Telling It Like It Is With Jade Alberts This issue of Telling It Like It Is features Rob Bartko founder of FixIt Service Pros

You started your career at Deloitte, and you have launched FixIt Service Pros during the COVID-19 pandemic. Please share how you came up with the idea, and some of the issues you had to overcome when COVID-19 hit?

FixIt Service Pros started in the summer of 2019. The idea was generated while I was in the middle of renovating my residential property. I was having a difficult time finding the right contractor for a variety of work required to meet building code and permit requirements. This experience made me want to find a better way to connect property owners with vetted contractors. Sam Beaudoin, the other Co-Founder of FixIt, was leaving a role in commercial construction and he was chasing an idea on how to better optimize independent contractors’ administrative needs. Naturally, the two ideas merged to create a marketplace, enabling property owners to source vetted contractors on-demand, while also providing contractors the administrative support to grow and manage their business more efficiently. It’s about improvements for everyone!

The impact from COVID-19 hit FixIt Service Pros right when we were getting ready to launch our first version in the Calgary area. We were delayed by a few weeks while we were all trying to determine the implications of COVID. As everyone started to normalize to our new situation, property owners were spending more time in and around their homes. This brought focus to much-needed (and often overdue) home maintenance repairs. and motivated folks to invest in upgrades to be able to better enjoy their property while physical distancing. This gave FixIt Service Pros the opportunity to showcase our value to homeowners, landlords, and property managers - that is, allowing them to easily and successfully delegate all of their repair and maintenance needs at their properties.

Please explain how FixIt Service Pros Works?

The new way to complete your home service repairs starts with simply describing your problem on our FixIt Service Pros website (fixitservicepros.com), selecting a date and time that works best with your schedule, and being able to kick back and relax knowing that your work is getting handled by prescreened pros!

Behind the scenes, once your work order has been submitted, our network of pre-screened home maintenance experts will claim your work order within a matter of minutes. Screening of our contractors includes: insurance verification (at least $2 Million in coverage), Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) verification, certification or license verification for plumbers, electricians, and HVAC, reference checks, as well as background checks. Once on site, your “FixIt Pro” (a “FixIt Pro” is a vetted contractor on the FixIt platform) will diagnose the problem and indicate to you if the repair will take longer than the hour you included with your booking. If your repair will take longer than 1 hour, your Pro will submit an “Adjustment Request” for your approval - this ensures you are involved and updated as the work proceeds, and avoids any unpleasant surprises. After your repair is complete, our 2-way review system allows both the property owner and the “FixIt Pro” to review one another, similar to other review systems like Uber’s ride-sharing. This is to ensure accountability of both parties, and provides FixIt Service Pros with more information on how to better improve your next FixIt experience.

Let’s talk about marketing. What have you been doing to spread the word? What has worked and what has failed?

Our Team has tried a lot of different marketing channels. We have found the most success in direct-mail flyers, online ads (i.e., through Google), and we are working hard to optimize our SEO (Search Engine Optimization) rankings.

Our biggest success in marketing has been spreading the business through word-of-mouth from our existing satisfied FixIt customers. It sounds cliché, but customers are excited and relieved to be able to just describe their home repair problem and forget about it, feeling reassured and knowing that FixIt Service Pros will take care of everything else. Property owners are able to knock-off items on their To-Do List quickly and efficiently, and we are very excited about the feedback from our Calgary customers as our first launch service area.

I will talk about my experience:

My dryer broke and my first instinct was to use fixit Service Pros. My dryer wasn’t heating, so I went to their website and filled out the form and sent in a photo of the dryer and serial number. I picked the date and time I wanted them to come which was two days later. I was then contacted and the company showed up. They had the parts and fixed my dryer. I was absolutely pleased with the service and they even vacuumed out my dryer. I Absolutely loved my experience and will be using them again

What is next for FixIt Service Pros?

Our team is looking forward to many new and exciting things over the next few months. We will be joining the Startup Edmonton - Propel Accelerator this Fall. Our company is also currently raising its first investment round. FixIt Service Pros will soon be expanding into Edmonton. Last, but perhaps the most exciting, our new Web App will soon be “live” near the end of September!

A shout out to all Calgary and Edmonton property owners: Be sure to sign-up for our new Web App as we have a lot of new and exciting features for homeowners, property managers and contractors alike. Property owners will have instant access to their previous FixIt repairs, communicate directly with their FixIt Pro before, during, and after each repair, track the ETA of their Pros and the status of each job, and much more!

If you had one piece of advice for small businesses or start-ups, what would it be? My advice for small business or Start-Ups is threefold:

1. Mentally prepare yourself as a Founder for a lot of mental “ups-and-downs”. The ownership and operation of the business falls on your shoulders, and some days the weight of it all can feel like more than you can handle. What has helped me is knowing that even experienced Founders still battle through downtimes. When you are mentally prepared to face these downtimes with some strategies, it is much easier to get through them. Always keep the big picture on the horizon ahead of you in focus, and keep plugging away with persistence!

2. Your Team is the most important part of your business! Surround yourself with the best Team Members available, and fill in the gaps where you and your Team are the weakest. A great exercise for this assessment is to write down a skills matrix for each individual, to indicate where your Team lacks expertise and experience.

3. Keep it simple. It’s very easy to get caught up in new business trends that do not always help your business. When the business is struggling, go back to the basics, remember who your clients/customers are, and how to cater to their needs. A great exercise for this is developing a “Customer Journey Map” for all your customer types. This is a mapping exercise to lay out the entire process a customer will take to get to your business. For example, once the customer determines they have a home repair task (i.e., a leak), they might search “plumber” and weigh options on who to hire. As a business, you want to be able to situate yourself across as many different avenues as possible, so they can be directed to your company. FixIt Service Pros wants to be the service provider who you think of first to fix your property! https://www.fixitservicepros.com/

Jade Alberts - Peer Guidance - Jade Alberts Consulting 403-771-1301 www.PeerGuidance.ca www.JadeAlbertsConsulting.com www.LinkedIn.com/in/JadeAlberts