What do you self employed types do then?

underdog

Budgie said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

And listen up - the older you get, the harder this becomes. DO IT. AS. SOON. AS. POSSIBLE.

Find something.

Yeah, that is the best advice of all.

I decided to have a go at painting professionally about 11 years ago and started putting work on Twitter, trying to attract a gallery to sell my work. In the meantime I continued running a landscaping business and just painted in the evenings and weekends. As I started to get interest from galleries and my work started selling, I finally made the swap to full-time artist in 2015 and haven’t really looked back. I could have stayed doing what I was doing, it was enjoyable and quite profitable and giving it up was a big risk but knew I’d always regret not trying to make a go of painting. I now have a good selection of galleries who represent my work and do plenty of commissions. I’m glad I took the risk!

That's cool as f**k, fair play to you.

Jota

I'm an optometrist and run a shop where I do everything since I'm the only employee.

Never wanted to be a business owner but had to choose buying the shop I was working on, or letting it close and becoming unemployed.

7 years have passed and I'm still learning how to do the job.

thecolourbox

Cheers chaps this is interesting stuff.

Whatever happens I can't really afford to drop down much unless I'm 100% certain it'll get better, as I'm already on lower than average wage and have a mortgage and wedding and future children to pay for.

But I've never known what I want to do because i don't know what other jobs there are and what they involve. A bit like if I said I'm a Property Management surveyor, what would that sound like I did to you? I bet it doesn't conjure up spreadsheets and writing shitty updates on dodgy Dave not paying his rent on time, or arguing with an internatiomal pension investor about whether they should pay £500 to cover a sky light with a hole in it to stop a leak. The job title bears no significance to what you actually do day to day so I'm just trying to learn what others do

Budgie

EricTheWeary said:

Budgie said:

Mainly as an artist

Also, and when I have time from painting - picture framing (I make all of my own picture frames but also for other people when I can spare the time), a bit of mid-century furniture restoration (although this is waning due to the ridiculous prices the eBay crowd are asking for stuff that needs work). Also a bit of buying and selling of post-war design stuff.. ceramics, glass, jewellery, furniture, lighting, art etc.

I’m mainly too busy painting nowadays though, so the other stuff is becoming less.

I think you have to have a few strings to your bow when being self-employed, or at least it helps to have a back-up for quieter days, plus it’s more interesting having multi skills.

My late brother was self employed from his early twenties onward. Basically he’s do anything as long as he could make a profit. He’d been very good at carpentry at school and his last business was picture framing. Certainly his longest lived business venture and I think the one he enjoyed the most. Just had a premises within a craft centre. I think the only problem was that the centre was open Tuesday to Sunday so he struggled to ever get any time off. He also did a bit of property development ( he owned several flats including the one he lived in) so that would have been Monday busy as well. 

It also meant we knew what we were getting for birthdays - something framed! 

I enjoy making picture frames and imagine it would be a pretty good way to make a living. It doesn’t cost a fortune to get going either, there’s always workshop equipment for sale. My family often get framed gifts too  

Dominic

I live on a farm........we rent one of the disused barns to a vehicle specialist and another to a classic car restoration company.
The Vehicle specialists have a fairly unique business adapting and fitting out vans for mobile catering ; most of them are trendy hipsterish old Citroen H vans .
  They have lots of customers who do things like "Mexican SourDough Firebread " , " Oysters " and Lobster Burgers , Vegan Foods , Dhosas and Dahl , Hoppers, Empanadas and Tacos, Porchetta Rolls ,etc etc .....some are just Espresso Coffee and Croissant .
It seems they pitch at Events , Train stations , Concerts ,Markets ,Weddings and outside busy Venues etc etc . I see the vans come in for repairs and adaptions .
I know Events are a non-starter at the moment but some of these are quite high quality Gastronomy .I talk to the owners sometimes and it's staggering how much money they take.......really quite amazing .
Some of them are very trendy / hipsterish and I know the ones doing Sushi and Lobster Rolls / Oysters etc are usually fully booked for Weddings and promo events .

mike257

Self employed/trading through my own company for nearly 9 years now. 

I'm a production manager/sound engineer/backline tech, and own a small production/audio hire company. Have also worked as a professional bassist and guitarist over the years, ran function bands, all that stuff, but moved away from that to focus more fully on production a few years ago. 

Obviously this year has knackered most of that. I'm doing various other bits - building furniture, launching a business with the missus selling homemade gifts and art prints, a bit of web design, did some freelance technical writing, shifting in to production for video and streamed events. Did some delivery driving for a bit. 

