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craigkeane

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2011
Messages
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Location
Cardiff
Hey Guys
I’ve noticed a few people don’t know where to start and what routes to follow when starting up mobile so I hope this post helps :biggrin:
The most important thing to-do before you offer any services is to get insurance! A great insurance company i use is called Salon Gold Insurance. www.salongold.co.uk Hair only insurance for a year is £43.34. If you want hair and beauty its only £44.52, which includes holistic treatments as well. Beauty on its on is £44.52.
What you get:
· Public Liability Cover (included automatically)
Public Liability insurance covers financial damages and legal expenses as a result of the death, injury or damage to property suffered by members of the general public, caused by your business.

· Professional Treatment Liability and Product Liability Cover (included automatically)
This protects you against claims for injury or damage caused by the treatments you carry out and the products you apply. Even if you have not been negligent, you may still be held liable for damages and injuries suffered as a result of products you use.

HOW MUCH COVER WILL I GET? (Return to Top)

Public and Products Liability:
£2 million (can be increased to £5 million for a small
additional premium)

Professional Treatment Risk Liability:
£2 million

Retailing Products
Did you know if you sell a product to a client and they have a reaction you are legally responsible for this? Not the manufacture. . Crazy ay! Make sure you have product liability before retailing any products. Also good advice would be to contact the manufacture to find out what their policy is regarding this. Some manufactures may take responsibility and help you out if any clients do have a reaction. You should never admit liability to a client having a reaction. But reason with them, if they ask for a refund, give it to them. . Or legally they could file a court case against you
Paying National Insurance and Tax
Being self employed you are responsible for paying your own tax and national insurance. You must register as self employed within 3 months of your date you started trading. If you don’t you can end up with a fine! You can register online at https://online.hmrc.gov.uk/registration/
The current national insurance for self employed persons is £2.40 a week, you only start paying national 4 insurance when you start earning profits between £5,715 and £43,875, If you are finding you are earning profit, why not give yourself a pay rise to avoid making so much profit?
If you're self-employed
If you're self-employed you pay Class 2 and Class 4 National Insurance contributions. The rates are:
· Class 2 National Insurance contributions are paid at a flat rate of £2.40 a week
· Class 4 National Insurance contributions are paid as a percentage of your annual taxable profits - 8 per cent on profits between £5,715 and £43,875, and a further 1 per cent on profits over that amount
If your profits are expected to be less than £5,075 you may not have to pay Class 2 National Insurance contributions.
You pay Class 2 National Insurance contributions either monthly by Direct Debit or by quarterly bill. You pay Class 4 National Insurance contributions when you pay your Income Tax.

Voluntary National Insurance contributions
You can pay voluntary contributions (usually Class 3 National Insurance contributions) at a flat rate of £12.05 a week.
Class 3 voluntary contributions are paid either monthly by Direct Debit or by quarterly bill. But if you have gaps in your National Insurance contributions record you can make one-off payments of voluntary contributions to fill these.

