any shortage of work. Keep track of time and learn the communication side of the business, and you can enjoy a whole new level of career satisfaction and income.
