So you decide it is time to start an electrical company... I am gonna share my experience.

You have what is required to start and run the bussiness.

A ladder a tool box and a couple thousand rand in the bank from your last pay cheque and dont forget a vehicle ... I had to sell my motorcycle to buy a golf and some roof racks (all I could afford at the time)

Tell all your family and friends and you are in bussines ... well that is what I thought.

Absolutely no bussiness experience ... no bussines plan ... no captial.

Just good ol hard work ... good ethics should make you rich being self employed within the first 5 years.

What happens is people take advantage ... because you are mates they expect a dirt cheap job ... being the person you are ... they get a rolls royce for the price of a mini ... they are over the moon happy and you just make enough money to buy food for the week ...because your lack of understanding of profits and margins etc you think its gonna get better.

They tell their friends about you and so the calls from friends of friends start rolling in ... you go and quote for a job ... due to your lack of epxerience ... you make a right mess of it and under quote ... as I did R2000 to rewire a house on my own ... I quickly learnt that it is not that easy when you working alone and realise you have way under quoted ... daily travelling costs ... material costs etc ... you approach the customer because you have made a proper mess of the quote and inform them of the problem ... they are not interested in your problems .. you quoted R2k they want the job done for R2k ... thats what they budgeted.

Eventually you have to get someone in to help pull the wiring into the conduits ... have you ever tried feeding and pulling the wire from the DB to the bedroom plug ... trust me its not easy.

The job ends up costing you R6k ... so now you are not only broke but in debt to the wholesaler who has agreed to give you a small advance ... the person assisting wants his money and so your challenges begin.

You manage to find a lot of work because word spreads quick when people score a good deal ... so the R4k loss doesnt seem so bad anymore.

You get smarter and so things start to grow ... you decide to become a legit contractor so you register as an electrical contractor ... join all the ECA ... which means you have to join the bargaining coucil and so your overheads grow faster than your income.

You move to a house so that you can run the bussines from home rather than out the garage of your duplex rental ... and so the expenses grow.

The dreaded quiet month arrives and so you get into more debt.

You have been working day and night ... weekends and giving it everything ... thinking it will come right ... hard work has paid the bills in the past ... those long hours you worked for the companies in the past made the owner rich ... did it ... or was it the wise choices he made with the money he made from your hard work.

to be contuned ...