Serious topic : self employment is it all worth it...? - TilersForums.co.uk | Tile Forums

mc497 · 09-04-2008

Hi everyone,
I'm sitting here at my computer AGAIN, with nothing more to do than think about whether I made the right move or not to go self employed about 11 months ago.
To put it bluntly I last worked about 3 weeks ago and even then the job only made me around £300, iv got a little plastering job to do tommorow and friday, and a guy is phoning me to arrange a start date to start tiling his bathroom, hopefully that will be next week. Generally speaking though the whole experience has been pretty dire..!
I fully understand that it takes a long time to establish a well known and trusted business, and I knew that it would be slow for the first year or two, but I can honestly say that I had no idea that it would be this bad.
I have tried all of the usual advertising tricks, I paid for an ad in my local rag which ran for three nights for three weeks, and I didn't get one single call.
Ive printed in the region of 5000 flyers and delivered them all, I did get some work from the flyers, generally speaking I would get one to two calls from each leaflet run I did, but in the general run of things this still doesn't make up regular work. I have my cards in practically every tile suppliers in the Cardiff area, but again I think I can only think of three maybe four times someone has run saying that they picked up my card in so and so shop.
Every morning I take my kids to school in my van which is signed up nice and bold and clearly and then I drive around the area for about an hour trying to get noticed. The other saturday I made up flask of coffee and a packed lunch and did a tour of all the tiling suppliers, parking up near the entrance and staying there for a while so customers might see me as they came in and out.
I go and walk around tiling stores where my card is so maybe the staff in some of them will get to recognise me, and in some of them they have, but still no work.
On the plastering side of things, (im a plasterer as well) things are only slightly better.
Thing is plasterers are ten a penny around my way, I read in disbelief at government figures saying that ie 7000 more plasterers needed in the uk by such and such date, I can honestly say that I cant see a shortage, but everyone else disagrees with me.
Seriously though from what I can see is plastering is now a dead trade, and drylining etc etc is slowly taking over, with the only plastering skill needed any more being skimming. As for the tiling side of things, I still think that alot of people dont regard it as a real skill, for instance practically everyone I see going into the tiling shops seem to be doing it themselves. Also you think every general builder or handyman or whatever all do their own tiling.
This really infuriates me, I started tiling seriously about a year ago , and I have fallen in love with this game, I was quite ignorant about tiling myself before going on a training course and then taking on a few jobs for real. After that I realised how involved and varied tiling can be, and that not just any DIYer can do this.
If i think back to an earlier post I made I stated that it take a long time to become a competent tile fixer, and I stand by that, Im not the finished article yet I know this. Basically, I seem to be getting one job every say two to three weeks, If these jobs were £700-800 a go then I wouldn't really be worried, but their not, in reality its more like £200-300 a go if Im lucky. I dont know what the situation for tradesmen is like in your areas, but in my local yellow pages there are 4 pages of tilers, 6 pages of plasterers, 9 pages of decorators, 23 pages of builders, 16pages of electricians and 18 pages of plumbers. ( I know its a bit sad to sit here counting but like I said at the start Im just sitting here with nothing to do again....!)
I hope NOBODY else is going through what Im going through at the moment, but is anybody else finding things slow...?
will thing pick up...?
is anyone out there strugglin...?
Should I be contacting the nearest call centre for any jobs...?

**sibs** · 09-04-2008

mc I really feel for you. Your not the only one going through this. I can't seem to get my pricing right no matter what I do.
I have invested so much time and money that going back for me really isn't an option so am trying to find work that will fit around

mc497 · 09-04-2008

Hi sibs,
cheers for replying. I understand what you mean with the pricing thing, and like you I have invested practically all my time and money into this.
All the best for the future..!

**Sir Ramic** · 09-04-2008

I dont want to sound like the grim reaper but if you study the forum you will see there are a lot of Tilers (new and old) that dont have a great deal of work. I have been in the game 31 years and its a tough year so far. I dont think it will change over night either.
Houses are not selling and people arent spending on their properties like they used to.
It doesnt mean you cant make any money but it does mean that you will have to compete more.
Dont throw all your eggs in one basket. if you have a job at the moment stick with it but do tiling when you can. Build up slowly until the time is right.
I will be sitting at home most of tomorrow due to no work. It is not just the newbies that struggle. I have promises of work in the future but in our game its all or nothing. In 2 months time i hope we are all saying we cant cope with the load,

mc497 · 09-04-2008

Hello siramic,
I appriciate your comments and fully take on board what you say.
True enough the housing market at the moment is on the fall and that must be a worry to us all. I think there are many reasons for my lack of work at the moment, and as I stated in the initial post, I was not under any illusions as to how long it takes to set up and sustain a profitable business.
The media has a lot to answer for if you ask me, making claims of seriously high salaries in all trades (plumbing in particular) and due to this the market seems to be flooded with newly trained or qualified people in all trades, and I think I have seen quite a few posts regarding this in the past.
I also belive honestly that I am in the wrong part of the country.
As I put in the first post on this subject, in my area the place is saturated by every imaginable trade you can think of, and because of this competition is fierce beyond belief. I hope Im not coming across arsey in any way, but at the moment Im feeling pretty ****ty and when your in this frame of mind you cant see any light at the end of the tunnel.!
Anyway I wish you all the best in the future, and thankyou for a reply from someone with such vast experience.

