"hi mark, small world, what you upto these days?"
I'll pm ya
Any advice on what can/cant be claimed back as a business expense would be welcomed. I went Ltd in January (And VAT registered) and am still learning the ropes.
Last edited by Graham; 05-03-2013 at 16:25.
Its a good club to belong to. My circumstances are slightly different, I dont have premises or stock to worry about. But if I'm off ill for any length of time then there's no income coming in to pay the bills, so I'm just as focused Graham
i went for something a touch off the wall, i didnt really want to use my name, in particular my surname because most peps cant spell it, i wanted something which in someway made reference to my other half who's support is vital. Most i liked i couldnt have, or were a bit long winded, i wanted something short and instantly memorable, so
Penguin motors ltd
no my other half isnt a penguin! but she loves the things, they are dotted all around the house, theres even a picture of some above our bed!
I like it. You are certainly not going to forget it.
You'll be changing your name to Pingu next!
Hi Graham, I have been working for myself for the last 28 years since I was 24, this as a Haulage Contractor running Artics. Times were very hard in those early days but people found it a lot easier to make Money then than they do now, due to the very High running costs. A lot of the Self Employed I know have had to go back regular Employment due to no longer making any profit.
My advice would be to do as much of your Work as you can for cash, give no Credit and be very careful of any Account Customers, it's all about Cash Flow. there are always ones that'll take advantage of a new start by giving work and not paying. they caught me out.
If you can survive on a small Wage and go without any Holidays for the next 3 years, get lots of unpaid help from the Lady in Doors then you are well on your way.
A lot of Motorsport Repair Companies that I have seen make good Money are the ones that also do General Road Car servicing, there's always Bread and Butter Work out there when the Tuning jobs quite, after all most of us Competitors are Clubmen on very restricted Budgets.
If someone asked me would I do it all over again the answer would be yes. but not in the same Industry and certainly not in 2013. The Very Best of Luck.
PS How about starting a 230 BHP Pinto Thread, 2 Litre Historic Spec that some Companies claim.
Great name Graham, it's certainly memorable one....
graham u boys in your yellow and orange vans all talk to each other all it takes is word and mouth and a few recomends within the local callouts.you soon get a local throufare of customers and they do keep coming back. i run a recovery company with my cousin in the 90s and alot of our work that come throu the workshop was throu the breakdown companys i know you cant rely on them but they do help in a bigway. the company we sold to r now a big company in our area go for it mate and good luck
Don'know you matey but your writeups on here are always excellant.I wish you luck in your adventure.
im rather hoping that proves to be the case, i certainly know plenty of members want patrols to recommend somewhere, officially we cant, but if a patrol thinks someone will get a good and quick job done with no comeback on themselves they will tend to "steer" the membersgraham u boys in your yellow and orange vans all talk to each other all it takes is word and mouth and a few recomends within the local callouts.you soon get a local throufare of customers and they do keep coming back.
Good luck with this Graham, wish you all the best mate
It's a shame you weren't setting up shop up here, Coulda sorted you out for parts supply
all the best graham im sure a man of your talents shouldnt have a problem.
from mine and my wifes seperate experiances i would seriously look at getting premises as cheap as possible as the overheads were what would have killed my wifes previose buissnes if the landlord hadnt sold up to a developer!
what i do now is run from home and a home workshop so the money i earn is as good as mine.
secondly if the opertunity comes up to go into a established place take the books to a accountant to be checked as a friend got screwed bad by bent books!
last thing ive got a tattoo across my shoulders and its how i live my life "i would rather regreat the things ive done than regreat the things i have not"
all the best stu
stitchmotorsport
fail to prepar prepare to fail
its tough finding somewhere you can do that, whilst i can work from home on a hobby basis, unfortunately theres no way i can run a business from here otherwise that would of been the route i took.what i do now is run from home and a home workshop so the money i earn is as good as mine.
since i last posted theres been no real progress, other than the authorities have officially confirmed the company name, and that my race car is now just a big pile of bits waiting to be posted all round the country so the bank balance is looking happier
i
Last edited by Graham; 20-03-2013 at 08:35.
At least your taking your time to get properly organised and getting the cash behind you, good business name, i think that will stick in people's minds which is what you need
I still get work from the lads i used to work with and some of the other younger guys on there now, i've found if you give them the odd bit of advice when they ring and look after them with a nice cup of tea, or another kind of drink, when you see them, they always seen to remember you 1st
I left back in 2000 so quite surprised how they still feed me the odd job when they do, make sure they have some business cards as it does pay off, although i only use the cheaper Vista print ones now because of the amount you go through !!!!
