Appliance Repair – Good Business in a Bad Economy

Back when I first considered starting my appliance repair business not much more than a year ago, I couldn’t have accurately forecast what my experience would be.

I only knew that it seemed like a good idea, although maybe a little daunting to get the proper training and compete with well-established businesses for a piece of the pie.

As I moved through the startup process with Uncle Harry training and my own efforts to market my services, I never stopped evaluating whether appliance repair was still meeting my original hopes and expectations for starting a profitable business.

These are some of my favorite things about appliance repair that have convinced me what a fantastic business opportunity this really is:

  • You are not trying to sell a luxury item, it is much closer to a necessity.  Every household has major appliances, and when they break down people find the money to fix them.
  • This is truly a recession-proof business, and the current recession is actually encouraging people to repair their appliances as opposed to replace them.  I hear their comments about the high cost to replace appliances a bit more each day as this sluggish economy continues.
  • You don’t have to sell the service too hard.  Most customers are ready to buy the service once they have contacted you.
  • People don’t comparison shop the service as much as you would think.  As long as your prices seem reasonable, they will usually have you come out if they have called you.
  • Most customers don’t have any technical understanding of what you are doing, so there is a margin for you to learn as you go with various appliance repairs you have never encountered or have less experience with.
  • Although most customers are not technically sophisticated, they know when they are being treated fairly.  If you treat them with respect and don’t try to take advantage of them, you can easily win their loyalty and repeat business or referrals.
  • People don’t scrutinize your bill to the last penny, so this is an opportunity to make your profit margin.  But there’s a balance.  If you push it too far, you’ll get paid today, but lose in the long run when they call somebody else next time.

I have been self-employed most of my adult life, and few other opportunities have been so easy to start up, manage, and grow.  I hope this helps you make your decision about whether to get into the appliance repair business.

 

What’s So Great About Appliance Repair?

How Do I Like Appliance Repair?OK, I have been in the appliance repair business for over a year now, successfully running service calls and making money, but it’s time to stop and think, do I really like it?

I invested some time (3 months) and money (home study training, promotional materials, and inventory) into learning to be an appliance repair technician and starting my own business.

Now that I’m actually doing it for a living, I thought I ought to review my choice and see how I feel about it.

Well, here are some of the good things about it:

  1. I’m Running My Own Business.  I never liked working for somebody else and being subject to their decisions.  I would way rather be in charge.  I also want to keep all the money myself, and not be dependent on someone else for a raise.  The harder I work, the more money I make.
  2. It is Challenging and Keeps My Interest.  If I had chosen, for example, to become a handyman instead, the learning curve would have been quicker, but over the long haul, it would have become routine.  I am always learning new things in appliance repair, and it is really satisfying to solve a technical problem successfully.
  3. I Love My Customers.  The people whose appliances I service are really, really nice.  Some of them give me tips on the way out the door, and I’ve had some even give me homemade cookies.  One of the best parts of this job is meeting people, solving their problems and making them happy.
  4. I’m Proud of What I Do.  My father-in-law is impressed by how I started up my own appliance repair business in just 30 days.  My brother and sister think it’s cool I am working for myself.  My wife, of course, loves the income, especially in this terrible economy.  I actually amazed myself that I could do it so quickly (of course I took a shortcut with Uncle Harry’s training).
  5. It Gets Easier Every Day.  When I first started out, I didn’t even know the basics off the top of my head, and I needed to research reference material for the most common repairs.  Now I’m pretty comfortable with those same repairs (like I know a warm refrigerator issue is usually a defrost failure or sealed system failure) and I can get in and out of the call faster, and often in one visit if I have the part in my inventory.

Some of the things that need work:

  1. The Learning Curve.  With all the makes, models, types of appliances and years of technology changes, I couldn’t wait to get to that comfort point where I felt like I knew what I was doing most of the time.  I just armed myself with good research materials and support (Uncle Harry was a big part of this), until I had serviced enough machines to be more familiar with them on my own.
  2. More Control of the Call Flow.  Usually, I’m wall-to-wall busy, and sometimes there’s a lull in the action.  I love it when I’m slammed because there’s no better feeling than making money.   Then there will be times when calls will taper off, and I’ll have downtime.   I use it to get a breather, for one thing, and study more about questions that have come up in the repairs I’m doing, or gaps I’ve identified in my knowledge.  Then I can use that information when I get slammed again.

I guess the point is, I enjoy appliance repair.  I would encourage anyone looking into it to read my startup blog to help them decide.

Paid Leads – Chasing the Dragon

I was nervous when I first moved my business to the big city.  How was I going to compete with all the other appliance repair service companies here?

I got some of my customers to write reviews for me and worked my way up to the first page of Google, but my website still hadn’t seasoned yet as far as search engines were concerned, and the phone was still quieter than I was happy with.

In my eagerness to get the phone ringing more, and fast, I decided to try a high-end paid lead generation service.

The way they work is this: they advertise all over the internet, capture a bunch of customers from my area, then refer them to me.

And because they didn’t have anyone else listed in my area, I was exclusive!  This was the break I had been looking for!

Well, the phone rang off the hook day and night.  It was like drinking from a fire hose.  My schedule was so full, I was running 6 calls a day 6 days a week, booking out into the following week, and barely had time to pick up my parts, let alone eat or sleep.

At first, I was really happy the phone was finally ringing too much, which was a good thing, and excited that I was going to make a ton of money.  And I did…in gross receipts.  After a month of working my butt off, I sat down and analyzed what I was really paying per lead, and what I was netting per week.

The per lead charge was tolerable if I raised my rates to cover it on the calls that converted into repairs.  I also figured out with current gas prices, I was just about breaking even on my diagnostic calls where they opted not to repair.

But the real hidden cost was in the junk leads and the drop-offs.

I would get calls from “tire-kickers” researching price and trying to pick my brain for solutions they could do themselves.  And I still got charged.

Because I was so slammed, I would book a call two days out with someone who I could tell was barely committed, then call them the day of the appointment to say I was on my way and be told they already got it fixed by someone else.  And I still got charged.

Sure some of this had to do with city clientele, who demand same day service and can often get it by calling around until they find someone.  Back in the country, I got spoiled because I was the only appliance repair service within 30 miles, and I converted nearly every lead I got, even though there were fewer, to begin with.

But between paying for leads whether they converted or not, and maxing out the margin my market would bear, I realized after only a month that I was working for the lead generation service, and they were paying me a relatively small salary considering how hard I was going at it all day.

Even though they were responsible for the bulk of my business, somehow it drove me crazy that they were taking so much of my hard earned cash.  I had to choose between a quiet phone and having an unintentional business partner.  I decided to turn the service down to a trickle and see if I missed it.

So far, it has been a relief.  I had become so aggravated by the cost of the leads, I was not my old self on service calls.  I started getting less satisfaction from my customers because I was turning into that grizzled technician that has to charge high markup so he can make a profit despite his overhead.

I found a less expensive lead generation service, started working for home warranty companies, got more good reviews and some large commercial clients started calling.  Pretty soon I was able to drop paid lead generation entirely, but I’ll never forget those days – nothing is worse than the sound of a quiet phone.