FXBG Neighbors Podcast
Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast
FXBG Neighbors Podcast
EP #58 Beyond the Toolbox: How Fredericksburg Handyman is Redefining Home Maintenance
What happens when you combine traditional handyman skills with modern business professionalism? Jim Clore of Fredericksburg Handyman joins us to discuss how he's revolutionizing home maintenance services in our community.
Founded during the early days of the pandemic and strategically relaunched in late 2022, Fredericksburg Handyman fills a critical market gap by tackling those smaller home projects that larger contractors often refuse. As Jim explains, their success stems from bringing unprecedented professionalism to an industry typically known for inconsistency. Behind their branded uniforms stands a fully insured team of background-checked professionals using technology like body cameras to ensure accountability and precision on every job.
The conversation reveals fascinating insights about building a service business in today's market. Jim candidly shares the challenges of scaling operations, including the shocking reality of insurance costs that recently increased tenfold. He dispels common misconceptions about pricing, explaining that when homeowners hire a professional handyman, they're investing in years of expertise, guaranteed workmanship, and reliable follow-up service—not just the few minutes of labor shown in YouTube tutorials.
For aspiring entrepreneurs, Jim offers powerful advice: "Don't procrastinate, don't wait for when the time is right." He emphasizes the value of finding mentors and business coaches who've already navigated the challenges you'll face, potentially saving years of costly trial and error. His philosophy of both receiving mentorship and mentoring others creates a continuous cycle of growth and accountability.
Ready to experience a different level of home maintenance service? Connect with Fredericksburg Handyman on Facebook or visit their website to see completed project portfolios and request an estimate through their streamlined digital workflow. Discover why Jim's approach to treating every client's home "like our own" is earning rave reviews across the Fredericksburg area.
Jim Clore
Fredericksburg Handyman
fxbgvahandyman.com
+1 540-216-2255
Spotsylvania, VA, United States, Virginia
This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Dori Stewart.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, where we share the stories of our favorite local brands. I'm excited to introduce you to my guest. Today we have Jim Clore joining us of Fredericksburg Handyman. Jim, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Hey Dori, thanks for having me, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. Well, I'm excited to dive in. Let's start off with sharing with the listeners a little bit about your business, yeah.
Speaker 3:So Fredericksburg Handyman was originally founded by my wife and I in 2020 initially, and then we took a little break for a while, but we relaunched in the fall of last year and our focus has really been on taking care of those smaller projects and tasks around the house that either larger contractors or builders would either refuse or neglect because it doesn't really fit their scope, and so we're really good at that. And then we do a lot of extra things for real estate agents and property managers and folks like that.
Speaker 2:Amazing. Everyone needs a good handyman.
Speaker 3:It does seem that way we are busy.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Well, congratulations on you reaching a big milestone, and it's exciting that you are able to tap into the real estate market as well and develop some of those important partnerships. So tell me a little bit about the backstory and how you got into it.
Speaker 3:Well, sort of by accident, In 2020, the world changed a little bit. We had this thing called COVID, and the handyman space was a spot that we were able to get into and thrive really quickly, because it seemed like most folks were staying home wanting to complete projects. They were sitting around looking at outdoor projects, those types of things, and because it was considered, you know, contracting or essential you know Lowe's and Home Depot and those places were able to stay open and that's how we got started and then when we restarted last year, it was really a very intentional effort to restart the business and grow and scale into something that you know.
Speaker 3:We're not 20 anymore, so we're trying to build and scale something that at some point we can either give to our kids or sell and move.
Speaker 2:Amazing Nice. So do you find that there are any myths or misconceptions about the industry or about your business?
Speaker 3:For sure, there are definitely a few. So we've oftentimes tinkered with the idea of changing our brand name, because I think there's a little bit of a connotation with Handyman that, well, this is just that guy that rides around in his truck and can maybe, you know, fix a leaky faucet here and there. But our mission is we really bring a different level of professionalism to the industry. Our goal is a hundred percent satisfaction, a hundred percent of the time to do it right the first time we have background and drug checked uh employees. We're rolling out some body cameras that'll be available for accuracy and completion and asset protection, not only for us but for our clients as well, and we just really try to deliver a customer experience that's different from what most folks would say is a handyman experience.
Speaker 2:I love that, and you're building a lot of trust, and that is something that is really important to a homeowner, so I love what you're doing.
Speaker 3:Right. Yeah, you'd be surprised at the number of calls that we get that say, oh I can't believe you picked up the phone or I can't believe you showed up on time. And it's really kind of a sad thing in that really people are trusting us with their homes and for the most, their, if you want to say, prized possession, but definitely their largest investment in most cases. And we just take that seriously because you know we treat their home like our own, just the same as we would expect someone to treat ours if we had service provider come to our place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, definitely so. With you and your wife involved in this, I imagine it's probably a little all consuming. So tell, so, tell me, when you're not busy working on the business, what are you doing for fun?
