Making the leap from employed to self-employed

[GemmaB78]

Would those of you who have made the jump successfully from employed to self-employed care to share your experiences, both good and bad?

(By self-employed, I don't mean MLMbot shite!)

I've had a long held dream to train in a hobby linked skill and give up the day job. This is within the equine industry, so whilst hobby linked, is fairly sizeable. I've done the research, written a business plan and engage on the course in August. The training is relatively expensive but affordable. My husband, whilst apprehensive about the risk (he would hate to go self-employed!), is supportive. I also work 30 hours a week and have a child and horse of my own. So it's going to a bit of a juggling act to get up and running, but I believe I have the drive and ambition to make a success out of it. Not life-changing amounts of money, but enough to be comfortable.

So, any shared experiences or your own stories would be welcome right now.

I went s/e nearly 20 years ago. It was a roller-coaster at first especially seeing as I kept my day job and tried to run the new business during evenings/weekends. My best advice would be to treat the business seriously/professionally from day one.

Don't do "mates rates" nor concentrate on friends/family for customers. Get it properly marketed from day 1 and go out to find new customers you don't already know. (Friends/family can be a pain in the neck expecting freebies, discounts and not respecting you as a business person!).

Create a workspace (not your kitchen table) where you can concentrate and be left alone to do the work itself, admin, marketing, etc. Be strict with working time so your friends/family know you're "at work" and don't disturb you - it helps to maintain the distinction between "home" and "work" and makes you more productive when "at work". Really, seriously, don't try to "work" whilst watching Corry or making the tea or listening to your kids practice their music - everything just takes longer if you can't concentrate.

Be professional with admin/paperwork - if appropriate, get some proper terms of business/contracts to avoid disputes/disagreements later, be specific when quoting etc - the more detail the better.

If you treat the business as professional, then your friends/family and customers will do likewise. If you do everything informally then you'll not be taken seriously.

Thanks for this. It's all really useful advice. I have worked freelance for a short while before, so am quite organised at working without distractions and shutting myself away in our office.

With regards to the mates rates: yes, that's a valid point. Thankfully my close friends and family who are most likely to want a discount live 250 miles away so little chance of them wanting a freebie!

I do plan to keep my job going until such a time when the new business can support me and can quit the job. I would ideally like to run the job down as the business builds up, but I am pretty sure my current employers won't go for that! So that period will be arguably hard work. But it will be worth it.

Get yourself a good accountant says an accountant.
I presume you know the six Ps (proper preparation prevents ...) so get some advice early on about self employed versus limited company, setting up book-keeping to reduce their work and hence their fees be efficient, getting tax relief on those training costs, etc.

I have a relative who is a retired accountant who can be bribed with wine & cheese to assist with the accounts side of things.

But yes, already started the research and planning re: bookkeeping. I intend to do as much as I can myself to keep my wine bill down....

I have a relative who is a retired accountant who can be bribed with wine & cheese to assist with the accounts side of things.

Accounts/book-keeping - yes, but they'll probably be VERY out of date as regards the tax side of things, i.e. tax returns, VAT, payroll, etc. I left "practice" to move into industry for just 2 years, and when I returned to practice, I was completely out of my comfort zone and had to re-learn lots of tax issues as things change so quickly.

I built up my business while working, dropped to part time in my job and worked full time on my business and when my business was earning enough to pay my bills I went completely self employed. Then I spent another year working every hour available to build my business further. I've been completely self employed for three years now and I've not looked back. I've made sacrifices a plenty but I'm reaping the rewards now.