Join in if you are self-employed and work from home

Horace

Oh flibbertigibbet - I had just typed something and it disappeared:mad:

Hi Mike and welcome

Firstly I would recommend that you join the FSB - sole trader (no employees) costs £150 for the year (even if you take on employees, you don't have to say and the fee remains the same). You get free legal advice from them as well as a host of other things.

I can't help being a fountain of knowledge TCM - put it down to my age and the fact that I am a human sponge:rotfl:

With regard to the hairdressing salon who have refused to pay despite having a CCJ. The bailiffs can seize fixtures eg. chairs, hairdryers, washbasins, cutting implements and the till because these are not supplied on a sale or return basis its only stuff like shampoos. Go back to the court and ask them for a winding up order and serve it on the shop - even take it yourself and slap it on them. I did this with a company once who kept using excuses as to why they couldnt pay their photocopier rental - it got to the point where i sent an engineer in to remove the corona wire (this is an essential part and without it the copier won't copy:rotfl:), calls came flooding in that their copier wasnt working so I told them that if they paid their outstanding bill then their copier would be repaired - then the rubber cheques started and in the end I got so mad that I approached the court and asked for a winding up order and went with my boss to slap it on them personally. I cannot remember if we ever got our money but I can still remember the great sense of satisfaction that I got serving that order.

You may have to write off the debt with the restaurant. Restaurants are transient businesses anyway and one minute they are there and the next they've gone.

Rather than offering payment in 30 days from date of invoice - if the customer is new and you have never dealt with them before either ask them to pay in full up front or take 50% off them up front and 50% when the job has been completed. It isnt unusual for businesses to trade this way - one company that I deal with has these payment terms, they are in the entertainment business and they used to get a lot of last minute cancellations but now customers have to pay 50% up front and then if they decide to cancel then tough they don't get their money back. My own payment terms are 25% up front followed by quarterly payments of 25% plus if the bride cancels then they still have to pay me 75% of the fees owed. Once regular customers have built up a good trading history then perhaps you can switch to 30 day terms.

I did my mystery shop and nearly had a heart attack the min spend was £25 and I had to buy a fragrance - I ended up spending £58 on the bottle of fragrance that I wanted:eek: I won't be buying any more now not ever:eek: Treated myself to some lunch and added my business card to their little fishbowl (not containing water or fish) to try and win a dinner for 2 - I bet my card doesnt get picked because of its funky shape and the fact that its quite colourful and all the other cards were rectangular and white and v.boring:rolleyes:

My new glasses will be ready on Friday:j and one of my eye drops has been reduced to 4 times a day instead of 8 times a day:j but I still have to take the dilating drop:mad: I am due back at the clinic in 2 months time, my eye pressures were ok too 9 in the left and 8 in the right:cool: (these are normal pressures for me but for the average joe then they would be too low).

Horace

Hi Charlotte and welcome.

Ally Bally - https://www.fsb.org.uk - they're fab. You even get free legal protection insurance so that if you have to do jury service for instance they will pay you £100 a day:cool: Free banking for life with the co-op and the co-op will pay you a loyalty dividend of £25 annually as well as promising to pay you £25 if they upcock:D

TCM_3

Walking encyclopedia H! Good woman to know!

I'm glad you have sunshine Ally - its chucking it down here - my lovely white horse is now a delicate shade of manky brown.

We had a flood in the kitchen last night which made me resemble a cross between a drowned rat and a participant in a cheap 18-30 holiday's wet t-shirt competition. Whatever "home improvements" the OH was battering at yesterday, I was merrilly watching Emmerdale with my mug of tea when there was an unmerciful "pop" and when I ran to the kitchen like a lunitic, the plughole of the sink had turned into the Trevvy Fountain - the water was hitting the ceiling, the cooker, Odd George the cat (he was not impressed) and you can imagine the sight of trying to stop it. Alot of squeeling and soggy trousers later, it was discovered that the OH had forgot to put some valve back in place as he went to chase the cat out, then the phone had rang - its back to the bloke thing again and not being able to multi task.

Glad the eyes are getting back to normal Horace, quieter in shop today but have got loads of work done.

Forgot to say - Hi Charlotte - welcome!

Horace

Blokes are hopeless at multi-tasking unless it is something for their benefit such as commandeering the telly remote and then falling asleep and when you change channel they pipe up and say "I was watching that":rolleyes: I had troubles when I was carving the joint on Sunday and I was trying to dish up the dinner at the same time so I asked his nibs to help out and I got the words "I'll do it later, I am reading the paper" - I think that the sight of me wielding a very sharp carving knife and the accompanying threats made him shift his backside into the kitchen to help out:rotfl:

Hope Odd George has recovered from his shower? Its been glorious here too although it is expected to rain later on tonight and thunder tomorrow:rolleyes:

Best go and find something for tea:rolleyes:

Mudbath

Hiya to everyone especially the newcomers. This is a great place to ask any questions (however daft they seem) as someone seems to always have help to offer.

