From Small Jobs To Big Wins: How A Handyman Scales With Profit, People, And Process with Dennis Koval

A five-star review doesn’t happen by accident—it’s built on numbers, people, and promises you keep. We sit down with Dennis Koval of FixnCarolina Pro Handyman Service to unpack how a local home services company scales with profit discipline and a people-first mindset. From job-level cost tracking to a satisfaction guarantee that holds final payment until the client is truly happy, Dennis shares an operating system any service business can adapt.

We start with the real problem a pro handyman solves: all the small but critical tasks homeowners don’t know who to call for. Dennis explains why tracking materials, labor hours, and target gross profit per job is non-negotiable, and how quietly stacking $19.99 subscriptions can bleed cash if no one audits the tools. He walks through the playbook for clear communication—owning setbacks, explaining fixes, and leaving homes cleaner than they were found—so the only visible change is the improvement. That discipline turns one-time visits into repeat business and over eighty five-star reviews.

The conversation turns to culture. Dennis treats employees as the first customers, hiring for openness, friendliness, cleanliness, and attention to detail. He shows how that approach drives rapport with homeowners, fewer callbacks, and a calmer schedule. We also talk boundaries: setting work hours, planning vacations with coverage, and resisting the urge to reply from the beach. The quick-fire segment hits education, planning for the worst while hoping for the best, and drawing inspiration from family and local founders. We close with practical advice for owners: invest in your team, obsess over service, keep learning, and build peer circles that keep you out of the weeds.

Ready to turn small jobs into big wins? Listen now, subscribe for more conversations with builders and owners, and share the one change you’ll make this week. If this helped, leave a review so others can find the show.

Guest info: 

[e-mail]

https://www.facebook.com/fixncarolina/

Thanks for Listening. You may contact me or our team at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!
Bill

Thanks for listening. Please hit the subscribe button, leave us a 5 star review, and share this podcast. You can reach me at [e-mail] or at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!

Bill

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:34):
All right, welcome to this week's episode of Epic
Entrepreneurs.
I am Cliff McCray, filling infor Bill Gilliland with your
local business training andcoaching firm, Action Coach
Business Growth Partners.
I'm excited to have Dennis Kovalwith Fix and Carolina Pro
Handyman Services on today asour Epic Entrepreneurist guest.
So, Dennis, uh please introduceyourself and tell us a little
bit about yourself and yourcompany and what primary

(00:56):
products or services you offerthe community.

SPEAKER_01 (00:59):
It's a pleasure to be here, Cliff.
My name is Dennis Koval withFixing Carolina Pro Handyman
Service.
Um we help homeowners deal withany of those tasks that they may
have that they don't know who toturn to.
So a lot of contractors dobigger projects.
A lot of contractors arespecialized in regards to

(01:19):
plumbing, electrical, HVAC, andso on.
And we help streamline theprocess of any getting any small
tasks done for homeowners.

SPEAKER_00 (01:29):
Okay, great, great.
Love it.
So if you had to start fromsquare one in your business,
what would you do differently?

SPEAKER_01 (01:35):
If I had to start from square one, what I would do
different is keeping track ofthe numbers.
The numbers show if we're makinga profit or not.
It shows if certain projectsthat we do are do are profitable
if we need to adjust.
Um and then keeping up withfinances, uh making sure

(01:56):
everything's covered for themonth, overhead, uh profit and
whatnot.
At the end of the day, we're inbusiness to make a profit.

SPEAKER_00 (02:04):
Okay, okay, great, great.
So, what have your biggestlearnings been as an owner and
employer since you started yourbusiness?

SPEAKER_01 (02:12):
My biggest things that I learned are keeping track
of numbers, like I statedbefore.
And then also once you starthiring on employees, their
employees become your number onecustomer.
Um, if you treat them well,they're gonna go around and
treat other companies well, andthey're not gonna go around your
back and treat your company anyworse than they were treated.

(02:35):
So treating customers well andthen treating your employees
well prior to treating yourcustomers well.

SPEAKER_00 (02:42):
Okay, okay.
And going back to what you saidon the first question, you know,
if you had to start from squareone and kind of look at your
finances a little bit better,what what would you recommend
business owners do?
Like would you would yourecommend them to use some kind
of service to track theirexpenses or a finances?
Or what would you recommend?

SPEAKER_01 (02:58):
Yeah, I would recommend them to use some sort
of software or at least likespreadsheets, Google Sheets, or
uh Excel on each job, make surethey track costs of those jobs,
so what the material costs orwhatnot are, and then how much
labor hours they put in thosejobs and making sure that they
receive a certain amount ofgross profit.

(03:21):
And then in connection withthat, if they track their
numbers in regards to theiroverhead, so making sure that
they don't they're not payingfor systems that they're not
using because uh the moresystems you have, uh it can be
death bet uh million cuts.
So um at the end of the day, ifyou're paying for a$19.99

(03:42):
subscription here and there, andyou start to accumulate those
after a couple months or years,and you're not watching out for
those, um at the end of the day,it could just slowly drain your
bank account and you just wonderwhere all your profit went to.
Uh so it's just tracking thoseand tracking your overhead.