Do need an accountant or bookkeeper?
I do my own accounts it’s pretty simple once you know how to! A basic outline of what you will need to do is:
Keep a record of your incomings (What monies you make)
Keep a record of your outgoings (Where is your money getting spent? Products, Insurance, Phone, Fuel)
Keep a record of your travelling miles (If you are self employed you have 2 options; if you have a business car you can claim use the vat you have paid on fuel to go towards your yearly TAX bill. You can claim back 40p a mile. . Keep track of all the millage you do, keep a book in your car record the date, reason for travel and the miles travelled. You can
Example: You travel 400miles a year for work you can use £160 towards your end of your tax bill
400miles x 40p mile
If you ride your bike for business you can also claim back millage!
Remember to keep track of all your receipts! This is your evidence for the tax man if he ever asks. You need to keep your receipts for 6 years because you can be investigated at any time for your accounts within the past 6 years of trading.
Remember the more VAT you pay for your business the more you can use towards your TAX bill. Try and keep everything separate, personal and business. If you buy stationary, pens, paper for the business keep the receipts and document them on your outgoings!
You’re local HMRC office provides great courses for self employed people, they will give you all the help and guidance for setting up your own accounts. And it’s free! So take advantage.
Social Networks
Social networks are a great chance to boost your profile and get your name out there. It does take time for people to start “following” you and for people to “Like” your page..
Why not run adds advertising when you get to 200 followers they will all be entered into a competition to win a complimentary treatment or a discount on a package?
Why not print a slip to hand out to your clients with your twitter name and facebook link on?
Social advertising financially doesn’t cost you anything for the basics!
Where shall i advertise?
The best places to advertise are free places! The thing i would suggest is to do a google search for what you’re offering in your home town: Example: Mobile hairdresser in Bristol
Investigate all the pages that come up and advertise on them all! A lot of the sites give you free basic advertising which is great to get your name and number on there. Your aim is to get on all the pages you can!
Iv realised its pointless advertising in local papers etc, there just a one day add. I have never had much response from it, and hasn’t been worth the financial costs
Gumtree is a great site to advertise for free!
If you are a mobile business go to the local mother and baby groups, and drop of leaflets and posters. Wait out side after a session of playgroup and hand out leaflets. Go outside the school gates in your area and hand out your leaflets. Its only costing for your time. Its surprising what mothers talk about in the playground. If they have used your services they will take about it!
Professionals love using mobile services such as doctors and teacher’s, they find it hard to get to a salon. . Why not leaflet drop in high class apartments where they are at costly price. These are most likely going to be your target audience


Check this site out for information relating to your trade:
http://www.cobwebinfo.com/
Great marketing Info
http://www.grantnet.com/HelpfulReports/Cobweb/marketing_plan.pdf

Contacts
5,000 A5 leaflets double sided - £65! http://www.printmarketuk.com/printmarket/A5_flyers_leaflets_5000.html
Business Cards (Better than the cheap quality ones on VistaPrint!) They come from hong kong £15 for 300 double sided! Found him on ebay, i have used them for appointment cards and business cards: user: apzshop
Portable beauty bed? Great quality, 2 years warranty. Great customer service.. Again from ebay! User name: Member ID best-bargainshop
Personalised Badge: £2.50 again ebay! Seller: 1234todayrob
Venture Wales - Provides free information on starting and growing businesses www.venturewales.com
Great courses include: How to Research Your Market, Tax for the Self Employed (Not suitable for Ltd Companies), How to Manage Your Business, How to Price Your Product, How to Start Your Business, How to Stay in Control of Your Business
Princes Trust - www.princes-trust.org.uk
http://www.princes-trust.org.uk/need_help/enterprise_programme.aspx
Try and apply for the enterprise program! You can apply for a grant up to £250 to use towards advertising, buy leaflets, business cards etc
Business Enterprise – a great company offering support for new business start ups
Web Design
I had my site designed by a guy called Chris, He has produced some amazing work at such an affordable price. Let’s put it this way the site i wanted was the site i got from him, the closest match in price for the same product was £900 more with the nearest quote to what i got from Chris. He is based in Summerset i have never met Chris, but feel like i personally know him. The whole design was based by telephone calls and exchange of emails, you send him an email and will always have a reply within the hour!
www.ckcreativedesign.co.uk
http://www.enterprisequest.com/ GREAT INFORMATION PACKS ON NEW BUSINESS START UP
 
Theres some excellent hints and tip in this thread and a lotta work for craig to write it and put it together ..:biggrin:

I found the freelance hair and beauty federation insurance pretty good with 'coversure'. They do add ons for stock and equipment cover , personal accident and sickness cover and money in transit cover .. but you have to have it I still know of people out there that don't have insurance :Scared:

The only thing i'd add to the list of starting a new mobile business is ' personal safety' get wise and read up on safety tips while out working alone. The Suzy Lamplugh trust gives a lot of useful info on their web site and the freelance hair and beauty federation have a good leaflet with advise on health and safety awareness :biggrin: just worth being aware of not obsessed about
 
hey thanks for all that information, can i ask you how much interest you get from your website, i am considering getting one and am unsure of how many people use the internet for a mobile beauty therapist, thanks
 
What a fantastic person you are. Such a brilliant post, really informative. I was thinking about advertising on Gumtree, as I have just been made redundant and want to get back into the beauty profession. Have lots of ideas and I am really excited about making a go at being a beauty therapist again.
Once again thanks for the time and effort you put into your post XX:biggrin:
 
Oh my god, if this was facebook i would LIKE this!!!!

