At first, starting a contractor business may seem no different from any other business, but there are a few specifics that you must know early on if you want to succeed.
These first steps are crucial because they will become the foundation upon which your business is built, so they must be rock solid. Besides, most contractors start a business completely alone and one of the first steps should be to team up as soon as possible – which is part of this foundation.
Follow these tips if you’re starting a contractor business:
Know when it’s time to hire
This is particularly important for those that are starting a business solo. To take your first steps as a self-employed contractor is pretty common, but you should definitely hire some help as quickly as possible.
This is because you’re not only the CEO of your company but also its sole employee, which severely hampers your productivity and limits how much you can do at once. If you want to still be the guy on the field, you can, but having at least someone to handle scheduling and finances is a good first step.
It might be prudent to hire someone to reply to requests online and take calls in your place too, but it has to be someone you align with. It might take some time, but it’s a worthwhile effort that will dramatically improve your productivity and efficiency early on!
Online presence is key
At the very early stages of your business, solidifying your online presence is perhaps more important than focusing on marketing – there’s no point advertising yourself these days if your online presence is lacking.
To be clear, “online presence” simply refers to how easy to find and up-to-date your social media profiles and website are.
To really make this clear, think of it this way: imagine if you walked into an open store, but all the lights were off, the shelves looked empty, and there was no one on the counter. You would probably assume the place is closed, under maintenance, or worse, abandoned.
That’s what it feels like when someone Googles your company and either can’t find it, or are unsure if they found it. They need to be sure.
You can improve your online presence by completing your social media profiles with contact information and keeping them updated, and the same goes for your website.
There’s a lot to be said about this topic, so be sure to read this guide on how to improve your online presence!
Know your audience
One of the advantages of being in the contractor business is that work will find you sooner or later, seeing as most of the business consists of providing services that people actually need (which is more urgent than simply wanting).
Having said that, you should still focus on a target audience when it comes to marketing yourself. This will govern the language you use on social media and when replying to calls and messages, as well as the kinds of publications you make online.
Appealing to a younger audience will be very different than appealing to an older one because their tastes, culture, and language can be miles apart. It’s part of your marketing efforts to know which is your target audience so that you can market yourself effectively.
Start building a team
While you might not be hiring people right away because of budget limitations, you should already be thinking about building a team. Start networking and building contacts while you prepare the foundation for your business so that when it’s time to hire, you’re no longer on square one.
And that’s another thing: hiring people is great, but you should also focus on building a proper team. Hire people for long-term relationships that you can rely on – the stronger the team, the further you will go together.
Speaking of building a team, it’s important to know how to hire top talent for your contractor business!
Work on your reputation
Your reputation is your most valuable asset as a contractor. Having a good reputation both word-of-mouth and online will get you very far.
For word-of-mouth reputation, you need excellent customer service and experience across the board. This type of reputation is a volatile beast, so the more attentive and tender you are, the better.
Your online reputation is a bit easier to manage because you will generally have clear avenues and metrics to manage. The most obvious are your positive and negative reviews on places like your Facebook page and your star rating in online aggregators.
It’s crucial to learn how to handle both of these because you tend to gain momentum in whichever direction you’re going. If you already have a good reputation, it’s much easier to keep it, but if it goes down, it can be far more difficult to salvage it.
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