If you’re passionate about training, love impacting
people and organisations, and want to have a career that delivers more than a
payslip, setting up a training firm is the way to go.
This article is intended to help you ask some of the
important questions before you begin, and to provide some knowledge other
platforms do not.
1. Target Market
Your idea may be the best you’ve ever heard, but demand
for your ideas needs to be in place.
Somebody needs to be able to pay you for your
professional advice. To put it another way, who are your future clients? Can you sell your
consulting services to major corporations?
Or are you going to be selling a service that will only
attract smaller companies? In any case, make sure you spend time creating a
business and marketing plan.
2. Staff and Skills Needed
The personnel required by your new training firm can vary
drastically due to the scale of the business. Therefore, it would make more
sense to look at the appropriate tasks, rather than individual members of the
team.
Here’s why: if the company is small only one employee
may be able to carry on many duties. For a bigger company, you will need to
include many team members to perform the same function.
3. Business Model
One of the first (and most important) choices you’ll
have to make is ‘where do I get my revenue from?’
If you’re not okay with selling your services, then
you’ll need to concentrate on seeking out opportunities for backend income. You
need to make sure that, as a freelancer, you are not too reliant
on one client.
4. Business Insurance
No matter how professional you are, there’s still a
risk something might go wrong. If it does, you’ll need to be sure your company
has the right insurance cover to protect it.
Getting the right cover right from the start means that the company is in the
safest position to rebound in case something goes wrong.
5. Registrations and Licenses
You may either run your company under your personal
name or a made-up business name, based on your ambition and the degree to which
you plan to expand your practice. If you are operating the business in your own
name, you are generally going to operate as a sole proprietor.
Registering as a sole trader ensures that you will be
fully responsible for the responsibilities that come with your service. When
you lose, you will be financially responsible, so if the company is profitable,
you also are.
An option is to set up a Limited Liability Company
(LLC), in which your firm is treated as a distinct company and your personal
finance is not in threat.
Conclusion
If you are self-motivated, have experience, and are
skilled with people, then you are well on the way to beginning a training
consultancy company.
When you have what it takes, the
best way to learn is to take action. Bring yourself out to try to find the
first client. After you have developed a strategy, revisit it periodically and
ensure that you make decisions in accordance with your business and priorities,
as well as making any changes required along the way.
