Money

[Hems]

Ok guys heres an off the wall question, as I sit here pondering my first job and trying to work out what to charge, and also reading (sadly) that a lot of tilers are (or seem to be) quitting at the mo. It occured to me that I should pose this question and it goes like this I am new to the trade, and realisticlly I need to earn 300 quid a week clear in order to pay my way, how easy is it (or difficult) to achieve ? whats the average weekly earnings for a tiler these days ! can it be done or do i have to pick up my guitar and get busking !!?

[Turkish]

If you`re new to it Hems then it`s all about how you get yourself known! I only do it part time and i thank god i don`t have to rely on it as a main wage cos it`s really quiet at the mo, but, i don`t push myself to get work. You need to build up a good name with repeat clients to ensure regular business but starting out can be very hard as you have noticed in some of the posts on here. Not to say it can`t be done though otherwise nobody would be on here! Just have to get your name out and about as much as poss. Regular work will then lead to a fairly decent wage.

Good luck!

Turkish

[grumpygrouter]

Lots of variables to answer a question like this, but in simple terms, if you are doing this full time, there is no reason at all why you can't bring in £300 a week net.

Many things will dictate this though such as the area you are in, market saturation and you reputation. As you are new to the trade reputation is virtually non-existant so you will need to analyse what is available in your area, hw many are competing for the work and how good a salesman you are. This last point is VITAL. Without marketing and selling your self properly, you may as well apply for a job in Tesco.

Good luck, keep us informed.

[Varley]

Spot on Turkish.

It is difficult at the moment and the area you are can have as much of a bearing as anything. If there are a lot of tilers in your area at the moment you have to somehow stand out amongst them.

[Hems]

yeah I guessed it wouldnt be easy, its my main earner or was gonna be, spent a bit on tools and training, and Im now really quite worried, I always wanted to work for myself, but have a feeling I will have to find something else.

[Hems]

Thanks varley, hard to stand out when your new to the game. Saying that i dont think there are too many tilers in and around andover, i had a call yesterday from a company who specialise in insurance jobs who asked me if i would go and look at a job he said he was having trouble finding a tiler in this area so there may be hope yet.

[Turkish]

Maybe do it as a side line like me until you build up some business to a point where it can pay you enough to go full time?

Turkish

[Hems]

Yeah think I will have too, best get the job paper out. !

[charlie1]

As more people train as tilers prices per m2 will fall, this coupled with the shortage of work at present paints a bleak picture for anyone who wants to become a tiler. Dont get me wrong it's not impossabile, lets say as a new tiler you can tile mabe 6-7 m2 per day average then that would equal 30m2 per week if working 5 days. If you charge £15 per m2 = matts you would have a wage of about £450 then you deduct all overheads likeinsurances , van, mobile phone, marketing. you will be left with about £300 quid. then all you need is £200 end of year to pay grumpy (accountant)

Having said all that you now need to get a constant flow of work to keep you afloat and thats the hard part.

Good Luck

[IvegotsTILE]

When I first started out I didn't get a constant wage for at least 3 months,same as Tysfoot who quit at one point.You earn £650 one week then nothing the next then £150 the next.swings in BIG roundabouts,just look how many guys on here are strugglng.

[enduro]

Thanks varley, hard to stand out when your new to the game. Saying that i dont think there are too many tilers in and around andover, i had a call yesterday from a company who specialise in insurance jobs (apple developments) who asked me if i would go and look at a job he said he was having trouble finding a tiler in this area so there may be hope yet.

Bet he want have a job finding tilers now, as you posted who they are. Keep things like that under your hat. Good luck mate

[bigneil]

good advertising is essential to get you up and running, i have made this mistake in the past, by spending money on advertising in the wrong places. this year i paid for an ad in my yellow pages and despite the market slowing down i have had much steadier work. if a full blown recession hits the country, then we are gonna be one of the first trades to suffer.(if we arn't already) having your bathroom re-tiled is a luxury but getting your boiler fixed is essential.......MMMm perhaps we should re-train as plumbers

[whitebeam]

I know some well seasoned heating engineers and they get very nervous on the corgi test every five years

[faithhealer]

Hems mate, i love tiling but if I could play the guitar, well.....

[Daz]

It's been said many times before..........

If you want it bad enough, you will find a way to make it work!

I took the plunge at the beginning if this year. I set myself a weekly earnings target (it was a lot higher than yours!) and made every effort to achieve it. I have been flat out since I started (partly because it takes me that bit longer than some of the guys on the forum and partly because I continue to market myself aggressively).

I try to envisage how long a job will take me and (mentally) apply a day rate, customer then gets an estimate for total labour cost and materials ballpark. I have been more expensive than other tilers but still won jobs due to my confidence and sales approach, so price isn't always everything. Saying that, I have also lost jobs due to pricing too high so be prepared not to win every estimate you do.

Good luck and as long as you are confident and always do a perfect job you will always be busy.

[Grace'sDad]

I may be one of the lucky ones, but I manage to earn an average of £750 a week gross. This is way better than I expected or planned for BUT.....

The "but" is that I effectively had a loan (used a 0% credit card) of around £4k in my first year which paid for things like decent advertising / cards / proper workwear / signwriting for my van / tools etc as well as providing a "cushion" whilst the first few months were lean.

I guess what I am saying is that if you look around at the competition and aim to raise your image (the domestic market is ALL about image 1st - quality 2nd) you can get a good head start over the competition - even the time served tilers with established reputations.

The hard bit comes next - can you achieve the necessary quality of work quickly in order to maintain the image and status???

[charlie1]

I may be one of the lucky ones, but I manage to earn an average of £750 a week gross. This is way better than I expected or planned for BUT.....

