Starting a business

[Adrock]

Starting a business

After agonising for a long time and getting nowhere with looking for new career paths or even new jobs as an electrician I've begun to look into starting out on my own. Obviously I'm not gonna jump ship with my current job straight away, I'll be doing both until my own thing picks up.

So the reason I'm starting a thread is because I want to pick some brains on the nature of  going it alone. Can any of you guys offer advice as to how best to start up a company?

Costing would be a big thing too,  initial plans like setting up websites, advertising and those kinds of things would be useful. I've no clue on cost for that side of business.

As a little background, I'm an electrician with mainly commercial experience but I have a significant interest in audio visual set ups too.

[Clock'd 0Ne]

Re: Starting a business

You can start up your own limited company for £15: https://www.gov.uk/register-a-company-online. There are online sites that will do it for you for an extra £20/30 and that saves having to write out your own Articles of Association, etc, there's further info on all that here if you wanted to tackle it yourself: https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation/register-your-company

All you need to bear in mind is you might need to mark someone else down as second company director/secretary, they may have changed the rules on this recently. If you a have an accountant (which is worth the cost for the savings in tax they'll get you/headaches filling out returns and sorting out Employee payslips, etc) they can usually mark themselves down for this and can provide a registered office address. A good accountant will probably cost you under £1k a year in fees (Corporation Tax return being the biggest cost).

You could set up a nice brochure website easily using Wordpress, it's not hard as you're not selling online, you just need a contact form page and some pages for home / commercial / home cinema or whatever you're specialising in. If you wanted to pay for this I wouldn't look at spending more than £500 and really that should include a nice logo, anyone offering you a billy basic site for your business for more than that is fleecing you. Submit yourself to some web directories like checkatrade and you won't need to spend that much on advertising, I don't know much about your industry but I'm guessing a lot of people still flick through the Yellow Pages, but since even they're online now...

[knighty]

Re: Starting a business

once you're setup... do you know anyone who will have work for you without the advertising etc.. ?

for a small company, it's all about word of mouth, especially in a field like yours where there's a lot of competition

guessing you'll be looking to focus on the smaller commercial side, most big places will want somewhere with a team of people or at least that kind of backup if something goes wrong ?

guessing you already have / have access to all the gear you'll need ?  if so I think your best bet is going around industrial estates etc.. and dropping in with a flyer, say hi in person and explain what you do, tell the you've been doing it for X number of years, can give better price because of low overheads etc. etc.

you'll need to be vat registered too, because everyone will want vat receipts (but then probably want you to do it cheaper for cash anyway)

I think if you depend on advertising etc.. you'll really struggle to get enough work to make a living,advertising should be aimed at people who are already looking for you and trying to contact you, not trying to catch people who are looking for an electrician (unless you're going to spend a few grand on a big yellow pages advert etc..)

[Dave]

Re: Starting a business

No advice about setting the entity up itself as I've not done so myself... however I would mention that a mate of mine set up his business (shipping related) by asking for his current hours to be reduced at work... his business was related (but not competing directly) with his employer's business. So he started off by reducing his hours to 3 days a week (I think 2 half days and two full days) and spending the rest of the time building up his own company. He was up front with his employer about it too and after 6 months or so he left and is now running it full time... his former employer now also does business with him AFAIK.

I'm not sure if you could do the same - presumably if you're employed as an electrician and are looking to set yourself up as an electrician then would you have any issues with non-compete agreements etc..? (I realise this is more common in software but have heard it applies to even hairdressers etc.. sometimes). I guess it depends on the situation... in some ways... if you work in big construction sites as your day job could you have a part time gig doing residential stuff until you get things established... Or if you do the residential stuff for a small firm maybe they wouldn't mind if you had a side business doing the HiFi/Audio visual stuff... in fact you could promote it whenever you visited a big house with some AV gear as part of your regular electrician job.

[Adrock]

Re: Starting a business

Thanks for the replies.

Knighty, the thing about relying on word of mouth is that you need to have that initial few jobs to get things going. Its kinda like the chicken and the egg conundrum, with some advertisement I might be able to pick up a few jobs and go from there but without the word of mouth lots of people wont consider you.

I'd be willing to do pretty much any work, commercial is obviously where I've spent my career but domestic is very easy.

Dave, working reduced hours would be an excellent idea but my problem is that I'm a foreman so I supervise other sparks, meaning I gotta be there all the time. Also I'm pretty sure the company wouldn't take kindly to me setting up my own thing. They'd see it as competition and probably get pissed off.

My initial plan was to set up small and do some house bashing whilst still working full time then see if I could build up a client base and move from there but knighty is right in that its gonna be a struggle to get going. I suppose I might need to call in a few favours, see if I can pick some work up.

How do you guys look for people to do work for you? I personally use search engines to see if I can find anyone local and get them to come round and price the jobs.

[Dave]

Re: Starting a business

I still use yellow pages for trades related stuff as I'm aware that plenty of tradesmen won't have websites etc..

Washing machine/tumble dryer broke down recently - my dad came to help, took motor out though it differed to the bosh motors on youtube clips - was an older model and was less clear how to remove the brushes.... yellow pages helped - found some old guy who repairs bosh machines, my dad dropped the motor round at the bloke's house and he was able to cut new brushes for the motor (the particular brushes required weren't available any more) and fit them...  Guys like that are great to find by there is no chance that he would have a website...

[knighty]

Re: Starting a business

I still think your best bet is to go round industrial estates etc.. introduce yourself and drop off a flyer / business card / something they can hold onto for the future... give free advice while you're there etc... let them know you'll do decent work without taking the piss on prices etc..

