Sole Traders - Growing from a one man band

[redmon]

My thought is if your very busy and don’t have enough extra money to pay an employee you may not be charging enough. You may need to raise your rates abit. Until you can afford to pay someone out of what you are currently making, you may not want to hire someone. With that said, I suspect you will be able to take on some extra jobs/revenue that you currently are turning away that you would be able to keep with an extra hand helping you. If you want to take some risk and can afford to make £20000/year less in the next year, assuming the new employee will allow you to get an extra £10000 in missed revenue, go for it.

 

[goldmercury]

Simmy

I've been in your position. Working for myself then giving it up to go back to work for a service provider.

Do I regret it? YES

I am looking for another out and am planning my escape.

I think what you have to consider are the freedoms that you have at the moment compared to what you may have working for someone else.

Of course this is dependant on your situation/age and possible future role with a service provider.

The good things that came with going back to a service providers:

• long hours a thing of the past
• less responsibilities
• an easier life

The bad:

• very little say in company direction
• decisions are passed from top down, you will have the last say - if any say
• apart from your wage every month you will have no business assets for the future

I thought when I jumped to a service provider that I would learn more as they dealt with more businesses however I was wrong, the older guys took the good jobs on and I was left with the shity clients.

Anyway as I mentioned I'm planning an escape and I have learnt a thing or two.

Number 1 is that any future business I run will be scalable without me.

 

[aweston]

goldmercury:

You offer some interesting insights. A couple of things came to mind as I read your thoughts.

1) "decisions are passed from top down, you will have the last say - if any say". You're working for the wrong company. That could easily be as a result of how you positioned and sold yourself. In my company the staff have a lot of say. I value what they bring to me and I will most often implement it because they are the company AND the boots on the ground. They have front line knowledge of what's going on, what's going sour and what can be done to fix it.

2) "apart from your wage every month you will have no business assets for the future". If you're a one man band this doesn't change. You still have no business assets. All you've done is bought yourself a job. There is nothing saleable about a one man show working out of their home. You are the business and the business is you. While it's a consideration that you don't have any business assets working for someone else, unless you plan on building your business into a turnkey operation with assets such as employees and contracts, etc, it's not an asset anyways.

Cheers.