Anyone looking for a new job for the joy of it, consider a handyman business now
Retired and now its costing you everything you have in social security just to get by? Perhaps you were a computer programmer in the early part of the millenium and now you can't get a job in the printer room. Or, perhaps you're just out of college with that accounting degree, but all the accounting in your neighborhood is being done overseas. Previous call center operator? A simple working man or woman in a town where every business has a sign saying, Permanently Closed? Then you, and thousands other like you will have to regroup, take an inventory of skills you used only occasionally, and perhaps, in that inventory, you'll find you've got all the makings of a handyman, someone that's still needed as long as there's real property in these United States.
A friend of mine bought his house in the late 90s and lost his career as a software engineer in 2005. Now, the house he bought was a fixer-upper, one of those houses that have the basic frame and essential house parts, but that had been abandoned and not maintained for years. This fellow had first contacted a handyman business to do the fixes and maintenances for him, but he discovered that these fellows, and women too, charge a pretty good price for their skills. Wishing to reduce his costs the software business was being threatened from every side and savings was called for now he checked out some construction books out of the library, bought some, some tools, and started fixing his house up on his own. By 2005, when the software business crashed, there he was, a fixed-up house, but no work to pay the mortgage and life's other costs. Then it came to him. I fixed this place up. I did what those other handymen did, there are houses all over this place falling apart, especially in the retirement communities. I could be a handyman. I could open up a handyman business.
Immediately he set to investing his money in the necessary local business licenses he needed to run a handyman business. Took part of his severance check to do that, and used the rest judiciously to print up posters and cards advertising his new handyman business. He had taken photographs of his fixer-upper before he fixed it and after, so he created a portfolio showing the before and after of his house, illustrating his skills and artistic abilities, and listed every hardware he had installed, its seller and costs, and contacted them to establish a provider relationship with them. Many of these hardware stores had customers who often asked for a recommended handyman to do the fixes and installations they needed. There he found his first customers. He didn't stop there, but, like every good salesman, hit the road, door to door, driving his construction truck which he kept in pristine condition, knocking on doors and handing out a fliers and a business card. His handyman business was run right out of his garage the Mercedes was only a memory now, exchanged for his construction truck. He even purchased several sets of workman overalls and an appropriate cap. He filled the bill.
Finally, the business began to grow. Big customers came to his house to witness for themselves what this enterprising American could do. In time, Eddie's handyman business was the business to call if you needed a handyman with the skills and the drive to got the job done. He maintains the care and logic he once used in software design comes in handy still, especially for those jobs requiring a new office with the latest computer environments. He's happy now. It wasn't so much the kind of work he did that made him happy, he says. It's doing the best job possible, even for a man with just a self-made handyman business. All you displaced workers, take a clue from Eddie, the handyman with a degree in computer science.