Who wants to be an entrepreneur? Start here... (and those who are, help here please!?)

[WilfSell]

OK, I was inspired by the 'earn 1k a month working from home' thread, which turned into an inspiring if terrifying 'don't sell yourself short' thread. And wondered if, those of us who might like to work for ourselves but don't currently, could get started here? I aim to keep my job, and perhaps try to move to part-time at some point. I have some business ideas, some good, some over-ambitious, mostly attempts to roll-out my current skills into a private consultancy, not necessarily linked to my existing job (university research/teaching).

I know it is an incredibly tricky time to think about this, and I'm sure it is not easy or comfortable to make a living... But some people manage it, so why shouldn't more of us?

Forgot to say, I've been featured in several national magazines but I don't think it translated to sales.

dolomites we cheated my dad had a spare handset and pay as you go sim that he donated to us. He topped it up for us for free session of physio

DD
Oh, that is clever. Another avenue open to me is working in UK but doing business for German companies (translation or SM) so that would be ideal.

I've heard horrible things about PPH. I won't use them.

I've been lurking on this thread since it started, as I'd love to start working for myself. I've just posted on the 'How do I make £1000 a month' thread saying the same. I currently work part time in marketing/advertising which I fell into after my degree in a useless subject and I really need to increase my income (skint lone parent), however I feel like I don't have any actual skills or talents that I can utilise. I'm no web designer, physio or lawyer, I hate parties so things like Avon would be no-go, and I don't have skills in crafts or making things - so what the hell do I do??!!! Just feel like I'm at a standstill and I see myself in ten years' time still in the same job, which fills me with dread.

If I worked from home alongside my current job, I'd also worry about how it would affect the WTC and the bit of HB that I currently receive. As I'd have no idea how much I would earn working from home, I wouldn't know what to tell the council/Tax credits people so they know what (if anything) to pay me for HB and WTC. I wouldn't want to have my benefits taken off me if I over-estimate my earnings, then not make any money from the home business, iyswim, as I'd end up in a big old financial mess.

So my obstacles to earning additional income are 1/ no idea what to do or where to start (bit of a biggie, that one ), and 2/ how it will affect my benefits. Any advice gratefully received .

PPH is pain in the arse. I don't know about other areas, but the web design/graphic design sections are stuffed full of people wanting something for nothing, and far too many idiots willing to do something for nothing. Makes it very hard to find paying work on there. Quoted some people a low(ish) rate and been told they were looking for something cheaper - usually they want an all-singing all-dancing website, plus SEO, plus social media, plus logo design for about £50 (£100 if they are feeling generous)

Blimey. Looked at that PPH website, and there are people looking for someone to increase blog visitors and do FB and Twitter for them - for £6 an hour.

2 fb posts a day, and 2 tweets a day - which shows how much they understand about Twitter.

Over 10 people have applied.

There are a couple of more interesting posts on there, but some really ridiculous ones too.

"Over 10 people have applied. "

It's crazy isn't it?! I guess there were always people willing to undercut others and work for barely anything, but it does seem to be more concentrated on sites like PPH.

I suspect there's an element of hobbyist applying for these jobs for pocket money, so they can afford it. It just takes away from people who do it for a living though.

DH used to be a pro photographer (he's fucking amazing!) but grew disillusioned with it due to people expecting it for nothing. Some of the biggest magazines/companies refuse to pay photographers as they know hobbyists will do it for free just to get their names in print.

Saying that, there was one interesting job - with lots of applications. I had a look through the applicants and there were one or two who were actually suitable - if you want someone to do your Twitter/FB feed, then they have to be a native English speaker, or extremely fluent and many applicants were not.

Plenty of them advertised themselves at under £10 an hour. The one I would have chosen, with plenty of experience and a great profile was £45 an hour.

That's the real problem with PPH. The ridiculous low bids that undermine those of us who actually have some skill that we deserve to be paid well for.

Another pilgrim from the £1K a day thread here!

Yes, I'm another one who feels rather trapped, having worked for 20 years in the same industry, with a decent level of success but low income. We think we may have to move because both myself and DP are in the same position, very niche skills in highly competitive industries with few opportunities where we live.

