I'm new to the forum so hang with me. I was wondering if any one has some tips on starting a contracting business in an area. I live in WV and i'm was looking to relocate back to PA. I was looking at the Altoona PA area. I was wondering if any one had ideas on how to even see if this is a good idea to invest in a electrical business in the area. I was going to call some contractors to see what they charge i know some will lie but it might give me somewhat of an idea. I was looking at starting out just me and hopefully have 3 trucks on the road for service work on res. light commercial. and light industrial. Let me know if you need have questions

One thing - we just moved to Colorado. We were referred to a gas contractor by our realtor. I asked for a referral to a electrician. That electrician never called me back. I called him back the next day - he said he was really busy but might be able to get out to the house on Saturday even though it would put him farther behind. I told him to basically forget it, that I did not want to put his business into any problems.

So I started calling people listed in the phone book. I called about ten people, left messages for everyone. I did get in touch with one company (that had the word electrical in their name & they advertised in the electrical contractor section, yet they did not do any more work on electrical wiring). One guy called me back & now I have his name, number, and business card. He was very prompt in returning my call & getting here on time.

Customer service is very big & I would refer him to anyone that I know. Referrals are a big part of the business so if your customer service is great, you are well on the road to success.

(Did he over-charge us? I have no idea - but he was well worth it!)

More on Corey's train of thought - it really is hard to find a decent electrician for occasional residential service. They are typically interested in commercial accounts; also, the little guys sometimes have major problems to contend with. We used a self employed electrician to install our ceiling fans - I would not do that again, because it was one problem after another (like, my van is in the shop (family mini-van, to boot), can you advance me $200 of the funds, etc.)

If you can provide EXCELLENT customer service, call people back right away, and actually be willing to provide the service that you're supposed to provide, the price really is not that important. Maybe $75 hour, maybe more. You can reasonably get away with the same shop rates at the local auto dealers/mechanics (probably around $80-$90 per hour) because most people will be used to that rate, plus a service call charge.

Customer Service is KEY, as has already been mentioned appropriately by the above posters. the one comment I can add is to do a bit of research into the area and who are the big players there.

I've read in several good books to not start a business in a certain location just because that's where you live (or want to live). I think part of the motive behind this statement is in encouraging the entrepreneur to do at least a cursory investigation to make sure they aren't shooting themselves in the foot by entering a saturated market. For instance, there is published data on how many book stores there should be per 10K people, how many hardware stores, etc. The same data may be out there for electricians, although I couldn't tell you where to look for this off the top of my head.

It might not hurt at first at least to get a listing of the number of practicing electricians in the area and where they are located (then call them up and see who they do work for and how professional they sound). This gives you a twofold benefit: you learn about your competition while hopefully justifying to yourself that there is the opportunity to make a profit in Altoona as an electrician...

Thanks for the replies. I wasn't sure if i even posted this thread in the right location on the forum.I was also thinking of relocating to FL but with floridas growth i think that could be bad. If i was an electrician and i got mad at my employer i could call up another contractor and have a new job within hours.There are not many electricians coming up in the field mostly because people don't want to do construction. In PA there is not much electrical contractors but PA is not growing and the homes are still cheap compared to my area were the average home is $200,000 in my county.I think the best thing might be to look into a specialty field such as industrial preventive maintenance a emergency repair but its allways 6 one way half adozen another way. I would like to read a book on were not to start a business. All info is welcomed. I also was checking into a franshise called MR. Electric.

I have to agree with Corey - if you have good customer service you'll have no problem whatsoever finding work after a few weeks/months. I can't tell you how many times I've had trouble getting contractors to call me back.

I think your biggest challenge will be just getting the word out there - you might want to try and put in a larger yellow pages ad. And here's some advice (based off of practical experience). When people like me call an electrician the first time we do not care who he/she is, as long as they can get the work done. So we grab the yellow pages and start calling from the beginning of the list. Naturally I have to think that a business like "Al's electrical" gets more calls that "Zak's electrical" due to the order in the yellow pages.

Just food for thought - you might try to cheat and name the company something early in the alphabet.

Also I would try heavily to leverage some early customers - give them a referral bonus or something. Tell them if they refer someone else for any job over $100 (or whatever you are comfortable with) you'll send them $20 - and make sure you stick to it. It would be worth it to get your name out there.

Also - I'd pay for a mailing list for small independent general contractors and send them your rates. Make sure you are a few dollars below the market average. Most GC's work with a variety of sub contractors especially for small jobs (ie, home additions, etc) and do not keep electricians on staff. In fact a friend of mine is a GC who has 6 employees and still does not have an electrician on staff - so right now he always subs it out. Unfortunately for you he is in WI or I'd refer you.

Copper Electric thats my name, thats not a bad idea to give customers cash for mentioning my services. I'm still trying to figure out if i should relocate to pa or fl both have there advantages, and disadvantages.

thanks

Copper Electric - that's a catchy name. I like it.

There is a very good book you may want to read. The Emyth For Contractors by Michael Gerber.

Enjoy!