SPEAKER_00 (04:00):
Okay, yeah.
No, I love it, love it.
Uh so what are some commonmisconceptions about running a
business and how do you addressthem?

SPEAKER_01 (04:07):
Um if you're not if you're not keeping up with your
money, with your overhead andwhatnot, a lot of people think
that you're just flown withmoney and that you can pay for
anything.
Uh, you can take off, take offof work whenever you want.
Although we are flexible withour time, like we could take off
for 30 minutes to an hour, ortake off a couple of days.

(04:28):
There's a lot of preparationthat we need to do.
And if you don't prepare in thatway in regards to scheduling and
letting homeowners know orcustomers know that we're off
for those couple days, or if youdon't have employees to fill in
whenever we're gone, um, thatcan definitely hurt us in the

(04:49):
long run.

unknown (04:50):
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (04:52):
Okay.
Now, what have you uh attributedto your growth so far, company?

SPEAKER_01 (04:58):
Uh satisfaction guarantee is what we focus on.
So being cleanly havingcleanliness whenever we go into
customers' home, when we leavetheir home, it looks better than
when we got there.
Um, they don't notice adifference except for the
improvements that we made ontheir home.
So focusing on cleanliness, uhquality of work, and communic

(05:21):
being communicative withhomeowners.
A lot of people they understandthat things can go south, things
don't go as well as we want themto.
And uh a lot of times they'renot happy if you keep them in
the dark.
So as long as you communicatewith homeowners, hey, this
happened or that happened, andthis is what we are going to do
to resolve it, a lot of peopleare okay with that.

(05:44):
And they're they're open andhappy that you came that you
brought it to their intentionattention and that you're doing
whatever you can to resolve it.

SPEAKER_00 (05:53):
Okay.
Now you said you guys have asatisfaction guarantee.
Is that for any anything youguys do?

SPEAKER_01 (05:59):
For everything that we touch, if they're not
satisfied, we don't accept finalpayment until they're satisfied
and we do whatever we can tomake sure they're satisfied.

SPEAKER_00 (06:10):
Okay, okay, yeah.
No, I like that a lot.
I like that a lot.
So basically, you know, ifyou're in, you know, because
like you said, it's a handymanbusiness.
So if you're working onsomebody's, you know, back porch
or fixing something for them andthey don't like the way this
looks or whatever, you guys willredo it.
No, no charge to them.
Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 (06:27):
So if uh we always like to be upfront with a lot of
things, we try to consult withthe homeowner on how this is
gonna look or that's gonna look,so then we don't put a lot of
time and effort into doing this,uh doing this route or that
route.
Um, and that I think helpsmitigate a lot of the questions
that homeowners have, and at theend of the day, most times

(06:49):
they're satisfied.
But if there are certain thingsthat need to be corrected,
because we can explain the wholeprocess all day, but visually, a
lot of homeowners are not ableto um visualize what something's
gonna look like.
So once something is completed,then they can see what it looks
like, and it might not be theway they thought it was gonna

(07:10):
look like.
So we're more than happy to makechanges um to the to a certain
extent, I guess you could say,as long as it's not like
rebuilding the whole house.

SPEAKER_00 (07:19):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (07:19):
Because if we did something small, but anything
that we touched, yeah, we'redefinitely gonna make the
changes that we need to to makesure they're satisfied.
Because homeowners, they'reliving with it for the next
five, ten, fifteen, twentyyears.
And the way I see it is if itwas my personal house, I don't
want to notice something andthen live with that little
nuance every single day the restof however long I lived there

(07:42):
for.

SPEAKER_00 (07:43):
So okay.
So how do you balance yourpersonal life with the demands
of running a business?

SPEAKER_01 (07:50):
That is very tricky to balance balance personal and
family life or personal and umbusiness life.
We just have to set hardguidelines of when we work and
when we set our phones down.
We have to for sure set ourphones down in an area where we
are not distracted and just havecertain guidelines.

SPEAKER_00 (08:14):
Okay, great, great.
Now, how does how about vacationand everything like that?
Does that work the same way?

SPEAKER_01 (08:19):
That works the same way.
Um, a lot of times when we go onvacation and it helps to have
the right employees to fill inall those holes, um, so then
they can hold at least hold downthe fork while we are gone.
But there have been times in thepast if you're wearing all your
all the hats in your businesswhere you would get a call or a

(08:41):
text from a customer whileyou're in the middle of laying
on the beach in Florida withfamily.
Um it's hard not to respondright away.
And it's hard not to respondwithin a certain time frame just
to let to just to be uhcustomers, customer friendly.
Um so it's hard not to do that,but then you have to set certain

(09:02):
things up and plan ahead of timeto make sure customers know that
you're around and you're you canhelp service them, but you're
away for a couple of days.

SPEAKER_00 (09:11):
Okay.
And what qualities do you lookfor employ in employees?
And how do you foster a positiveand productive work environment?

