Managing Handyman and Remodeling Services (ft. Chris Lalomia)

Logan Shinholser
Welcome back to the Contractor Growth Network podcast. I’m Logan Shinholser and today I have on Chris Lalomia. And Chris runs a handyman in a remodeling business where just the handyman side does over 3 million bucks a year. He has 15 handy men. So we talked all about how do you balance having a handyman company and a remodeling company and all the operational and marketing logistics behind how to cross promote the two super cool conversation. So without further ado, let’s jump on in. Chris, would you mind just giving us the backstory of, you know, trusted toolbox and I guess what made you want to start that first?

Chris Lalomia
So I’m a corporate refugee. Came up in the corporate world. My last job was at a local regional bank here in Atlanta. But I’ve always wanted to start my own business. I always wanted to since the age of 17. And I said, I’m going to start a business and I want to make sure it was not going to get outsourced. And I started looking at things that were happening in the. In the economy in 2006 and 7, and a lot of people started outsourcing the work around their home. So I said, all right, I got a great idea and I started looking around and seeing. And I was going to do all kinds of other stuff, but I love working on houses. And so I started The Trusted Toolbox as a handyman concept and started that in 2008.

Chris Lalomia
Now, my timing wasn’t exactly the best, if you remember 2008. Yeah. So timing is not my thing. So I started that because what I started to see was that there were a lot of franchise concepts in the space, which shows you that it’s a fractured market in terms of delivery, but a lot of service demand was starting to build. Now in eight, everything went down and you really had to work hard. So I stuck with small jobs, small business, small losses. Key point, just to get my name out there and get going. So I figured this and my marketing strategy was I had two trucks. I was in one, and I had a handyman in another. And 2 trucks looks like 4, but 3 looks like 9, 4 looks like 16.

Chris Lalomia
It’s an exponential factor when you start to put together having that brand of a truck along with your marketing. And it really started to grow. So I started to build my customer base by going out there and being the handyman. But we put a professional spin on it. So my guys all wear uniforms. We communicate with the customers. We have a good process that we follow all that.

Logan Shinholser
So Because I know like the typical handyman that I think of, it’s almost like the IT guy that comes out to the house, it’s you know, the middle of winter, but they’re wearing a tie, dye T shirt, cargo shorts and flip flops and it’s just not, it’s not this like appealing person that you’re like, oh, excited to have them come out to the house. So I guess in your mind why put a big emphasis on the professional appearance And I guess how did you come up with that process or that thought around like, hey, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to stand out in a different way.

Chris Lalomia
Yeah, it’s a great question because again, what is a handyman? Well, there’s all kinds of different definitions. Everything from that 60 year old father in law who knows everything, who’s retired to in Atlanta. The Hispanic market is pretty big here. So you feel like you could grab a Hispanic individual and they bring them over to their house and do things. But it’s a different level of service. It’s all varied. And what I was striving for was more consistency but also that professional approach. Because I realized that our target market were people who, the husbands probably didn’t do the work anymore and the partners needed work to be done. So the spouses would say, hey, I need you to get this done.

Chris Lalomia
But I gotta trust that who’s coming into that house has that professional aura and that professional experience with we would say background check, we’re fully insured, all that licensing, da da, da. But customers aren’t looking for that, they’re looking to see are you gonna pick up the phone, are you gonna answer the phone? Are you gonna give me an expectation and then will you fulfill that expectation? Now I’ll do that because I’m seeing, especially in home services, it’s, we get a break, right? We’re tradesmen. Everybody says, hey these guys can be dirty, it’s okay and we get away with it. But what’s happening is they’re, we’re not getting away with it as much as we used to because everybody’s used to the outsourcing model.

Chris Lalomia
Just think uber, I mean 20 years ago if you wanted to get a McDonald’s hamburger, you had to go there. Today you can order it, have doordash bring it to you. So they’re used to that service. And that’s where we really have seen us grow and expand our business and be able to scale like I have.

Logan Shinholser
And with like The Trusted Toolbox the model is it you’re really just doing one off projects and growing your customer base wider, or was it common that you’re going to be doing a project and then you’re coming back in six months because there’s another one? I guess. What did that look like?

Chris Lalomia
The beautiful thing about the biz is that we do everything around the house within reason. The hard part around this biz is that we do everything around the house sometimes. I tell people all the time I wish I was just an H VAC guy. I wish I was just a hot water heater repairman or a plumber. But we’re not. We do all kinds of things. But that’s the beautiful thing. I can send one guy out and he can take care of your deck and fix your deck up. And here in the southeast, we have a lot of pressure treated decks. But then somebody will call up and say, look, I’ve had a problem with my sink. I just need to get a sink changed out. Can you guys come here and change out the sink fixture?

Chris Lalomia
I can send somebody else within our team to do that who maybe has that specialty. So we can handle a lot of different things. So we get a lot of touch points with the customer, which has been great.

Logan Shinholser
Can you walk me through the logistics of that? Because that. That sounds like logistical nightmare where somebody, hey, I just have a small honey do list, which is my deck, my plumbing, and some, you know, thermostat issues. I mean, that’s three different specialties that you got to know or you have in one guy that knows how to do everything. And they’re just tackling that at the house.

Chris Lalomia
And that’s the difficult part. And you hit on it. You know, I had to have a skilled tradesman who has knowledge around the house. So that means they need to be usually a little older. Now, we do have some younger folks on the team, but we also do what we call a skill based assessment, and we do skill based routing. So based on your request, we try to pick the right guy to the right job on the right day. And that is why I have a scheduler who has four screens on her desk, and it looks like she’s trying to launch the space shuttle from earth and get it out to Mars. So it has been hard to scale.

