With all the new and flashy ways you can make money online, people often forget the old-school, tried and true business models.
Pool cleaning. Pest control. Roofing. Floor cleaning. Power washing. Upholstery. House cleaning.
These dirty jobs might not be sexy, but damn are they lucrative. Especially when you combine them with modern methods to find new customers.
That’s exactly what these fellas did to make $1.3m in 19 months.
In the WGMI Podcast, they gave us their exact framework to create a multi-million dollar home service business.
The best thing about this model is that anyone can do it, and you need less than $1k in start-up costs to get up and running.
If you’re interested in tapping into this lucrative industry, this article will show you:
- How to decide which service to provide
- How to get your first customers
- The exact tools and strategies to scale your business to $1m+ per year
How did they make $1.3m in 19 months?
These two lads use a subscription model for their pool cleaning service.
- Customers pay $150 for a weekly pool cleaning service.
- They hire people to do the pool cleaning for them. Each ‘Pool Technician’ does anywhere from 60-100 pools per week.
- They use apps, software tools, and ads to find new customers. These systems helped them grow to $1.4m in top-line revenue, making around $400k in profit.
- Because the pool cleaning business is subscription-based, they sold their business for $900k.
- In summary, they got paid $400k to build a $900k business. That’s $1.3m in 19 months.
This method doesn’t only work for pool cleaning. It can be replicated for almost any home service business.
Step 1: Choose a service
Your first step is to choose which home service business you want to get into. The best service for you depends on a few factors:
1. How much money do you have?
If you don’t have much money, you’ll need to start a business that doesn’t require a lot of capital to buy the right equipment.
2. How quickly do you want to start making money?
Some skills may take months, or years to learn. Some might even require taking a course and certification. The harder it is to learn the skill, the more you’ll be able to charge.
3. Where do you live?
A pool cleaning business is a better idea in Arizona than it is in Alaska. Get my point?
Step 2: Learn how to fulfill
In the WGMI Podcast, Rhys reveals he learned the skills to run a pool-cleaning service in 5 weeks. He binged YouTube videos, he spent hours in pool shops, and he met as many people with expertise as possible. Follow this same method:
- Learn on the job: Offer to provide services for free. This experience will be invaluable.
- YouTube is your friend: If you run into any issues, you can be 100% sure someone has made a video about it on YouTube. Study these videos and practice what you learn.
- Speak to people: Go into the shops where you buy equipment and pester the people in those shops. Don’t be frightened to ask them every single question you have.
Step 3: Find your first customer(s)
Now, you’re ready to start finding customers online. The best place to find your first customers (for free) is through Next Door. It’s a neighborhood app where people look for local services and recommendations.
This process is a little bit more technical, but will be the reason you get more customers than any of your competitors.
First task: Start a business account on Next Door
Create a business account on Next Door.
Second task: Ask your friends and family for recommendations
The more recommendations you receive on Next Door, the higher your profile appears on search results for your area. It also gives your business more legitimacy and credibility on the app.
That means, in the beginning, you need to do everything you can to get yourself off the ground.
Ask friends and family to recommend you in Next Door, and pester them until they do it.
Third task: Post on Next Door
Start making content on Next Door. The messaging should always be a special offer. For example “We are running a special offer exclusively for Next Door. Use the code ‘NextDoor10’, and we’ll give you a 25% discount”.
Fourth task: Send people to text messaging
Rather than sending people from Next Door to your website, send them straight to text messaging. Here’s how Rhys uses GoHighLevel to automatically send text messages to potential customers:
- Potential customer fills in a form providing their contact details.
- He uses a Zapier automation to send a text message immediately saying: “Hey, it looks like you inquired for a pool cleaning service. We ran your email, and it looks like you’re not in our system yet. Let me know your zip code, and I’ll let you know if you qualify for our neighborhood special”.
- If the potential customer replies, it notifies an admin in-house.
- The admin looks up the zip code and sends out the following template: “It looks like you qualify for the discount. Do you have any questions at all about the pool cleaning service? Do you have any repairs that are also needed?”
- If the potential customer replies, the admin calls them. She uses a script with the sole aim of getting the potential customer to e-sign via phone and take payment on credit card.
- Rhys uses Sign Now, where people can sign via text and closes the deal in a text message.
Rhys uses this method because it converts A LOT more than sending people to a landing page.
To learn more about using Go High Level, simply search “How to build Go High Level lead gen system” and watch every video you can. Join the GHL community and start asking questions… there a lots of very smart people who will help you set up the perfect system.
Step 4: Use ads to blow up
After you’ve got a good base of customers, you’re next step is to scale with ads. This is where the millions are made.
Your mission: When someone searches in Google for “[Your Service] in [Your Area]” (e.g. “pool cleaning in Arizona”), your website appears at the top of the rankings. To do this, you’ll need to use Google Ads.
Here is Rhys’s step-by-step guide to scaling your home service business with Google Ads.
First task: Create a landing page
- Use Unbounce (a landing page builder) to build your landing page. This is where your customers will land when they click on your ads.
- Your landing page should be a short, one-page website.
- Your landing page should lead with a special offer (e.g. first month free, or 25% off).
- Include a bullet point list of all the benefits that are included.
- On your landing page, always show social proof. That means you should include Google Reviews, before and after pictures, and case studies.
- The landing page should include a form that allows people to enter their email address and phone number. That form should trigger the SMS sequence detailed in Step 3 above.
Second task: Use Google Ads to drive traffic
- Either learn how to run Google Ads yourself, or pay someone else to do it.
- Please note: Mastering Google Ads takes some time, so it is definitely worth watching videos and free courses before you start spending big on Google’s ad platform.
- You can also run ads on Yelp and Next Door to find new leads in your area.
Step 5: Hire and scale
At some point, you will have so much work that you can’t possibly fulfill the services yourself. Then, it is time to scale with your first hires.
Rhys’s proven process for hiring workers
- Reach out to friends and family who might want to make some extra cash. If you can’t find someone, consider posting an ad on Indeed.
- When you’ve found someone suitable, get them to work alongside you for a few weeks and train them what you’ve learned.
- Then, watch them as they fulfill services and provide guidance when necessary.
- After a while, they will be ready to start fulfilling services on their own.
- Eventually, you can promote one of your more experienced workers to do this whole process (i.e. training new hires) for you. Then, your team will scale autonomously.
- Rhys recommends paying your workers on a per-stop basis. For him, he pays around $8-14 per pool depending on seniority.
Processes and systems
As you scale, you’re going to need tools, processes and systems to make your life easier. For example, Rhys uses a tool called Skimmer. This allows his pool technicians to track chemical readings and take a picture of the pool after cleaning. These recordings both provide a good record for the customer, and allow Rhys to monitor his staff and check they are doing their job properly.
Start taking action now
Lots of people want to start a business, but don’t know which one to dive into.
When in doubt, tried and true business models like these are about as good as you’ll find.
If you follow the steps in this guide, you’ll have your own proper, real-world business you can call your own.
Hungry for more business ideas?
To be the first to hear breakdowns like this, make sure you’re subscribed to the WGMI newsletter.
Please note: Some of the links in this article may be affiliate links, which can provide compensation to us at no cost to you if you decide to purchase a paid plan. We only include links to high-quality products we’ve personally used.
