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

[phone]

Spotsylvania, VA, United States, Virginia

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast
, the place where localbusinesses and neighbors come
together.
Here's your host, Dori Stewart.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
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 tomy guest.
Today we have Jim Clore joiningus of Fredericksburg Handyman.
Jim, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hey Dori, thanks for having me, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, sure.
Well, I'm excited to dive in.
Let's start off with sharingwith the listeners a little bit
about your business, yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
So Fredericksburg Handyman was originally founded
by my wife and I in 2020initially, and then we took a
little break for a while, but werelaunched in the fall of last
year and our focus has reallybeen on taking care of those
smaller projects and tasksaround the house that either

(01:01):
larger contractors or builderswould either refuse or neglect
because it doesn't really fittheir scope, and so we're really
good at that.
And then we do a lot of extrathings for real estate agents
and property managers and folkslike that.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Amazing.
Everyone needs a good handyman.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
It does seem that way we are busy.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
That's awesome.
Well, congratulations on youreaching a big milestone, and
it's exciting that you are ableto tap into the real estate
market as well and develop someof those important partnerships.
So tell me a little bit aboutthe backstory and how you got
into it.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
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 getinto and thrive really quickly,
because it seemed like mostfolks were staying home wanting
to complete projects.
They were sitting aroundlooking at outdoor projects,

(02:10):
those types of things, andbecause it was considered, you
know, contracting or essentialyou know Lowe's and Home Depot
and those places were able tostay open and that's how we got
started and then when werestarted last year, it was
really a very intentional effortto restart the business and
grow and scale into somethingthat you know.
We're not 20 anymore, so we'retrying to build and scale

(02:32):
something that at some point wecan either give to our kids or
sell and move.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Amazing Nice.
So do you find that there areany myths or misconceptions
about the industry or about yourbusiness?

Speaker 3 (02:47):
For sure, there are definitely a few.
So we've oftentimes tinkeredwith the idea of changing our
brand name, because I thinkthere's a little bit of a
connotation with Handyman that,well, this is just that guy that
rides around in his truck andcan maybe, you know, fix a leaky
faucet here and there.
But our mission is we reallybring a different level of

(03:10):
professionalism to the industry.
Our goal is a hundred percentsatisfaction, a hundred percent
of the time to do it right thefirst time we have background
and drug checked uh employees.
We're rolling out some bodycameras that'll be available for
accuracy and completion andasset protection, not only for

(03:32):
us but for our clients as well,and we just really try to
deliver a customer experiencethat's different from what most
folks would say is a handymanexperience.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
I love that, and you're building a lot of trust,
and that is something that isreally important to a homeowner,
so I love what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Right.
Yeah, you'd be surprised at thenumber of calls that we get
that say, oh I can't believe youpicked up the phone or I can't
believe you showed up on time.
And it's really kind of a sadthing in that really people are
trusting us with their homes andfor the most, their, if you
want to say, prized possession,but definitely their largest

(04:13):
investment in most cases.
And we just take that seriouslybecause you know we treat their
home like our own, just thesame as we would expect someone
to treat ours if we had serviceprovider come to our place.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, definitely, definitely so.
With you and your wife involvedin this, I imagine it's
probably a little all consuming.
So tell, so, tell me, whenyou're not busy working on the
business, what are you doing forfun?

Speaker 3 (04:40):
When does that happen actually?
So, my wife is.
Actually.
She remains a full-timeemployee for Verizon.
She's been there for a lot ofyears and is in IT and she does
work from home.
So we're in the same space alot of times, but she's very
busy.
So a lot of times our weekdayevenings not going to lie are

(05:04):
consumed by business activities.
Pretty often we try to cut thatout on the weekends.
We like to try to take our daytrips and get away from
Fredericksburg for a minute onthe weekends.
The cool thing about workingreally hard and building a good
business is that eventually youdo get to play hard too, and so

(05:25):
we do try to make sure that wehave 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 (05:37):
Yeah, nice, nice, I love it.
So what is something that youwish the listeners knew about
your business?

