I have been working as an independent service technician for a wide range of appliances, such as washing machines, refrigerators, dryers, and stoves, for over 15 years. I started this new occupation when I was around 40 years old. I didn’t have to learn more about electricity or mechanics because I had learned a lot of science in university and practiced mechanics and electric issues of parquet grinding machines for several years. But I had to learn a lot about marketing. Before starting my business, I worked at the Molecular Biology Institute lab, but I decided to change my career path.
My working day. Why is it to be self-employed?
So, I am an appliance technician in Ottawa, ON.
To be “free” as an independent appliance technician, you must be a multi-functional worker. You have to do the following:
- Administrating your business: plan your budget, advertising, pricing, and invoicing.
- Marketing: Business website creation, maintenance, and promotion. Google Business Profile (GMB). Google maps. Site SEO. Contacting marketing and web-design freelancers and agencies. Blog writing. Page content writing. Google Ads company preparation and promotion. Clients’ reviews.
- Client service. Take customer calls, discuss the customer’s problems, make customer selections according to the area and availability, do repair estimation by phone and do appointment planning.
- Spare parts stock. You need to plan your spare parts stock, purchase them, keep the stock full, contact the providers’ companies in town and online, pick up ordered parts, and bring them back if necessary.
- Repair service. Diagnose, take apart and put together appliances, and suggest correct appliance maintenance. Provide written repair estimates, invoices, and receipts. Have the necessary tools. The most important thing is to discover the problem of the appliance. Here your work experience is the first thing. I know the common problems of the popular brands of home appliances. I need to know the brand and the signs of the issue. So, if you tell me that your old-brand Whirlpool / Kenmore dryer doesn’t start, I think about the belt, belt pulley or door switch. If a Samsung dryer doesn’t warm up but starts and turns, I know that it will be a heating element (80%) or security thermostat (15%), but I will start my diagnostic from the voltage in the electricity outlet. Why? Because the dryer needs 120V for turning and 230V for the heating element. If you know the problem as soon as you finish your first conversation with your client you can prepare the parts and plan your time.
- Driving. Drive to the clients and provide vehicle maintenance.
- Accounting. Business spending documentation, providing trimester reports, and contacting Canada Revenu Agency.
The more of it you can do by yourself, the less money you spend. My policy is to do everything myself and hire a specialist when needed. For example, I needed to promote my website ranking in the Google search results, so I paid SEO and GMB specialists. From my experience with freelancers and agencies, you need to be qualified enough in their fields to understand the problems and evaluate the work results. Interesting fact. If you are ready to work as a contractor and pay for receiving everyday repair jobs you will pay half of the money to your job provider. It will be another local repairman or a big trans-Canadian, American, or trans-continental company, specializing in work providing for repairmen. So, you pay it for a large part of marketing work, like a website, SEO, publicity and conversations with potential clients, including their calls and online repair estimates.
I chose to work as a self-employed business owner. If you can be multi-functional and are not afraid of a long working day, be an owner, build your client base, and develop your own business.