SPEAKER_01 (09:19):
The qualities that I look for in employees are
open-mindedness, um, for them tobe open about learning a new
skill, um friendly.
So then whenever they areworking with customers, they're
open to speaking with them andthey're not closed off uh
because our employees are arepresentation of who we are as

(09:40):
a company.
Um, so the and then cleanlinessand attention to detail, those
are the four main things that welook for.

SPEAKER_00 (09:49):
Okay.
Do you look for any likepersonality traits at all or
just just those two things?

SPEAKER_01 (09:54):
Um, personality traits.
As long as they're open andthey're not too introverted,
where they're open to having aconversation with homeowners,
um, building rapport.
That's the number one thing.
A lot of times, if if you havesomebody that's a little bit
closed off, it's difficult tohave a conversation with them

(10:14):
and build rapport with them.
Um so personality-wise, it'sjust them being open and uh
honest with everybody that theytalk with.

SPEAKER_00 (10:24):
Okay, okay, that makes sense.
All right, so this is gonna bethe the next one is gonna be the
quick fire round.
So basically, I'm just going tosay a word, and I just kind of
want you to tell me the firstthing you think of when you hear
this word in regards to yourbusiness.
Uh education.

SPEAKER_01 (10:39):
Uh it's important to always be educating ourselves,
either on a process, on ourproduct, on our ideal customer,
on ways that we can improve withworking with our employees, or
ways we can make the processsmoother for homeowners and
clients that we work with.

(10:59):
Perfect, perfect.

SPEAKER_00 (11:01):
What about planning?

SPEAKER_01 (11:03):
Planning is it's hard to plan a lot of times
because things are always everchanging.
A project may take hours longerthan we expect it to, or days
longer than we expect it to, oruh customers may change certain
things on the project, whichchange which changes and the
plan.
Um, but we definitely have toplan, uh plan for the worst, but

(11:26):
hope for the best.

SPEAKER_00 (11:27):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (11:29):
Uh now what about inspiration?
Inspiration.
Our my family inspires me to dowhat I do and making an impact
in other people's lives, eitherour employees' lives or
homeowners' lives, or lives ofpeople in our community that we
don't talk to on a day-to-daybasis.

(11:51):
Um, and then we're also inspiredby other other founders and
other companies that work in thesame community we do.

SPEAKER_00 (12:01):
Commitment?

SPEAKER_01 (12:02):
Commitment, uh we are committed to our customers
to make sure they receivedthey're satisfied and they
received a um service like noother.

SPEAKER_00 (12:18):
So what words of advice would you offer to other
business owners who are lookingto grow?

SPEAKER_01 (12:22):
Words of advice are employees are your number one
customers, um, so you shouldmake sure you treat them fairly.
Uh hire an employee that youwould want to be around every
single day.
Um customer service is anotherpiece of advice I would have.
Make sure you pay attention tocustomer service.

(12:45):
Um and then education, make sureyou keep educating yourself and
surrounding yourself withlike-minded people.
A lot of times we can be in theweeds working on our business,
but it's it's easier and it'sdifficult because then we there
are different points in lifethat we become like you could
say a little bit depressed in,and we can't assimilate with

(13:09):
other people in our life, soit's best to surround yourself
with other like-minded people.

SPEAKER_00 (13:14):
Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 (13:15):
Any upcoming events that we personally have no, but
I am looking forward to startingup something where I can rub
shoulders with other uh other umbusiness owners.

SPEAKER_00 (13:34):
And what would you say?
What what's the next big thingfor fixing Carolina?

SPEAKER_01 (13:40):
I haven't thought that far ahead.
Um but make more of an impact onpeople in our community,
homeowners, uh, customers, anduh hoping to bring on more
employees, more technicians tohelp us with our day-to-day
tasks.

SPEAKER_00 (13:58):
Okay, so you're really looking to grow and
expand a little bit?
Grow and ex expand, yep.
Okay, great, great.
And lastly, what's the best wayfor someone uh to find you or
get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_01 (14:07):
Um, if they search us up on Google, Fixin Carolina
Pro Handling Service, they canfind us on Google.
We have over 85-star reviews,all from customers that are
satisfied with our work.
Um, they can call us at828-707-9086.
They can email us at support atfixincarolina.com.

(14:30):
Uh, yeah, that's the best way isto reach out to us.

SPEAKER_00 (14:33):
Yeah, any social media?

SPEAKER_01 (14:35):
We have Facebook set up, but we're working through
the process of setting up ourInstagram.
Um, I think those are the twobig ones that we're setting up,
but we're setting up profilesthroughout all of social media
so then people can find usanywhere and follow us for
anything we may have to offer inthe future.

SPEAKER_00 (14:51):
Okay, so you said you're setting it up.
So when do you when do youexpect the Instagram to be to be
ready to go?

SPEAKER_01 (14:57):
Uh before the end of the year, so maybe in the next
couple weeks.
Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (15:04):
Okay, perfect, perfect.
Yeah, fantastic.
Thank you so much for being apart of the community and and
thank you for being on thepodcast.
We certainly wish you continuedsuccess.

SPEAKER_01 (15:11):
Uh thank you, Cliff.

SPEAKER_00 (15:13):
It was a pleasure.
Yeah, thank you very much.