Speaker 3 (05:47):
I wish that everybody understood that it's not always
as easy as YouTube makes itseem.
So we don't get a lot, but weget a little pushback on the
fact that you know we have aminimum charge for coming out
and that of course, includes ourtrip, our travel, our vehicles,

(06:08):
our gas, our insurance tool,maintenance.
You know all those things andoftentimes folks say, well, so
and so did it on youtube in 15minutes or I could do that, or
whatever.
And I think what gets missedsometimes is when you have a
professional that's coming outin you know branded uniforms,

(06:30):
that's that are insured andemployees that are well taken
care of, and someone that'sgoing to be around two, three,
five, 10 years from now tore-repair or stand behind a
warranty or continue to takecare of problems and build a
relationship, you're paying forthose years of knowledge and
experience and expertise and notjust that five-minute you know,

(06:53):
visit.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, there's a whole lot on the back end that goes
into that trip out to ahomeowner's home and yeah,
people don't think about allthat other stuff.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
There is we, just kind of a funny story.
We just recently upgraded ourinsurance 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 morestaff, we have employees, we
have equipment, we have, youknow, all these different things
in our insurance, literally I'mnot exaggerating here Ten X.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah, it was.
We have a really good agent.
I'm super, super happy withCorbin.
He's going to take good care ofus.
But it was a little bit of ashock.
I knew it was going to go up.
I didn't think it was going togo up that much, but literally
10x.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
That's painful, it is painful but got to have it.
So yeah, well, there are a lotof things that you don't always
think about when you start abusiness.
So let me ask you this If thereis someone listening right now
and they are thinking aboutstarting a business, what advice

(08:03):
would you give them?

Speaker 3 (08:06):
Well, a couple of things.
First of all, do it, don'tprocrastinate, don't wait for
when the time is right or whenthis happens or when this
happens.
Those are just excuses that ifyou wait for when the time is
perfect, it'll never come.
The second thing is as soon asyou're able to hire a coach.
It sounds crazy, coaches areexpensive and I get all that,

(08:30):
but you can't afford not to.
There's things that coachesknow because they've already
been in the business.
They've already done whatyou're trying to figure out.
They already have it figuredout.
They can share that.
And so, to that end, I alwaystry to make sure that I'm being
mentored and mentoring, because,to me, mentoring others it

(08:52):
helps me to stay sharp, right?
Because if I'm constantlyteaching or talking to someone
else about it, then it makes methink about well, gosh, I just
told so, and so to do that intheir business, am I doing that?
And you know, sometimes bestlaid plans are not always
carried out right, so it's goodto stay sharp, mm, hmm, mm, hmm.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
I love that because a lot of times someone gets into
business because they're reallyreally good at what they do and
then they start a business andrealize that they're no longer
doing that thing that they'rereally good at and they actually
have to kind of put a couple ofdifferent hats on.
So that's really good advice toget a coach and and find

(09:35):
mentors.
So thank you for that.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yeah, I was just talking to somebody about that
the other day.
You know, sometimes replacingyourself is the most important
thing you can do.
If you're focused on the thingsthat only you can do most of
the other things you can hirestaff.
Or, you know, a lot of times,like in my case, some of my
staff is better at things than Iam.
So, it's better for them to bein the field doing some of this
work and I can focus on otherthings.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, yeah, so important.
So if the listeners want toconnect with you or learn more
about your business, where canthey find you?

Speaker 3 (10:10):
So we have a pretty robust and active Facebook page
at FXBG handyman and then ourwebsite is www.
fxbgvahandyman.
com, so FXBG like theFredericksburg abbreviation, VA

(10:30):
handyman.
com.
We have some completed jobportfolio pictures, before and
afters and things like thereSome description of the work
that we do, those types ofthings.
Most importantly, there's aform in the top right corner in
the menu that is estimaterequest, and that's a great way
to quickly get into our systemand get into our workflow get an

(10:51):
estimate scheduled, get a quoteall those fun things.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Nice.
Thank you for making it easy onus.
That's the whole idea.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
That's back to that whole.
We're a little bit differentthan most handyman.
It's technology and tech stack,and making sure that we deliver
everything as quickly andeasily as possible is definitely
part of our model.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Nice, nice.
Well, Jim, thank you so muchfor joining me on the podcast
today and sharing FredericksburgHandyman with us.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
Thank you for having me.
I appreciate all that you dofor our Fredericksburg neighbors
and business community and lookforward to seeing you again.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg
Neighbors Podcast.
To nominate your favorite localbusinesses to be featured on
the show, go tofxbgneighborspodcast.
com.
That's fxbgneighborspodcast.
com, or call 540-534-4618.