Martin’s Blog – 13 January

My first full week.So that was it! The end of my first week as a fully fledged Freelance Paraplanner and what a start to the week I had.

I was unlucky enough to be struck down with ‘flu. (It really was flu as well not just man flu!!) Saturday was spent unable to move because I felt so ill, Sunday was spent getting a little bit better and then back to work on Monday.

Fortunately by that time I had got over the worst of the illness and was able to do some work but certainly not a full day. I was glad that I didn’t have to get up and go to an office and be there for 9.00 am; I certainly don’t think I would have been able to do that but at the same time because I didn’t feel 100% I wasn’t able to do a full days work and when you only get paid when you work (I’d given up the benefits of sick pay) you realise how important it is to get up and at least attempt to do something.

I have been fortunate to have been asked to do some work for an IFA who I have known for some time so my week was spent doing things I am very familiar with, completing research and writing reports. I also had the pleasure of trying to get client information from a couple of companies who of course have been as helpful as ever!!! Even when you’ve sent off letters of authority there is still a reason why they are unable to give you the information you need to be able to complete a report!

Of course as well as ‘work’ I had a business to run so my time is now spent doing work for which I am paid and then also doing work running a business. This includes a lot of the things Roger pointed out in his excellent article; registering for Data Protection, registering the company with Companies House, making sure I have everything for my ‘office’. It all takes time and you never really realise how much.

In addition, included in my ‘running the business’ work is also making sure you have work to do. It’s no good doing all this work and completing it if there’s no more work to do after that, so part of this week was spent speaking to other IFAs to offer my Freelance Paraplanning services. I realise that what I offer is not going to be suitable for everyone and similarly IFAs may want to use a Freelance Paraplanning service but not mine – it may not suit their business but my motto at the moment is ‘if you don’t speak to people you’ll never know’.