Main thing is the ability to sell yourself as someone people want to work with, and to always be hustling! You need to network, be adaptable, get yourself out there. You'll hear people talk about having a portfolio income, where you do various things and aren't completely dependent on one. I was doing that by working across multiple roles and specialisms in live events, but never envisaged the whole thing tumbling like this year so I've had to put my thinking cap on!

thecolourbox

Dominic said:

...trendy / hipsterish ...

Now all that info is quite interesting as that is something interesting to me given I'm a bit of a trendy hipsterish person and like all that street food nonsense. Not the repairing or fitting out of vans of course but I'm a decent cook (though am limited to cooking low Weight Watcher points meals 99% of the time) and reckon with practice in a certain direction I could get decent enough to come up with stuff albeit our house is tiny and would be tricky to mass produce enough for those kind of street foody things. Maybe something to look at as a sideline to see if it could work but without the pressure of it being my actual job, and if it doesnt at least I've learnt some stuff.

stonevibe

I write about guitars for a living.

thecolourbox

stonevibe said:

I write about guitars for a living.

Now that is the dream isn't it haha. As somebody who likes words but is not particularly adept at using them, I've a lot of respect for good writers

thecolourbox

Budgie said:

Mainly as an artist

Do you have a link to your art? Quite interested to see it

stonevibe

thecolourbox said:

stonevibe said:

I write about guitars for a living.

Now that is the dream isn't it haha. As somebody who likes words but is not particularly adept at using them, I've a lot of respect for good writers

I can barely construct a sentence mate.

ESBlonde

Daughter of a friend of mine ran a Cafe with her husband, when Covid hit they gave up the Cafe and launched a cake making and delivery business. They take orders and supply boxes of wonderful cakes or large sponges etc. all made and delivered to your door in a covid safe manner. They now have smaller premesis/overheads but make good money doing what they love.

The idea of diverse income streams is a good one, you could try a stall at a car boot or weekly market selling whatever you like to produce in your evenings (frames/cakes/bread/Bunches of flowers). See what it produces and follow the money. In no time at all you could give up the 9-5 and have your own business which you have taught yourself and developed from your own toil.

Snags

One important thing to remember is not to confuse "self-employed" with "entreprenuer".

Most self-employed people have some skill or trait that they can monetise, and they just do that. Kind of an artisan approach, were the "business" is very much them. If they stop doing it, the business will close because ultimately the business is based on their skillset and their relationships.

Entrepreneurs tend to be the opposite, in that they'll have an idea, get it going, build it up, get other people in to do the actual doing of it whilst they make deals, grow it etc. then they'll sell it on as a going concern and move on to the next thing (or just keep on growing the current thing, but distant from the day-to-day coal face stuff).

One set of people are motivated by doing a task well, the other by growing a business and, to some extent, 'empire building'. Very different traits, skillsets, and outcomes.

Doesn't matter which you are, but it's important to know from the outset. Lots of self-employed people fall into the trip of thinking they need to be entrepreneurs, and grow the business to the point where it gets away from them, because actually they like doing the job, and then it collapses back to a lower level where they're happy again.

FWIW my job history, excluding Saturday jobs and the like went:

- graduate to the dole

- filing clerk in a VAT office (a month)

- bookseller at Waterstones (shop assistant) (3 months)

- 'consultant' at a small management & training consultancy (7 years). Whilst there went from doing research projects/report writing to supporting development of business planning software, to learning programming and taking over the development, delivering training courses on technical stuff, general dogsbody and admin tasks - small firm, lots of opportunities to develop skills, little formal/job description clarififcaiton of what they were. Mostly picked up anything to do with computers by dint of being 30+ years younger than everyone else

- finally decided it was time to leave, couldn't work out what the hell to apply for, as I could do loads of stuff but couldn't evidence it on a CV. Ended up moonlighting doing software development projects for small businesses, and when I had enough that I could live for six months on what was in the pipeline I sacked off the day job to do a mixture of software development and general IT support/consultancy
- over the years various events largely beyond my control have led to the development side disappearing and the business now majors on the support side, which for me is the least interesting bit, and equal parts satisfying and soul-destroying, but it provides an income for three of us, and I absolutely cannot think of anything else I can do that would be sustainable and that I could develop up to change to. Annoyingly. So instead I do my best to develop a positive attitude to what I'm doing now, and will ride it out for as long as it lasts

thecolourbox

Thank you all, useful stuff so keep it coming.

What always makes my eyes glaze over in awe is how much stuff you actually have to sell to make a wage, it's quite eye watering. I suppose I need to either find or knock up a spreadsheet that kind of adds stuff up for various things to include whatever taxes one is required to pay etc.

