How to become a self employed electrician - what they don't tell you in college!

[adigreen]

I'm thinking of writing an ebook and it will cover everything on the business side of becoming a sparky, from things like, invoicing, tools and running a diary to giving good customer service so that your customers keep calling you back. Even a section on getting your customers to pay you every month for only doing a job once.

I believe that contrary to a lot of posts on here that state there isn't work, or that being self employed it's hard to find customers, my belief is that we simply aren't given enough business advice and just crack on and learn by our mistakes. After my training in the army and then being self-employed since I left in 1998, I've got a bit of business experience to pass on and I know the areas that most sparkies don't concentrate on, like marketing, etc (there are more). And I know that's because when we've just come in from a hard day crawling around in an attic that we don't necesarily want to analyze which advert is getting the best response.

Anyhow, I just want to ask if people think it's a good idea and if so, what would people pay for it and also what sections would you like to see in it, ie, what do you wish you were told before you went self-employed?

 

[Octopus]

Not sure it's the best idea. There's so much free advice on the web. That said some people simply think they know it all!

from my own perspective, learning how many non paying hours per week was a bit of a shock

 

[dingledong]

I wish I'd been told dont do it