How Handyman Connection Is Positioning Franchise Owners to Lead, Not Swing a Hammer

Handyman Connection is a leading home improvement franchise that connects homeowners with skilled craftsmen for professional repair, remodeling and maintenance services. With a proven operating model and recurring demand for home services, the brand continues to expand across North America by helping entrepreneurs build businesses without needing a construction background. Steve Lane, a former franchisee turned director of franchise development, now helps prospective owners understand what it takes to succeed in the business.

“One thing is certain: There's always unpredictability in the world. AI, the AI takeover, people are on edge,” Lane said. “But one thing remains constant. People are always going to invest in their homes. I have a brand-new home, and like I said, I've used Handyman Connection several times myself. Until we've got Tesla bots taking over everything, I think home services is in a great spot. I've seen a pretty substantial uptick in the volume of prospective owners over the last six to nine months.” 

One of the biggest misconceptions about the business is that franchise owners need to perform the repairs themselves. Instead, owners focus on leading the business by managing customers, finances and a network of skilled craftsmen while delivering a high-quality customer experience.

“Close to 0% of our owners are swinging a hammer,” Lane said. “That's not what this business is. When we say owner-operator, we mean this isn't a side business or a semi-absentee investment. The owners are really focused on three things: managing customers and making sure they're happy, managing the finances and managing the people."

Having built and operated his own franchise, Lane also believes one of the greatest advantages of franchising is the guidance entrepreneurs receive long after they open their doors. He credits that ongoing coaching and accountability with helping him become a successful business owner early in his career.

"Here's how I justified paying a royalty as a franchisee: I was getting a real-world MBA,” he said. “That was my fee. I wasn't paying a university, and I was learning in the real world. I gained more than just the know-how.” 

Lane joined 1851 Franchise Publisher Nick Powills on a recent episode of the “Meet the Franchise” podcast. A transcript of his interview with Powills has been provided below. It has been edited for brevity, clarity and style.

Nick Powills: How did you accidentally fall into franchising? What's your franchise backstory?

Steve Lane: Yeah, accidentally is the right word, for sure. I was actually pretty young. I was in college. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer until I didn't, and I'd always wanted to run a business. So I found a house-painting franchise that I started in the Eastern Washington-North Idaho area.

When I say accidental, I mean I didn't know what to do. I was trying to figure out what was next. I started out as a terrible performer, but not for long. There was light at the end of the tunnel. It went on to be very, very successful after a short amount of time. I wound up with that franchise for 13 years and eventually opened a second location in Yakima, Washington.

It was a fantastic experience — the best thing I could have done for myself at a young age. After that, I always like to say I'm an operations guy who became a franchise development guy. I ran my own business, coached hundreds of owners and was vice president of another nationwide house-painting franchise for a few years.

I've actually always known about Handyman Connection. It used to be a sister company with the brand I started with, so the rest is history. It started with very humble beginnings, but it was a great experience and a great chapter of my life to start as an owner.

Powills: And you're still a business owner of various businesses, right?

Lane: Yeah, I've got a couple things at home. My partner and I have a food business that we started. It began at farmers markets. We bought a tent off Amazon, and it actually went surprisingly well. That's obviously outside the franchise space, but it was a fun experience. That's back in Charlottesville, Virginia. We've started that up here in Phoenix, where I live now.

I'd also say my side-hustle passion is real estate. I've got my own small handful of short-term and long-term rentals, and that's one of the things that really keeps me busy.

Powills: I'm curious because there's obviously a thick entrepreneurial streak inside of you. How do you manage that while also being an employee? Part of the reason I ask is because, for a franchisee, and I'll probably oversimplify this, most franchisees are entrepreneurial versus entrepreneurs. But you're someone who has started businesses, started young, grown, scaled and been on the franchisor side. How do you keep that balance when, inside, you have an entrepreneur's mindset?

Lane: Well, I'd like to say part of it is just bandwidth. We all have 168 hours a week, or whatever the number is. There are times when having something of your own calls more from you. I'd like to say I feel pretty organized in the way I manage my schedule. I'll use my short-term rental as an example. It's a passion project of mine that I'm very proud of, and it's gone very well. When I was setting that up, there were nights I was up until two or three in the morning. I'm also a very early morning guy, so I can operate on little sleep.

There's just something that drives you when you're excited about something. You don't think too much about the time commitment. You hope that eventually it all pans out in terms of the time investment, but I'd say a lot of it is just being balanced in how I use my time.

Powills: For full disclosure, it's not like we work together, so I don't have an inside track into your relationship with Handyman Connection. But I wrote a column years ago that was really about what I wanted as an outcome when I started our company. My objective was, "Give me a chance to get into your business, and I'll impact it as if it were my own." The title of the column was, "Catch the Entrepreneur Before They Catch You."

The point was that businesses should recognize when someone is an entrepreneur because what you just described, working until 2 a.m., getting up early, breaking through those brick walls, that's the mindset of an entrepreneur. It can be a tremendous asset to a business.