But as an example, the artisan bread shop co-op near me where I did all my bread courses, charges £2.20 for a large white loaf. So even if the bread was free to make and no rent etc, that would be about 730 loaves of bread per month to bring the same salary in (c. £1600 per month). But of course they don't cost £0 to make haha so say you make a quid per loaf that's even easier maths - 1600 loaves per month, 400 per week. That is a lot of bread just to get the same, not to mention I would need premises and baking ovens and all that jazz. Absolutely eye watering amounts just to get the same as I do now bluffing my way through the world of industrial estates

EDIT and that's net of Taxes and NI etc, so would need to be even more wouldn't it! Crikey. 

EricTheWeary

ESBlonde said:

Daughter of a friend of mine ran a Cafe with her husband, when Covid hit they gave up the Cafe and launched a cake making and delivery business. They take orders and supply boxes of wonderful cakes or large sponges etc. all made and delivered to your door in a covid safe manner. They now have smaller premesis/overheads but make good money doing what they love.

The idea of diverse income streams is a good one, you could try a stall at a car boot or weekly market selling whatever you like to produce in your evenings (frames/cakes/bread/Bunches of flowers). See what it produces and follow the money. In no time at all you could give up the 9-5 and have your own business which you have taught yourself and developed from your own toil.

A colleague of my wife’s saw Covid as a sign to get out of the NHS and now runs a cupcake business from home. I thought there are so many people doing that kind of thing, who wants more bloody cupcakes but apparently she’s doing very well. I was trying to order an online cream tea for someone as a present during lockdown but the companies who specialised in this were swamped with orders and you had to book weeks ahead. 

These things are possible I guess.

Blaendulais

WiresDreamDisasters said:

I'm not self employed but here was my job journey after uni:

- 2007 I graduated. Needed a job so I went for a job interview as a stocks clerk at Asda. After a day of absolute toss team building exercise type crap they make you do, I got the job. Turned up the following Monday morning. Shook my new bosses hand as I arrived and said "actually... I don't want to do this. Sorry!" and walked off. I couldn't stand the idea of being trapped at Asda for the rest of my life.

- After that I worked at a bar. The landlord was a fucking tool. He let racism run rampant in his pub by the clientele, and he allowed one of the rich farmer-wanker regulars to constantly make homophobic slurs at me every fucking Friday night. Hated it so much I quit just before Christmas to deliberately fuck him off. He didn't like it. Job done.

- Went home to visit my mum for Xmas after that. She bought a copy of BFD2 for a prezzie. At the time FXpansion had a deal for new users - buy BFD2 and get the BFD1 content for free. So I messaged one of the developers about this deal and at the same time asked for an internship. He invited me into the office, and it all started from there.

- My first job was as a technical support and QA engineer. But they called it a "gopher" - no literally... that's what I was described as! But I did the job to my utmost. Putting in so many long days, sorting out computer graveyards, learning how music software and operating systems all worked under the hood. I used to ship all of the boxes out by hand too - often carrying 100's of boxes from the lobby to the attic storage space we had in the office.

- This led to opportunities to go to NAMM as a Product Specialist and work on the booth. The first year I went was the first year (to my knowledge) that they allowed the general public to go to the show. Bloody hell it was busy.... 15 hour days followed by massive binge drinking sessions with all of our USA contacts who were at the show. It was so much fun.

- Eventually I became the QA Manager of FXpansion. Managing the QA team and managing our releases. There was a heavy dose of product feedback I managed too. If you ever gave me feedback during those early years, damn sure I brought it up in product meetings.

- Someone quitting culminated in me also becoming the Technical Support Manager. Which was easy enough because there was huge overlap between QA and technical support at FX. It was the same team! And I'd already unofficially been doing the job anyway, because the previous guy was too busy with other things.

- At the same time my mate and I spent a weekend tracking some drum samples for a project that would eventually become BFD Oblivion. This put us both on the path of being in-house sound engineers, audio and video editors, and sound content developers. We were very busy at this point, doing several jobs each.

- Eventually I became what I am today. The product owner for BFD.

Despite my legendary reputation on here (spanning over 12 years at this point!) I really am a nice guy!

So what's my point .... find that dogsbody opportunity, and really turn it into something. I have a mate who interned at the BBC. He didn't push it hard enough, and wasn't kept on as a permanent fixture. You really have to slog your guts out in those first few years.

And listen up - the older you get, the harder this becomes. DO IT. AS. SOON. AS. POSSIBLE.

Find something.

you clearly applied yourself to your career as diligently as you apply yourself to the fretboard. Thats a compliment by the way

Danny1969

thecolourbox said:

Thank you all, useful stuff so keep it coming.

What always makes my eyes glaze over in awe is how much stuff you actually have to sell to make a wage, it's quite eye watering. I suppose I need to either find or knock up a spreadsheet that kind of adds stuff up for various things to include whatever taxes one is required to pay etc.

