EP#91: Mr. Handyman of Rochester Hills with Zach Maluzhinsky
Nov 14, 2023
Lisa
Are you ready to be inspired by a story of tenacity and drive? Meet Zach Maluzhinsky, owner of Mr. Handyman of Rochester Hills, who took the reins of business ownership at the young age of 24. His journey is not just about entrepreneurship, it's about shattering misconceptions, building trust, and the power of personal interaction. And if that doesn't grip you, how about a surprising statistic? Half of the applicants in his industry can't pass a background check.
But there's more to Zach than meets the eye. Having served in the Army, his experiences have shaped his approach to business, ensuring that trust and reliability are the core values of his company. When he's not steering his business, he's creating melodies in his home recording studio. He firmly believes that music, like his commitment to his work, is an integral part of life. Join us as we journey through Zach's fascinating world, learning about the varied services of a handyman company and gaining an insight into the man himself. This episode promises to be as enlightening as it is engaging.
Are you ready to be inspired by a story of tenacity and drive? Meet Zach Maluzhinsky, owner of Mr. Handyman of Rochester Hills, who took the reins of business ownership at the young age of 24. His journey is not just about entrepreneurship, it's about shattering misconceptions, building trust, and the power of personal interaction. And if that doesn't grip you, how about a surprising statistic? Half of the applicants in his industry can't pass a background check.
But there's more to Zach than meets the eye. Having served in the Army, his experiences have shaped his approach to business, ensuring that trust and reliability are the core values of his company. When he's not steering his business, he's creating melodies in his home recording studio. He firmly believes that music, like his commitment to his work, is an integral part of life. Join us as we journey through Zach's fascinating world, learning about the varied services of a handyman company and gaining an insight into the man himself. This episode promises to be as enlightening as it is engaging.
Speaker 1:
This is the Good Neighbor podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, lisa Swift me.
Speaker 2:
Hi everyone, welcome to episode number 91 of the Good Neighbor podcast. Today I have Zach Mel Jouzinski With mr Handyman of Rochester Hills. Hey Zach, how are you doing this morning?
Speaker 3:
Hey Lisa, I'm doing good. How are you?
Speaker 2:
I'm doing really well, thank you. Let's start off by telling our listeners about your business.
Speaker 3:
Yeah for sure. So I own a company called mr Handyman of Rochester Hills and Really what it sounds like, we're a handyman company and there's a lot of us. There's actually about 500 locations across the US. The cool thing about mr Handyman is they're all independently owned and operated. So you might go to California and find mr Handyman of Fresno for chance and different owners, different guys doing the work, but ultimately everybody has the same angle in mind is they want a great customer experience and they want to provide you with quality, exceptional handyman services for your home.
Speaker 2:
That is amazing and I know a Many, many people need a handyman just to come out and help with some of those smaller projects. But tell our listeners about your journey. How did you get started?
Speaker 3:
This is one of those questions. I pre-read this and I was concerned because I could go on for about two hours and I don't have time. So Really it started. I'll preface it with this I'm a younger guy, I'm 24, so I'm pretty To be a business owner, but I started looking around different opportunities when I was 18, right around when I graduated from high school, because I always had this desire to be the one that was owning a company, to provide a good working environment for customers, to Give a good service, and I looked around all different sorts of things on.
Speaker 3:
There was a point where I looked at different gym franchises. I looked at other type of home maintenance Companies. What I found out really quickly was, when you're 18, your bank account it. You think that you have a little bit more saved up, and you actually did so. I learned pretty quickly I was naive back then that the money I had saved up was not enough to start a company, but it got the drive started, made me realize okay, what's the process to get a company started? What is it actually entail? That gave me a few more years to develop those kind of personality traits, get to know the fundamentals of business ownership more while I was able to work on myself, get the funds saved up, get the plans ready Before we actually pulled the trigger. So now you fast forward to actually we just opened up this year.
Speaker 3:
So August of 2023 is when we opened our doors, and part of what drew me to mr Handyman and what brought me here is I have a really big desire to have a company that has a good atmosphere for customers and when you talk to other companies, they're all about profit, which, as a business owner, you should care about your profit. If you can't keep the doors open, it's not a good business. But this company, they really care about that but also giving the customers a phenomenal experience and everything from the documents that you sign coming into it, from the way that they operate on a daily basis. It's customer-centric and that really drew me to this company because it aligned with how I believe people should operate and it was also in a field that I enjoy to work in.
Speaker 2:
Can you tell us any myths or misconceptions that you hear about in your industry?
Speaker 3:
There's a lot, and some of them I didn't learn until opening the doors. There's one misconception that actually blew my mind to this day. It's hard to believe when it comes to the contracting world, especially the handyman field, 50% of people that apply for a role like this or that you actually hire to come into your home, can't pass a background check. And that just blew my mind. Because you're hiring people to come into your home, you're entrusting them to be in there with your property sometimes your family, depending on what kind of work they're doing and they can't pass a background check. So that blew my mind. One of the things that I want to make sure people are aware of is that we take that very seriously. Everybody is vetted and has to pass a background check. Make sure that you have someone who's trustworthy and reliable in their home working on it. But then there's also the fact that not every company is the same.
