GOING OUT ALONE (HOW TO START A PLASTERING BUSINESS)

GOING OUT ALONE

Written by Stuart Roberts (15 minute read)

I named this topic 'Going out alone' because that's precisely what you will be doing when you quit your job & take the leap into self employment. They'll be no more depending on your gaffer or work mates but sometimes these very people maybe part of the reason you want to go solo in the first place..

Feeling fed up in your day job is what led most if not all of us to step out into the unknown & set up our own businesses. But what that actually involves you cannot prepare yourself for. Working as an employee on the books gives you a level of security & systems are in place which take care of your tax, national insurance, holiday pay, wages & free time. When you go self employed none of these systems exist especially when it comes to how & when you get paid & it's on your shoulders to set everything up correctly. So here I've put together a starter pack in the form of my story for anyone who wants to venture into self employment. Everyone has a different take, a story of their own as to how they survive the ups & downs of being a self employed plasterer. Different things work for different people. I'll talk about what worked for me & also what didn't work & how I got mugged off in the early days & how you can avoid those mistakes. So let's get stuck in..

WHY GO OUT ALONE?

You will have your own reasons why you want to knock your job on the head & do things your own way my reason was that I was working for a guy who I felt was taking liberties. This combined with my personality type which is better suited to self employment meaning I've always been a grafter who didn't need to be told what needs to be done next I would see what needs doing then just crack on & do it Sometimes this would get me into trouble on site because my gaffer would see it as me stepping on his toes. Also I had a bad habit of questioning things, How & why we were doing things at first this would be seen as keen but later it would be seen as cocksure & arrogant. The truth is in my heart I always had wanted to work for myself this probably came through on the job & though we respected one another, things between me & my boss slowly became strained & it was time for me to leave. It's important for me to say here that before I ventured out working on my own in people's houses by this point, although I was young I was working completely independently & unsupervised in most areas of plastering with a good understanding of the different aspects of the trade. I was by no means done in terms of learning but my belief is that no plasterer is ever truly done as we are constantly learning & perfecting our craft. But again, I could use the straight edge & the float, could finish to a good standard with the trowel & had a good overall understanding of backgrounds & setting times on a variety of materials I would never advise or encourage anyone to start their own plastering business untill they have got those hours behind the trowel & can turn out good work that lasts.

GETTING INSURED & TOOLED UP

Luckily during the time I worked for my old boss I was able to build up a small tool collection consisting of a 16" ragni trowel covered in rust, a hawk, wet brush & a 3rd hand paddle mixer. What's so good about the plastering game is that the tools that we need to get us started can be sourced relatively cheaply & easily compared to other trades. This will work in your favour when you decide to make a crack at running your own plastering business. I'll discuss getting registered at the end of this post & will include a link for people wanting to take the plunge. Business insurance is also a must, you have to get your public liability in place from day one before you start throwing plasterboards about in people's homes..the last thing you need when you first start out is the customers new 60" TV doing a cartwheel or a bucket of skim knocked onto the new rug pile no matter how careful we are accidents happen so get yourself covered.

The next problem I had was getting a set of wheels sorted. With no cash in the bank & no work Infront of me I did what most young lads would do, went grovelling to any family member who would lend me some money. If like me, you don't come from money trying to get hold of the stuff when your not working can prove tricky but I managed to pull together a grand which purchased me a red sun bleached ford escort van & a first installment on insurance which being a young lad was more than the value of the van & my kit put together. The van was a shed but the feeling I had when I sat behind the wheel of that van with my handful of tools chucked In the back was the best feeling in the world. Unfortunately shortly after purchasing the van It was robbed with my tools inside. It was a crushing moment for me especially as I didn't have a pot to piss in at the time & was now back at square one. I picked up some shifts working in house removals which earned me enough cash to begin buying some more kit & eventually another ford escort van! This time with my tools removed each night & a lump of a steering lock bolted down each night too! 

