New company, new career

[Jameshow]

Advertise, advertise, advertise and then advertise some more, you've got nothing without customers.
I've been self employed for 30 odd years, it's the best advice I received.
Good luck.

I would suggest reputation reputation reputation.

Get yourself a good reputation and your order book will be full esp on a luxury item like a garden Room.

 

[doctor Bob]

good luck, it's a funny old game running a business. I think (for me) being rather naïve at the beginning made it a lot of fun. never over stressed and just cracked on, everyone needs a bit of luck.
Now seems a bit of a money pit, stress has gone up but I wouldn't do it if it was no fun.

 

[XTiffy]

This is not something that you should enter into lightly. As has been stated there are many negatives to self employment and really the only plus points are controlling your own work/life balance and financial if you are sucessful. Even a small garden room is quite a big outlay and needs alot of research to get costings right. Peter Millard has in the past made a utube video about costing, which I wish I had more than forty years ago. As I was also previously trained as an engineer (electronics), it is hard to balance quality against cost. Too often one supplies a Rolls Royce at the price of a mini.

 

[Jameshow]

good luck, it's a funny old game running a business. I think (for me) being rather naïve at the beginning made it a lot of fun. never over stressed and just cracked on, everyone needs a bit of luck.
Now seems a bit of a money pit, stress has gone up but I wouldn't do it if it was no fun.

Go on give us the top tips!

 

[Inspector]

I'd suggest small workshops as part of you business (popular subject), except the posts over the years suggest woodworkers are either loath to spend money or haven't any.

Pete

 

[Molynoox]

One thing which worked well for us was the A5 magazines. (Chrurch magazines can be good too - but I didn't try them) Most areas have them and they are cheap as chips to advertise in. You don't need a full-page spread, even a quarter page gets noticed and the ad can often be created by the publisher if you throw a few quid at them.

With these, they end up on coffee tables, in waiting rooms, in the bin! (sometimes) - but people do look at them and you are noticed, especially if you advertise regularly.

They don't guarantee work, but they do promote leads from people with money to spend. Obviously, it's up to you to convert the lead into a sale, but if you come across as having more idea of what you are doing than your potential customer and if you seem likeable and trustworthy, it's amazing how successful you can be. That said, it's always tough without a track record or loads of experience but, gradually, it will start to work. When we started, I was closing about 25% of the leads. By the time we retired five years later, I was getting about 70% of them. The nice thing with that is it allows you to reduce your advertising spend and the amount of leg work necessary to close enough sales. I was also charging premium prices too!

Many people throw money at digital marketing. Fine for the younger customer. Generally, it's the older customer who has disposable income and many of them still like to see a printed word.

Working for yourself is hard, harder than employed people realise, but the satisfaction if you are successful, is worth it.

Yes I'm in two of the A5 magazines.

I had also heard (on Peter Millard's podcast) that these magazines were very effective and they were one of the first things I setup, after the website.

I've had to teach myself some graphic design skills to be able to create the website and logos and such like so I ended up just doing the adverts myself too.

So far I've done everything myself in an attempt to keep costs down, but at some point this becomes false economy and you are better off pulling in the experts

Martin

 

[Molynoox]

Having started and run my own successful business for 15 years I'd keep 'cash is king' as your watchword. Avoid overheads and any form of debt until you are established. Take enough deposit to pay for materials and agree staged payments as you progress. Turn down any customer who insists on full payment on completion, no matter how tempting.
Your market is anyone with disposable income who, instead of moving house, may decide to improve their existing homes with your product. You will be surprised how many older folk use social media especially Facebook and Instagram.
Use your garden room as your show house and join all your local town and village Facebook groups, paying careful attention to their rules on promoting local businesses (ours only allows non-village businesses to post promotions on the 1st of every month for example). Local rags are fine as long as they don't charge a lot for adverts.
Promotional events go down well, and our local outdoor buildings company have done very well by organising BBQ's etc. and promoting them on local Facebook pages. They are just up the road from us Bespoke Garden Structures | Woodhouse Toad | Preston Capes . Their website it is very professional with enticing close-up video clips etc. but it started out as pretty basic. Their last post was adverting for new staff.

Yes, it is hard work, and you will ask yourself many times if all that hard work is worth it when cash is tight, but there is nothing wrong with starting this on a part time basis if you need a temporary income stream. It takes a huge amount of self-belief and confidence to succeed, together with strong support from family, especially partners.

Good luck and keep us posted on progress. Oh, and never stop asking for any needed advice!

Great advice I am happy to keep asking for advice

 

[Molynoox]

Congratulations and best wishes for every success @Molynoox , I hope this doesn’t mean you’ll start charging consultation fees for advice on the subject

I hope you get approval to post a link to your website as I for one would like to have a look. A lot of trade / custom product / building websites use library or stock images, and while this isn’t ideal you could consider it just to get started (assuming you can find the sort of images you are looking for and they don’t cost a fortune) and then replace them as you gather more of your own.