I had the third of my four new clients today. The first two didn't rebook immediately which isn't unusual but today's client has booked two more appointments and told me i'll be sick of the sight of her within a year - really nice lady so it looks like she'll become a regular which is great.

Today I've done some more free online advertising, had the new client and then took the afternoon off to go and see 3D G-force (it was really good:rotfl:).

Tomorrow is my last full work day before we go away for a week so i'm looking forward to it.

Hope you're all keeping busy xx

luis1973

Hi
This is a sort of duplicate post as I am back on MSE after several years away and far too excited!

I am self employed and work for a few different companies as a sort of virtual administration manager. I am trying to move into the charity sector (well really I have been working in this sector for 10 years but want to move onto project work) and really lacking the inspiration to find new clients.

So that is a quick introduction and I am really looking forward to reading this thread every day.

Horace

Welcome Luis

As I understand from your post that you no longer with to remain in self employment which is why you are de-motivated to look for new clients

Have you thought of contacting various charities to see if they have any project manager vacancies? Look in newspapers and on the charities' own websites to see if they have any suitable vacancies - become more proactive in seeking the type of work that you want.

luis1973

Hi Horace
Am really being terrible at getting my point across tonight. I just had to repost in another thread because I got myself all confused (so how do I expect anyone else to help? )

I have been working with companies but I am planning to move into working for charities instead. Still self employed and still working from home but doing projects for small charities - taking on their membership or their book keeping. These things are not often advertised as might be done by a volunteer (often overworked themselves) so I think it is talking to as many charities as possible.

Definitely need some major butt kicking to get myself sorted to actually do this. I think it will be ok but am hoping that this thread will inspire me to tick off my to do list (and if anyone has any genius ideas so much the better)

Horace

Luis

Not wanting to rain on your parade but I think you will find that charities have to submit accounts to the charities commission and they employ accountants to do this although they may have a bookkeeper who keeps the books for free. There is a charity that I have some distant involvement with - they rake in over £2million in donations each year and their bookkeeper is a volunteer (an accountant) and the books are audited by another accountant before being sent to the charities commission. Do you have qualifications in bookkeeping? If not, then I think you will find it extremely difficult to do that kind of job with a charity. Membership as you say is also handled by a volunteer and I have never known one farm this work out and pay someone to do it. I can appreciate that it takes time - I was once on the committee of the Moto Guzzi Club GB as their Public Relations Officer, again a voluntary post and although it was great fun it was hard work but we never even thought of paying someone to sort out the membership lists (we had over 3500 members). If you want to work with charities then I would suggest that you find another way of doing so. Sorry if this sounds off - but its what happens in smaller charities, plus they have to be extremely careful where 'strangers' are concerned in case they have their fingers in the till - I am not saying that you would just saying how charities tend to think.

Motivating when working for oneself can be difficult - even I have problems with it but I pick myself up and am never down or distracted for too long.

Carrie85

Thanks to everyone for the info on the FSB will definitely be looking into that.

Got lots of housework stuff to do today and also need to do a design for a potential new client. Hope I can get it all done.

luis1973 wrote: »

Definitely need some major butt kicking to get myself sorted to actually do this. I think it will be ok but am hoping that this thread will inspire me to tick off my to do list (and if anyone has any genius ideas so much the better)

Hi Luis, i've struggled with this a lot recently but in the last 3 weeks i've been much more pro active and it has paid off so much.
When going up for more freelance work in interviews, and just looking in general i always felt i wasn't doing my best even though it seemed i was putting loads of effort in. Even though i wanted the work the drive to get it was lacking because being alone in the house trying to work its hard to set targets for yourself and see part of your house as your office. But reading this thread and a few others, getting into the mind frame of only you can get yourself up that ladder has made me think i need to do something pro active every day, however small.
In my latest interview which could lead to a lot of freelance work i went in much more positive and confident and it paid off, getting work straight away after having very little.

I've found over the last few weeks showing a confident approach in what you can do for people and being confident just looking for work something really will come along really can change your luck. Still have unmotivated days but seeing things get better has made me go after more and more

If I'm having a day where I'm not getting much done taking a proper break instead of trying and failing helps too. Going out for a bit or doing other jobs like housework then coming back fresh later or the next day i get much more done.