I think (educated guess) you'll mostly be looking for small business where you can go in and talk to the boss, garages, smaller units etc.. plenty of people in those will do there own small stuff but are afraid to touch 3 phase stuff etc...


have you thought about a change in career at all ?  what about refrigeration ?  ok... sounds a bit odd at first... but 75% of the time if you're fixing something it'll be an electrical problem anyway... and most fridge guys I know really struggle with stuff like that... (I know quite a few)

you have to have a spacial qualification to do anything with the gas (called F gas) it's a bit like being part P registered or gas safe... but you sound like you'll fly through it tbh... most fridge guys I know are right half whitts....

plus... they make a bloody fortune... £100 call out + £100 hour + 20% on parts etc.. is normal

and... the vast majority of people can't do work like that because they don;t have the kit, and/or they don't have an Fg as card so can;t buy the gas you need... the kit isn't even that expensive, £500 worth of stuff will see you through the vast majority of jobs (I know because I've got the kit for it)

also, the vast majority of fridge engineers work for themselves or small companys with only a few guys, so it's an easier market to break into

every restaurant/takeaway etc.. in the country probably calls out a fridge engineer at least once a year, then there's small factories, warehouses etc..

and.. a lot of fridge engineers are morons... when my usual guy is busy I've had to call out other people and then stand over them and watch what they're doing because they'll make mistakes etc.. or just don't know what they're doing... you'll be 10 steps ahead of them because you're not a moron... and people want someone they trust when they're messing with 10k worth of refrigeration equipment and getting a 3k repair bill (pretty normal for a decent sized walk in freezer)

plus... then you can fit/maintain air con (including car aircon) etc. etc.

maybe you're not interested at all... and I'm over excited about the idea because it's what I would do if I was going to do something different... but I recon there's a lot of money to be made there :-)

[Clock'd 0Ne]

Re: Starting a business

My client base is all word of mouth, or people that I supported when I was working sub-contracted to another company. I've only just gone fully freelance so I've be working out how best to do the same things. At some point I'm going to design my own flyers, have them printed and then go down the high street posting them to businesses. It's a different industry to yours though, I think people that want a website will typically look online for a designer so thats why I would put myself on some web directories, trade directories, etc. You should too though, as a customer I would always check the web first and look for reviews of tradesmen, etc so sites like these really help. Some will list you for free, some will cost but you pay back the cost after one job pretty much so it's a no brainer.

[Eggtastico]

Re: Starting a business

I still think your best bet is to go round industrial estates etc.. introduce yourself and drop off a flyer / business card / something they can hold onto for the future... give free advice while you're there etc... let them know you'll do decent work without taking the piss on prices etc..

I think (educated guess) you'll mostly be looking for small business where you can go in and talk to the boss, garages, smaller units etc.. plenty of people in those will do there own small stuff but are afraid to touch 3 phase stuff etc...


have you thought about a change in career at all ?  what about refrigeration ?  ok... sounds a bit odd at first... but 75% of the time if you're fixing something it'll be an electrical problem anyway... and most fridge guys I know really struggle with stuff like that... (I know quite a few)

you have to have a spacial qualification to do anything with the gas (called F gas) it's a bit like being part P registered or gas safe... but you sound like you'll fly through it tbh... most fridge guys I know are right half whitts....

plus... they make a bloody fortune... £100 call out + £100 hour + 20% on parts etc.. is normal

and... the vast majority of people can't do work like that because they don;t have the kit, and/or they don't have an Fg as card so can;t buy the gas you need... the kit isn't even that expensive, £500 worth of stuff will see you through the vast majority of jobs (I know because I've got the kit for it)

also, the vast majority of fridge engineers work for themselves or small companys with only a few guys, so it's an easier market to break into

every restaurant/takeaway etc.. in the country probably calls out a fridge engineer at least once a year, then there's small factories, warehouses etc..

and.. a lot of fridge engineers are morons... when my usual guy is busy I've had to call out other people and then stand over them and watch what they're doing because they'll make mistakes etc.. or just don't know what they're doing... you'll be 10 steps ahead of them because you're not a moron... and people want someone they trust when they're messing with 10k worth of refrigeration equipment and getting a 3k repair bill (pretty normal for a decent sized walk in freezer)

plus... then you can fit/maintain air con (including car aircon) etc. etc.

maybe you're not interested at all... and I'm over excited about the idea because it's what I would do if I was going to do something different... but I recon there's a lot of money to be made there :-)

true about fridges. got a mate whos been fixing them for years. Always has cards he hands out to small shops for work on the side.
Earns a fair whack as well. Mortgage free & in his mid 30s.
Also could be worth picking up some plumbing skills. Always handy with some cross training

[M3ta7h3ad]

Re: Starting a business

Are there not agency folk you can use? If I wanted to go freelance in IT there are countless agencies I can call on for a contract before leaving my current job and they'd help me set up my company.

That way I'm leaving a job moving into my own company and I know I have contract work to cover at least the next few months.

[Eggtastico]

Re: Starting a business

Are there not agency folk you can use? If I wanted to go freelance in IT there are countless agencies I can call on for a contract before leaving my current job and they'd help me set up my company.

That way I'm leaving a job moving into my own company and I know I have contract work to cover at least the next few months.

you make it sound so easy!

[M3ta7h3ad]

Re: Starting a business

Lol has seemed it for me but then I've a few chicken and egg things in place already so more desirable to contract places.

That said I have yet to have the balls to do it.

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