Electrician's and the recession

[comms]

Well said SB
I did the same as you attended college gained 2360 prt's 1 & 2 as well as 16th edition & 2391.
Decided to stick with the domestic installer only (have done commercial & some industrial work), now in my 5th year as a sole trader (going to give it another couple of years then take on extra hands) & I do consider myself an electrician even though I didn't go down the apprenticeship route.

Some good points there click sure.

Morrissey
sorry to hear things are on the slow side mate. My advice would be for you to take on the full time work, but keep your company going as a sideline for weekend & evening work.
Get the customer base up & before you you know it you'll be packing in the full time office job.
When I first started out I contacted local parish councils & offered pir's for village halls, that bought in some remedial s & I've kept most as regular customers.

 

[Grinning Grandad]

Thanks for the advice and tips guys. I really want to stick at it if at all possible. A part time job may be the answer I suppose. The diversify route could be the answer. Maybe leafleting my local area about fitting mains powered smoke alarms at a fixed price (risky!?). My son works for a well known alarm company and is keen to do some extra-curricular work with me - another option?
The landlord of my local asked me if I do PAT testing, I am qualified but can't afford the equipment. Frustrating.
Anyhow, enough of the self-pity. I will continue to visit this forum on a daily basis as its a constant source of knowledge and amusement in equal quantities which helps to keeps my enthusiasm going.

 

[Taylortwocities]

If you are looking at advertising, I found best was small lineage ad in local papers and some small box ads in parish newsletters. Some schools PTAs have newsletters - my local school gives me 6 months for £25 - BARGAIN!
All of the above much, much better than Yellow Pages.

With Yellow i found I got a lot of timewasters, a lot of people calling and trying to sell me something and jobs that i didn't really want.

The local ads may give you some smallish jobs to start with but they often lead to bigger stuff.
If you are any good then there's nothing better than word of mouth!

 

[Click-Sure]

I persoanlly hate being on competantperson.co.uk, never had a job off there that I know of, if every marketing call I had off there was a £100 paying job I'd be up to about the quarter million pounds mark by now!

 

[baldelectrician]

I find
www.competantperson.co.uk

excellent - have a look

 

[Click-Sure]

you've had a few jobs from there baldelectrician then?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

So do you find it a useful strategy to try and waylay the people who are looking for the list of registered electricians but who can't spell?

 

[Click-Sure]

People cant often get their head around a hyphen ' - '.

 

[baldelectrician]

I have quite a few domain names.

I am only a 1 man band, but am quite high in Google.
I find having domain names similar the same (with different ending) as popular websites means more hits and more business

I live in Ayrshire and get the calls 'We can put you top in google' etc

If you type in 'electrician kilmarnock' in to google I am very high up.

It all helps[/img]

 

[baldelectrician]

you've had a few jobs from there baldelectrician then?

Not really (remember the competent persons thing does not include Scotland who have their list on the SBSA website), but it raises the company profile.
I have had the domain for ages ( I bought www.compotentperson.co.uk in Dec 2006)

 

[Taylortwocities]

People cant often get their head around a hyphen ' - '.

And misuse of the apostrophe (see the title of this thread for example. ..)