Chris Lalomia
But the fact that we’re up to 15 guys and be able to run 15 trucks around metro Atlanta has really helped us with our brand. And actually, what I found is we gotten bigger. We’ve actually gotten better, meaning our service delivery was better, meaning I Got out of the way and I let my team do their thing after we had the processes developed. So we’re able to deliver a consistent level of service around different projects around your house.

Logan Shinholser
How are you going about recruiting? Because I know people have a hell of a time finding one reliable, you know, PM or lead carpenter, and you have 15 specialists. What are you doing differently that a lot of people are missing out on?

Chris Lalomia
I’d love to tell you there’s some secret sauce there, but I’ve tried it all. When I first started in 08, I put an ad out on Craigslist. I got no less than 200 resumes and it was insane. Today we use a combination of indeed, ziprecruiter. And then I have a local recruiter who kind of knows the market. And then how do you know they’re good at what they do? That’s the hard part. I wish I could say I built an academy where I could bring somebody with no skills. And we train them up. We just don’t have that opportunity.

Chris Lalomia
I have two apprentices today, but what we do is bring them in and then we try them out with our guys for a while to make sure that they say they have the skills they want and then we assess them in all the areas we work in. But to find these guys is really hard because it’s. It’s really a specialty. It’s somebody who loves doing different things every day and solving problems.

Logan Shinholser
And on top of that, I mean, this is. They’re like the only one going into the house. So it’s not like you have this rough and rugged person going in and they’re interfacing with the client on a big remodel. A lot of times that’s going to be the PM who’s a little bit more finessed, if you will. I mean, you’re essentially, because we. We deal with this on our side with marketing is you have the more data people that like to behind a computer screen and look at Excel spreadsheets, But then to get them to interface with a customer, it’s not always in their natural skill set to do that. So I guess when you are hiring, how are you approaching what sort of soft skills do they have compared to can they actually get the job done?

Chris Lalomia
So we don’t look for those customer service soft skills. That’s where we put our lot of focus on our training, because I know I can train them to do that. But you’re right, these guys really view themselves as gig artists. You know, think about that guy playing the guitar in the bar. He probably really doesn’t want to talk to you. He just wants to sit there and play, and he wants to have everybody enjoy what he’s doing and just go, thank you. Or give him a tip. So what I train these guys a lot about is that for you to have an easier transaction to do your job and demonstrate your awesome skills, you need to do these things first. Call the customer 30 minutes before you get there. If you don’t get them on the phone, then you text them.

Chris Lalomia
And then when you get there, you’re going to explain to them what you’re going to do. You’re going to give them your plan. Even though you know what you’re going to do, I want you to tell them. And then all you have to do is get them to sign off on what you’re about to do, and you get to go have a great day. And that’s where I get. These guys bought into it because they started to see that it made their job a lot easier.

Logan Shinholser
That’s awesome. I know we. We had somebody come out and just update just like a spigot on the outside of our house plumbing company. But I could tell that they were well round because they had a clipboard that had an eliminated piece of paper that was like, hey, I know we’re just doing this one thing, but our goal is to make sure all your plumbing is good. So step one is we’re going to meet. That’s what we’re doing right now. Step two is we’re going to. And they just went through, and it was just like a very formulaic checklist. But it, like, explained the whole process. I mean, it was a great conversation because, you know, I’m biased because I enjoy learning about, you know, hey, what was your trading like? And how hard is it for you guys? Who.

Logan Shinholser
Some guy just wants to be a plumber, but you’re now saying, look, you got to go out there, and it’s a bit of a show with a client. Like, what was that like? So that the checklist part, from a consumer’s perspective, like, it put me at ease as, okay, this is like a different class of plumbing company coming out to my house, and it sounds like you’re spitting it in a way where your guys are understanding, hey, this may not be my natural thing that I want to lean into, but realistically, as long as I can do this thing well up front, everything else is just like, icing on the cake and easy to go from there.

Chris Lalomia
Yeah. Because a lot of times these Guys are like, hey, just let me do my job, let me go out there, do my thing. And then people say, let me ask you a couple of questions. How are you going to do this? And then of course, they get offended. That’s like again, asking a guitarist, how are you going to hit that chord? Well, because I practice and I know how to hit that cord. And with these guys, that’s what I put them in the customer’s shoes. Because as you said, you know, you’re genuinely interested in marketing because that’s what you like. And then I do know your background. You knew what it takes to do work around the home based on your upbringing. But a lot of people don’t know what to expect. And that’s the biggest thing.

Chris Lalomia
That’s where, when you don’t know what to expect, what do you do? You normally put yourself on the defensive. You normally put your antennas up and you’re more hyper focused on what’s happening. So I tell the guys, if you can get everybody to relax and reduce their anxiety, things will go a lot better for you. And that’s usually what we see in the forms of great reviews and guys getting tips at the end of the day.

Logan Shinholser
That’s awesome. So you grow this thing and then what made you want to actually start a remodeling company? Because you’ve already got. I mean, again, I know you said like, the logistics are kind of tougher, but I mean, to run a Handyman business with 15 guys, I mean, that’s not easy. Why start a whole nother company to do larger projects?

Chris Lalomia
Yeah, I think it’s. I think it’s masochism. So why? Well, I love bathrooms, I love kitchens. I actually have an affinity for 11 to help people lay things out and do things. So I naturally liked it. The other thing, and I will tell you, this is where the flawed thinking happened for me. Bigger tickets, more dollars. Dollars, pay bills, percentages, don’t. I figured I had bigger dollars and it’d better. Well, what I found in the beginning was they were bigger dollars, but they were a lot less take home. So were doing a lot of work and not really bringing home what I thought. And what I really realized very short order was that it’s not the same as the handyman business, which was very transactional.