A new easy and cheap thing to do now is have one of these mobile web sites conduit are one of the main companies offering this, it does a single mobile web site with all your contact details on as they say that a big number of people use their mobiles to search for a local business.
Keep us updated.
Autoelectrical & Diagnostics in Oxfordshire www.savvi.co.uk
i've had a bit of a clearout over the last week, even allowing for purchasing a superbike to go to the isle of man on and my daughters impending 21'st birthday/graduation/leaving home expenses, my savings pot is now sitting at a quarter of my initial target, i say initial, because i've moved the target up by 10k,
i suspect what will actually hold back any launch is not my ability to get the money together but my otherhalfs desire to move house!
Wishing you the very best of luck Graham, Loving the name, i cant help hearing my littlun in my mind when she was a tot, shed call the pinpings,
Btw do you know of this garage seeing as its near your patch, http://www.rightbiz.co.uk/buy_busine...idgeshire.html
Seems good value concidering theres a three bed house and the land there aswell.
As you can prob see ive been thinking odf a career change from the Orange team, Its not the job it was.
i know that garage, its called rippingdales, its about 5 miles away, quite a nice place, BUT not 400,000K nice! it may be worth it but its too much money for us to raise/risk/mortgage.
i think you orange guys are going through the same stuff we did 10 years, new owner, asset striping forcing profits up, and other things down!
Yeah we are going that way, i cant say much either as weve effectively been gagged on all things orange but im sure you know whats up, as for the garage, i wasnt suggesting you should buy it mate, just that in comparrison to some round here for sale its effectively half the price, its freehold and has a three bed house on site with a bit of land, TBH you would be looking at half that for the house here with a small garden, let alone with that land and workshops, mot stn as a going concern. http://www.rightbiz.co.uk/buy_busine...218_essex.html heres a garage about 7/8 miles away from me for sale! and its on an ind est with about 7 other competitiors within a mile!
Anyway, best of luck
BTW is this the one? http://ripposgarage.com/test/
Last edited by Scott_B; 26-03-2013 at 20:04.
When you do find somewhere, FFS get a proper solicitor experienced in commercial lets to check over any any lease agreements you may sign. I never got round to formally signing a lease with my landlord (a school) but was working on a 2 year rolling lease with 12 month written notice of termination on either side. I was told last week that they want me out this May as they urgently need the workshops back to house pupils from their annexe school which is being demolished and rebuilt! The fact that I haven't signed a lease opting out of some 1954 landlord/tenant act is in my favour but it's not going to be easy. Or cheap! Best I can do is dig in and see if they are desperate enough to pay me to move out. We'll see.
will do buddy thanks.
the only progress ive made since last update is financial, obviously my race car going has had a positive effect, where im at now is, i have money put away for upcoming expenses, i have the money for my new bike, and mortgage aside, i am actually debt free for the first time in at least 15 years.
i broke the car rather then try to sell it as a whole, i only have a small pile of bits left, still, 1000- £1500 worth though which will go into the garage fund when they do, but it means the fund now at half my original target, or 33% of the new higher target
not much news, i bought a new (well new to me) its acatully a very old black and decker valve facing machine the other day to replace mine thats crapped out and have squirreled away some more cash in the bank, it would of been more but a daughters 21st birthday has got in the way.
im also considering going into the business of breaking bikes! that came about after visiting my local bike breakers a couple of times, these days they dont get many personal callers pretty much everything is done over the web and it got me thinking, using the web i could get away with not having been established in that business for any length of time, and if i can convert my personal ebay account to business theres a good long trading history to start me off as a good seller.
looking looking at both my bikes, ive worked out even paying retail money, if you buy a tidy machine which is around 10 years old you can break it for a profit. so how many of you on here want bike carbs and bodies ?
hell one of my work colleges had mate that bought BRAND NEW machines and broke them for spares, and because it was new and obviously the parts all absolutely mint he got top dollar for everything and turned a profit. dont think i'd risk buying new bikes but it does make sense, because the chances are when you buy salvage the most popular bits for people to buy first will of already been trashed when it went down the road turning it into salvage.
Last edited by Graham; 29-04-2013 at 09:58.