MOONLIGHTER

Moonlighting is a thing I did alot of on the build up of my plastering business. In the early days I would work shifts on the removals or go jobbing for local builders for the odd day on small plastering jobs then on weekends I would would be doing my own jobs mainly for family & friends. This went on for quite some time while I slowly learned the skills needed to survive off my own work. This proved really hard for me as it seemed one week I would be flying only to crash the next with jobs being thin on the ground. I remember this hot & cold work load getting me down alot in the early years & I wanted to quit & ask for my old job back on a number of occasions especially when I would see my mates buying new cars new clothes & booking holidays all paid for on tick because when you have that regular wage banks & credit card companies are your best friend, For the self employed, it takes a number of months even years before a bank will take you seriously. It doesn't help when you have your family & friends all in secure jobs telling you to 'just ask for your job back' it's a safe secure job with a regular wage' They were right it was a safe secure job & the money though it was crap it was consistent unlike the money I was earning off my own jobs which was like the work, there one minute gone the next. But I didn't want a job, I didn't want to work for anyone as by now I had already had a taste of working for myself & the freedom it gave me. I knew that for me to do this week in week out I needed a way of finding work instead of just relying on mates & family to pass my name about I needed a more reliable & consistent way of generating regular work.

GOING IN CHEAP- A RACE TO THE BOTTOM

My cleverly thought out plan to get loads of work was to undermine the established local plastering firms by going in at a fraction of the price they were quoting. After all I had no overhead & only had my beat up old van to pay for, & as long as I could earn similar money to what my old gaffer used to give me I was being fair right? After all my earnings were only used for nights out & rent. As a young lad my thoughts were 'If my gaffer was paying me £240 per week then it's right that I charge similar as a self employed person?' This was my naivety & eventually my downfall as I learned how far & wide the self employed persons income had to stretch when compared to an employees wages. Another problem I faced early on was working for dickheads. Going in cheap meant I was attracting alot of bellends to my business, people who wanted not only cheap work but who also had no intention of paying me once I'd completed. I'll talk more about how I overcome this problem as we move through my story.

UNDERVALUING YOURSELF

I quickly learned that undervaluing yourself & your trowel skills is a self-defeating behaviour that every self employed plasterer is guilty of doing at one point in their career. Especially when first starting out. The fear of no work messes with the head & we end up telling ourselves that shit paid work is better than no work at all. Some plasterers who I know who are well into their 40s & 50s still operate under this mindset. What's so wrong about this way of operation is that not only does it fuck you over in the short term but it's also a vicious cycle of self sabotage because you become known as the 'Cheap' guy & you get stuck in a rut. I speak from experience when I say that having a reputation for being a cheap plasterer will trap you into low value jobs meaning that you have to graft hard for a small amount of pay working for people who do not value your plastering ability. I was the 'cheap guy' for a number of years in my early days & I would scoff at the older more established plasterers in my area, I would use phrases like ' they rip people off' they're greedy' & at that time I genuinely believed my own bullshit because the pay I was getting allowed me to keep working & I was busy so I couldn't understand why anyone would need more earnings than what I was getting but after a long time working like this I realized I was just a busy fool & I had little to no money left at the end of each week & although I was living frugally I was always out of money. I could barely survive & was just turning money over. I knew that if I wanted to make this sustainable I needed to make a change & get a better understanding of working for myself especially if I ever wanted to take on a labourer because there was simply not enough money to do this working the way I was. Another point I want to make on going in cheap is that the art of plastering was never designed to be rushed. We have to allow time on the job in order to deliver a flawless clean finish. The cheaper we price work the quicker we want out. So we tend to rush which results in less than average work we then end up attracting more & more cheap, shit jobs as our name is passed around the area. I had to learn the hard way when going in cheap caught up with me & I started to lose work to even cheaper guys! You wouldn't believe how many of these guys exist & alot of them. Cheap spreads will always compete with other cheap spreads & they end up in a bidding war in a race to the bottom. The cheaper they go the quicker they work.. & the cycle repeats itself until eventually they go in so cheap they don't even turn up to their own jobs half the time. I finally stepped off the cheap train when I learned to value myself & the skills I had spent so many years perfecting. Instead of looking to the cheap spreads to see what they were charging & how 'quick' they were working I began to instead look to the established businesses that had work coming out of their ears working for people who respected their skillset & who paid well. I decided to focus on learning  more about self employment how to position myself better.

