Turning professional

[promhandicam]

Hi.

In July I'm being made redundant and so I am having to think seriously about what to do next. I've spent the last 20 years working for different NGO's in Africa and wonder if it isn't time for a change. Partly this is because most organisations now require that you have a degree - experience is an optional extra. I could try and do a masters but I'm not sure that I want to go down that route. The last 2 years have been particularly difficult working for a boss who is a total a**hole. My wife is interested in getting back into teaching ideally as an assistant head or some other senior management position. She is therefore applying for jobs at the moment.

So I've been wondering how others who have changed careers have got into the woodworking business. I've been looking at courses as I would be prepared to invest time and some of my redundancy money into getting a good grounding but the courses that I have seen advertised are rather pricey - 10 - 15K for a year plus accommodation. Alternatively there are C&G courses but these seem to be pretty basic. There are also plenty of short 3 - 5 day courses but I feel that I need to really spend some time in a more commercial workshop to gain experience.

One of my ideas would be to ultimately set up a small workshop in France - perhaps catering in part to Brits who have second homes there and who need someone that they can deal with in English. like to ultimately do furniture making but can see that doing more mundane stuff - fitted kitchen / bedrooms etc. might be my bread and butter at least to start. The problem starting up in France is that unlike the UK, to be self employed iit would appear that you need to really have a qualification in the trade that you wish to excercise.

So what advice can you give? Would anyone be interested in a 40 year old apprentice? At the moment we don't even know where we will live when we return to the UK in July although our families are in the SE.

Sorry for the rambling - looking forward to hearing your ideas,

Steve

[colincott]

Hi Steve
sorry to hear about this but as for advice I am not sure where I would start if in the same place.

All the best Colin

[mrgrimsdale]

Hi Steve
Hmm I could fancy a few years in Africa but don't quite see how we could swap places!
Do you work for VSO? I asked about it some years ago and they seemed very keen on practical trades. Might enquire again before I'm too old (praps too late).

I guess you've got to decide what you really want to do. A lot of people IMHO start off doing kitchens say, with the intention to do something "better" when the chance comes, but it may not.
It's easy to imagine from the woodwork press etc that there is a top-end elite world of craft cabinetmaking going on, which you could get into with the right training. I think it's a myth - or a very small world; most of them earning a living by selling books, dvds and running very expensive courses!
C&G courses are excellent and probably a much better starting point. There are lots of other college courses - furniture, design, craft etc also much better value IMHO than the private posh ones run by failing cabinetmakers.

IMHO you've really got to think hard about what you like doing; what work would you really enjoy having in front of you, without considerations of career, on the basis that what you most like you will do best and commit most time and effort to. A version of "enlightened self interest".

cheers
Jacob
PS our own Sgian Dubh might help about mainstream college courses - try him with a PM.

[jaco]

Steve, sorry to hear about your misfortune.

I am afraid it is an "African" thing, and down South it gets even worse.

If you speak French, what about setting up a "Vacation Home - we will find it for you" type of thing on the web, and then also look after the properties, maintenance etc.

Idle thoughts ...........
Where is that beer ....

[cadas]

Hi,

I was in a similar position to you, I was an MD of a nice size company but sick and tired of it all. I'd been a very keen furniture maker as a hobby (inspired by Norm....but weren't we all)

I went off to nightschool for cabinet making, did two years and then took voluntary redundancy.

I'm now in France, with my own joinery shop but I am still only just clinging on to business with my fingernails.

What I make and do now is good, I am a happy with what goes out and finally so are my clients, my order books are full and, now, (at last) I start each job with some level of confidence and don't keep putting it off until the last minute because I haven't worked out how to do it.

Here's my honest advice:

I was good as an amateur, I graduated top of my class, I was making perfect hopper dovetails on my first school project, but for the first year in business, I made everything at least twice.

You can train, and read every book and watch every episode of Norm, but you can't get the experience. Looking back I don't know how I got away with it.

France is worse still, the joinery is so area specific, that took two years on its own!!!

Don't get me wrong, I would recommend the change of lifestyle to every one, but you need patience, a good dog to kick every night and money......lots of it, you probably need to support yourself here in france for two years while the business starts.

If you want to know more about joinery in france or even see what we do then pm or see website.

[blacksheep]

Apr 9, 2008 14:30:15 GMT promhandicam said:

Hi.



One of my ideas would be to ultimately set up a small workshop in France - perhaps catering in part to Brits who have second homes there and who need someone that they can deal with in English. like to ultimately do furniture making but can see that doing more mundane stuff - fitted kitchen / bedrooms etc. might be my bread and butter at least to start. The problem starting up in France is that unlike the UK, to be self employed iit would appear that you need to really have a qualification in the trade that you wish to excercise.

Is this true?

I've made a living as a self employed furniture maker for years and have had it in the back of my mind to bugger off to a French farmhouse and set up a workshop there once the kids have left home.

I've no formal qualifications. Would this make my little pipedream impossible?

[woodworker]

Cadas, has summed up woodworking in France well.

It's not that easy, it's a big steep learning curve, the employment laws in France are not that helpful for small firms either. And there's a lot of Bureaucracy, more so than here in the UK.

