When more and more clients started asking Home Equity Builders, in Great Falls, Va., if employees could do jobs as small as hanging curtains, owner Jeff Rainey saw an opportunity to put some of his employees to work during downtimes. Eight years ago, he started a handyman division. “We'd make sure they were there to open and close projects for us, but then we'd send them out on handyman projects between 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. It just took off from there,” he says.
Now, Rainey says, he has reached out to a number of other remodeling companies that don't do handyman jobs. In turn, they've begun referring people — who are out of their territory — to Rainey, whether for handyman work or for small remodeling jobs. “We assure them that we're not in it to take their business,” Rainey says. Through word-of-mouth and by meeting people at association functions Rainey has had new-home builders referring people to him as well.
It works best, he says, if you have someone other than the company owner coordinating the work. Rainey's office manager, Nicole Rodriguez, runs HEB's handyman division, which should deliver between $400,000 and $500,000 in revenue this year.