A bit of new business guidance

blt

Thanks again everyone for your help. I have taken on board way you have said about how as a limited company, I will have more protection. I can appreciate that most sound equipment people are familiar with is the speakers you see in cases etc. What I'm going to be doing is different and doesn't actually pose any dangers to the public, e.g. falling equipment. I wasn't ignoring advice!

Thanks again everyone. No doubt I will be along again soon as (rather obviously!) I am in the early planning stages

paddyrg

blt wrote: »

What I'm going to be doing is different and doesn't actually pose any dangers to the public, e.g. falling equipment.

Sounds intriguing! With driver developments, most large setups are flown these days as opposed to stacks, don't know if that makes a difference to your plans. Then again, sound is a huge area, for all I know you might be hiring Motorola walkies out (in which case the 'going rate' is £7-10/set/week incl spare batts and charger and licensing if that helps)

Open_Eyes

You have been offered some excellent advice here. There are evidently a couple of techies that know there stuff and here is my contribution.

• Trade in the first year as a sole trader
• Register with HMRC
• Buy a cheap resalable Transit (Ex Police is always a good option as I know how well they are maintained)
• If you have the capitol now is the time to buy equipment as there are a lot of audio people throwing in the towel at the moment
• Standardise your equipment as it cuts down on the stock holding of spares
• Start an asset register
• Think corporate market as that fills the week and not just the weekends
• Secure your trading name as a .com along with the Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and YouTube accounts
• Keep your trading name simple and catchy as it is a pain typing a long email address
• Use a decent website developer and make sure it is mobile compatible
• Don’t dry hire, always leave an engineer
• Get conversant with current health and safety regulations
• Get PLI
• Get PAT
• Keep every receipt from the outset
• Invest in a basic accounting program and just get your accountant to rubber stamp it. (Sage are a market leader)
• If you have a full time job pre-prepare quick email responses as the “Early Bird Catches The Worm”

Could go on but that’s enough to start with.

paddyrg

Some great tips above from Open Eyes.

blt

Brilliant! Thanks again everyone

CKhalvashi

Open_Eyes wrote: »

You have been offered some excellent advice here. There are evidently a couple of techies that know there stuff and here is my contribution.

• Trade in the first year as a sole trader
• Register with HMRC
• Buy a cheap resalable Transit (Ex Police is always a good option as I know how well they are maintained)
• If you have the capitol now is the time to buy equipment as there are a lot of audio people throwing in the towel at the moment
• Standardise your equipment as it cuts down on the stock holding of spares
• Start an asset register
• Think corporate market as that fills the week and not just the weekends
• Secure your trading name as a .com along with the Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and YouTube accounts
• Keep your trading name simple and catchy as it is a pain typing a long email address
• Use a decent website developer and make sure it is mobile compatible
• Don’t dry hire, always leave an engineer
• Get conversant with current health and safety regulations
• Get PLI
• Get PAT
• Keep every receipt from the outset
• Invest in a basic accounting program and just get your accountant to rubber stamp it. (Sage are a market leader)
• If you have a full time job pre-prepare quick email responses as the “Early Bird Catches The Worm”

Could go on but that’s enough to start with.

That's the basis of it, but that's not quite as simple as this

CK