At our company, I celebrate the entrepreneur because I know they're going to challenge things. I may not always say yes, but I want that mindset. I say all of that without knowing your relationship with the franchises you've worked with, but I sense it in your background. There's an entrepreneur here. If you just sat down with someone and asked, "What would you do differently?" and started listening, I think you'd get a lot of value.

Lane: Well, you talked about the relationship with the franchisor. Honestly, for me, that was everything. I don't think I would've been anywhere near as successful without the partnership, leaning into support and the culture among owners. That's been true in everything I've been a part of, whether on the ownership side, in operations or in franchise development.

Powills: With your background and your passion for real estate, there's obviously a clear connection back to Handyman Connection because you need reliable home services for your own properties. How do you leverage your background when talking to candidates? How do you make them feel comfortable that you know what you're talking about and that this is why they should look at this brand?

Lane: I love talking about this because people are making one of the biggest decisions of their lives. In a lot of cases, they're leaving a corporate salary and steady paycheck to go into business for themselves.

I've done it. It was the scariest thing I'd ever done. The fact that I've been through it and have seen it from all angles gives me a good eye for what makes someone successful and what they need to be mindful of to succeed as an entrepreneur, not just in Handyman Connection but in entrepreneurship in general.

It also helps that I'm a customer of Handyman Connection. I like to talk about that, too. I've actually been a customer three and a half times this year here in Phoenix, where I live.

Powills: That's the advantage because, in my view, there's franchise sales and there's franchise development. Franchise sales happens when the franchisor puts too much pressure on the sales team to close deals. It's usually built around some unrealistic goal like, "We're going to sell 7,000 units this year," when last year they sold three. That creates a sales mentality where you're convincing people this is the right franchise.

But when you're focused on franchise development, you're answering questions, helping people make the biggest decision of their lives and facilitating them into the right franchise. The pressure changes. It's about building relationships.

Those are the franchisors I'd bet on because they're focused on unit-level economics, which increases royalties and makes the system more profitable. This isn't hard. It's just a matter of being able to have those conversations, like you just described.

Lane: Yeah. I always tell people when I first sit down with them that my job is to educate them about this business and entrepreneurship, then figure out together whether this is going to be a win-win fit. One thing I take pride in is knowing this business very, very well. I haven't run a Handyman Connection franchise myself, but I make it my mission to understand it so I'm selling reality.

People may never fully understand what it feels like to be an entrepreneur until they're living it, but I do my best to prepare them. Of course, that includes validation and talking to owners, but a couple of years ago, a colleague and I added another step to the process.

A lot of franchisors do in-person Discovery Days, and I'm all for that. We did that at my former franchise. But we decided to go a step further by taking candidates into the field. In fact, I just signed someone yesterday whom I took on a visit to Minnesota about a month ago. I definitely want people to know what they're getting into because I care about the success of our owners. Success really comes down to two things: skill and commitment.

Our job is to provide the skill. That's why people buy franchises, for the model, guidance and support. But they have to provide the commitment.

I really drive that home because, as long as the activity is there, the results generally follow. It's been exciting because, since we started emphasizing that during the discovery process, we've seen some of our top-performing owners emerge over the last year.

It's not just me, of course. It's the caliber of the people we bring into the system. We're known for having a high-caliber operations and support team, but mentally preparing people for what it takes to succeed in this business or any business is something we do very well during discovery.

Powills: Give me the state of the union on the brand. What's going on? How are things going?

Lane: One thing is certain: There's always unpredictability in the world. AI, the AI takeover, people are on edge. But one thing remains constant. People are always going to invest in their homes. I have a brand-new home, and like I said, I've used Handyman Connection several times myself. Until we've got Tesla bots taking over everything, I think home services is in a great spot. I've seen a pretty substantial uptick in the volume of prospective owners over the last six to nine months.

The demand is there. It's never an issue in this business. You follow the marketing plan, and the leads come in. I'd also say it's exciting that, while I don't know the exact percentage, the majority of the owners I've brought on over the last 12 months are on track to outperform the systemwide average in their very first year. I love that because it's exciting to think about where they'll be in two or three years and the trajectory they're on. Home services is in a great place. The labor force is there. Customer demand is there. We just need driven people who want to work hard and build a successful business.

Powills: My assumption is this is primarily an owner-operator business. Is the owner involved in the work, or how quickly can they scale into simply owning the business?

Lane: Let's distinguish what we mean by "the work." Close to 0% of our owners are swinging a hammer. That's not what this business is. When we say owner-operator, we mean this isn't a side business or a semi-absentee investment. We certainly have some semi-absentee owners, but we like to say semi-absentee is earned, not bought, because that creates greater success.

The business gets up and running quickly. The owners are really focused on three things: managing customers and making sure they're happy, managing the finances and managing the people. That's pretty universal in business, but they're not swinging a hammer. They're leading through others to deliver a quality customer experience and build a great team.

Powills: I love what you just said: Close to 0% of our franchisees swing a hammer. The picture on your franchise website makes it look like the owner is about to walk into a house and fix it. But when I hear what you just said, I think, "There's the positioning." "Make your dream of starting a business a reality" could go on any franchise website. But if you said, "0% of our franchisees swing a hammer," now I'm interested. Then you explain that they're managing customers, people and finances. You just gave me the positioning.

