Start a Home Service Business

Home service businesses can be a great industry to jump into if you don’t have a ton of money starting out because it makes direct to consumer marketing very easy. Two of  my favorite types of home service businesses that almost anyone could start are pressure washing and landscaping. I will use these as examples in this section but the principles we will go over can apply to any home services business.

The first step when starting a home services business is to determine what you will need to perform your service properly and professionally, how much it will cost you to start, and how long it will take you to get your money back. Let’s use pressure washing for this example. If I was starting a pressure washing business I would want to make sure I have a pressure washer of course and a way to transport my pressure washer. The first thing you should do is simply search for commercial grade pressure washers that are good for cleaning driveways. I found that there are commercial gas pressure washers made by Simpson for around $450 brand new. Once I have an idea of what I can buy one new for I would go on used marketplaces like Offer Up, eBay, and Facebook Marketplace and see what I could get one for used so that I know if it is worth getting one new for the price. It turns out you can find commercial grade gas pressure washers on Facebook marketplace for around $200. I would negotiate with someone down to $150 if I can and go pick one up. I would preferably use a truck to carry around my pressure washer with and a tank to hold the water but honestly your customers will probably be ok with you using there water for a good discount and quality work. They also don’t have to see what you are driving until you are there to do the work and as long as you do a good job they won’t care anyway. So if you have a car you should be good to go with just your pressure washer and your current vehicle. At this point you are ready to go out and find your first customer and you have only spent $150! If you do some research on the cost of pressure washing houses and driveways you will find that the typical rates go between $0.10-$0.50 per square foot or between $100-$600 for typical houses. That means on average you will already be turning a profit after your first job!

Once you have your equipment you are ready to go out and find some customers. As we said already my favorite thing about home services of any kind is that you can easily find your customers in person without putting up any money starting out. When looking for customers for power washing you should start out simply driving around neighborhoods with your pressure washer and stopping at any house that looks like they could use some cleaning. Once you spot a house that can make use of your service or product simply knock on the door and say something like this, “Hey I was just helping out one of your neighbors around the corner with some dirt they had building up on their siding and I noticed you had a beautiful home here that was starting to build up some of that dirt as well. I typically charge about $350 for a house this size but I just wanted to give you the opportunity to go ahead and get it cleaned up today for just 200 bucks since I am already out here. I got my pressure washer with me right here so I could get it done right now for you.” If they say yes then you can go ahead and get to work right then, If they say no you can continue to build value and even throw in a free driveway and sidewalk cleaning as well or even lower the price again if you have to. Then you can ask for the business again and they may want to go ahead and get it done. If you spend 6 hours per day knocking on doors for pressure washing you should be able to secure 2 deals and make a profit of around $400! If you do this 6 days a week that’s $2,400 a week or $124,800 a year! Once you start getting some business you can even start hiring some kids to knock on doors for you and you can give them a portion of the sales as commission. If you were to pay someone else to knock you could raise your rate to $250, pay your knocker $100 per sale and still make great money while working much less.

In my opinion knocking on doors and building a team of knockers that can go out and find business for you is the best way to build a home services business. However, once you have gotten yourself a team of knockers you may want to explore other avenues of marketing your business. One of my favorite ways is by taking advantage of creating referral programs for your customers. If you do good work and your customer is happy with your service be sure to ALWAYS ask if they have family or friends that may be interested as well. You should offer a free service if they can get you a new customer or give you a list of 10 people and their numbers that you can reach out to. Having someone to reference as a happy customer when reaching out to potential new clients can make all the difference. I personally know sales people that make their entire living just off of referrals and it never hurts to ask!

The last type of marketing I would like to go over is online marketing for home services. One of the best free ways to do this is by joining Facebook groups that have homeowners in your area. You can spend some time interacting with other posts then make a post that introduces yourself and offers a special for people in the group. Just make sure your post is done tastefully so they don’t remove you from the group. This can get you some good business if you keep up with it and continue to join new groups to post to frequently. If you have some money saved up you can also get yourself on home service providers like Angie’s List where you can get connected with people that want to use your services. You can also start a Facebook business page and start paying for ads with special offers that target homeowners in your area. Once you find an ad that converts you can begin to scale it and gain even more business. Just remember to start your home services business off with as low overhead as possible so that you can pay yourself quickly and be in a position for growth at all times. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is creating monthly expenses for your business that keep you in the red for a long time. For instance you don’t need to start off by paying for ads when you have not made money yet and you don’t need to go rent an office to run a power washing or landscaping business especially when you are just starting out. Start small and take on expenses slowly, that will help grow your business once you have started turning a profit.