Introduction
Everyone knows the value of electricians. But the world of electrical projects goes beyond pulling Romex or wiring a breaker box.
The Market
When we think of electrical work, it is home/office electrical work. Not automotive or marine work, that work is different and tends to fit into those categories. There are also different electrical work levels, from major home wiring projects all the way down to a simple outlet change. It is important to know and understand the difference, or otherwise, you will have some major pushback.
Licensed Electrical Firms. These firms are highly professional, pay their licensed electricians well due to the amount of risk and liability associated with this work. They will never hire someone off the street. But they do need auxiliary support for their teams. Having someone doing grunt work on a project saves their high-cost resources from simple work like the demolition of old wiring.
Basic Repair Work. This tends to be with homeowners who need simple fixes but don’t want to or can’t afford larger firms to do the work. They need a licensed professional to drop by and swap out a power switch or look at why their breaker keeps tripping. The big firms don’t really want to deal with work because they are not as profitable as larger projects.
Solar. A booming industry for electrical and roofing contractors. With so many firms, many issues need to be resolved, and the company that might have installed the “warranted system” may no longer be in business anymore. Many times the system just needs a simple tune-up. The dirty secret is that it is not as difficult or as expensive as people think it is for fresh installs. The hardest part is finding experienced crews. There is a lot of room to get creative with the Hefe platform with solar.
Success Story
We have not yet had a major wow success story in electrical. Not that it needs one as it is so straightforward and essential to our daily lives. Electrical jobs happen with no explanation. Most of the gigs have been in the handyman space. If you have a great story, we would love to feature it.
Best Practices
A couple of observations so far.
Professional Firms. As mentioned above, when approaching the professional electrical firms, they have the own highly skilled, highly paid technicians that you will never be able to compete with. Focus on anything and everything else they might need to fill to support their crews—demolition, cleanup, hauling, etc.
Home Owners. This is just something that folks will need on occasion. You might want to look at the construction best practices on how to connect to homeowners.
Recruiting. Something to consider in the gig worker space, licensed electrical professionals are highly desired. There is plenty of electrons that work 7-3 that would love some extra evening or weekend work.