Thinking of self employment,advice Please!!

freyasma

I would like to start up my own cleaning business,I am currently unemployed and to be honest I really do not know where to start,I was wondering whether anyone else has resently become self employed and whether you could give me some tips on what to do, I asked at my advisor at the job centre, and she wasn't much help. So if you could give my ANY advice I wouldbe very grateful!

FBaby

I think if you are a total novice and don't know anything about being self-employed, you shoud seek an salaried position and do your research during that time. Deciding to become self-employed before knowing what self-employment involves is going about it the wrong way.

InsideInsurance

Read the Business Link website, it contains a lot of good information.

Register with HMRC as a sole trader as soon as you decide to go forward to avoid the penalties.

It's a pain but do a proper business plan before buying anything or do anything more. Failing to plan is planning to fail (to quote the normal phrase) and there is nothing more frustrating as someone who gives business advice to companies to be brought in to deal with why their website isnt performing as well as intended etc to find they spent £X having it built with no marketing plan, no costings etc etc

colino

As above, get free help from Business Link/Business Gateway as much as possible, but enter something you really know inside and out. You might be surprised how tight margins are in cleaning and how quickly tasks have to be acheived to move on to the next one to acheive profit.