You're selling someone the opportunity to own a business, have an impact in the community, become the trusted partner and lead a team that actually does the work.

Lane: Absolutely. One of the biggest anxieties people have is wondering how they can be successful in a business like this if they've never picked up a screwdriver. I'd actually argue it's more of a disadvantage to have too much home improvement experience. We have owners who are handy around their own homes, but they're really corporate executive-type people.

That's why people buy a franchise. We teach them how to run the business. The labor is simply the function. You don't buy a fast-food franchise to run the grill. You buy it to own the business. It's no different with a home service or Handyman Connection franchise.

Powills: That's exactly what we're talking about. One challenge for franchisors is the broker networks because they want every candidate they can get since they're paid commissions. That makes sense, but they're your biggest competitor because they're intercepting candidates.

The second challenge for you is the person who doesn't understand franchising. Think back to the day before you understood franchising. None of us knew what it was. Yet we're asking someone to wake up tomorrow and become a franchisee. 

Another thing you said that stood out was, "We have to teach you how to be a business owner." That's what franchising is. No brand is really explaining how franchising works before asking people to join the system.

When I listen to these conversations, I'm always asking why someone came to your website but didn't fill out the form. Most likely, they didn't understand what they were getting into. That's why unpacking these ideas and putting them on the website helps candidates understand what they're actually buying.

Lane: Absolutely. On occasion, I get asked, "What do I get for my franchise fee?" Before I got into franchising, my impression was that it was just a transaction. But it's so much more than that. Sure, there are tangible things. Maybe some marketing materials to help you get started. But that's not what you're really buying.

You're getting a model, leadership, guidance, coaching, support, systems and technology. That's one of the biggest barriers to overcome because anyone can go out and start a business. It happens every day. But why do people choose franchising? They choose it because of the track record, the higher probability of success and the long-term asset they're building. It comes at a cost, but that cost generally buys a much faster ramp-up that's been proven over many years.

Powills: Take someone who's deciding between franchising and starting their own business in the handyman space. If you start your own business, you have to build a website, create branding, put that branding on your trucks, find someone to make your shirts, build your infrastructure, find technology and the list goes on. But that's not even the real value.

The real value is that I get access to someone like you. I'm sure you're not a cheap hire, yet I get your guidance as an operator who's been a franchisee and is part of a leadership team. I couldn't afford that kind of expertise on my own for a 5% or 10% royalty. When you think about everything that's built around helping franchisees succeed, that's what they're really paying for.

I think franchising made a mistake by calling it a royalty. A royalty sounds like you're paying for access to a brand. Maybe the royalty should be 1%, and the other 4% should be called a leadership access fee because that's really what you're getting. You're paying for people who are constantly thinking about how to make the business better so you can focus on building your business and making money.

Lane: Here's how I justified paying a royalty as a franchisee: I was getting a real-world MBA. That was my fee. I wasn't paying a university, and I was learning in the real world. I gained more than just the know-how. I don't think it's only about knowing how to start a business. It's also about having the confidence to do it in the first place. That is a barrier that holds a lot of people back, and franchising is probably one of the best ways to get past it because you're joining a great network of knowledge.

As I mentioned, I don't think I would have achieved even a fraction of the success I saw as a franchisee without the guidance and support. That is so important in a franchise. Franchising isn't a magic bullet for success. Nothing in life is. You're going to get out of it what you put into it. But the owners who lean into the support put themselves in a much better position to succeed.

That was one thing I took very seriously. I don't think I ever missed a weekly meeting with my coach. As I was running around with my head down, handling a thousand different tasks every week, that meeting gave someone the opportunity to pull me out of it and ask, "Where are you in the big picture? You're focusing on this, but that's not what you need to be working on right now."

Having someone there to hold me accountable and help me focus was incredibly important. Given my background and what I was provided to help me succeed, I'm a big believer in franchisors that truly support their franchisees.

Powills: Let's say there's a candidate watching, Steve. Do you have any last words of wisdom for them before we sign off?

Lane: A lot of people want to become entrepreneurs and run their own businesses. It was very scary for me to go out and do it. Remember, I started out probably in last place and went on to become the No. 1 rookie owner in the entire region where I was running the franchise. Again, that was the result of skill and commitment.

After the dust settled, I looked back and asked myself why that happened. Then I started looking at my life and how I had performed in other areas. That's a good way to give yourself a litmus test for how you're probably going to perform in a franchise.

There's always that top third, middle third and bottom third. The top third will be the high flyers. About a third of people will do OK, and another third will struggle for one reason or another.

Look at yourself and how you've performed in other areas of your life. The biggest hurdle for many people is having the confidence to go out and do it. You can build that confidence by looking at how you've performed in other things. That's probably a good indication of how you'll perform in your franchise.

Powills: Steve, thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it.

Lane: Thanks for having me, Nick. It's been great.

Watch the full episode above or on YouTube.