But as an example, the artisan bread shop co-op near me where I did all my bread courses, charges £2.20 for a large white loaf. So even if the bread was free to make and no rent etc, that would be about 730 loaves of bread per month to bring the same salary in (c. £1600 per month). But of course they don't cost £0 to make haha so say you make a quid per loaf that's even easier maths - 1600 loaves per month, 400 per week. That is a lot of bread just to get the same, not to mention I would need premises and baking ovens and all that jazz. Absolutely eye watering amounts just to get the same as I do now bluffing my way through the world of industrial estates

The numbers can be frightening in business. When I was running the studio the rent was 2K a month, the rates were 1K a month then I had gas, electric, 2 water bills, alarm monitoring, refuse collection etc to pay before me and my partner could pay ourselves any money. You just about survive for a few months and then boom it's the VAT bill to pay. 

There are generally 2 ways you can go when it comes to selling or providing a service. Either niche or big numbers. Having done both I much prefer niche. When you rely on quantity to make your money everything else goes up in terms of materials cost, shipping, space cost, fuel bills. You can become what some people in business refer to as a busy fool. 

Working in niche suits me a lot better. I can sell my products for what I what because I don't bother making anything that has a direct equivalent on the market already. In the IT world I don't repair any simple faults as there are people who can do that in the shops already. I work from home and get the repairs they can't do themselves which means I can charge more and don't have to deal with end users

Music wise my biggest earn is guitar and keys in a Kate Bush tribute, not an Oasis or AC DC tribute. Again less competition, more niche. 
I don't know anything about baking bread but there's a post office a few miles away that has a sideline making  award winning pasty's at £5 a pop. Great example of a niche product 

thecolourbox

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Many useful and interesting things

That is very impressive, though whilst I could match others' work ethic in the right situation, the intellectual side of things might well be something of a glass ceiling for me as I don't have the grey matter to do the clever tech stuff, which seems to be a good direction to invest oneself in at the moment. As we are about the same age (I think) your experiences and how you've risen above it are motivating certainly, in a similar way to being impressed when people outpace me at swimming though in that I know I can improve but not to that level, however hard I try. 

But food for thought nonetheless. Hopefully find something I can do alongside my current job though to get up to speed at least partially, so I don't go bankrupt in the process haha

WiresDreamDisasters

Blaendulais said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

you clearly applied yourself to your career as diligently as you apply yourself to the fretboard. Thats a compliment by the way

I don't know if you're being serious with me anymore! But yes, this is more or less true. I had no choice. I've been running away from a working in a warehouse in the Midlands hellscape existence for 15 years now! Mentally, I'm still terrified of being back there. I have no security or family to fall back on as such. I know people who just breeze through life without any worries, because they know they'll never end up homeless or in huge amounts of debt. Good luck to them, but that isn't where I come from.

thecolourbox said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Many useful and interesting things

That is very impressive, though whilst I could match others' work ethic in the right situation, the intellectual side of things might well be something of a glass ceiling for me as I don't have the grey matter to do the clever tech stuff, which seems to be a good direction to invest oneself in at the moment. As we are about the same age (I think) your experiences and how you've risen above it are motivating certainly, in a similar way to being impressed when people outpace me at swimming though in that I know I can improve but not to that level, however hard I try. 

But food for thought nonetheless. Hopefully find something I can do alongside my current job though to get up to speed at least partially, so I don't go bankrupt in the process haha

Knowing what you want is half the battle I think. I was fortunate and delusional enough to know that I wanted to do something in music when I was 15, and stubbornly chased it. I was a total social recluse at that age (for reasons I've gone into before) and I failed college 3 times. I don't have a single GCSE above a C - and only got C's for English - maths was an F. Which is funny considering I'm spending my days doing a lot of maths in code! I was a late bloomer basically.

My point being, don't get too hung up on thoughts about grey matter. It's not as important as you think, and not everyone has to be an uber genius (I'm certainly not!) to be successful.

Just figure out what it is you want.

stickyfiddle

I wasn't self-employed but I baked for a living for a couple of years. 

I really enjoyed it but to get to industrial volumes to make real money you need a big big mixer and a big oven. Regular home kit won't do unless you're doing something like wedding cakes where the actual baking bit is a relatively smaller part. I was making close to 1,000 items (brownies, cookies, muffins etc) on a busy day. Obviously bread is different but definitely doable from a production perspective. 

What you could absolutely do is start small with some artisan stuff at e.g. farmer's markets then invest once you're sure you have a product and customer base to warrant it. I'd also suggest instagram is probably fairly essential these days as anything pretty looking (and well photographed, hashtagged and shared) will inevitably get more attention. 

I love cooking and photography and would very much like to make it more of a thing one day, but it's not easy