Penguin Motors - No grey, just black and white.
no real updates.
premises have been costed, as have the larger pieces of equipment that i need but dont already own. bank accounts are open VAT to follow soon, my plan is too big to try and avoid being vat registered, so i need to get on and do that before i start spending cash, otherwise im just throwing money away, being vat registered means i 'll claim back 20% of what i spend on equipment and as that likely to be in the region of 10K, its madness not to claw back the vat and re invest it.
i know vat registration will scare away some customers, but to be honest i dont want to be working at the very bottom end of the market just to save customers the vat on the labour, garages not vat registered still pass on the vat on parts you just dont see it on the invoice.
no offense to anyone, but generally customers that will shop around to save the vat rather than go with someone good, that's trustworthy in a decently equipped workshop are not the sort i want, been there done that, you end up saving them a few quid here and there and invariably something minor goes wrong due to you trying to help them out and it all blows up in your face.
in terms of when i open to the public, ive pushed the date back to April, there are still a couple of things in the back ground holding it up, so ive decided to stay in my job for the the busy winter period as that's very lucrative and as im funding this entirely out of savings a few quid more in the bank first seems a good idea
Sounds like good business sense to me,Hold onto that job for as long as you can at the start
Even try to reduce hours as you pick up more trade
.
I own my own garage and have done for 4 years.
Previously I had very well paid jobs working for car manufacturers in their technical departments but a crazy x wife and horrendous divorce money all taken I decided I had enough and left to do my own thing and spend more time with my kids .
I also owned a recording studio whilst I was employed but due to the economic climate it was starting to cost money so I sold it and opened my Garage with the view everyone needs there car fixing.
If Im honest I hate doing service work and diagnostic work it bores me but I do it to turn the money over.
There is just me and my father in-law who works for me if Im to busy or have jobs I don't want to do I have a couple of friends who are mobile who will come in and do the jobs (I don't turn anything away)
I don't rely on customers coming through the door currently I also build and restore cars, offer shot blasting and powder coating services, buy cars that need work do the jobs and sell them and build project cars to sell on.
In this economy you cant rely on people coming through the door so you have to be pro-active and look for extra revenue streams to keep the money coming in you have the premises utilize it in other ways.
I dont give credit big restoration jobs are invoiced monthly with a deposit up front Ive only be taken down that road once and refuse to bank role peoples projects if people genuinely want the work done by you the will agree to your terms.
Im no VAT registered and intend to stay that way in my experience it dosn't effect the caliber or type of customers you get I work on anything from Aston Martins and Porsche's to Fiat Scicento's..... if you do a good job and build a reputation people will come and keep coming and your already 20% cheaper.
Everything in the garage is bought and paid for I have no credit if we cant afford to pay for it we save up this keeps my overheads to a minimum.
If you want to have a look its here on Facebook (I wont even pay for a website) https://www.facebook.com/pages/PD-Au...8828674?ref=hl
I would just like to add I dont work weekends because whats the point of being self employed if you have no time for yourself and your family.
If you're going to have a website, penguingarage.co.uk is free.
good luck with our venture graham,if you need and short term storage i might be able to help.
minimal progress, still saving up! the rate im going i expect to actually open for business April, that said i have a couple of customers so hungry for engines i might have do some work from home before i even quit my job.
still the company now has a nice logo, even if it hasnt got a building to hang it on!
Logo#3_standard small websize.png
Last edited by Graham; 03-11-2013 at 11:28.
Looks good mate
Autoelectrical & Diagnostics in Oxfordshire www.savvi.co.uk
progress, well a lot of nothing really, im still saving, i wont give the amount i have saved up away, but as someone who has never had any savings, suffice to say if a couple of years ago someone had said to me i could save enough money to buy myself a brand new wilcox BDA and have change left over i'd of laughed at them.
my leaving date for work is now set, end of march, although the company may bring it forward a bit.
sadly i have missed out on my preferred units, so will probably end up slightly out of town, the rent is slightly less bit it only works out a few quid a day, so i'll have to work harder in some other areas to make up for the out of town location, ie i can see me having a small fleet of loan cars, over the years ive noticed quite a few our our members go to certain garages not because of cost/service or anything but simply because they will loan them a car.
ive said all along i wont be working from home, although it seems that due to time line constraints i will start the companies first job at home, that job being a rally car engine removal/strip/tune/TB conversion refit, etc, so its quite a long job start to finish.
other news, well i had a chat with hmrc the otherday and they told me technically i am already trading even if all i have dome is put money into the company's account and pay for a logo, so i took it a step further and registered for VAT, my initial out goings are going to be so high it makes no sense to me not to claim back the vat on expenses.
having done teh vat means i will now start purchasing equipement, things are going to get busy
Good luck on this.
Will you have your lathe there too? as i have some.
work that needs doing on a lathe.
The bike breakers you mentioned in a previous post is that the one on black bank drove???
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