Decided it’s time to fly solo in your chosen trade and start making money for yourself? High five! We think the fact you’ve decided to take control of your employment is a phenomenal one… But where do you begin?
Tradies in Business exists to help guide and teach tradies how to run a successful business. We already know you’re great at your trade, but who teaches you the business stuff?
Read on to uncover our simple first steps to getting started.
1. Make it Government Official: get that ABN
If you’re working for yourself or plan on subcontracting work out, the first step you’ll need to do is to register your business for an ABN. An ABN is an eleven digit number that identifies your business to the local community, government & your clients and is required for tax and other purposes.
Follow this link to uncover the next steps in applying for an ABN.
2. Apply for a license (if applicable)
Depending on the trade you are qualified in and the state you live in, you may need to get yourself a trade license. Before you apply and get started with contract work, it is important you ensure you find out whether you are eligible or not for the license as this will affect things like your insurance.
The Australian Government has put together a helpful site that lets you answer a series of questions to find out what licenses may be applicable to you.
3. Get insured
We’re guessing you didn’t go into business for yourself to lose everything. So why risk it?
As a new business owner, you are now officially responsible for your work and your subcontractor’s work. Making a simple mistake could mean you are up for thousands to millions of dollars.
To cover your backside, we encourage looking into a public liability insurance. You’ll thank us later!
If you’ve got a plethora of tools, equipment and a business vehicle, it’s also worthwhile looking into insuring your business assets.
4. Polish your branding
Once you’ve got an ABN, license (if required) and insurance sorted, finalise your business name, logo and set yourself up a basic website and domain.
It’s important your business stands apart from your competitors and is obvious to onlookers to what you do. Specialise in gutter-cleaning? Integrate this into your logo if you can – your logo will do the marketing for you!
5. Marketing
Depending on how you want to run your business, we advise you to consider what platforms you would expect to find work through. Some trade businesses like to run the whole lot – a website, blogs, social media and advertising, however, others prefer to do very little.
If your business is growing just through word of mouth for example, consider ways you can increase the chatter. Could you offer a discount on your service if your client refers you?
On the flipside, if your audience was first homeowners, perhaps you should focus on creating social media accounts and posting regularly so your audience can find you.
6. Accounting
Often neglected in the beginning of creating a business, accounting is one of the most important tools to either be educated in or have someone on your side doing.
To make business flow, find an accounting software that helps streamline your quoting, invoicing & bookings. If you’re not keen on doing this yourself, book in to your local accountant and let them take the reins. The longer you leave this, the more overwhelming things will get. We say, get onto it quicksmart!
7. Join Tradies in Business!
If you’ve followed all our steps, or realised that you need serious guidance in doing so, consider joining Tradies In Business. Offering three unique memberships for tradies going into business, Tradies in Business is run by two business coaching professionals who deeply understand the ins and outs of the industry and will help you every step of the way. Read about our memberships here!
Have any questions? Feel free to leave it in the comments and our team will get back to you.
Join our FREE Facebook group here to interact with other tradies in business, just like yourself!