Speaker 3:
A handyman company is a very broad company we do things from. We have people call us to hang up pictures in their living room and we have people calling us to do remodeling work. There's companies that have specialties and there's companies that have a really broad portfolio of what they do. The biggest misconception about us is, while we are a handyman company, we're a licensed building company. There's certain things that we actually believe or not. We can't do Major electrical and major plumbing. We do. Leave those to the licensed professionals. I've got guys that are very well versed in those categories but they're not licensed and we want the homeowner to be safe. So just make sure that when you're looking for a company, whatever your task is, do the proper vetting. Ask them are they licensed, are they insured, are they bonded, because ultimately we want the customer to be safe, especially if they're going to be paying any sort of good money to have someone come out and do work for their home.
Speaker 2:
That is very interesting about the background checks, so that's good that you guys do that. That is important because you are in somebody's home and you are working with around their family.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely.
Speaker 2:
So, zach, what do you like to do for fun when you're not working on your business?
Speaker 3:
I've been a musician my entire life. I really like to just play around with music. At home. I've got a little home recording studio Nothing crazy but sit down after a day whether a good day or a bad day and you can always go and just write something, make some sort of music. In regards to what you do with it Whether you want to send it to someone else to listen to and have them give you feedback, or just play around in the piano that's always been a pastime for me. I'm just a music fanatic. I love sitting down playing the piano. I'm a drummer by trade, so that's kind of my code to it. It's easy to get some frustration out on a drum set if you had a bad day. That's always been my go-to Messing around with music.
Speaker 2:
That sounds fun.
Speaker 3:
It is. It's an enjoyable pastime.
Speaker 2:
So can you describe one hardship or life challenge that you rose above and can now say because of that challenge that you're better for and or stronger?
Speaker 3:
Yes. So as soon as I graduated I enlisted in the Army, in the infantry, and that was something I wanted to do my entire life. I loved it, but you can assume there were a lot of challenges that came from there. You jump into something that you've never done before. That has a lot of high standards physically, mentally, emotionally and it's taxing, it's exhausting work.
Speaker 3:
But I will say that again, until I actually started my own company, I didn't realize how much that some of those things that I had to do in the Army actually benefited my business ownership style. Because, quite frankly, owning a business is hard work. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes and you have to have a nice level of head to get through some of those things and you have to know how to respond. So, if that's anything I don't have a specific example, but just overall I spent six years in and I had to learn how to respond to things that honestly weren't great situations all the time. That has been a huge benefit to owning this company over the past few months here.
Speaker 2:
That is very good, and I love your commitment that you have too. What is one thing that you wish our listeners knew about your business?
Speaker 3:
One thing that would be awesome is people how they get ahold of us. They call us over the phone. I love that because there are so many things that are automated where they just send in a chat. You never have any personal communication and then someone shows up to do the work. We live in a really automated society and there's nothing wrong with that. There's benefits. But we love personal interaction.
Speaker 3:
Just know that the people that are here, that are in the office taking phone calls, that are coming out to do work on your home, they enjoy personal interaction. Their goal from a company up level, from our home office, which is actually based out of Dallas, texas, to our office here in Rochester Hills. We want their experience to be met and exceeded. If there's ever a situation where we fall flat or come short of the goals, I want customers to know that I care about that kind of stuff. So does my staff in the office. We love feedback. Never be scared to let us know if something didn't meet your expectations, because we have what's called our done right promise. We want to make sure that everything is up to your standards and above.
Speaker 2:
All right, now you have our listeners intrigued, so they want to know how can they contact you.
Speaker 3:
There's a few ways. So you can go to our website and that's going to be MrHandyMancom. That will automatically take you to our page, because there's about 400 ones for different locations. Yeah, mrhandymancom will take you to our landing page. From there there's several options. You're going to have our phone number up in the right hand corner to call.
Speaker 3:
I always prefer, if you can give us a call, do that. We want to talk to you on the phone. We'd like to hear your background, what's going on, what you need to have done. It's just a better experience for both parties. But there's also there's a chat feature on there. If you're a little bit more crunched for time maybe you don't want to jump on the phone send us a chat. In the bottom right corner there's going to be a little bubble that pops up with a little assistant. It'll just ask you a few simple questions what do you need done? What's your address? So there's several routes, but ultimately, if you can give us a call we love talking on the phone it lets us know what you need done. You can send us some photos. We get a good idea. It just makes the experience for everyone a lot better.
Speaker 2:
So that's great. Do you want to say your phone number?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, and you know I was hesitant because this is behind the curtain a little bit we actually have like 15 different phone numbers and a lot of people they'll actually call them. Like, why do you have 15 numbers? It's for tracking purposes. So we know, did you call us because you saw a van? Did you call us because you saw an ad online? But a really good generic number for us that's on all our business cards and all our lead behind materials is going to be 248-479-4841. Again, that's 248-479-4841. Great.
Speaker 2:
Well, Zach, I really appreciate you being a guest today on our Good Neighbor podcast. Yeah, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:
Lisa, Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast Rochester. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPRochestercom or call 248-988-7998.