I totally understand the idea of aiming high (a la Xenia's threads) and dismissing crafts, dog walking, child minding etc, but, apart from lecturing I'm struggling to think of anything I can do that pays over £20 an hour.

Love "don't wait for perfection before starting", Dolomites!

Condoleeza I mentioned my similarity to your situation on the '£1000 per month' thread and I think we might be career twins! I have about 15 years' experience in what I do and am good at my job but low income. What X
Xenia said on the other thread about women not blowing their own trumpet makes vast amounts of sense to me - I tend to go to work, get my head down and do a good job - and no-one notices. Over the past 10-15 years I've seen people with less experience and less talent but bigger mouths get on and move past me, even though a lot of these people were nowhere near as good at their job as I am. It's very frustrating and even bringing it up during appraisals hasn't helped.

The time for change has come but I honestly think I'll need to have my own business to do it, as paid employment is going nowhere for me tbh. However like Condoleeza I can't think of anything that would pay me anywhere near £1000 a day, as I have no specific skills or talents to utilise and can't afford to retrain (oh, the irony).

Perhaps we could start a highly exclusive club (with astronomical membership fees, of course) for career failures?

For me there isn't the option of promotion in the field I'm currently in, as my job is almost exclusively done by freelancers.

The thing that Xenia says that most chimes with me is choosing a career early on for its earning potential. I'm not hugely materialistic, I'd like a bigger house (ours is minute) and a car that works, and to worry less about my future, so I'm not saying I have to earn 100K or I'd be disappointed, but I do sometimes feel cheated that I pursued a career in something I cared about and the rewards are so small. That was the world's longest sentence!

softkitty One of the hardest business lessons I've had to learn within the last year when I kicked off about lack of recognition, because like you I was doing a good job and keeping my head down - is that it's not actually about what you are doing, it's about the perception of what people think you're doing. Whilst we all know someone who's all mouth and no trousers, those of us who keep our heads down are ignored - and EASILY so. Why would our managers give us coaching or financial recognition? We don't cause a fuss, we come in, nobody really knows what we do and we go home. My argument was "seriously? I do my fucking job - the reason I don't go bragging every 10 minutes is because I'm only doing what I'm expected to do, in my world it goes without saying that I've done what I've been asked to do" - which apparently is not good enough. So polish your trumpet m'dear! And, when your website is up and running and you've got clients - publish your compliments, if applicable, phone a newspaper or send them a press release!

condoleezza I live in rather a rural area but will be (as one string to my bow) workshops in major european cities and towns. It's no skin off my nose if I have to catch a flight/train or drive for a few hours if I can take home 1000 after tax thankyouverymuch!

softkitty Everyone has talents, they just perhaps don't know how to leverage them - and if we are to use your own words - people who are getting ahead have less talent than you! So:- 1) what do you do now? 2) what are your actual strengths? 3) What did you do at university? (I think you said before you went, sorry if I've confused you with someone else).

Yes, the £1000 a day women on MN tend to have skills which are paid at that level usually because they were trained in that at university, early 20s. Thinking aloud randomly -

worked with a lady dentist(30s) who owns 4 or 5 practices so I think she keeps the profits and the employed dentists work for her;

women who own a chain of pharmacies having qualified as pharmacist;

female (and male of course) IT consultants who provide those services at £1k a day

look at any list of Government consultants/oursourced work - particularly quite a few clever friends of my daughters after university went to places like Deloittes, McKinsey as consultant - you only et in there usually if you are sort As all the way, Oxbridge ideally first, plus stellar personality and wonderful people skills and a load of luck and that is the same for most jobs which are highly paid but not all - I know someone who ended up there having worked up in one industry (pubs) and then (as v clever) ended up a McK consultant and then on to £1m a year in next work.

Some ex public sector managers who leave the NHS and contract back their high level management services at X rate

Obviously if you work for yourself as a top surgeon, doctor in your own private clinic, IVF were your clinic has some of the highest baby success rates in the UK you deservedly earn a lot as you have skills no one else has.