LEARNING 

In order for me to grow as a self employed plasterer I needed to learn. Although I had the trowel skills I knew nothing about business. I knew of a few older guys who I got on with who ran their own businesses & one in particular took me under his wing as he said I reminded him of himself when he first started up 'wet as fuck behind the ears you are kid' as he liked to put it. What was good about Steve is that he would expose my weaknesses for me not in a kind way but the same way a big brother tells you that you stink & need a shower, you don't like it but you need to hear it. If you believe the person has your best interests at heart & wants you to succeed you will listen to them & learn. So that's what I did. 'How long you been working solo' Steve would ask me. '6 months I replied but not every day like'.. '6 months? How much savings u got after 6 months' I laughed.. 'savings?' your joking aren't you I can barley pay my rent'  'Then your doing something wrong' he said. How much you charging per day?' erm, £80 I said. 'Are you mad.' Your self employed son 'That figure needs to be doubled & eventually trippled if you want to get ahead in this game. I've seen your finish it's worthy of double that money.. you just need speed now son but more important you need confidence'. It was long chats like this with Steve that helped me to gain momentum. It was at this point I asked Steve if I could work along side him a few days per week while I try to build my own work up. 'Sound' was his reply. Steve was one of them blokes you come across from time to time, A dying breed of spread. No fucks to give honest as they come, hard as fuck & would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. But you didn't fuck with him. That was a given.

Watching him graft in his business, the early morning load ups, the big sets & though he would finish around 4pm his level of productivity during them hours was insane not that he would rush but he would just not stop only for a ten minute tea break here & there then head down again into his craft until 3:30 - 4pm often he would be on the phone booking in & chatting through jobs with customers whilst troweling up a ceiling  'Right let's call it a day kid' was his old saying. When he finished work be would pick his twin boys up from the child minder & change hats. Not only was Steve a true grafter but he was also a loving father & family man. He had carved out a decent life for himself through plastering with a big family, a nice house & a strong business. All the things I yearned for as a single young man in my twenties. I stuck with Steve for a number of months learning everything I could. Over this time he taught me the true meaning of self employment, from leaving each job spotlessly clean & tidy through to understanding a basic level of book keeping & marketing skills but most important he taught me to value myself & my plastering skills. I would watch how he spoke to his customers, how nothing was too much trouble how he always over delivered on his work, doing little gestures & extra little jobs for them just to make them smile he had a passion for the game that was for certain & that energy & passion rubbed of on me. But Steve was no Mug. 'Profit first' was his motto when it came to the business side of self employment. 'Cashflow is oxygen to your business Stu' I used to nod & agree but never truly got why he harped on so much about cashflow until I was in the thick of it myself some years later which is another story I'll be delving into at some point. The plastering trade can be tough. People like Steve who smile through the struggles can make a hard job fly by quickly. I learned that being positive, optimistic & good with people when your self employed is not only helpful but vital if you want to thrive in your Plastering business.

YOUR THE EXPERT

What I eventually learned through being mentored & by going out alone is that we are the experts. What I mean by that is if we think of situations where we have had to rely on experts to fix a problem for us whether that be removing a wisdom tooth, fixing our car or replacing a part on the boiler. Whatever it may be we call upon experts who are specialized in certain areas. We rely on these people heavily & we pay the price they ask no quibbles so that they fix the problem as we are unable to fix it ourselves. Thinking of your plastering business in this respect will transform the way you operate & the way you price your work. The work you take on will no longer be just chugging out the meters in order to get a quick earner instead you'll begin to see yourself as an expert in your trade a 'problem solver' & you'll begin to see a future in your business, you'll get a vision for where your headed & you'll begin to move away from the cheap clients who are looking to lower your price.  After all if your an expert in your craft then you'll need expert equipment, expert knowledge & expert customer service skills all this comes at a price that good clients are more than happy to pay. Your beliefs about yourself reflect who you are & what you stand for, As you move from being 'Joe the cheap plasterer' to 'Joe's quality plastering services' two similar concepts but with different tones. Of course your still Joe the plasterer but now your the expert & your business is providing a quality service to your customers. When it comes to marketing how you see & present yourself, how people perceive your business & level of expertise is crucial to your success & your pricing strategy.