Chris Lalomia
I had to really shift our focus and work a lot more into the relational and be able to sustain that level of customer service that I just talked about. Not just in one day or three days. I had to sustain that over four or eight Weeks. And that’s where I started to see a lot of the failings. So I’m giving you the why did I do it? And then I look back and go, I probably should have done a lot differently than I did.

Logan Shinholser
Well, can you talk more about that? Because there’s a lot of, I would say probably of all the clients that we work with, my guess is 10% come from the corporate world. And then they go, look, I’m going to look at this thing as a business. I’m going to apply a lot of the more white collar things that I know to this business. And they operate it very differently than 90% of people that they started off by just helping out their dad who was also a contractor and they were doing more handyman stuff.

Logan Shinholser
And then when they come to us, they’re like, look, I’ve usually done very small hallway bathrooms, but now I would love to just do whole home remodels and the level of customer care and a client experience of a, you know, a one day or one week hallway bathroom by yourself compared to, you know, a six month whole home renovation. I mean that’s night and day difference. So can you talk more about, I guess, what was it like, what were you doing from that made the handyman side transactional and then what did the flip look like into when you’re working in their home for months on end?

Chris Lalomia
Yeah, great question. Again with the handyman. We could set them up. We’re going to be here today between 8:30 and 9. Not hey, our tire broke down or you know, our tire went flat, our car broke down. And I had a one day transaction. When you go to this multi week transaction, what happens is in the beginning the excitement for the customer is still high. And don’t forget about that anxiety. They’re still anxious because they don’t know what to expect. And a lot of people watch HGTV and think that you can get your bathroom remodeled in 22 minutes. Oh, okay, maybe that’s a little extreme. It’s actually 50 minutes because it’s an hour long show with commercials.

Chris Lalomia
But what you didn’t, what we didn’t do a good job was setting that expectation that there are days of a lot of activity and then there are going to be periods of no activity. Like after you get done tiling, it’s not a good time to have people in that bathroom because you want to make sure they don’t touch the tile when it’s set up correctly. And if you’re doing it right, you kind of wait a minute. But the other thing was the scheduling of subcontractors. So is when we got into the remodeling world, more of our jobs were permitted. Therefore, I had to have licensed electricians, licensed plumbers, and you rely on them. And if they are off one day.

Chris Lalomia
The adage I use here in my company is that a lot of times what happens to our project management group is that one day becomes one week. So you had the plumber scheduled for Thursday of this week. He couldn’t make it. He was backed up on a job or whatever happened. So you go, okay, well you’re going to get him on Friday. Well, it turns out to be Monday, maybe Tuesday. Well, now you’ve lost three or four days. Actually, if you count it up, you’ve lost six days. And that’s what I’ve been training my guys a lot about. Is that those weekend days, if you’re not there. Yeah, those are two days that count against you. And those are the two days customers are sitting in the house watching nothing getting done and they can’t use their space.

Chris Lalomia
And all they have to do is worry about you coming back on Monday. So their anxiety goes back up. And that’s what we found, is that the finish is a lot harder than the start.

Logan Shinholser
So because went through this of not realizing that, hey, the crew starts because we had a remodel at our house. Crew starts in the morning and they show up at 10:00. And I’m like, if they showed up, if they just started at 8, they would have gotten this project done much faster. Well, from, you know, seven to 10, they’re off, you know, getting everything prepped. But we didn’t know that. We just thought that they rolled out of bed at and you know, hit snooze and said, screw it, we’re going to go after traffic, we’re going to start at 10. And if they would have just been efficient the whole time, it would have gotten done faster. But in reality that wasn’t the case. But there was just a miscommunication around, hey, now it’s going to seem.

Logan Shinholser
And with my brother being a contractor and stuff, like, I would like joke with him because whenever he does stuff at my house, like the first time he did it, he would show up at noon and I’m like, dude, what are you doing? And he’s like, I had to go to the rock yard. It’s an hour away. It’s, you know, all this stuff. They don’t open until this time. So there was just so many like little things where I’m now basing the whole project on. Well, I think they’re just lazy or I think they’re inefficient. But in reality there was so much stuff behind the scenes that I, I didn’t even know was happening or needed to happen.

Logan Shinholser
But my wife and I are just sitting there like looking at each other of like, man, imagine if they actually were motivated to get this project done. And that wasn’t the case. It was just how we saw it was just we build up our own perception until we finally brought it up to the PM. The PM’s like, oh, well, this is actually what’s happening. They’re, they’re waking up on time. Don’t worry about that. They just have to do stuff beforehand to prep to come into the house. So there was a lot of that stuff. And when you bring up the weekend stuff, it was the same thing of like, man, like they worked last weekend, but then this weekend, where are they?

Logan Shinholser
Well, this weekend they were building all the shelves in their own shop so they didn’t have to come to our house and build it at our house. So it was just the little communication things that just build up the snowball effect. That and the weekends really are trust. Like as you said it, I mean, when you’re sitting there and half of your house is a demo zone, it is like you just walk by it all the time and you’re like, man, like, imagine if they would have showed up at 8 o’clock on that one Friday. So it does add up. So I get it. But I guess from you going from handyman to remodeling, a lot of the people that we work with, they’re predominantly remodeling.

Logan Shinholser
And we talk about, look like, you know, if stuff’s slowing down or if you’re trying to, like you have gaps in the schedule, like, maybe you could go out and do some handyman stuff. Like, what is it like for you now that you run both a handyman and a remodeling business as far as just from a systems and operations standpoint.

Chris Lalomia
First, great question. First, I would say if you’re a remodeler first, and you’re thinking the handyman job is easy, stop, don’t do it. Because it is again, apples and onions. And what makes it hard is that you will automatically as a remodeler who Maybe does a 50 or $100,000 project when I, when they say, hey, can you just come out and build me this one set of bookcases. And they’re gonna. You’re gonna charge them maybe 5 or $10,000, which is a very small ticket to you. That is a huge ticket to people in their minds, because you’re building those bookcases, and that’s a lot of money. And nobody listening to this podcast would. If I said, hey, right now, hey, guys, call me, I’ll give you ten grand, you’d all take it in a heartbeat.

