help; i wanna help people install home cinema systems and offer buying advice!

jammiev

hi, i would like to help people install home cinema systems and offer buying advice! while making a bit of money for myself!

what it is is i have a friend who builds home pc's for people by advertising in the local news. he helps them choose what they want and then builds it for them, while making a bit of money!
can i do the same for home cinema?
are there any laws against me doing so?
if i did how would i go about getting the equipment they need etc...
how could i charge them etc...?
up to know i have set up my own home cinema system all on my own and a friends house.

anyone got any advice here please? :beer:

ps : if anyone wants any advice just ask!:rolleyes:

Little_John

There are no laws regarding setting yourself up in business offering a service, you will need to register as self employed with the inland revenue fill in a tax return each year and pay tax and national insurance on anything you earn. remember to keep records of all your business expenses as they are deducted befoer your earnings are taxed. You only need to become vat registered if your turnover hits a certain level (just over £50000) that will depend on how you run things. see below

As for the business you have a few options, advertise and word of mouth word of mouth is great but you have to be very good at what you do. A lot of people have jumped on the home cinema setup especially since the all in one boxes came out and are available for £200-£300 I take it your talking seperates, projectors etc rather than the all in ones?

Set up partnerships with AV shops, you put business their way they give you a discount or a kick back. So you take your customer in make sure your known and the guy gives them a price for the kit indicates it has been discounted making you look like you have saved them some money maybe 5% the company makes a fortune on the stuff anyway and can usually discount to about 30% the company also make a payment to you of another 5% whatever you can agree on with them.

the bit I refered to above if you survey the customer and say this is what you should be going for then advise them where to buy your turnover should be lower that the threshold you just charge a fee for your sevices.
If you sell them a system so you go buy the kit and sell them an installed package you just include all the prices and charge whatever for the system and your services. That way your more likely to go over the threshold and will have abit more accounting work to do.

You have loads of options you need to build up the relationships with the AV suppliers to get the discounts most will do somthing for you especially if your gonna be selling loads of stuff for them get things is writing before gong ahead.

The install process, when I installed my AV kit I ran the cables under the floor or in the celieng to keep things tidy that involves making holes, you could make use of a plasterer or do a course yourself to learn how to do it as it will come in very usefull for channeling cables in walls especialy if your wall mounting plasma and LCD screens even hiding cables to projectors. A lot of it depends on who your market is, some people will want to spend very little some will want to spend a lot those spending alot will want things done properly with no cables on view the £200 boxes have short speaker cables and they are usually attached to the speakers so locating them can be tricky with the restriction on cable lenght.