Working up the courage to step out on your own

By Travis Farnes

I recently got an email from a reader that was having a hard time working up the courage to start out on his own. He hated his day job, but felt that when he was working on home improvement projects that he’d found his real purpose. I just wanted to share his question and my response. Who knows, it may just help someone out there overcome their fears and start their own handyman business.

Question:

Hello Travis I wanted to ask you if you were afraid to start out own your own ? I have all the tools and everything I need to get started but I cant seem to find the confidence to take that leap of faith. What did you do to muster up the courage to start? I’m working on a job that i hate. However when I’m fixing something I feel as if i have such a purpose, its such a joy.

I guess what I’m asking is were you afraid to start your business, and if so how did you shake the shadow of fear and doubt?

Here was my response:

Thanks for the question. I was in a pretty similar situation. For me it was the fact that I was just sick of working at a job. I knew there was more out there and I knew I had skills that people would pay me to use. I guess you could say the hatred for my job far outweighed any fear of going out on my own. You can sit around and come up with a dozen reasons not to go out and start a business but if you do that you are only becoming your own worst enemy. Anything new in life is always a little scary at first, but once we dive in we realize that it really wasn’t even close to as scary as we first thought.

That purpose that you feel every time you fix something is going to need to be your springboard that finally catapults you into running your own handyman business. I know exactly what you are talking about because every time I complete a job and see the smile on my customers face I get that feeling. That feeling alone is almost worth as much as the money I make on the job. It’s a great feeling to get paid for something you are good at and enjoy doing.

I hope this gives you some encouragement to take the leap of faith. You need to trust yourself and believe in yourself that you can make this happen. Your customers are going to be paying your bills not your boss anymore so keep your customers’ interests at the core of your business and they will see that and reward you for it with not only more business, but referrals, etc.

In addition to the above, don’t think that you have to dive in head first. It is perfectly reasonable to take baby steps. For instance, start promoting your handyman business now and schedule jobs for after work and weekends. Customers will love the fact that they think you are working around their schedule when in reality you are working around yours. Chances are they work during the week anyway and they will gladly have you come over and complete jobs in the evening or on the weekends. This will build up your confidence to show you that you don’t need a boss to write your checks anymore. Hope this helps. Let me know if I can further help you.

I do plan to follow up with the person that asked this question in time and see how everything is going. I think it could be a huge help to others in the same situation. Starting a handyman business or any business for that matter doesn’t have to be scary. We tend to let our fears get the best of us a lot of the time, but ultimately that is just a recipe for mediocrity.

For more from Travis Farnes visit www.handymanedge.com