Chris Lalomia
But when you’re doing that job, you have that mentality that it’s a smaller job, therefore you’ll do it at your pace, or you’re going to go quick and get it all taken care of. And nothing ever goes that quick, especially in something like that. And. And then you’re. You’re running up against the people who say what you just did. And then, hey, man, he was showing up at 12:00. You know, if I got your brother on the phone, he’d probably say, oh, Logan, I was showing up at 11:15, man. Well, 11, 15, 12, whatever it is, it wasn’t eight. So they start to fight that. So I hear people say, I’m going to fill in my gaps.

Chris Lalomia
I watched people do that in 2008, and I watched them fail miserably because when they say, hey, man, Chris is over there charging back in the day 80 bucks an hour, I’m going to go do that with my guys. I’ll do just fine. And then what you heard was, wow, these customers are really picky. Well, you know, my guys weren’t finishing the jobs. I had to keep going back and finishing jobs because they didn’t spec it out, didn’t take the same amount of time we would on a remodeling job. On the flip side, with remodeling, I’ve actually been able to systematize our process now, so we are a little bit better in delivery, but it’s again, starting that expectation and then also making sure my guys understand that one.

Chris Lalomia
One day becomes one week becomes two weeks, and you just lost your customer because they wanted you out of your house in 52 minutes.

Logan Shinholser
So I guess in hindsight, are you glad that you started the remodeling business?

Chris Lalomia
Yes, now. But I tell you what, I am part of a CEO mastermind group, and at least two years in a row, basically based on my financials and where I was going, they all recommended that I close it, and I just couldn’t do it. Now today, it is running profitably. It is running where I want it to. But I would have to say I should have taken a little bit more care in how I was approaching it.

Logan Shinholser
Well, knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently?

Chris Lalomia
Yeah, I would have absolutely hired the right people that weren’t handyman related. And then I would have found somebody who estimated these jobs a little bit differently than the handyman. And that was the other thing we found, is that when you estimated the job handyman style is that you missed a lot of those little interconnections and those little transitions that we just talked about. That you just talked about. You got to pick up the tile, you got to get the deck boards to the job, you’ve got to get the concrete to the job, you got to get the stoves to the job. And those logistics, somebody’s got to pay for it. And you didn’t mark up your materials enough to cover that.

Chris Lalomia
And you didn’t have your labor quotient put in there because you’re just thinking about on the site work, not travel to and back from the work.

Logan Shinholser
So is. Is there a world where you, like, I’ve heard of stuff, of scenarios where a remodeling company just kind of partners with a handyman company. And it’s just essentially just from a marketing standpoint, hey, if anything above 10 grand, you throw my way or anything above, you know, like 30 grand my way and anything below that, I’ll send your way. Was that ever like in the back of your mind of instead of you just starting your own remodeling company, you could just partner with one.

Chris Lalomia
So that wasn’t in my mind. I will tell you, we do get a lot of work from high end remodelers here in the Atlanta area where we actually come in and punch out some of their stuff, but they’ll just flat out refer us on the smaller stuff because we make them look good on the handyman side and then they can come in and do that to $250,000 remodel when. When the customer’s ready. So I thought about it and then I said, no, I’m. I’m not a really good partner. I’m a really good owner. And I am. I’m a solopreneur trying to make it all happen myself.

Chris Lalomia
But I have thought about the idea of spinning it off and maybe go ahead and just completely transition away and then have remodeling not be under the same trusted toolbox umbrella and just go ahead and rebrand and rename it. But I haven’t gone there because our Name has actually started to carry a lot of weight here in the local area.

Logan Shinholser
And from a like a marketing perspective, how do the two different businesses play together?

Chris Lalomia
Yeah, great. That’s great. So you’re used to The Trusted Toolbox experience. So we come to your house, you get a call or a text a half an hour before we’re there. You get a text two hours or one hour before, depending on the job we’re doing, to let us know you’re on the way. Our guys show up, they walk the job, you get a signature, they complete the job, they ask you to walk the job with them. You get used to that experience. You’re like, okay, I like that experience. Hey, I didn’t realize you guys did bath or kitchens or decks. I’d like to have that same experience with you because I trusted you and that has actually turned into a lot of repeat business. 40% of our revenue comes from repeat business.

Chris Lalomia
And that a lot of again, the big ticket items on the remodeling side were driven by us having a chance to do some handyman work in there. And then after we’re done a year later, people are like, hey, I don’t want to do that big project like we just did. Oh my gosh, I love what you guys did, but I don’t know if I can go through another five week effort. But I do need some other stuff running around the house. And you’ll get that. Customer says, hey, I’m going to use these guys for everything around the house. And we say, well, we’re not everything, but we can help you with these areas that we just talked about.

Logan Shinholser
So when you’re getting called for a small handyman project, is the handyman who’s coming out. Are they saying, hey, by the way, this is a really old ass kitchen. Does not look good. If you ever want to remodel it, we got a sister company that will do it. Or I guess how are your customers finding out that you can do bigger projects?

Chris Lalomia
So my guys aren’t the best sales guys. Again, if they were, they wouldn’t have been working with me. Right? They would be doing this on their own if they were because they’re skilled at trades. They don’t do it. So what we do is I’m relentless on my emails. So we get emails and I send a newsletter once a month with a video starting out with, hey, this is Chris. Take a look at some ideas around our remodelings or in the kitchens or remodeling in the man cave or Remodeling around there. So we always are bringing up remodeling to them. And then we’ll do some back market efforts with some direct mail.