Speaker 3:When does that happen actually?
Speaker 3:So, my wife is. Actually. She remains a full-time employee for Verizon. She's been there for a lot of years and is in IT and she does work from home. So we're in the same space a lot of times, but she's very busy. So a lot of times our weekday evenings not going to lie are consumed by business activities. Pretty often we try to cut that out on the weekends. We like to try to take our day trips and get away from Fredericksburg for a minute on the weekends. The cool thing about working really hard and building a good business is that eventually you do get to play hard too, and so we do try to make sure that we have those vacation getaways. So our fun times are the beach, the mountains. We like to try new restaurants, you know things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nice, nice, I love it. So what is something that you wish the listeners knew about your business?
Speaker 3:I wish that everybody understood that it's not always as easy as YouTube makes it seem. So we don't get a lot, but we get a little pushback on the fact that you know we have a minimum charge for coming out and that of course, includes our trip, our travel, our vehicles, our gas, our insurance tool, maintenance. You know all those things and oftentimes folks say, well, so and so did it on youtube in 15 minutes or I could do that, or whatever. And I think what gets missed sometimes is when you have a professional that's coming out in you know branded uniforms, that's that are insured and employees that are well taken care of, and someone that's going to be around two, three, five, 10 years from now to re-repair or stand behind a warranty or continue to take care of problems and build a relationship, you're paying for those years of knowledge and experience and expertise and not just that five-minute you know, visit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a whole lot on the back end that goes into that trip out to a homeowner's home and yeah, people don't think about all that other stuff.
Speaker 3:There is we, just kind of a funny story. We just recently upgraded our insurance and so when we first started we had what we needed, you know, minimum policy, basic coverage, that kind of thing. And now you know, we have more staff, we have employees, we have equipment, we have, you know, all these different things in our insurance, literally I'm not exaggerating here Ten X.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was. We have a really good agent. I'm super, super happy with Corbin. He's going to take good care of us. But it was a little bit of a shock. I knew it was going to go up. I didn't think it was going to go up that much, but literally 10x.
Speaker 2:That's painful, it is painful but got to have it. So yeah, well, there are a lot of things that you don't always think about when you start a business. So let me ask you this If there is someone listening right now and they are thinking about starting a business, what advice would you give them?
Speaker 3:Well, a couple of things. First of all, do it, don't procrastinate, don't wait for when the time is right or when this happens or when this happens. Those are just excuses that if you wait for when the time is perfect, it'll never come. The second thing is as soon as you're able to hire a coach. It sounds crazy, coaches are expensive and I get all that, but you can't afford not to. There's things that coaches know because they've already been in the business. They've already done what you're trying to figure out. They already have it figured out. They can share that. And so, to that end, I always try to make sure that I'm being mentored and mentoring, because, to me, mentoring others it helps me to stay sharp, right? Because if I'm constantly teaching or talking to someone else about it, then it makes me think about well, gosh, I just told so, and so to do that in their business, am I doing that? And you know, sometimes best laid plans are not always carried out right, so it's good to stay sharp, mm, hmm, mm, hmm.
Speaker 2:I love that because a lot of times someone gets into business because they're really really good at what they do and then they start a business and realize that they're no longer doing that thing that they're really good at and they actually have to kind of put a couple of different hats on. So that's really good advice to get a coach and and find mentors. So thank you for that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was just talking to somebody about that the other day. You know, sometimes replacing yourself is the most important thing you can do. If you're focused on the things that only you can do most of the other things you can hire staff. Or, you know, a lot of times, like in my case, some of my staff is better at things than I am. So, it's better for them to be in the field doing some of this work and I can focus on other things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so important. So if the listeners want to connect with you or learn more about your business, where can they find you?
Speaker 3:So we have a pretty robust and active Facebook page at FXBG handyman and then our website is www. fxbgvahandyman. com, so FXBG like the Fredericksburg abbreviation, VA handyman. com. We have some completed job portfolio pictures, before and afters and things like there Some description of the work that we do, those types of things. Most importantly, there's a form in the top right corner in the menu that is estimate request, and that's a great way to quickly get into our system and get into our workflow get an estimate scheduled, get a quote all those fun things.
Speaker 2:Nice. Thank you for making it easy on us. That's the whole idea.
Speaker 3:That's back to that whole. We're a little bit different than most handyman. It's technology and tech stack, and making sure that we deliver everything as quickly and easily as possible is definitely part of our model.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. Well, Jim, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today and sharing Fredericksburg Handyman with us.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me. I appreciate all that you do for our Fredericksburg neighbors and business community and look forward to seeing you again.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to fxbgneighborspodcast. com. That's fxbgneighborspodcast. com, or call 540-534-4618.