I still know quite a lot of people working in France and they all say much the same thing.

I realise this might not be what you want to hear, bu tit's better to tell it like it really is.

Good luck

[engineerone]

the problem with turning your hobby into a job is that you rarely charge the proper money for your time because you tend to enjoy it too much.

too much modern woodworking has to be done on machines to get anything like a sensible profit margin, and until you gain a kind of reputation that is where it goes.

steve, you have made some nice pieces, but you would perhaps need to modify your styles to suit the french market, even for ex pats, and the real question is can you charge enough??

personally i would have thought that you need to see where your wife is going to be and whether she is going to enjoy her new career, then check out what the market local to where you are needs. you have some useful NGO skills. question is how can you make them marketable in this world where experience counts for less than paper qualifications?? once you get to a certain age, everybody who might employ you seems to think you have become brain dead. plus of course you are seen as too knowledgeable and too expensive in overhead costs. the fact that you turn up to work on time, can generally spell, and add up seems to escape every body.

it seems to me that unless you are doing certain kinds of specialised fitting, like shops/ banks etc or specific kitchens, then you need to establish a niche and market it properly. however how do you live until you get well enough known??

like everybody i feel it is a nice aspiration, but wonder at the actuality of it.

good luck

paul

[Scott]

Sorry to hear of your predicament Steve. Hope you get something sorted out.

You considered the Pays de Gex or the Haute Savoie at all? Right next to Geneva. Half of the UN & NGO mob are all living over the border here in France because GVA is too expensive.

Friend of mine reckons there's money to be made servicing all the "UN boilers" (single ladies of a certain age etc) who have plenty of dosh and are happy to pay for work to be done but can't find anyone to do it. Even simple stuff like putting up a shelf etc. Believe it or not they actually pay blokes an hourly rate for building IKEA furniture for them! It's a bit more handyman-ish but could be steered in a woodworking direction I guess. Not sure even the frogs have a qualification for handymen!

I don't pay much attention to the market for that sort of thing but reading the Connexion ( www.connexionfrance.com/ ) I get the impression that the traditional migration grounds of the Brit herds on the west coast are pretty well catered for but I'm not aware of so many brits doing work around the GVA area. There are a few of course and there are guys doing work in GVA but they tend to leave cards/flyers in the Brit supermarket because that's where the ex-pats are to be found and I don't think there are that many.

I do know a chippy in the PdG but I think he's working mostly in GVA these days. There's also a Brit bespoke kitchen mob that has a maker/fitter not far from me but I can't remember the name.

I suppose you should bear in mind that the normal advice to ex-pats here is to employ locals where possible because they know the standards/regs/techniques etc and it doesn't p*ss the locals off but there are people here who have been here 20 years and don't speak a word of French and buy Brit bog cleaning products at ludicrous prices just because that's what they use "at home" in dear old blighty!

Have a look round this site geneva.angloinfo.com/forum/topic.asp?page=1&topic_id=168

It's true though that the house prices in the GVA commuter belt are a bit mad!

Having said all that the rest of the UN agencies might have followed UNHCR and baled out of Geneva to cheaper digs in Budapest in 10 years time!!

Still, there's lots more Brits in GVA working for the multinationals

Just a thought to throw into the pot


ATB

[promhandicam]

Thanks for all the replies thus far.

Jacob - thanks for the advice - I think you've hit the nail on the head when you talk about knowing what you really want to do. I'm hopeful that my wife will find a teaching post somewhere so that I have a little time to really think about where I am going. With the compensation/redundancy being offered I have a bit of flexibility plus some savings. BTW, I don't work for VSO although I know a number of people who have volunteered with them. Rest assured it is never too late - in fact they are tending towards older more experience volunteers.

Regarding the difficulties of working in France, I am somewhat aware of the bureaucracy that setting up a business in France would entail - I've been living in former French and Belgium colonies for the past 20 years! If anything they have taken the French system and made it even more tortuous.

Apr 9, 2008 18:58:53 GMT blacksheep said:

Is this true?

I've made a living as a self employed furniture maker for years and have had it in the back of my mind to bugger off to a French farmhouse and set up a workshop there once the kids have left home.

I've no formal qualifications. Would this make my little pipedream impossible?

Others here are perhaps better placed to say, but take a look at this website for some information on self employment in France. As I understand it, you have to register a particular profession and then pay 'cotisations' to that group. To register you have to prove that you are qualified in that area of work.

Cheers,

Steve

[sainty]

Hi Prom

It's my (slightly naive) belief that if you have a reasonable proposition, which you seem to have, that if you work hard and are prepared to make a few cuts and take a few knocks on the way you will probably get some "luck" somewhere along the line. That piece of "luck" will be the sort that the ordinary guy doesn't get. To quote A Golfer, "the harder I work, the luckier I get". Business isn't rocket science, people appreciate common sense, manners and value or should I say perceived value.

Its easy to dream, but not to easy to do. If you believe that you can do it my advice to you is to do your research and go for it. It seems that you hvae the ideal opportunity to do it, I'm not one for saying that life is planned out and things happen for a reason but are you going to get a better chance to have a go?


