Starting a business(tradesman)

Soldato
Joined
17 Jun 2012
Posts
11,259
Let's say you changed career, you did some training like carpentry, locksmith, chimney sweep or one of the many trades out there.

One you register your company and set up your webpage is it just a case of sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring?

How do you know if there's a space in the market, you could go through all the work and never get any business etc?
 
Assuming you've just had the training I'd say work in the trade for a while before setting out on your own. Your learning the trade hasn't really begun yet.
 
Assuming you've just had the training I'd say work in the trade for a while before setting out on your own. Your learning the trade hasn't really begun yet.

I get what your saying, I'd rather avoid that stage though if entirely possible though it's probably not for most trades.

But if you did go from training to self employed ....?
 
Advertise, Checkatrade, Facebook groups etc..
Setting up a webpage on its own won't get you very far unless you have the best adwords in the world on it and are prepared to hand over large dollops of cash every single month to Google for search rankings.

There is always a space in the market, because there are more people chasing services than people to do them.

I've had 2 sparkies round recently, both seemed up for the job, but only one bothered to return an estimate. because they have more work than they can book in.
House building is one of the industries that didnt stop last year. And everyone else sat at home that had any cash has looked at "what can we do to this place".

Construction & Property is heaving with opportunity.
 
Last edited:
I get what your saying, I'd rather avoid that stage though if entirely possible though it's probably not for most trades.

But if you did go from training to self employed ....?
Why would you want to avoid that stage? What are your goals? What is it that you're hoping to achieve?
 
Why would you want to avoid that stage? What are your goals? What is it that you're hoping to achieve?

To have my own small business. As for avoiding, I was never good at being told what to do or working in a group so I always try and avoid that if at all possible.

I'd like a self employed business I can enjoy doing and make a decent living. Anything from carpenter to locksmith. I see loads of tradesmen all the time in their vans with their own business. I'm wondering how long they've had to train before they got to this stage.
 
I'd guess quite a long time. I've done my level 2 in electronics and bench joinery just in evening classes but there's not a chance in hell i could then take that and go out into the world to make a living from it. I'd say you'd want 2-3 years as an apprentice type role at minimum to learn things. If nothing else just to learn how long things take for when you're quoting for work.
 
To have my own small business. As for avoiding, I was never good at being told what to do or working in a group so I always try and avoid that if at all possible.

I'd like a self employed business I can enjoy doing and make a decent living. Anything from carpenter to locksmith. I see loads of tradesmen all the time in their vans with their own business. I'm wondering how long they've had to train before they got to this stage.
Having your own business isn't a goal - it's a way to get to a goal.

Is the goal money? Flexibility? Something else?
 
I get what your saying, I'd rather avoid that stage though if entirely possible though it's probably not for most trades.

But if you did go from training to self employed ....?
It's not an avoidable stage. If you consider an old style apprenticeship for a trade was 4 years on the job experience how does your "training" stack up? Is it full-time for 6 months? classroom based or on site? real life scenarios or just theory?

Training without experience is not going to make you competent at your trade.
 
It's not an avoidable stage. If you consider an old style apprenticeship for a trade was 4 years on the job experience how does your "training" stack up? Is it full-time for 6 months? classroom based or on site? real life scenarios or just theory?

Training without experience is not going to make you competent at your trade.

Ofc your right. So I'd really be looking at doing a 4 year modern apprenticeship. Obviously that's a long time, could you set yourself up as self employed after that or would you still need further work experience after the 4 years?

How many people go back and train for 4 years in their 40s, what do you think?

At end of day time is so short maybe just go for it. I've always been too caught up in age rules.
 
Have a look at running a locksmith franchise. Minimal training, full stocked van etc Not got any first hand experience myself but apparently you can be up and running in 5 weeks.
 
Back
Top Bottom