Logan Shinholser
So it’s not like they’re showing up and saying it. It’s just somebody is already on your marketing list, if you will, from the handyman side. And then you’re just hitting them with it. By the way, we also do these other services and that kind of gets them into the remodeling side.

Chris Lalomia
Yeah. And then they leave a brochure behind and then people start reading the brochure. One of the things I love about the brochure we have is that people ask me on the back, why do you say that you only do crown molding, exterior trim repair and drywall? I said, because regardless of what you put out, you can put all 65 services you got. What does everybody ask? Hey, do you guys do crown molding? Well, well, yes. It says over here. Oh, I’m. Why? I just thought crown molding was different. Yeah, so I’d love to know that you guys do that. So all of our lines in there trigger sparks for people to think about in their home, how they would want something done.

Logan Shinholser
And do you have any sort of like home maintenance programs with like the handyman side or is it all one off?

Chris Lalomia
No, we do. We have a home hub maintenance program where we’ve had more success with commercial clients than we have with residential clients so far. But we do have that program. We come out twice a year. It’s a semi inspection, but also get some work done for a day. And I’ve got a number of customers who’ve signed up for it. These are the kind of people who are traveling for a living or maybe they’re a high net worth client who is very busy and doesn’t need to or nor want to look at what has to happen with their house because they want to get back to their families. They know that we’re looking out for it.

Chris Lalomia
On the commercial side, they love that we come out on a monthly basis and take care of all the stuff that they’re maintenance man, quote unquote would have done. But they don’t have a maintenance man anymore. We’re their maintenance fan.

Logan Shinholser
So like on the residential side, it’s just once or once every six months somebody’s coming out and there’s walk in the house and just saying, okay, there’s some scuff marks here. So I know we have paint downstairs, so I’m going to, you know, touch this up Some of these things are loose. I’m going to go ahead and tighten up. This is that basically they’re just walking through with like a checklist or guess how does that work?

Chris Lalomia
Yeah, so we have a built in checklist, you know, and here in Atlanta, we have four seasons. Of course, we do get snow every once in a while. But with the change of seasons, what we’ll do is depending on what we’re doing on the inspection, we’ll either look at what’s going to happen on the cold side or what’s going to happen on the hot side, depending on what’s coming forward. So we’ll look at things like weather stripping. We’ll look on the outside, make sure that the caulking is still tight and the exterior paint still good because a lot of things start to rot out. We’ll check that the deck isn’t starting to get loose because they do.

Chris Lalomia
And many times here in the southeast, people like to use their decks longer than a lot of people and so their useful life has probably been used. So they run through that checklist and then take care of those honeydews. Hey, I’ve got a couple towel paper holders I want you guys to change out or some. So we’ll just knock that out while we’re there with them.

Logan Shinholser
So during COVID when this all blew up, I mean, was, were you guys doing more handyman stuff? Were you doing more remodeling stuff? Because I mean, I’d imagine like at some point the allure of like, well, we’re getting so much remodeling inquiries that we could just take all of our handyman, flip them over there, and that’s going to be bigger projects on paper, bigger profits, I guess. How did you navigate the big boom of COVID with two different companies?

Chris Lalomia
So I actually will go on record. I’m part of the national association of the remodeling industry. I’m on the national board. And I got on a call and said, I am finally in the right spot. After Covid in March had hit and here we are in September, we’re in Georgia. We were kind of opened back up and were rolling and I wasn’t because I couldn’t find the people to do the work, but I had the work. So we navigated with a combination of both. I will tell you what happened was everybody was in their house. And if you think about people before COVID and I was by corporate self, I was in my house, if I was lucky, two days a week. There was no work from Home option. We didn’t do that stuff back then. But Covid hit.

Chris Lalomia
We were in our house how many days? Seven. Now with the go back to work that’s going on, people are all complaining about it, but you’re still in your house three or four days a week and at the office three or four days a week. So when you’re in your house seven days a week and can’t go anywhere, what are you doing? Well, if you have kids, you’re putting doors up on your office because you don’t want them to bother you. If you’re got kids, you’re building out the outside of the house because you can’t have them in the house all day long because they couldn’t go anywhere. So what we saw was a lot of pull forward and projects and were able to help them with it. But we also had the material shortage.

Chris Lalomia
So I again, I would go on record saying I was filing the right business, having no idea how naive I was knowing that I couldn’t find people and I couldn’t get product.

Logan Shinholser
So what’d you do? I guess was it just like, you know, fine, but I see your pants for a couple of years.

Chris Lalomia
So we. Yeah, I feel like I’ve been doing that for 16. So it was navigating new problems. Right. As an entrepreneur, if you don’t get up every morning going, man, I’m going to solve some problems today and look forward to it, you’re probably not going to be very successful. It’s going to be tough. You know, back to your background, right. If you’re going to stay disciplined, you’re solving problems all day long. You know, it’s not just the discipline of getting up and doing it. You got to get up the discipline. You know, there’s going to be something you’re going to have to overcome. So that’s what we did. Now I was doing things like going and pre buying deck boards because you couldn’t find them and store them in the back of my office. So at least I had deck boards to do jobs.

Chris Lalomia
But there are a lot of things we just got caught off guard with, you know, and that is, you know, cabinets weren’t coming, we couldn’t get cabinets, we couldn’t get rakes, we couldn’t get shovels. All these silly things. You’re like, what do you mean I can’t get that? Oh, yeah, no, that that plant’s been shut down, or I can’t get one part for a Kohler faucet because it’s coming from Wisconsin. And right now the trucks weren’t rolling from Wisconsin but once a month because they didn’t have enough manpower to make the product. And so they had to prioritize that. So it was navigating. And thank God I did have a great national network. It actually clued me into this pretty quickly. So were able to navigate and work with it.

