Taking the leap into self-employment - advice needed

EagerLearner

Thanks guys - yes networking will be very important and I'd be happy to work with anyone on MSE who needed a virtual assistant.

pglic1 - the idea is that I don't necessarily need to attend their premises, so therefore could charge by the hour. If I do have to attend their premises then it would need to be more than an hour or I would charge however long it took me in total IYSWIM.

Booking travel, researching for projects, investigating hotels, typing docs and taking calls don't need to be done at their premises, so I think soon the UK workforce/employment market will catch up with the US in terms of this efficient way of hiring a PA/Secretary/Assistant.

Any comments/ideas welcome...

EagerLearner

Have looked into domain names, narrowed down business names (down to 4 now) and also called Sussex Enterprise. They sent me a big and scary book that's supposed to help, but the size of it... gawd... Plus also researched https://www.vistaprint.co.uk/amazon29 as they're offering loads of free products at the moment, so will get free business cards and free address labels, as well as free notepad.

garyclay

Hello EagerLearner,

First of all this is a business that CAN work really well. The problem of course is securing clients!

As far as marketing goes there is a little advice I'd give

1) Have a good website. NOT one you knock up yourself on Microsoft Publisher. If HTML and CSS are gobbledegook then buy a template from the many services out there such as https://www.monstertemplates.com If customising it yourself look tricky then there are services that can do this for you. If you only want a 5-6(which sounds enough for now) page site this should be pretty cost effective!

2) Marketing is essential. If you only wish to work in the local area then the newspaper is the best option. Spend a little and get a boxed advert in a local paper or better still get some flyers and have them inserted into the local paper. For 50-60 quid you'll get great exposure

Call the features editor of the paper. Tell him about your service and see if they want to do a story about you. Offer them some advertising revenue in return. Or why not offer your services free of charge for a month as a prize!

Advertise where you think you'll find clients, builders merchants, plumbing merchants, local chambers of commerce, anything you can think of. I'd suggest unless you live in a wealthy area that most of your clients will be self employed extremely busy people so think along those lines.

For national marketing the most cost effective is Google Adwords combined with advertising your services in EVERY related forum! REMEMBER to work nationaly you'll need some way of working with your clients which may involve a costly website!

3) Work work work. You're now self employed so forget evenings, weekends and holidays for at least a year. The business is your life for the next 12-18 months. After that you can take a breath!

I think there are opportunities for what you offer, people are increasingly time poor and money rich so go for it!

One more thing, if you are getting business cards etc through vista print use https://www.vistaprint.co.uk/specialfree for the best offers!

Good luck!!!!!

EagerLearner

Thanks so much GaryClay - those are invaluable tips - seems we think alike as I already have my eye on Vistaprint but via a different link - https://www.vistaprint.com/amazon29... Will update as soon as I can!

Satans_Budgie

Why not contact the Small Business Gateway organisation for your area??? I am sure they could provide you with some free advice and contacts.

EagerLearner

Thanks Satans Budgie (funny name by the way!) - I contacted Sussex Enterprise last week who have been so helpful and I will see then next week at some point. Right now I think my plan of action is:

- Find cheap domain name provider & reserve domains - .com and .co.uk
- Find webspace provider with online web-builder of some sort to at least create a welcome page
- Visit Sussex Enterprise
- Order business cards (free from Vistaprint)
- Create stationery - letterhead/spreadsheet
- Apply for part time jobs 2-3 days a week for January
- Investigate prices for adverts

Any other ideas/aspects i am missing? Obviously marketing but I don't want to spend money now as everyone is only thinking about Christmas. I think my local free paper Friday-ad is the best place to target my market. Just need to find out prices. I will also put ads in newspaper shop windows as I think they will look there too?

Satans_Budgie

I used to run my own IT support business and enjoyed the challange, however I was fortunate enough to be offered an appointment from one of the people I worked on contract for.
I still have a number of clients hosted with a uk based web hosting company 34sp. [ http://www.34sp.com/ ]. Reliable with excellent support. No online web builder. Wish you luck.

gelato_cat

Hello!

I've been reading for the past couple of weeks and have a couple of thoughts...

EagerLearner wrote:

Hi all,

- What to call myself - I want to offer personal assistant and admin services, travel management, cost reduction and event management services... I want to appeal to small companies that need a PA on occasion, as well as maybe even local people who work 9 to 5 but need extra help with daily duties they just don't have time for.

Any extra advice you can give in terms of marketing and raising my profile would be fantastic.

I think before you start thinking about advertising channels, raising your profile and even what your stationery/website will look like, you need to decide three things:

1. Your service
2. Your target market
3. What is unique about what you are trying to sell

I think you already have some idea of this, but I think it would help you to get these as specific as possible so that your marketing is properly targeted. Apologies if you have already done this and not necessarily posted about it!

