I have sold 0800handyman to The Zockoll Group

Reason for recent lack of blogging is that I have been frantically pulling together vast quantities of detailed paperwork to support the sale of my controlling stake in 0800handyman to the Zockoll Group. This sale is now complete, and I am now delighted to report that, after nearly seven years, I am handing over the reigns to new owners.

The Zockoll Group, and Jim Zockoll in particular, is (are?) responsible for establishing the only national brand in the domestic maintenance sector, Dyno Rod (now owned by British Gas, but founded by Jim Zockoll in the 60s). They have been a minority shareholder in 0800handyman since 2002, and now own a majority of the business. They are joined by one of our franchisees, Paul Geoghegan, who is now a director and shareholder of 0800handyman Ltd.

When I founded 0800handyman, or RedJacks as it was then, there were two businesses that I had ambitions to emulate. Kwik-Fit was one, and Dyno-Rod was the other. Both have succeeded in building strong, national brands, in sectors which have historically been plagued by poor service. That is exactly what I have been working towards with 0800handyman. We aren't there yet (we certainly don't have a national brand), but are a long way along the line. If you searched for "handyman" on the internet in 2001 you would not have found much at all. Now you will find dozens of companies all (I like to think) trying to emulate what 0800handyman is doing.

The existing team will continue, of course, and I would like to thank all of them publicly for giving me the opportunity to work with such a diverse and stimulating group of people.

I am looking forward to observing the progress of 0800handyman from a distance, and I sincerely hope that, in 10 years time, 0800handyman will have done for home maintenance what Kwik-Fit did for car maintenance and what Dyno-Rod did for drain clearance.

I have some ideas for new ventures, I'll start a fresh blog for those when there is something concrete to report. I'm sure you won't need to hunt too hard to find me.

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Need any odd-jobs doing? Check out 0800handyman.

Identical handymen

Reviewed an application from a pair of identical twins today. Fascinating. They were applying as a unit. Everything on their (one) application form applied to both of them (except, obviously, their first names; plus one small element of their employment history).

Unfortunately, they were applying for central London and didn't have bike licences. Plus nearly all our work is solo work and I did get the distinct impression they were at their best when working together.

But they'd do well if they set up on their own. Assuming they are good, everyone who used them would talk about it to their friends.

New office

I almost forgot - we finally moved into our very swanky new office at Battersea Reach last week, I'll post some pics shortly. Seamus has now converted all of us to using gym balls instead of chairs, so we do look a little, ah, eccentric.

Should we change our name?

OK, this is the big question.






We've been toying for a while with the idea of changing our name back to RedJacks. I am guessing that most readers of this blog are fairly familiar with our business and know that when I founded the company back in 2001 it was called RedJacks. We changed our name to 0800handyman in 2003, believing that the concept of alphanumeric phone numbers would really take off in the UK.

In the US, it is very common and widely understood concept. Most companies over there seem to have what they call a vanity number. Want to book a meeting room at Holiday Inn? Call 1-800-MEETING. Need some flowers? Call 1-800-FLOWERS. And, yes, if you need a handyman in America you can call 1-800-HANDYMAN.

But it hasn't really taken off here in the UK. How many of you even understand what I am talking about? Many of you probably don't. Recently our web designer was running late for a meeting and he got his girlfriend to call me because he didn't have our number with him. He didn't know that our name is our number, that he could call us by dialling 0800 and then spelling out h-a-n-d-y-m-a-n on his phone. If our web designer, who is worked with our name and logo for years, didn't understand that point, then I am guessing that a lot of our customers don't either.

So, given that we think many (most?) people don't understand why we are called 0800handyman, does that matter? Maybe people just think we have a slightly odd name, but the important thing is that we fix their shelves, or fit a new tap for them, or whatever, and it doesn't matter much what we are called?

Well, maybe, but we have been running a test ad for RedJacks on Google Adwords recently and, without divulging too much sensitive information, I can say that it has received significantly higher click-through-rate than the exact same ad using the 0800handyman brand.

Why would that be? I suppose because there are now quite a few handyman-type businesses around, all called handy-this and handy-that. RedJacks stands out from the crowd. 0800handyman doesn't?

But we have been called 0800handyman for several years now, would it be wise to discard all the brand awareness we have built up and have to convince everyone we are now called RedJacks?

Big decision.

Thoughts, anyone?

Mike Watson, Guildford area franchisee also joins blogosphere

The 0800handyman family of bloggers has just increased by another 50% with the addition of Mike Watson (who runs our Guildford area franchise). His blog is here.

Epsom franchisee starts blogging too

I've been trying to persuade my colleagues to start blogging too, and Steve Williams, our franchisee for the Epsom/Sutton/Reigate area has started a blog. Here it is!