Chris Lalomia
But if doors, new people, hey, I see that doors in stock at Home Depot or Lowe’s. And during COVID none of that was in stock. And were looking at things like eight and 10 weeks that we usually get in two weeks. And just think about trying to logistically figure all that out.

Logan Shinholser
What did. When you look back on the boom of COVID and it kind of stress test pretty much every contracted company out there, what did you learn from it?

Chris Lalomia
Yeah, definitely learned the fact that we’re always looking for talent. We’re always going to stay ahead of that curve. I’m not going to get short again. So we’re always looking for better. We’re always looking for better talent. That’s 1, 2. We definitely have learned about keeping check of prices because even after Covid, the price volatility that we had just a price raise, right? But now the price volatility is happening for all different kinds of reasons. Give you one esoteric example. Did you know that most of our cabinets here in the US we take the product from the US that’s the raw trees. We ship them to Ukraine, they make cabinet panels out of them and they ship them back. Well, what happened in Ukraine? I think we’ve all heard of that. It’s crap. Hate that it happened. Well, guess who’s not making cabinets anymore.

Chris Lalomia
And oh, by the way, those sea tainers that went back and forth, they went up three times in price. So all of your inflation went up and you couldn’t get these cabinets. So then you had to shift and find cabinets from a different supplier and a different source. But then you had to check their quality, make sure those were good. That’s just one of many things we had to figure out.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, I’ve heard of that stuff with like, I think it’s, they said like Russia, like produces a lot of like the world’s fertilizer. And a lot of the fruit that we get from South America uses Russian fertilizer. And I guess a lot of the reserves. My dad was telling me all this because he’s. Now that he’s retired, he’s like somehow like a macro economics. Like he just like, you got to watch all this stuff on YouTube, I’m like, look, dad, this is some guy in his bedroom talking about this stuff. Like, I don’t know if he’s like, the biggest authority in this space, but he was explaining just how it all works. And like you said, like, the Russia, Ukraine war and the impact on the fruit, which then makes all fruit prices go up for, you know, the year after.

Logan Shinholser
So I would imagine stuff like that is. I mean, that’s a job. I mean, that’s like, what, like, with us, like, half of our job is just seeing what Google is up today and keeping track. And it’s gotten so crazy that Google eventually just said, like, look, we’re not even going to bother updating you when we have an update anymore. You just got to figure it out on your own. So that’s like, I always use that analogy to people of like, you know, imagine if, like, you know, in the pond world, imagine if the way that you’re supposed to build a pond changes eight times a day. That’s what our life is like over here. But it sounds like that was kind of like what was going on with you and Covid anyway, or at least like right afterwards, too.

Chris Lalomia
Yeah. Especially for the construction industry to move at the speed of technology industry. Just think about how hard that was for us. Because in technology, it’s. I tell people all the time, you want to age yourself really quickly. Just go back and start talking about what you were using 10 years ago, because it goes so fast. So that’s been the big learning. It’s just keeping up to speed on the pricing, watching the volatility, and then watching how those numbers impact what’s going on. But, you know, to tell you that, that cabinet, I mean, until I heard that, I did not know. All I knew is I couldn’t get cabinets. And when I heard that, I was like, oh, well, it makes sense. But wow, who knew that the Ukrainian war would impact me here in Atlanta like that?

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. So getting back to the. The remodeling and the handyman side of things, let’s say there’s a remodeler out there. They’re listening to this and they are considering, hey, you know, I want to make sure I’m always keeping my guys busy because I have these subs, but I don’t want to lose them because they’re great subs. But I don’t have enough work for these big projects that I typically have or I had over the past few years. So maybe I’ll look into starting to do Some side know, handyman work. What would you talk to them about? Like what? I guess, I don’t know, advice or conversation would you want to have with them before they jumped all in on that?

Chris Lalomia
Yeah, number one, I’d say do you have a CRM system and do you have a scheduling system? Usually all in one will work well, because what we have the benefit of with remodelers with subs who are repeatable and they know where they’re going, is that I can do. You’re going to be here Monday, Tuesday, you’re going to be over there Thursday, Friday. In the handyman world, it may be you’re here Monday morning, but you have to be here Monday afternoon. Well, you’re making me move in between two days. Whoa, that’s a lot. And to coordinate that is hard. And that’s where the scheduling software was big. So that’s 1, 2. I would also really work on the expectations of what my I’m using subs or if I’m using specialty trades, what the expectations are because our arrival and departure windows are a lot tighter.

Chris Lalomia
You know, your tile guys can’t finish up a job in one area. Your deck framers can’t go hit one deck and get the framing done on that and then go skin that another deck in the same day unless they kind of know what’s going because of logistics. And again, big city. So the logistics of it is really more important to understand than it is the actual quality of the work you’re about to complete.

Logan Shinholser
So it almost sounds like you’re looking at handyman as less of a specialty thing and more of a home service business that you’re running because it really is the, you know, getting a text ahead of time of hey, we’re on the way. And it’s more on the home service side than it is like a remodeling setup from an, like a systems perspective.

Chris Lalomia
Right. So we keep ourselves up to date on all the new stuff that’s coming out, the remodeling. And again, back to my affinity. I love talking about bathrooms and kitchens and decks and layouts and all the new fangled products you can get, but really that part is the part that I think we can achieve and do well with the team that I’ve got. What I really always stress on is the process of getting them into position. And one of our mantras in our mission plaque is we set everybody up for success. And to set you up for success, I’ve had to tell the customer what to expect, and then you. And tell them what to expect, and then what to expect, and then you have to go do that.

Logan Shinholser
So, I mean, we talked a lot about all the hardships of this. What is the best part about owning both a handyman and a remodeling company?