I can't work out how to do the numbers with paragraphs under each point, so here are my thoughts in bullets:

Your service

In your first post, you said you want to offer personal assistant and admin services, travel management, cost reduction and event management services. The first three sound fairly straightforward. However, what types of costs are you looking to reduce? The service offerings need to be clear so people look at it and say "yes - I need that!" - they're not going to ring you and ask what something is if they don't know. Event management is more in the marketing domain and therefore is slightly different from the other services you're offering. Ideally you want a package of services you can sell that there's a demand for, which people understand and need and are in some way related. I know where you're coming from though.

Event management is a complex area and very competitive - there are large organisations which do nothing but manage events. It's also very risky - what would happen if you were organising something for a client and the venue backed out or the catering company went bust the day before? You might need insurance to cover such eventualities. In terms of stress, risk and the amount of time you'd need to spend on the job, especially when you're starting out, it might be best to concentrate on the admin, build up a client base over six months and then sell the event management into your existing clients, rather than get one or two six-month event management job for a couple of clients.

Just thought of something - with the PA work, are you going to be taking incoming communications? If so, have you thought about how you are going to organise this if you have more than one client at a time? ie how will you know what greeting to use when answering the phone etc if you have several clients and any of their contacts could be ringing you?

Your target market

In your first post you mentioned that you wanted to appeal to small companies that need a PA on occasion, as well as maybe even local people who work 9 to 5 but need extra help with daily duties they just don't have time for. These are two very different markets.

I know that whenever I've needed someone for a spot of admin work (I've worked in small companies and large ones), I've been able to go to an agency and get someone in at very short notice. I know you've mentioned temping for a while and this may be a good idea, especially if your boss is sending out conflicting messages at the moment. How small are the companies you want to target? If it's the one-man-bands (tradesmen and the like) then you might find (and this is very stereotypical) that the wives do most of the admin. I know they definitely do most of the banking, as when I worked for Barclays you never actually spoke to the customer, just their wife!!! In terms of paperwork, they need to have this in order if they employ an accountant - they might need to get someone in to do it, they might do it themselves, they might get the wife to do it or they might chuck the accountant a few extra quid to do it. I think it's worth pursuing this area, but investigate the demand - don't just assume it's there.

In terms of slightly larger companies, I'd say that their first port of call would be a recruitment agency, so I think it would be worth your while signing up with them. Going to an agency takes the hassle out of vetting, testing and paying the employee - all they have to do is give them the work. It's also better for you because you know when you're going to get paid. If you work for them directly, you'll need to invoice them and we all know how good companies are at paying their invoices! (If they put you in charge of finance, though, you should be alright ). Say you do really well with your marketing and get a new client you start working for on January 2nd. You invoice them on 30-day terms (therefore earliest pay day is in February) and they take 45 days to pay. It's Valentine's Day and you haven't seen your first pay cheque yet! Cash flow in small companies can be a nightmare so you have to be careful you're not a victim of it.

Bearing in mind the agencies, I'd say an average temp hourly rate around here would be £7/hour or so, which means that a small company would pay maybe £10-12/hour to the agency. Are the rates you are thinking of in line with this (bearing in mind differentials for the Brighton market)? If so, good - you're competitive. But bear in mind what needs to come out of that - things you have never had to pay before - employer's National Insurance could be one of them. Are your rates higher than this? Also good. This feeds into my last point (below) about your USP.

Onto the cash rich, time poor people. I think this may be your best target. You can do a couple of hours a day for each of them, meaning you can work for more than one client a day. However, you might need a lot of clients as you may find that people don't have enough work to fill more than a few hours. If you are lucky they will be quicker at paying you than the small companies and if they are able to pay someone to do their filing they are likely not to care too much about the cost. How do you find them? You already have a couple of ideas on this. I have some also. When you get to the stage of thinking about marketing I'll put my thinking cap on again if you like.

• What is unique about what you are trying to sell

I know my three points may seem obvious, but unless you spell them out then the punters won't bite. What is unique about what you are trying to sell? Remember you need to target this message to the market you are trying to sell into. Why should someone go to you if they can do it themselves? Why should someone go to you when they can go to an agency? There are several possibles. You're local. You charge less. You charge more, but you have skills they can't get at an agency. You'll work 24 hours a day and the agency people won't. Again - apologies if you have thought about these and have not shared your trade secrets - I don't blame you! - but I'm just offering these up as food for thought.

Hope the above helps in some way and sorry for the LONG post!!!

Suze

clutton_2

WOW !!!!!! thanks ....

prudryden

Excellent Suzey!!