Richest woman in China is in waste disposal

Perhaps PPH is an opitmism thing for me then. I don't bid if the indicated rate per hour is very low. I do if not and if I get 1 in 5 bids accepted I think that's tremendous as it takes 60 seconds to write them and I have had good work from there. Definitely worth a try. Someone just without prompting gave me the nicest wuote ever about how I am the best XYZ they ever used and I just put that on my website 2 minutes ago

Right work, need to earn today's crust.

jsut catching up from yesterday.

wannaBe - i didn't design my logo.

I used a signwriter for my shop sign and he designed my logo too.
(i just agreed to it - he showed me a few options and i chose the best one)
it was about £500 (inc vat) for the logo design and the sign (including it being put up, so if you didn't nee a sign, then it wouldn't cost you that much!), and i was given a file with the logo on.

One thing I should have done was ask what the basic font was - he did use a font and then fiddled around with it, and after about 3 years, I finally found the font, and use the unfiddled font for titles and signage around the shop and on the website.
I'm able to upload the logo onto the website, and I've used a simplified version for bags and pens.

The best thing about my website's host/designer, is that it has metadata for google. so i don't have to register separately.
it also has a .webeden.co.uk web address included in the package (free), but you get a "voucher" every 2 (?) years (it might be every year) for a domain name, and you can have anything you like, without a .webeden.co.uk tag.
IF you have someone working for you, it's best to try to get them to "update" your website

Facebook Group info:

Obviously I don't have time to be checking mails all the time, so I've made wannabe, MmeLindor and LargeLatte admins too. So if you see them online drop them a line and they can get you in the group. :)

cool.
:)

My shop facebook page writes to twitter - that's a very useful tool.

thanks for the feedback on the website - it's posted as per Dolomite's advice...not perfect, but, I needed it up so I can start getting work!

I'm going to offer a skill swap with an old patient of mine - he runs an IT business and thinks I have magic hands. Bless him, most of my current work is by word of mouth - and most of that has some sort of a link from this man.

(Colleymill - we all need a patient like him - his main problem is that he can't be bothered following my sound advice, he'd rather just pay me to fix him when he's torn a muscle from middle aged marathon running, for which he does no stretching whatsoever. He basically keeps my children in shoes, but my conscience is clear as I nag him and he knows perfectly well what he SHOULD be doing to prevent injuries!)

Anyhoo, I'm going to email and offer free physio in return for help tweaking my website. Which I've made worse by trying to add on a twitter button last night...three hours I spent setting up linkedin, twitter and FB for the website. Screwed it up every blardy time. Pah.

I agree about the brown logo, Wilf and Mme - it's lifted from the vistaprint business cards I ordered in a hurry months ago. I really like the house with the hands - and thought I'd stick with brown because, well, I'm not sure about the copyright and I wouldn't know how to change it...but, my IT friend will know how to tweak it so it's my logo.

The photos are bought from photostock. Some corkers - I love them. I spent £15, and there is no problem with copyright, I was very happy with that. I am aiming to get the site all beiges and blues, so will change the photos as I find altenatives.

And, Wilf - I've got plans afoot for personal photos. I'm aiming to buy a lensbaby lens for my camera - it sort of blurs edges but has a sweet spot. So, I'm hoping to get shots of my patients, but focussed away from their faces. Job done, it'll cost £150 or so, but I think it's a good investment. Confidentiality is a problem, I really don't want anyone being recognisable from my site - the blog would be ok, but not the main site. Especially as, given the age of the people I'm hoping to work with - it could be very awkward if my Keep Mobile Pin Up Gal passed away and then her family saw her face online....

Colley - We Should Tawk. I'll PM you.

I've been and spoken to a couple of places this morning about my launch event. Thanks to this thread, I was confident enough to try and blag a discount on hiring the hotel on the back of it being a local community thing and a charity fundraiser...he's going to have a chat with the sales people and see what he can do...SQUEE!

it's not actually about what you are doing, it's about the perception of what people think you're doing. Whilst we all know someone who's all mouth and no trousers, those of us who keep our heads down are ignored - and EASILY so. Why would our managers give us coaching or financial recognition? We don't cause a fuss, we come in, nobody really knows what we do and we go home.

