H
hotrod
Hi recently joined the forum, am in the process of being made redundant and am planning to retrain as a tiler, today I had a meeting with a careers expert (seems like a cushy number) and went through my plans the feedback from him was fantastic and really boosted my confidence but I would be interested to hear real tilers opinions on how realistic my plans are.
basically I will be doing a 10 wk nvq 3 course at able skills, followed by a few extra courses I have seen like tile cleaning and restoration etc, plus I plan on doing some extra plastering training to ensure I can confidently skim the odd wall that needs doing before tiling etc not to actually offer my services as a plasterer. I have sufficient capital from my redundancy to fund the courses, buy tools, van etc set up a small sole trader business and pay my bils for a year. I ran through a business plan as have experience of doing these previously not that I need to take it to a bank but more for my own reassurance, basically I have budgeted to earn 10k year 1 but draw none down, 15k year 2 and circa 25k yr 3 onwards (the economy will be better by then I believe). The longer term plan is that when my son completes his plumbing and heating apprenticeship he is currently on we can combine forces in a slightly bigger business.
i have a few good contacts and am pretty social so have no probs networking etc with other trades once I feel I am competent enough to complete work for them, I obviously am going to struggle against some more experienced tilers in terms of ability but then to be honest looking at most businesses in the local area I think I will be able to compete with them in terms of business experience and how to market myself. Locally the majority of tiling work seems to be done by general builders and not always top quality, for example the gym I use has just had the health suite refitted and the are multiple tiles lipped and poor cuts even with my untrained eye, apparently the guys that did the building work decided to do the tiling themselves and obviously were not great - so I hope withies right training and attitude I can offer a reasonable alternative.
Anyway sorry to ramble, I have read the multitudes of posts critical of people entering the industry this way and do understand as have been in a very similar position with a former trade but really after reassurance that the figures I'm working on are realistic, if not then I can restructure my cash flow forecast but if it's much lower may decide against it I guess.
thanks in advance for any opinions whether positive or not, guess I need peoples honesty so don't pull any punches !
rod
basically I will be doing a 10 wk nvq 3 course at able skills, followed by a few extra courses I have seen like tile cleaning and restoration etc, plus I plan on doing some extra plastering training to ensure I can confidently skim the odd wall that needs doing before tiling etc not to actually offer my services as a plasterer. I have sufficient capital from my redundancy to fund the courses, buy tools, van etc set up a small sole trader business and pay my bils for a year. I ran through a business plan as have experience of doing these previously not that I need to take it to a bank but more for my own reassurance, basically I have budgeted to earn 10k year 1 but draw none down, 15k year 2 and circa 25k yr 3 onwards (the economy will be better by then I believe). The longer term plan is that when my son completes his plumbing and heating apprenticeship he is currently on we can combine forces in a slightly bigger business.
i have a few good contacts and am pretty social so have no probs networking etc with other trades once I feel I am competent enough to complete work for them, I obviously am going to struggle against some more experienced tilers in terms of ability but then to be honest looking at most businesses in the local area I think I will be able to compete with them in terms of business experience and how to market myself. Locally the majority of tiling work seems to be done by general builders and not always top quality, for example the gym I use has just had the health suite refitted and the are multiple tiles lipped and poor cuts even with my untrained eye, apparently the guys that did the building work decided to do the tiling themselves and obviously were not great - so I hope withies right training and attitude I can offer a reasonable alternative.
Anyway sorry to ramble, I have read the multitudes of posts critical of people entering the industry this way and do understand as have been in a very similar position with a former trade but really after reassurance that the figures I'm working on are realistic, if not then I can restructure my cash flow forecast but if it's much lower may decide against it I guess.
thanks in advance for any opinions whether positive or not, guess I need peoples honesty so don't pull any punches !
rod