**Fekin** · 09-04-2008

This is an all too common kind of post at the moment, and I know it's no consolation to say that there are many in your position, but if your in a bad way money wise then don't feel beaten if you need to get yourself a standard job to keep things ticking by, as you can always still tile in your spare time.

Good luck mc

TilingLogistics · 09-04-2008

Hi,

I feel sorry for you and anyone else who is in this position.

Contrary to popular belief jobs and quotes are not based on price in 95% of cases. The winning of a job is based on selling yourself as a person and convincing the potential client you will and can do a better job and you are more professional than anyone else they have seen or will see.

The first and most important factor is to quantify the potential client over the telephone on the initial contact. I like many others have lost jobs because I was not prepared to fix for peanuts. It is a sad fact that most clients who ring think it is a case of someone turning up and slapping tiles on walls or floors. They have to be convinced that what you do is a skilled job. That is why there are so many people on this and other forums asking "What went wrong"? They simply fail to realise fixing tiles is a profeassional and not a DIY job.

Clients go into shops like porcellanosa and spend £1000's on tiles and adhesives and then expect the tiler to turn their dream into reality for peanuts. It is simple, as everyone knows to create a display of tiles on a wall in a shop that looks fantastic. What clients fail to realise is that to turn a whole bathroom, kitchen or area into the dream takes time, dedication and attention to detail as well as the skills to achieve it.

I have personally been to installations recently where the client had paid the tiler £6000 and £3500 respectively to fix natural stone and both the jobs were at best appalling to say the least. I spend hours explaining to clients what went wrong and why it went wrong but in most cases it is fixer error and lack of knowledge that is to blame.

It is important to remember effective advertising only gets the first contact. The rest is up to you from there. You must assess the basics of the job on the initial contact. So if a client rings and says I have 30M2 Marble to be fixed to my kitchen floor and I have been quoted £20M2 so far and you proceed to quote without further information, there is only one person to blame. My answer would be good luck! I would want to know the following information prior to even going to their house. The colour, size and type of marble. The substrate, what adhesive, make of grout, colour of grout and the grout gap required. The time frame to get the job done and their expectations. The area the job was in? Was there parking, which floor etc etc. All this before I even agreed to make an appointment. This shows you know what you are talking about and gives the client confidence before you even get there. It also saves you time and effort because once you have this knowledge and you find out they don't want to pay anymore than £20 M2 say then you might as well put the phone down and go back to watching Coronation Street. However, once you establish all this and they are still interested then at least you have good information and you can go to the clients house for an appointment armed with the necessary equipment to deal with a quote.

Let us all remember 90% of people are self employed and when pricing up a job fail to take into account the cost of running a vehicle, liability insurance, Tax, NI contributions, holidays and sickness and that generally means as a rule of thumb at least 40% should be comiing off every pound you think you have earned that day. So if you earn £500 a week in real terms its £300. The biggest problem however, is that the client fails to realise this as well and they think because they paid you £500 you walked away with that in your pocket. This information needs to be communicated to the client as well when pricing up the job

Kev

tysfoot · 09-04-2008

hiya mate, im in the same boat, wasthinking of goin self employed but then this year nothing has come though at all. done all the advertising like you.

Thing is i think there are to many tilers out there. I live in mnachester and there are 3 tiling school all within 15 miles of each other

Im staying at my job for now untill i know there is work out there but as it stands there isnt

Turkish · 09-04-2008

I feel like

Anybody got any good news? I really do feel sorry for you mc497 and hope that things turn round for you soon mate, chin up yeah!

Turkish

**enduro** · 09-04-2008

I started tiling just over 2 years ago, i have a few builders who only do prestige jobs that i work for, and a couple of kitchen shops, top of the market stuff again. I aimed my business at this market as i found that once you got your foot in the door with them and did a really good job your away....Most of my tiling is day rate £160-£200 per day as some jobs I'm working with other trades, like today fitting shower screen with plumber. What most of them like with me is not the speed i put them up but attention to detail, and fitting in with there guys, so aim your market at these guys. Drive around look for big houses being refurbished, new builds and go and ask, get on the phone to plumbers etc that what i did and it works. I dont advertise anymore, if there is loads of people advertising in your area, papers and tile shops its going to be a waste of time you doing it aswell, you will only get jobs that you and 20 other people are chasing. So dont sit at home waiting for the phone to ring go out looking, do a 30 mile radius of your home and hunt for it, because i bet it there if you look

mz30 · 09-04-2008

Hi mc497
Sorry to hear your having a bad time ,i too am self-employed but 80% of my work come's through one company the other 20% is from builders and domestic job's and fortunately for me i am pretty much always busy.

What i would suggest is get in touch with a local tiling firm that sub-contract's there work and see how that goes, as even if your working on job's for them you can still go and do your domestic work ,as for your pricing How much are you charging? i would'nt go on the price's you see here at the forum's ,as depending on where you live the price's will vary i charge between £15 and £45 (labour only)depending on the job ,but expect the companies to pay less if your subcontracting most firm's around here pay around £13.50 m2.

And you have only been at it a year give it a bit of time and you should be o.k.

Hope this help's and good luck

Telmay · 09-04-2008

Sorry your having a bad time of it, loads of good pointers here, I went self employed five years back, but as a decorator and only got into tiling a year ago, now trying to take on mre tiling but in the position of still having stacks of decorating booked. Hopefully in week or two you will be rushed off your feet, stick with it mate you never know whats round the next corner.