Dolomites you have just summed up my entire working career! It sounds so depressing when it's written down though. My closest colleague is exactly the same as me too, but for both of us it's got to the point where I think management are so used to us doing a good job in our current role, that they won't promote us because we are almost part of the furniture doing what we do, if that makes sense.

To answer your questions, I did a next to useless Media Studies degree and I work part time in marketing/advertising. I've worked in this area in a few different companies more or less since I graduated (nearly 15 years). Although I have a lot of experience, I don't have a lot of senior experience, as I've not been promoted very often (see above para). I mainly do client management, which is almost like an admin role, so I'm very organised, have good attention to detail, great time management skills and am good at building/maintaining client relationships. I've been toying with looking into offering decluttering/household organisation services but when I think about it too hard, I kind of think 'I can't do that, I'd be crap/people would think I was rubbish and wouldn't pay me/I would fail'. So I'm clearly guilty of many of the things mentioned previously, in particular that of thinking I'm not worthy of earning more and also that I need to have the perfect set up before taking the plunge (that's the perfectionist in me coming out). If I ever get anything off the ground it will be a sodding miracle .

I'd like to join the FB group if I may, so will PM one of the contacts mentioned above.

I have banged on to women about this issue for over 20 years. It is a sex issue as men tend to be much better at saying they are good and demanding higher pay, although not all women are bad at this either. I have never had any problem saying I am the best at what I do in the UK.

Perhaps women need hypnotism - you are very good; you are the best potential declutterer in the UK, repeat 50 times... etc

Confidence really helps in many jobs. You want someone who says they can do the work, not someone who says - well I'm not very good but I'll have a go and is £6 an hour okay?

Some of it is just personality. Since she was 2 one of my children has been shouting about herself. She was a very noisy baby, cried a lot too, hardly slept. She has never changed. In fact they asked her to be a bit more quiet at work. When I first started my first job I was so scared I hardly spoke (I did manage to get over that phase but certainly my original personality was not great at making people think I was good or even if I were there). Sometimes it's inherent. A teacher in a lovely line which was probably true said one of my sons may well be very good but he had been so silent in class all year it was as if he had been doing a correspondence course - it still makes me laugh to think about it but it is a point for workers. Does your boss know what you are doing? Does your boss' boss? How have you blown your own trumpet today? If you are in business then do that too.

I put some very good feedback on my website today. I tweet just about work stuff - dullest in the land, not photos of Xenia emerging naked from her bath, but it does help and I try to know more about my area than anyone int he UK and be the fastest to get the latest news of changes out so I emailed a customer today with something which i did not think woudl be too relevant to them but he said it really was helpful and he would make sure it was put before a committee.

"When I first started my first job I was so scared I hardly spoke (I did manage to get over that phase but certainly my original personality was not great at making people think I was good or even if I were there)"

How did you overcome this?

I find it so bloody difficult to be positive about myself, I'm always more aware of what I could do better, so find it hard to sell myself.

We are 29 years on from now then so I've had plenty of time to sort it out. I think first it was lack of experience in a work place and having moved to London. Secondly it was a question of getting better at what I was learning to do. Most people need experience to get confidence.

If I compare how one of my children is now compared with when they first graduated in terms of confidence in interviews etc I can see a lot of it is just practice and you get better.

I think I always had internal self confidence and that was justified by events - best A levels in the school, virtrually top at university so if I ever looked objectively at myself I could see I wasp retty much okay but I was very shy when I was younger. I now give about 50 7 hour talks a year all over the world (which is a small part of what I do) and that does require a certain confidence and certainly stamina.

I also think work to your strengths. I hate socialising for work things. That will have lost me a heap of money. I don't so customer entertainment. I'd have to be dragged to a works drinks thing. I don't watch sport. I don't drink alcohol. I am not clubbable. I despise the Masons, London clubs (I turned down membership at just about the best one). I dont' play golf. I would need to be paid a fortune to endure a women's have your nails done corporate entertaining in a beauty parlour in London evening even. If I did I would gather more business but I can't stand it. I like being at home so I've drawn attention to myself in other ways.

Are you kidding? 100 years of feminism and it brings us shellac nails with the girls as something to aspire to? Where's my lapdance from a hot dumb muscled 20 year old?

Xenia Good to know, there's obviously hope for me yet :)