RAISING YOUR GAME

When I decided to raise my game & stop scratching around for scraps of work is when I changed direction as a self employed plasterer. Instead of taking on cheap work I began to study how successful small businesses were operating & the ones that seemed to be doing well were always customer focused. It makes sense when you think about it, It's the same as when you eat at a nice restaurant or stay in a hotel & the staff are great or you have a good experience on the phone with a business the good feeling you get when you were given an above average level of service. Good tradesmen are like gold dust. When customers find one they'll rave about them to all their friends. There's an old saying that goes 'if you do a good job they'll tell 5 people but if you do a shit job they'll tell 10. This is true to human nature if you've ever been wronged by a company you will warn everyone you know about that company you'll be so pissed off about it you'll even go online & leave a bad review to ensure people are warned. So it's so important to raise our game when working as a self employed plasterer we have to cover all bases from communication through to invoicing we have to be consistent. This might mean we have to change our approach when dealing with our customers, If we turn up late, half asleep, swearing acting disrespectful in people's homes, not sheeting up properly.. then we will continue to attract low value cheap customers but if we present ourselves in a professional manner, turn up when we say we will, email the quote when we say we will, do the work exactly how we said we would.. protecting people's belongings..we then begin to develop a reputation for being good then eventually great because from the customers perspective it's not just about having that wall plastered it's about their overall experience of your business from the initial enquiry through to sweeping up when your done we have to remain professional throughout the whole job that's how repeat business is generated over & over again & repeat business means free marketing for you & your plastering business.

GETTING PAID - YOUR TERMS OR NO TERMS AT ALL

I mentioned earlier about getting stung by non paying clients when I first started out. I think out of all the stresses that go along with running your own plastering business this has to be the biggest head fuck. You've parted with your own money to purchase materials, fuel & sometimes hired lads in to help you complete a plastering project so your all out. All you need to do now is finish the job : ask for the money & get paid. Simple. Right?..WRONG. It only takes one fucktard to ruin your life when it comes to self employment & I'm using dramatic phrases like 'ruin your life' because that's exactly what they do when they don't pay you. As the days & weeks go on with phone calls texts & emails being ignored, You start second guessing yourself, your confidence hits the floor & in some cases depending on how much is actually owed it can literally bring your business crumbling to the ground. Over the years I have came close to going broke due to idiots thinking they can get a free ride at my expense. At one stage I was owed over 12k & being a very small business that sort of money will end you if it doesn't come in. I eventually got the money but whilst waiting 4 months I was forced to use loans & credit cards to flow cash needed on other projects to pay my suppliers & workers. The stress caused by non payers can lead to mental health problems if you feel there's no way out of the situation & you can't source money from anywhere else.. bitterness, anger & even depression can consume your mind. It's toxic so it has to be prevented & as self employed plasterers we have to protect ourselves & our businesses from these situations. Now I use a system for getting paid in my plastering business which involves telling your customer how much the job will cost, then telling them how & when you will be paid. It's that simple. I'm talking about Payment terms. Setting up your own payment terms so that your customer understands clearly how much to pay you & when. In my business I take a deposit on anything over a grand. This is good not only for cashflow purposes but also for weeding out those nasty little cretins that have absolutely no intention of ever paying you to start with & we all know they exist. You only have to read the posts put up on the talk group.its no joke. Not all customers are good people. Some are bad, & by implementing this system into your business you will shine a light on those people who for whatever reason have no intention to pay. Another thing it does for you is secures your slot in your diary. True story here, I had a whole house to board out & skim using a thermal laminate it was an order in through my supplier around £800 worth of gear loaded the day before my start. Text received 9pm the night before 'Decided to go EWI Stu' sorry don't need you here now' Emma'.. That text changed the way I was operating so I'm glad it happened because I've never been in this situation since. At the time I was livid as I couldn't return the boards as they were ordered in & I had no other work for me & my lads to get on for those 8 days I'd booked in. The lesson here is stop shouldering all of the risk in your plastering business & stop acting like your a credit facility for any Tom Dick or Harry that thinks they can get you to do work on tick. Paying you whenever they choose.. days, weeks months later? No. Take control of your cashflow & get your terms set up. If anyone wants a template of my payment term wording drop a comment below & I will email it to you for free. Your welcome.