The "but" is that I effectively had a loan (used a 0% credit card) of around £4k in my first year which paid for things like decent advertising / cards / proper workwear / signwriting for my van / tools etc as well as providing a "cushion" whilst the first few months were lean.

I guess what I am saying is that if you look around at the competition and aim to raise your image (the domestic market is ALL about image 1st - quality 2nd) you can get a good head start over the competition - even the time served tilers with established reputations.

The hard bit comes next - can you achieve the necessary quality of work quickly in order to maintain the image and status???

This in my opinion is where a lot of tilers fail. Trying to go to big to quickly. You must remember when starting out that you are not really a "tiler" , you are still training and it doesnt take a lot to ruin your confidence in the first year of trading. You can go do a 4 day course and then on the Friday get a signwritten van and think you are a tiler but you need to back this up with quality of work at speed and you will only get this through experience. If you start sacrificing quality to keep up with demand in the first year you are making a costly mistake. In the first year you should allways be asking yourself how could i achieved a better "Finish"

Quality of "Finish" in the domestic market is absolute key. You can fidle about with tiles making sure you get 100% coverage on the back of each tile and asure the customer all the correct products where used priming , sealing etc but all they really care about is the Finish.

That was a bit of a rant but there we go.

[Grace'sDad]

This in my opinion is where a lot of tilers fail. Trying to go to big to quickly. You must remember when starting out that you are not really a "tiler" , you are still training and it doesnt take a lot to ruin your confidence in the first year of trading. You can go do a 4 day course and then on the Friday get a signwritten van and think you are a tiler but you need to back this up with quality of work at speed and you will only get this through experience. If you start sacrificing quality to keep up with demand in the first year you are making a costly mistake. In the first year you should allways be asking yourself how could i achieved a better "Finish"

Quality of "Finish" in the domestic market is absolute key. You can fidle about with tiles making sure you get 100% coverage on the back of each tile and asure the customer all the correct products where used priming , sealing etc but all they really care about is the Finish.

That was a bit of a rant but there we go.

Exactly my thoughts - good rant accepted!

Quality of finish is key - to more work and happy customers.
What I was pointing out is that it IS possible to blag your way into a lot of high quality work quite quickly, purely through projecting the right image. LOADS of newbie tilers will come unstuck doing this, but there are some who will have the necessary natural ability to learn to tile to a very high standard very quickly and survive!

[charlie1]

Exactly my thoughts - good rant accepted!

Quality of finish is key - to more work and happy customers.
What I was pointing out is that it IS possible to blag your way into a lot of high quality work quite quickly, purely through projecting the right image. LOADS of newbie tilers will come unstuck doing this, but there are some who will have the necessary natural ability to learn to tile to a very high standard very quickly and survive!

Or Dont take on too much work too quickly. You are still learning ,dont take on anything you cant handle. Marketing has to be finely tweeked always test the water when styarting out. Dont just do the course then turn up at every tile and bathroom shop in the city claiming you are a great tiler cos you are gonna need to back that up. A little at a time as you learn. Will take a lot longer but you will get to the other end in one piece that way

[evanstiling]

Hi

I know ow you feel I only strated my business just over a week ago and read a lot on here to get advice. My first quote I got even thou I was more expensive that the others. That was down to the fact that I gave a quote sheet with my details on and wore a clean t shirt with my name on and told him exactly what I would do for him.
I am lucky my girlfriend has a big gob and asks everyone she meets, and I mean everyone!!!! if they want any tiling done. She managed to get me a contact who is a kitchen fitter who has just won a major contract, so as long as hes happy with my work I will be working alongside him.
So it is out there you just gotta get yourself contacts and also talk to the staff in tiling shops, which again my girlfriend is good at!!!!

Good Luck

[Hems]

Ok, I think there is some fantastic advice on all these responses so i will try and take it all on board, couple of things hit home and made me feel better, firstly on the quality side I will never walk away from a customer who is unhappy even if it costs me to get it right. I like the point made about "still learning" this trade must be unique in that respect in as much that i did a four week course and then i am on the job .....on my own ! I really enjoy tiling and enjoy the challenge, and its so difficult not to pick up "the more difficult" jobs with this trend for natural stone these days. As soon as i did my course my neighbour asked if i wanted to tile his kitchen walls as practice.....when I went round it was chinese tumble slate he wanted on the walls ...i did it but s**t myself, but they we very happy with the result. I am slow, i, as yet, cannot tile quickly, it takes me ages to set out etc. I wish there were tilers who employed other tilers, i would love nothing more than to work alongside an experianced tiler to learn and get up to speed etc. I hope i will make it, its still early days. But i want to say a MASSIVE thanks for all the advice and replies, i think its my confidence thats a big hurdle at mo, and unless i get over that it will slow my drive and make earning that 300 quid a week even harder, this forum is a great help THANKS everyone.

[Hems]

Hems mate, i love tiling but if I could play the guitar, well.....

Ha ! Thanks mate, but you've not heard me singing !!! Saying that i once new a busker who on the right day would take home 80 quid in change !!! so who knows. !!

[whitebeam]

Believe me hems there are some customers that will never be happy with the finest work but they are few and far between

[tiler burden]

you'll make 300 a week hems

hang around out side tile shops give the customers comng out one of your cards!!

if there in there getting tiles then they need a tiler (usually) and you can get amongst them when leaving....hit 3 shops every day for an hour at a time while your slack and you'll get a couple of weeks work without paying for yell etc!!

remember mate, it wont come to you yet so go out there and get it
all the best and keep busy lookin!!

ed