While many home-related projects can be tackled by homeowners without incident, there are some doozies out there that should be left to a professional. Getting some homeowners to leave the professional-grade projects to the professionals is tough, but you can get hard-headed homeowners to drop the hammer and nail gun before they get hurt—it just takes some extra encouragement from your end.
Advertise your strengths to consumers to make them think twice before tackling their next project on their own.
- You've got experience. Now is not the time to be modest. If you've got an impressive skill set, brag about it. Let your client pool know what you've done and how well—and how quickly—you did it. Be careful not to overstate your qualifications though. Once you say you can do something well, it'll bite you in the long run if you commit a horrible snafu.
- You have time. This is your job—you know how long a job will take (or thereabouts) after an estimate, and you know how to schedule your time in order to satisfy as many customers as possible. You won't be piecing together a project after work hours or on the weekends when you have time, like a homeowner would.
- You've got tools. Certain jobs require special tools that you've already got. Most non-professionals won't have them and will be required to invest in the tools for their DIY attempt either through renting them or purchasing them, which just adds to their expenses. You save them the trouble of hunting down the right tools and spending money on something they may never find a practical use for again.
- You're connected. If you can't do a job, you probably know someone who can. By communicating with your customers and being honest with them about things out of your realm of expertise, you become their go-to person who can help them out, even if you're not doing the work.
- You've seen DIY wreckage. The disaster zone that can follow a plumbing or electrical endeavor-gone-wrong? You've fixed it. You're the person they should've called in the first place because it would've saved a ton of time and money.