This is great info and answers a LOT of questions i have spent many hours searching for on this site and some I didn't know the answers too! It's great that its all together in 1 thread!

This has helped me and I'm sure that it will help so many other newbies, and established techs going mobile for the first time!

Well done :) xxxxxxx
 
Great post! I get a fair few new clients through my website (them searching google) so I'd say it's definitely worth having.

I'm ok with all of that apart from the mileage thing. I've been keeping a log on my spreadsheet, beside each job I put miles there and back...but don't keep a log in my car or receipts. I thought as my personal miles are much higher than business I wouldn't need them. Oh dear....
 
hey thanks for all that information, can i ask you how much interest you get from your website, i am considering getting one and am unsure of how many people use the internet for a mobile beauty therapist, thanks

hey no worries, it took a while but thought it would be worth it!! lol
From my website i get good response from. Its a great way to separate your self from others who dont have one! A professional looking website can say a lot about a person. If you search your area and there are just a list of numbers with no weblinks and you have a web link you are standing out from everyone else and people can see what you do! a Testimonials section is a great thing to add on to it as welll! Drop Chris an email tell him Craig from HCulture told you about him, he will help you out

x
 
Theres some excellent hints and tip in this thread and a lotta work for craig to write it and put it together ..:biggrin:

I found the freelance hair and beauty federation insurance pretty good with 'coversure'. They do add ons for stock and equipment cover , personal accident and sickness cover and money in transit cover .. but you have to have it I still know of people out there that don't have insurance :Scared:

The only thing i'd add to the list of starting a new mobile business is ' personal safety' get wise and read up on safety tips while out working alone. The Suzy Lamplugh trust gives a lot of useful info on their web site and the freelance hair and beauty federation have a good leaflet with advise on health and safety awareness :biggrin: just worth being aware of not obsessed about

You reminded me i forgot to include my working alone policy for staff!!

I got a big long training manual for staff but this is what you should do :

- Take an email address from the client to send them a booking confirmation of the booking (I use this email address todo a seach for them on facebook 9/10 the profile will come up!)

- Take a contact number, ring and confirm the appointment 48 hours before

- Take a rape alarm to the appointment, Noise can scare a person off if for any reason they try something on with you

- Tell someone where you are going to be at a certain time and what time you are expecting to come out of that appointment, if you havent contacted that person after 15 mins of your stated finishing time the person should follow this up and try contacting you if no luck go to the house.
 
i forgot to include my working alone policy for staff!!

I got a big long training manual for staff but this is what you should do :

- Take an email address from the client to send them a booking confirmation of the booking (I use this email address todo a seach for them on facebook 9/10 the profile will come up!)

- Take a contact number, ring and confirm the appointment 48 hours before

- Take a rape alarm to the appointment, Noise can scare a person off if for any reason they try something on with you

- Tell someone where you are going to be at a certain time and what time you are expecting to come out of that appointment, if you havent contacted that person after 15 mins of your stated finishing time the person should follow this up and try contacting you if no luck go to the house.
 
Great advice there, I always make sure my hubby has address etc when it's a new client and I also posted here a while ago about someone trying to make an appt in a hotel room. Never heard from them once I asked for a contact number, just shows you never know!

On the tax front, although I have recorded how many miles there and back, does it mean it won't count as I haven't kept petrol receipts or a log book?
 
Great advice there, I always make sure my hubby has address etc when it's a new client and I also posted here a while ago about someone trying to make an appt in a hotel room. Never heard from them once I asked for a contact number, just shows you never know!

On the tax front, although I have recorded how many miles there and back, does it mean it won't count as I haven't kept petrol receipts or a log book?


You can always estimate what you have travelled.if you haven't kept a log. But be realistic!!

Unless you got the receipts you can't claim it back

Craig Keane
www.hculture.co.uk
 
Oh my god, if this was facebook i would LIKE this!!!!

If you click on the green box at the top right of the post you can add to the posters "rep"

This just gives them reputation points for good advice. It's always nice to acknowledge someone who has taken the time to post such great info.
 

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