Chris Lalomia
Oh, it again, it tickles. All of it for me, because we just got done taking pictures of a kitchen and a bathroom that were stunning, and I got to go for the final pictures with it and work with the photographer, make sure it was all done. And to have the customer sit there and just tell you how much they love that space, man, does that not make you feel awesome? On the handyman side, what’s fun is that we solve some pretty unique problems. You know, people always ask me, hey, what’s the most unique job you’ve ever did? And that for me was, we had to put an emergency doggie door in because a lady’s dog had become incontinent. She couldn’t get him out because she was elderly.

Chris Lalomia
And were able to pop a hole through a wall and build a small ramp so the dog could get out. But we had to have it done within two days because the dog was coming back from the vet. So those kinds of little problems are kind of fun to solve. And it’s not just, you know, hanging a curtain or coming in and touching up some. Some paint. You know, we’re actually doing some other work. And that. That part really, I just love solving those problems.

Logan Shinholser
But I’d imagine from an emotional connection standpoint with clients, not too many people are crying when they see their TV hung on the wall. Compared to when they walk into their new kitchen. That’s everything that they wanted.

Chris Lalomia
Yeah. I don’t get. I don’t get that. Wow, that. That chair rail looks so great. No, even chair rail doesn’t do it for you. Oh, wow. I’m so glad you changed out that rotted door that used to be rusty and now it’s a nice new door. No, not really. But what you do get is, wow, I’m glad. You know, when I see these reviews that say, from the time I called The Trusted Toolbox, the time the technician finished, I was thrilled with the service I got. That really satisfies the other part of my. As an owner who built the processes and the systems, watching my team flourish in them, that part just sets me over the moon, because that’s one of.

Logan Shinholser
The things that we talk to a lot of remodelers about, is a lot of them Sell. It almost sounds like a handyman side where they like, hey, when you get your kitchen done, we’re going to communicate. We’re going to be on time, on schedule, which is great. And that’s almost expected, but it’s still a two month project that is super invasive. They don’t have a kitchen. So you gotta, I mean, from us, like, we, like, we’re like, look, you got to sell the kitchen first. Like, it doesn’t matter how nice you are or how good your breath is when you show up. It’s, it’s all about, you know, this is emotional thing. They’re about to drop a hundred grand and be displaced and feel like a stranger in their home for two months.

Logan Shinholser
You can’t just go in there talking about, you know, you’re going to hit the timeline because that’s kind of the expectation. So it’s the flip of all this. So it really sounds. And I’m glad you bring this up because now I could be like, hey, look, the way that you’re selling it is more of a home service based thing versus, which is the experience more so than, you know, they don’t have to spend a hundred thousand dollars on a kitchen. They, they could spend that on a lot of other things that would bring them happiness much easier.

Chris Lalomia
I had a customer who actually was awesome. He’s in there and said, look, my screens are ripped up out here. I don’t want a new screened in porch, but I just need to get my screen, a ceiling fan and a TV out here so that we can like it. I’m like, oh, yeah, we’ll take care of you, man. I’ll do this, I’ll do that. He goes, he goes, what are you doing? I said, well, I’m going to build you a screened in porch. You looked at me. He says, no, you’re not. You’re going to allow me to have a glass of wine with my wife this fall and she’s going to actually enjoy watching her special out here while I get to enjoy the screened in porch. I’m like, I hear you. I should have sold you in a screened in porch.

Chris Lalomia
He goes, yeah, man, make me feel it. So in the remodeling, that’s what we do. Talk about the sales process. If you’re calling me out for some handyman stuff. Hey, can you fix this brick over here? Do that, do this. You. I’m not going to sit there, go, hey, Logan, do you want this brick to look red? Do you want it to look or do you’re like, I don’t care on the side of my house. Just make sure that rats can’t get in here. Right. Or the squirrels or whatever. But when you’re in something like that, you’re right. You’re selling them on the. Wow.

Chris Lalomia
Can’t you wait to come in and have a bathroom that as soon as you walk in, you have a heated floor, you turn on the water, it’s set to the temperature you wanted, you wait for it to warm up, and it warms up even quicker than it ever has. And you get to go in there and get it all taken care of, and you’re warm the whole time. Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
How. How many people that you do remodel? The four end up having like a honey do list that you. Then when you’re finishing up that kitchen, you’re setting, you know, the handyman side back out for $10,000 worth of quote unquote. Just touch up stuff that it’s like a. Hey, I already know your company. I trust you guys. While you’re here, could you knock this out?

Chris Lalomia
So that’s interesting. We’ve actually been analyzing that data, and it’s not as much as I thought it was. And I’m trying to figure out why we’re not getting more of that. I’ll tell you what we are getting, though, is that when we do Johnny and Susie’s Jack and Jill bath, we get the, hey, you guys did such a good job on that bathroom. Can you come do our master? And if we do the master, like, okay, can you come give us a quote for our basement so they stay in their same boat? And I. I’m still trying to crack that nut now. Yeah. Do we get some questions? Oh, absolutely. I mean, we’ll get some of that work, but it’s not as much as I want because I, again, at the size I am now with 15 handymen and then four project managers.

Chris Lalomia
You know, we have a lot of data we can work with and look at. It just didn’t go now the other way. From handyman up to remodeling goes a lot smoother than the other way down.

Logan Shinholser
Interesting, because I know for us, like, we finished our. We added a bathroom into a nursery, and that finished in May, July, we redid the entire front of our house. Hardscaping added upon August, we repainted the entire outside of our house. We’re about to put on shutters right now. So, you know, swapped out the columns on the front. So were kind of in this, like, home improvement Mode that we started with the big one, and then we’re like, you know what? Let’s just drop another. I think, you know, it was not a small amount of money for us just to continue, but were kind of in that mindset of let’s just knock it out. And then we’re going to be done with home stuff for a while. But it went from.