Good luck whatever you do.

Rgds

Sainty


ps If you end up in the Hampshire area I'm sure that I would have a few days work for a willing helper!!!!

[promhandicam]

Apr 9, 2008 20:46:17 GMT Scott said:

. . .you considered the Pays de Gex or the Haute Savoie at all? Right next to Geneva. Half of the UN & NGO mob are all living over the border here in France because GVA is too expensive.

My wife is on a short-list for a post in a Swiss school and so if she got that then I would definitely look at buying a property not too far from the Swiss border - we like the Jura particularly the area around Dole.

Bon soirée!

Steve

[andy]

There is an article in this months GW about turning professional by someone famous

[jfc]

There is an article in this months GW about turning professional by someone famous

I knew Elvis was alive !

[blacksheep]

Apr 9, 2008 20:47:00 GMT promhandicam said:

Others here are perhaps better placed to say, but take a look at this website for some information on self employment in France. As I understand it, you have to register a particular profession and then pay 'cotisations' to that group. To register you have to prove that you are qualified in that area of work.

Wow!

It makes you realise how easy it is here.

When I started out on my own I simply found a little workshop just off the high street and stuck a home-made A board outside. Within 2 hours I'd taken my first deposit.

I agree entirely with Mr Grimsdale about those expensive cabinetmaking courses. A full set of Norm videos would be a much better investment for anyone wanting to make a living making furniture.

Wherever you are in the world, making the stuff isn't the hard bit - its getting the sales at the right prices.

[cadas]

Techincally, to set up a business in France you must have either formal qualifications or be time served, with references to prove it.

I say technically, because if it were true then 90% of the cowboys we have here wouldn't have made it.

The reality is if you can show references, they never check them, even if they are written on the back of the dover ferry ticket.

[smudger]

Steve
From what I have picked up Cadas' advice is good, however you will probably need to register with a local Chambre de Metiers and get a SIRET number. There are insurance obligations, and a lot of social charges which are deferred at first, but catch up fairly quickly.

A forum you might like to sign up for and ask questions of is

www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/TopicsActive.aspx

Look out for a guy called Chris Head - his advice is sensible.

In the part of Normandy I know there are not many ebenistes working - but a lot of the English won't spend large sums.

[cadas]

Registration with the chambre de metier is obligatory. To set up a business in France you can't simply declare yourself self employed. You have to go along to your local Chambre de Metiers (Trade organisation) and persude them you are capable and compitent to run a business. Then you have to attend a three day course on how to run a business, then if you pass all of this you get to register a business and obtain your business registration number. That allows you to call yoursef a business......only takes three months....or so

Then, in order to trade, you have to persude an insurance company to provide you with the legally required 10 year insurance cover for all of your work....as a start up they hate you....and will charge 300€ per month, then the social gets you, (like national insurance) 400€ per month. This is all before you have even been allowed to start work, or invested in anything and you pay these even if you don't earn anything.

This is why there are so few artisans in France and work is everywhere, very few french have the 20-30K needed to start and stay in business for the first two years until the business is established.

Oh and finally, the government deem a living wage for a man with wife and two kids to 18000€ a year.

[promhandicam]

Thanks again for the advice. As I said in the OP, one idea would be to ultimately set up a small workshop in France. From all that has been said, and from what I knew already, even if I decide to go down the self employed route in the UK (by no means a certainty) starting up something in France would not be a short or even medium term option.

I'd still be interested to hear from others who have switched careers in the UK as to the route that they took from being (presumably) a hobby woodworker to being a professional, or from a professional on ways into the trade.

Cheers, Steve

[blacksheep]

Steve,

As Mr Grimsdale hs alluded to earlier in the thead there is not big business to be had at the arty farty end of the woodworking trade.

The biggest hurdle that the serious hobby woodworker has to overcome when considering going pro is a mental one. Using solid wood throughout a furniture project or hand-cutting dovetails are a distant memory for most professionals - it is just not possible for most of us to charge a sufficiently high price to cover the costs involved, and to be frank, most clients just do not care!

In the same way that many in the upper echelons of the trade have to subsidise their occasional forays into making a commissioned piece of fine cabinetmaking by teaching, the rest of us generally have to pay our way by knocking out MDF boxes for forty-odd weeks a year and making a really nice piece only every now and then.

Setting up in business is actually very easy in the UK. Find some premises, set up your workshop, and away you go!

The first and biggest problem of course, is getting some orders! I was very fortunate when I started in that my workshop was situated just off a busy shopping street. An 'A' board outside and a sign on the door brought a steady stream of enquiries from day 1 - and still does! I can recommend from personal experience choosing premises in a good location for this very reason. Another example would be a workshop on a farm where you can put a sign up on the main road.

One word of advice I would give for anyone starting up is not to get carried away chasing big jobs such as handmade fitted kitchens. Better in my view is to go after the kind of jobs larger firms don't want - meter cupboards, alcove units, bookcases, even radiator covers. Being able to turn round a job in a few days and get some money in the bank is very satisfying in the early days and much less stressful. You can work your way up to the big jobs!

There's plenty more but I've got to get back to the workshop!

Rgds
Phil.