How to package small jobs into profitable half-days

Small jobs are good work: quick, varied, and customers are grateful. They are also how a handyman ends up driving more than working.

A shelf here, a sticking door there, a tap washer across town. Each one is worth doing. None of them is worth a round trip on its own.

A half-day package fixes that. The customer gets a block of your time for their list, and you get a proper morning's work at one address.

• Sell a fixed half-day: a set number of hours at a set price.
• Ask for the full list, with photos, before the visit.
• Agree what fits and what does not, in writing.
• Group half-days by area.
• Anything that does not fit starts the next visit's list.

Pick a length: three or four hours is typical for a half-day. Price it as one figure, not an hourly rate, so the customer knows the cost before you arrive.

Say what is included: your time, basic fixings and consumables. Say what is not: parts and materials beyond the basics, and trips to the tip.

Offer a full day too, for longer lists. Customers often pick it once they see the whole list written down.

The package only works if you know the list before you turn up.

Ask for each job with a photo, and sizes where they matter. Check you have what you need on the van, and flag anything that needs a part ordering.

Then put the jobs in order and tell the customer what you expect to get through. If the list is too long, say so now, not at hour three.

"While you are here" is how a half-day turns into a full day for half-day money.

Agree the rule up front: anything added on the day goes in if there is time left. If not, it starts the next visit's list.

Snags on your own work are different. Put those right, always, and do not charge.

Give each part of your patch its own days: half-days in the north on Tuesday and Thursday, in town on Wednesday, and so on.

Two half-days next door to each other make a full day with one journey. Now the clocks have gone back and the light goes early, that matters more every week.

Four separate small jobs at £60 each bring in £240. With travel between them they take about six hours. That is £40 an hour.

The same four jobs done as a £180 half-day at one address take four hours, including the drive. That is £45 an hour, and the customer pays £60 less.

Book two half-days in the same street and you have £360 for a full day, with one drive there and back.

• Set your half-day and full-day prices.
• Write the message that asks for the list.
• Pick your area days.
• Offer the half-day to the next three people who ask for one small job.

Thanks for getting in touch. For smaller jobs I work in half-days: [hours] hours for £[amount], which covers my time and basic fixings. Send me your full list with a photo of each job and I will tell you what fits. I am in your area on [day].