The home renovation industry is booming right now, and it’s a good time to enter the market. This is a relatively easy business to get started with, and there’s high demand. But it’s also a business that involves a lot of regulation. While the barrier to entry is lower than many other businesses, you have to be prepared for some of the challenges of getting started. Let’s take a look at some of the things you might have to consider before starting your own home remodeling business.
Employees vs Subcontractors
One of the first things you will have to consider is whether you’re going to be working with employees or work principally with subcontractors. Both will be very different and will require different obligations from you.
If you decide to work with employees, safety and security will be very important. You will need to give them regular briefings and make sure that you have all the measures and equipment in place.
If you decide to go down this route, we suggest you start getting familiar with how to hold good safety and security meetings to reduce the chances of accidents. You’ll also reduce the chance of facing a lawsuit or violating regulations. If you want to learn how to conduct great safety meetings, Weekly Safety is a great resource you can check out.
You will also have to start looking into things such as workers’ compensation right now. And you’ll need to invest in the right insurance to cover any damage your employees may cause to property or other people.
Remember that it’s a Business
You may want to get into home remodeling because it’s a passion of yours and you have a talent. But you have to know that it takes much more than that to run a successful home remodeling business. You will need to start to learn a little bit about accounting and how to manage assets. You will need to be able to keep an eye on material costs and lock in agreements with suppliers.
You will also need to do a lot of selling. You may be the best at what you do but, if you don’t know how to sell and market yourself, you’ll eventually struggle in this industry. So, make sure that you understand the administrative side of running this kind of business, and speak with an accountant and business lawyer before even getting started.
Good Communication is Important
You also need to look at the type of person you are, and whether you might need to work on some of your interpersonal skills before getting started. If you don’t have great communication skills, for instance, you will have a lot of issues in this business. You will need to communicate with your team when you need to get things done and be able to answer your clients’ questions. You might have to deal with disagreements from time to time and be able to explain certain choices too.
You may have to deal with different professionals and be able to communicate what you need from them as well. Coordinating multi-disciplinary teams is not always easy, and it’s even harder when things aren’t communicated clearly. So, if that’s somewhere you feel you could improve, make sure you start right now if you don’t want to run into problems when getting started.
You Can’t Do It All on Your Own
If you like having control and thought that you would be able to run this type of business all by yourself, think again. You might be able to do so for a little while on small projects, but it will be impossible to scale that way. Once you start having multiple projects at the same time, you will need people in your team who will be able to make decisions as well.
This is why you must start grooming people in your organization for leadership from the very beginning. You’ll be able to judge their character and see who has potential. You can also hire people for the job, but it’s always good to promote people in-house who will have a clear understanding of your company’s culture and way of doing things.
Start with a Niche
The home remodeling business is fiercely competitive. If you want to separate yourself, you should consider starting with a niche. You could work on one specific component or room to get started, like kitchens or siding renovations, for instance. A lot of people would rather go with a specialist even if a generalist could do a great job, so take advantage of that. Look at what people are looking for where you are and where there might be gaps. You should then be able to identify a few niches where there might be opportunities.
These are all things that you should know before you start a home remodeling business. It is a great one to be in, but you have to be prepared if you want to be successful.