Hi Brian,

If your looking at driving then it will likely be temporary work? So intially you will need to be able to pay wages while waiting for your invoices to be paid. The easiest way to do it is factor the wages through another company but make sure you check them out first, they can be your best friend or worst enemy.

The other benefit of factoring is if a firm goes bust on you and you have a credit rating on the company, have kept in line with your factoring companies policies etc then your factoring company will be liable for the vast majority of the loss and not you. (typically you get 80-90% of the debt.)

If you have the contacts and drivers then all you really need is to make the 2 meet, as long as you are prepared to be available at silly o'clock for orders then you'll be fine.

Given your background I suspect you know working time law inside out but make sure your drivers are sticking to this, YOU can be penalised for breaches.

Depending on your drivers they may be PAYE or self-employed, make sure you work out the differences in pay rate when you calculate it. Someone self employed will get a better rate as you don't have to pay tax for them but PAYE you will have to pay employers Tax and NI which puts your costs up, check the latest figures and then adjust your rates accordingly.

Once you know that and how much your factoring costs are it's easy enough to work out your charge rates to include a fair margin for yourself, take into account that potential loss of 10-20 percent if one of your clients goes under and spread it across the board.

Make sure you have plenty of drivers available and make sure your ID and license checks are water tight - 5k fine per person for any slip ups here, and you will lose clients fast.

Try to build a broad client base so if you lose a client it doesn't damage you too much.

Make sure you Terms and Conditions are solid and try to keep your payment terms as short as possible, it's worth offering a discounted rate for anything under 30 days for example.

Take up references on all your drivers, not only will it give you confidence in them but it's the easiest sales call in the world when you're already speaking to the Transport Manager.

If you get the initial set up right and have the contacts then it's simple but without the contacts it's a hard sell as the market is saturated with agencies.

Oh and the training side is great if you can get funding to deliver it from people like the Skills Funding Agency, nice easy sell to companies and individuals if it's free to them, worth exploring.

Good luck, James.
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Interested in opportunities / partnerships in IT, web design or recruitment. Email for a chat at james.harrison1982@googlemail.com