Logan Shinholser
And we have clients that we talk about that of like, yeah, like, I keep messing my schedule up because, you know, I just did this person’s kitchen, and we’re supposed to be done on November 1st. So they asked us just to do 30 grand worth of. While you’re here, could you just replace all the windows and do this, and this? So it’s interesting that you say that it’s not converting as much, because I know how I felt was very much a. Hey, let’s just. While we’re here, we’re in the process. It’s already uncomfortable. Let’s just check the final boxes and be done for a while.

Chris Lalomia
Now what I have found, especially now, people ask about some trends, and this is one that I’ve seen is that today you are a good example of that. You started a project and you went, wow, I’m making this area look so good. I’m looking at this area. I’m ready to do it. Hey, you know what? Let’s add some shutters. Well, those are pretty expensive. Yeah. But if I’m gonna do this right. And I think that’s the one thing that I’m seeing a lot more. When people change out their flooring, they’re going for better flooring product than they used to. You know, instead of just, hey, give me that dollar and a quarter square foot carpet. Throw it on the ground. No, let’s go hardwoods. Yeah, I understand it’s going to be a lot more. But, you know, it’s.

Chris Lalomia
This is my house, and I don’t think I’m going to be moving for a little while. So if I’m gonna do it right. I’m seeing a lot more of that. As opposed to the, well, renter’s mentality. I’m gonna be in this house for two years. I’m gonna get out of here because I’m gonna upgrade to the next house. People are kind of settling in where they are, especially because of interest rates, number one. Also the ability that they can stay in the home they like and then they can improve it like they want. But if they’re going to do it. They’re going to do it the way they want, not what they think it’s going to sell.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. So I guess to kind of wrap all this up, if somebody is a remodeler, would you suggest, look, don’t do your own handyman thing. Go partner with a handyman company and make it easy on both parties. Or is it, you know what, I did it the opposite way of how you’re doing it. But if I did it, you can do it. So have at it.

Chris Lalomia
I would say I got a great phrase from a lawyer. The closer I stay to what I know, the more money I make. And I would say no, if you’re a good remodeler and you’re really good at interiors, work on that. Find another interior product. Maybe you could be good at flooring. Maybe you could take one of those. But on the handyman side, I’d say it’d better ish to partner with people. Now what I’m finding, because I’m in the national network, there’s not many people of my size and it is hard to partner with somebody you’re really not sure if they’re going to deliver that same level of white glove service that you have done as a remodeler.

Chris Lalomia
So I know it’s hard to partner with them, but I would also say it’s also really hard to logistically have your plumber in one spot, your electrician in another spot, your tile guy in another job, and you’re all of a sudden managing for projects that you used to remodel with when they all used to be one side. Cool.

Logan Shinholser
Love it. And I know it’s on your podcast and you asked me this question, so I’ll flip it around to you. What is a book that you would recommend that everybody read?

Chris Lalomia
Oh, wow, you got me on that because I’ve got my whole list back there. If you haven’t read the E. Myth book, that’s a must have got to read that one. Now you’re the marketing guy and you like this one. I do love the Marcus Sheridan book. They ask, you answer. It’s a big book. It’s a big read. But the other one, and I’ll throw this out, is that you don’t always have to go for self help books. I love biographies. And I just finished Ben Franklin’s biography Done. And I was amazed at how much of a renaissance man that guy was and what he did for us. And that actually unlocks some things even for My own business.

Logan Shinholser
I. It’s funny. So I had no idea that he was, you know, poor Charlie. Not poor Charlie. Poor poor Richard’s Almanac. Like, I didn’t know that he did that. Had no idea he was a media mogul. I thought he was just a founding father that just had some hair and that was it. But, like, you know, between that and then him going over to Paris to get, you know, the French to come battle for us, like, I had no idea that he was an entrepreneur, but then did all this stuff outside of just signing things for us, I’ve gotten a lot more. There’s a podcast that I listen to called Founders that It’s a guy that essentially reads biographies of entrepreneurs and then summarizes it over anywhere from an hour to a two and a half hour podcast.

Logan Shinholser
But he’ll bring in all these other ones as well of like, hey, and like, you know, when Ben Franklin’s doing this reminds me a lot of what Steve Jobs did when he came back to app. So he, like, ties a lot of stuff together. It’s. It’s fantastic. So I’ve been getting more into biographies as well, but in a different way where I’m just. I just listen to this guy talk about. It’s awesome.

Chris Lalomia
Oh, I love that. Yeah, I’ll have to go check that out.

Logan Shinholser
It’s cool. Well, Chris, that was awesome, man. I appreciate it. Super helpful to delineate the difference of remodeling and handyman, how to run them both, or how to really just stay in your lane and take it from there. So that was fantastic. If people want to connect with you, because I know you’re hypnary and stuff like that. So you’re not just running The Trusted Toolbox. How can they get in contact with you?

Chris Lalomia
Yeah, you could always get me on LinkedIn. You got Chris Lalomia. I got the ChrisLaw.com website. Happy to share 30 minutes of my time with anybody. I do that all the time because I got the podcast going called the Small Business Safari, so where I get to talk to great people like yourself and others out there. So you can always find me there chrislaw mia.com or find me on LinkedIn, because that’s a pretty unique name.

Logan Shinholser
What I really liked was essentially the fact that he was saying, unless you, like, love the operation side of things, don’t jump into the handyman side. Just go right back and get deeper and better at the remodeling side of things, which is kind of counterintuitive to a lot of us. In fact, like, I’ve talked to clients about starting a handyman side thing as well, just to kind of keep some nice cash flow going. But it sounds like it doesn’t always go exactly how it should, so listen to Chris. And unless you’re really in on the handyman side, stick with what you know.