GETTING ONLINE & GETTING CUSTOMERS

In today's world when you start up a small business in any sector you need a website & you need to build an online presence this is crucial if you want to generate regular leads for your plastering business because everyone today searches for products & services online using their smartphones. Recommendations are by far the most potent form of advertising we can all agree on that however gone are the days when recommendations alone can provide enough regular leads for your growing small business especially if you are a new small business. Supply & demand means that the market is full of tradespeople. if in a small village out in the middle of knowhere lives say 1 or 2 plasterers, recommendations alone would likely supply them both with enough work but those days are gone now. If like me you live in a city, you only need to search 'plasterers' on Google maps to understand just how many of us there are all competing for work so it's not enough to wait for people to recommend you, you have to start recommending yourself. When this is done properly it will create a consistent amount of leads to your business website & will give you that regular work load you need to keep busy as a self employed plasterer. At the end of the day our businesses are invisible until we make them visible to people searching for our services so our website becomes like our shop or showroom a place to showcase our services for our customers. Being good on the trowel is not enough today you have to be good on the laptop too if you want to generate lots of high quality leads into your business. If you don't know where to begin in this respect, this side of things can be outsourced but be warned it will come at a cost that can eat into your profit margin. Alot of self employed plasterers pay big money to web developers or join trade association sites like checkatrade & my builder these sites generate leads for you & charge a membership fee. I understand why alot of plasterers rely on these sites but Personally I don't like these sites or how they operate I won't get into why on this blog but let's say there's only one real winner & it's not us plasterers. Spending some time to learn the basic skills needed to build a website, get traffic & convert leads &  build up great customer reviews I feel it's what's needed in the plastering game especially if you plan to start your own business in the domestic market not only does this give you the skills needed to begin to understand this side of your business but it will save you a huge amount of money. Marketing your plastering business online can either be a massive cash vaccum or an investment in time & effort which will end up putting money in your pocket. Targeted marketing means that you get to choose who you work for & where you work. There are so many free online platforms we can use today to get our plastering businesses off the ground & sustain that business without having to spend a penny. Google my business, Free index, you tube, trust pilot, facebook, Instagram to name a few free platforms you can leverage to get your plastering business online & start building up customer reviews & adding photos. You'll be surprised how fast you can generate results just spending a few hours on the weekends building an online presence you don't need to be spending thousands of pounds on advertising. Keep that cash in your pocket so that you can reinvest it back into your business especially in the early years when your just starting out. When considering starting up your own Plastering business if you take anything away from this blog today take the online marketing advice it will set you up strong from the get go & will by far be the make or break of the business because at the end of the day without customers there is no business no matter how good you are on the tools.

GET AN ACCOUNTANT & GET REGISTERED

This brings this topic of GOING OUT ALONE to a close now. On the final point in this article it's important to mention about bookkeeping & tax. Setting up as self employed is simple. I have included a link here for anyone who wants to register themselves as self employed through the gov.uk website. To set up as a sole trader you simply choose a business name register your business & boom your up & running. The not so simple side of running your own show is the boring off the tools tasks such as invoicing, quoting ,keeping track of all the in & out transactions your business will be having during the year so it's vital that you get yourself a good accountant to take care of all the tax & payroll. A good accountant is worth their weight in gold & will be on hand to help you out on tax related questions, pensions, hiring staff & more. Trying to tackle all this & also market your business, win jobs & actually plaster walls in between is a recipe for disaster & so get the help in place early on. Keeping strict accounts in your business, staying ontop of receipts is also necessary & takes a bit of getting used to. There are apps available today which help tradespeople manage this side of business apps such as receipt bank, invoice simple & QuickBooks turn your smartphone into a mini office so you can fire off invoices off the cuff whilst sat in the van & take photos of your receipts so that they are all organised in one place ready to send to your accountant.

Start my own business now

I hope you've enjoyed reading this & can relate to my story. If your a plasterer who wants to share a story we have a group on Facebook called trowel talk where like minded plasterers from all over come together to share work pics, ideas & knowledge. Please join us & let's continue to develop ourselves & our plastering businesses together. 

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