- This topic has 3 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 20 years, 10 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Hello
Any self employed domestic appliance engineers out there, who can give me some idea as to the amount of work a self employed appliance engineer can expect to get, working for thereself.Re: self employed
Bit of a “How long is a piece of string” question, Alan.
Personally I do 10 – 12 calls per day, 6 days a week. Bear in mind that it taken 13 years to get to this stage.
If starting on your own, you need to find an “angle” – rental property work, pubs and the like. They want quick service, but may need monthly billing.
The early days are always difficult, until the “word of mouth” builds up.
Good luck,
Penguin45.Re: self employed
Just Like Chris said, word of mouth. I have recently left a business of which I was a partner of. It has been established for 34 years and I was there for 18 years. It has a massive customer base; Most of which I have built up. After my lack of enthusiasm with the retail side of it, my business partner offered to buy me out and I snapped his hand off! I have no regret, but it is very hard starting out alone. I have left my client base with my old business. The phone rarely rings and advertising costs a fortune! We have done leaflet drops (that have been good). I have also included a photo of myself on the leaflet in hope people would recognise me from it. I don’t regret my move in any way, even if I have to get a part time job to pay the mortgage, I will continue my business. Its bound to be hard at first. My advice is to add as many strings to your bow as possible, if your competent and you have plenty of experience contact the estate agents and try and get in as an agent with a manufacturer perhaps to keep the money coming in. My advice also, be careful with advertising, don’t sign up to long term contracts, it sometimes pays to swing your advertising round in different areas!
Hope that helps, I’m struggling, but isn’t everyone at the moment?
Regards,
Robert.Re: self employed
Trying to aspire to 10 to 12 jobs a day may be setting your hopes to high.
I find having 6 to 8 jobs a day has always been adequate. Occassionally I will work Saturday mornings. This allows, I feel, a good work life balance which is something you may not be-able to juggle when you are first starting out.
Obviously there is always paperwork and calls to take. I find I get a lot of work from answering calls out of hours.Again I have been doing this 14 years and advertise in the Yellow pages. Occasionally tried other forms of advertising but that didn’t work for me.
Its been quiet for me for the last few weeks, luckily sales of new machines and a bit of third party work has counteracted the lack of repairs.
Good Luck.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.