Haha no chance of that, I'm still learning and any advice I give should be taken with a pinch of salt . I have no doubt that for most people on this forum building a workshop would be a walk in the park for them. I'm just happy to give a little back if I can and maybe help others out - I'm mostly a taker on this forum so good to be able to contribute a bit

Funny you mention about stock images, I had that exact same thought yesterday! I have a premium subscription to Canva which I use for a lot of my graphic design stuff such as Instagram, adverts etc and as part of that I get access to loads of great images, searchable and very specific, which I could use until my portfolio expands beyond just pictures of my own garden

Spectric is kindly looking into the forum posting stuff with admins but I haven't heard back yet

Martin

 

[doctor Bob]

Go on give us the top tips!

The aim of a business is to make money. The stress you will be under at times deserves more reward than you could earn as a PAYE employee. Do not fall into the trap of "I'm not earning a lot but I'm my own boss".
Resolve any issues quickly, don't let them fester.
Sometimes (quite often) the customer is not always right.
When you are giving the client their quote, look them in the eye and don't blink, don't ever think it's too much, have confidence in your pricing.

I am confident that the kitchens I make are better than most and I charge accordingly.

I had a garden building done a couple of years ago, 12m by 5.5m, the company laid the floating concrete foundations, built the room out of super insulated panels, top quality "origin" sliding doors, building control, planning submitted, plastered, bathroom fitted, prime cedar cladding etc etc, I paid through the nose for it as I wanted the best. When you start off it's impossible to compete against these high end guys but as time goes on this should be your aim but you need to be better, you can't charge their prices if your making out of studwork and rolls of insulation and building on ground screws, so gradually up your game, get contacts, look at how the top guys are doing them.

Just a few of my opinions, but my main one would be enjoy it. If your not don't do it, it's not worth it just for the money.

 

[graham88]

My biggest issue at the moment is getting customers... I'm having to do some part time work for a landscaping company to pay the bills, and then spend the rest of my time trying to find customers. It's a bit chicken and egg, I need a portfolio to get customers, and I need customers.... well, you get to the idea

Perhaps you're missing an opportunity here, talk to the customer for the landscaping company - it's good customer service to keep them clued up on the progress you're making - and show interest in their 'vision' for their garden then quietly mention the garden rooms and how you're trying to get a start in the market. Present yourself very professionally, show that you care for detail and that you want to get it right for them. Probably can't hurt to get some cards made to have on hand.

I will keep going with it for a while but I will need to throw the towel in at some point and go back to the office if I can't make it work soonish...

Some small advice regarding the "soonish." I've worked as a landscape gardener and as a cabinetmaker for home office furniture. Seasons are a killer for both these jobs. People will spend money improving their gardens during the summer because that's where their heads are focusing, so home furniture has a quiet period (ended in redundancy for me) and then come winter this flips, it can be a long, cold winter for anybody doing garden work. I ended up getting excited for a storm because thats when fences need repairing. Please do not take any slow starts as winter approaches as a sign that it wont work for you. Keep at it and use the slow season to get the admin nailed down because if/when you suddenly get busy it'll be the first thing to suffer.

 

[Molynoox]

I agree with what you are saying as I see this in myself - but I did my best to kerb this when we ran our company:

We used attention to detail as a sales advantage: people see that as thorough and thorough gives the impression that the job will be approached properly and executed in the same way. The confidence exuded got me loads of sales wins.

I've also lost track of the number of difficult situations which I resolved with an engineering approach rather than the flat side of a mallet and won repeat business as a result of this - generally, explained simply and people "got it" and I got the sales win.

Where engineers often fall down is when they try to provide a perfect solution to a problem. The trick is to step back and provide a suitable solution to the problem: one which addresses the original need and results in being paid quickly (so that the next opportunity can be exploited).

We can also use our engineering skills in something that really adds value: running the business efficiently and cost effectively through good process - that's where engineering is a bridge to good commercial practice.

I relate to so much of what is said in this post!

It can be a very hard balancing act between tempering / adapting your natural personal characteristics and leveraging them for success. Still working on that one

 

[Molynoox]

Do you have any family friends who would have one at a discount. Then you have another one in your portfolio.

Any Christmas raffles going? Perhaps you could offer the labour free on the winning office? Free advertising etc.

Anyone needing a business office - hairdressers, dog groomers, ebayers needing extra space.

Someone needing a granny annexe or (increasingly likely) boomerang kids

Tiny houses

I have some people I know that would take one but they are too far away to make it work. If I had a team built up I could built then pretty quick and maybe just swallow the travel costs. Bit of chicken and egg again

Good suggestions with the raffle etc though

 

[Molynoox]

@Molynoox "soonish" I would suggest your going to be looking at several years to get going, how many have you projected to have to do in a year? Perhaps you could broaden you range of offerings, look at Breeze houses for instance, & as @mikej460 linked to, explore the outdoor life style options, not everyone wants a home office, I will consider anything to keep my order book busy, within limitations though.
We have, over the years done: outside rooms/kitchens/BBQ areas/car ports/porches/bars/stables etc and even things like log stores, as well as our Joinery side of things, I keep an open mind, but we make everything offsite which is a massive benefit over standing in a field in all weathers!


