Welcome

Hello, this is Colin. I am the owner and operator of the hive works.

The Hive Works is a combination of two interests of mine, fixing stuff and making stuff. I originally had the plan of two separate companies but it was too complicated. I am entering the entrepreneurial world to take control of my time, not to complicate my life.

So this is where I am at, The Hive Works. It’s a combination of the hive contracting and the hive woodworks. My dream of being self employed has been growing for a number of years. My first big leap to fulfill that dream happened in 2022.

Early spring, I had an opportunity to get some work from a former coworker, but I needed to first get my ducks in a row. Within a couple weeks I had my business registered, my insurance in hand, and ready to take on this work. Because my friend knew I needed to start part time, he was going to let me price small jobs that needed to be done on weekends or in the evenings. However it didn’t work out in the end. He left the company he was working for and the jobs went with him. The person who replaced my friend had their own list of people they relied on.

While it definitely took some wind from my sails, I didn’t want to just give up. Doing some more research I learned that people in my city where disappointed that there were no reliable handymen around, or if they where reliable, they where too busy. I thought, hmmm there is lots of work out there and I have over 20 years of experience, this is going to be easy!!!

I started where I thought would be easy advertising: Instagram . Perusing this plethora of images and reels, one would think “all i have to do is post some of my work and my schedule will be full!” Not so fast, unless it’s just me (hahahah).

What I have noticed about instagram, is that unless you have a lot of followers, your reels and posts are mostly just white noise to the algorithm. I tried paid advertising on instagram without any luck. I got a few more followers, but nothing turned those advertising dollars into income from jobs.

So then I thought ok Google will be the ticket. But I was, and still am, learning. I registered my name with Google. Boom it felt more official now. My thought was that now that I am on google people will find me easily. Big nope. I still had no idea about SEO.

But I did know just having a google business profile isn’t enough. I wasn’t keen on spending a lot of money on this business so a website seemed like a future goal.

But how can anyone get their service business noticed, for cheap? Yelp popped in my head and eventually I saw their ads everywhere! I was like hell ya I want to advertise my business for free!

A few clicks later I have my business on one of the most powerful review platforms in North America! This is definitely going to get me calls……..NOPE. Well, that’s not 100% accurate. I did get a lot of calls from YELP. The sales team is very persistent, somewhat annoying. But they are doing their job so if I had time I would listen to their pitch.

I even accepted one of their promotion packages. Cancel anytime, can’t loose. Ok fine, sign me up. I cancelled immediately after getting off the phone. This did help reduce the calls.

But hey it’s worth a try if it’s free. Which the next idea actually was. Jiffy Pro. Great service for the homeowner, and I guess for some of their pros. However, using it to grow an independent business, it isn’t good. You are essentially a subcontractor of theirs, representing their business. Which is fine for some, but I wanted to get my business running for me to be truly self employed.

Another aspect of Jiffy Pro service was that the homeowner was charged one rate and the “pro” was paid a lower rate. I get that they have a business to run and need income somehow, to me, it didn’t feel good. Not to mention there are a lot of “pros” in my area, so it was pretty competitive.

I am starting this business in my free time from my full time job, before I go full time. So with Jiffy, I could not respond quick enough to the job requests. By the time I opened the app to see what jobs there where after I got the notification, the jobs where taken by another “pro”

Now what I thought. What could I do to promote my business, for cheap. I did some research and found creating a website is my best chance to get my name out there and have somewhere official to invite potential clients to see my work and what I can offer them.

I started with a GoDaddy site. It was pretty cheap and super easy to set up. Very user friendly! I had mine up and running in a few days (maybe weeks, I spent a lot of time perfecting things)

The website added what I think is a level of commitment to my goal. To me that is a plus for potential clients. I don’t want to be known as the fly by night, Chuck in a Truck handyman. I want clients to know I am serious and professional.

As time passed, I learned more and more about how to build my website. GoDaddy offered some great options, but I wanted to have more control of what I could do with my website. So this year I switched to a WordPress site, hosted by BlueHost.

So here we are, at the present. A look into my handyman business build. Next time I will focus on what I have learned so far with building my new website, and business.

Need some help with odd jobs around your home? Checkout the services page and fill out a contact form

If you’re interested in joining me come back and see if I have figured out how to add a subscribe button to this blog.

Have A Great Day!