You’ve racked up years of trade experience and a tonne of great skills, so what’s next for you? Starting a business can be f*cking terrifying but it’s also a great way to take control and finally do things how you want to do them. Whether you’re just thinking about going it alone, or you’ve already started, here are some handy tips to help you create your empire.

1. Learn the business basics

This one will be the biggest difference for you – sure, you might have a whole heap of experience with every kind of job there is, but if you don’t know how to budget or pay tax, it’s not going to get you where you need to go. If you’ve got a great boss or mentor, they can help you out, otherwise it’s a good idea to have a chat with someone of the suit variety to talk you through it all before you even start.

2. Sort your insurance

Depending on what you were doing before, you might have already sorted your own insurance previously. Either way, launching your own business will come with a whole new set of cover you need. You’ll need the basics like tool and vehicle insurance, but you’ll also need to cover your a** with Professional Indemnity and all the different Liability covers. Not sure where to start or what you need to get your business sorted? Flick us a message and we’ll chat you through it, no sweat!

3. Get those clients

Now that you’ve got the suit side of things sorted, the clients are obviously going to be the next most important thing here because clients = jobs = money! When you worked for someone else, they would likely have had all the clients ready to go for you, but now you’ll have to put in some hard yakka to get your own clients. There are a few ways to go about this, but getting all your marketing sorted (website, Facebook page etc.) will help you out a lot here! Word of mouth referrals are gold too, so make sure you’re doing the best work you can do and the rest will come.

4. Give 110%

As we said above, if you’re doing good solid work, you’ll build up your client base and your reputation – two things that will help you stay in business for as long as possible. When you’re just starting out, you might want to take any and every job you can get, but this is a great way to wear yourself too thin and stress out all your employees. Focus on one particular area of expertise first, even if you’re an all-rounder, so that you can really zone in on getting a few jobs done well rather than a hundred done below par.

5. Think about the big picture

Although you might be more comfortable mucking in and getting the job done, your role now is more about the big picture. You’re the one who needs to think about how much money you’re making versus how much you’re spending, and how this will affect the future of your business. You’ll need to schedule and plan and prepare to make sure you can stay afloat. And you’ll need to recruit and manage your employees so they’ll work hard for you in the long term too, a rewarding yet sometimes tiring task. 

So have you got what it takes to go it alone?