Digital marketing isn't a world I operate in, but, its powerful, I find that all my clients use it in all its forms, (generally in the age range of 30 to 65) my outdated web site is miles down the ratings but people still find me. I've never advertised in print, I don't want to get bogged down with answering fruitless inquiries, I get enough of them already, as I mentioned before a local "Garden rooms" business near me, also has a fully liveried van, which is an ideal marketing tool.

Breeze houses look interesting, I'm starting to think I may need to expand my offerings.

I've already broadened it to include landscaping work.. tiling, turf, pergolas, decking etc

your business model, doing the work off site, sound exactly like what I have in my head for where I want to be in long term

Martin

 

[Molynoox]

Perhaps you're missing an opportunity here, talk to the customer for the landscaping company - it's good customer service to keep them clued up on the progress you're making - and show interest in their 'vision' for their garden then quietly mention the garden rooms and how you're trying to get a start in the market. Present yourself very professionally, show that you care for detail and that you want to get it right for them. Probably can't hurt to get some cards made to have on hand.



Some small advice regarding the "soonish." I've worked as a landscape gardener and as a cabinetmaker for home office furniture. Seasons are a killer for both these jobs. People will spend money improving their gardens during the summer because that's where their heads are focusing, so home furniture has a quiet period (ended in redundancy for me) and then come winter this flips, it can be a long, cold winter for anybody doing garden work. I ended up getting excited for a storm because thats when fences need repairing. Please do not take any slow starts as winter approaches as a sign that it wont work for you. Keep at it and use the slow season to get the admin nailed down because if/when you suddenly get busy it'll be the first thing to suffer.

Yeah good idea but the company I work for offers garden rooms also, in fact I've helped to build one of them. So conflict of interest problem. Myself and the owner get on well and I'm open about my plans with him.

Good call on the seasons thing, it's not going to get any easier as we enter winter....

 

[MikeJhn]

Voluntary register for VAT, everything becomes 20% cheaper also think about getting decent accounts software, Quickbooks was my favourite as it did the double entry thing in the background, only had one VAT inspection in 25 years and they ended up owing me.

One other thing is don't run your business from a room in your home, keep them separate, it means you go home to relax.

 

[Sheptonphil]

I would suggest reputation reputation reputation.

Get yourself a good reputation and your order book will be full esp on a luxury item like a garden Room.

I ran a very successful business for twenty years, I never advertised once. It grew organically and was all by customer recommendations. Admittedly, a Facebook presence is free and gets a good audience.
my advice, charge what you are worth, not what someone else thinks you should get. You’ll become a busy fool otherwise.

Best wishes in your new venture. Decent sheds/workshops are just as sought after as home offices, and are the same structure effectively.
You’ll have more work than you can cope with.
phil

 

[cmoops2]

I would suggest reputation reputation reputation.

Get yourself a good reputation and your order book will be full esp on a luxury item like a garden Room.

Yes, when initially trying to get a 'toehold' in the marketplace, advertising is almost a necessity. That said, as your reputation grows, word-of-mouth gathers momentum and, eventually, can reduce your advertising budget to zero ...

 

[profchris]

If I were in your situation I'd consider the old fashioned flyer through the door. Pick the nearby villages where there is money and leaflet the obviously expensive houses.

A nice A4 (even better, A3 folded) flyer which says (a) you're a local startup, (b) that you're offering a discount for your first X (5?) local customers, (c) building a garden room now means it's ready for the spring, (d) nice colour pictures of your own garden room, and (e) that they're welcome to call and fix up a visit to see your garden room. Make it quite personal.

For me, being local (plus a discount) might tempt me to give you a call. I could check you out by visiting your local pub, I'd have met you and seen your work, I'd know it would be easy to find you if I had things I needed to discuss, and I'd expect a decent job because it's on your own doorstep.

I can't tell you this would work, but it's pretty cheap to try it out. And there's certainly a fair amount of City money floating around the Billericay area!

This assumes your long-term plan is to build premium garden rooms with a decent profit margin - if you're planning low cost builds, you have no margin for a discount for early birds.

 

[HOJ]

I am though in the process of building a very special house:






Its a Horse house!

Just thought I'd add an update to this post, frame made and stood up for trial fitting before we go to site:



This is my frame building platform:

 

[Molynoox]

Just thought I'd add an update to this post, frame made and stood up for trial fitting before we go to site:

View attachment 146673

This is my frame building platform:

View attachment 146674

Love it.
How do you transport it? I assume you break it down to pretty large panels?