Friend wants to become a handyman/odd job man

nerd93

Good Afternoon
A friend of mine seems to have a gift from an early age of repairing/fixing things and the other day he suggested that he was thinking of becoming a handyman or an odd job man. He can do a whole host of things such as: putting up shelves, putting together flat pack furniture, tiling, laminate flooring, fixing curtains/blinds, fixing faulty toilets, painting, building and repairing fences, guttering, gardening.
However, to get a ‘feel’ of the work and reassure himself that he will not be the only odd job man in the region, he would like to meet up either face to face or online with other individuals who are already doing this type of work and thus to discuss the pros and cons of doing this type of work.
Is anybody aware of any such places where odd job/handymen meet up/socialise to discuss the type of work they do?
Finally, my friend is not very computer literate, which is the reason why I am writing the post for him!!
Any advice greatly appreciated.

Thank You.

lincroft1710

If he was the only odd job man in the region he would be inundated with work!

Masomnia

The pub?

Seriously though I've no idea. Good on him for having a go though and I hope it works out for him.

Mojisola

nerd93 wrote: »

A friend of mine seems to have a gift from an early age of repairing/fixing things and the other day he suggested that he was thinking of becoming a handyman or an odd job man. He can do a whole host of things such as: putting up shelves, putting together flat pack furniture, tiling, laminate flooring, fixing curtains/blinds, fixing faulty toilets, painting, building and repairing fences, guttering, gardening.

However, to get a ‘feel’ of the work and reassure himself that he will not be the only odd job man in the region, he would like to meet up either face to face or online with other individuals who are already doing this type of work and thus to discuss the pros and cons of doing this type of work.

He's not likely to get people who are currently working as handymen in the same area willing to share tips with him - he's going to be competing with them for work!

He could put some adverts in shop windows/local facebook pages/free newspapers offering his services. By checking out those places, he'll see how many others are offering similar services.

If he's still in work, he could offer to work weekends to test the waters.

He will need insurance in case anything goes wrong. Probably to register as self-employed as well.

A friend did this - he found that a lot of older clients wanted company as much as the jobs doing and it was difficult to get in, get the job done and leave as they wanted to make tea and chat to him.

Don't underestimate how long it takes to get from job to job - that's time when you're spending money traveling but not earning anything.

Like all self-employed people, you only earn when you work so he needs to charge enough to cover holidays and periods of sickness.

The work is erratic - unless he has some back-up savings, some weeks will be very tight financially.

phill99

He needs to become computer savvy. So much work now is done via websites, twitter, facebook, LinkedIn etc etc. I haven't done any 'hard' advertising for years now. It is no longer cost effective and anyone in the sub-50 bracket uses electronic devices to access services required.