PRIME Initiative

Graham Siggs is 61. He started his own electrical testing service two years ago and intends to keep his business going for quite some time yet.

“I have a quality product that I intend to sell as long as I can, and then sell as a going concern,” Graham comments.

Graham is based in Somersham, near Cambridge, and his business, HuntsPAT, is a testing service for portable electrical devices. It’s a business that Graham finds easy to run and that fits in well with his substantial experience and his desire to continue working after the age at which he was forced to retire from the civil service.

“I did 40 years in the RAF before I reached retirement age at 55 and I then joined the civil service, but had to retire at 60,” explains Graham. “I wasn’t ready for the rocking chair and slippers. I wanted to do something, but I wanted it to be something that wouldn’t be too onerous.”

PAT testing was the obvious answer. Portable Appliance Testing is the electrical equivalent of gas safety checks, which have to be carried out on appliances once a year. This is not yet a legal requirement for portable electrical appliances in premises throughout the UK, but the law demands that all electrical equipment must be safe, so there is a large target market. Graham’s background has provided him with essential experience in this field.

“I did my first PAT test in 1961,” he says. More recently, when Graham retired from the RAF, he joined an equipment testing team at the MoD. “I was looking for something to do that I was qualified to do and that would make me a little bit of money,” says Graham, who decided that setting up his own PAT testing business would fit the bill.

“Setting up the business was fairly easy,” comments Graham, who began the necessary moves to set up his business before he formally retired. “I was in contact with Prime from the beginning,” he says, “ and I also got in touch with Enterprise Fenland, which was the best thing since sliced bread. They provided lots of free advice and free courses, and I went to each and every one. My only regret was that I didn’t do the basic course first. I did it about halfway through and While I felt very pleased in some ways, because many of the things covered on that course were things I had already done, it would have been more useful if I’d done that course right at the beginning.”

Graham feels that starting to research his business plans before he actually retired was immensely useful. “By the time I retired, I had amassed an awful lot of information,” he says. “In addition, because my job involved dealing with equipment suppliers, I was able to get a great deal of background information and good contacts, before setting up the business.” Another bonus came in the form of Graham’s retirement package, which included as part of the settlement, a place on an equipment manufacturer’s course.

Graham set up his business in March 2004, but went through a year of familiarising himself with the market and with the requirements of self-employment and running a business, before formally beginning trading in the 2005/2006 tax year.

Graham does his own book-keeping, but uses an accountant once a year to do his formal accounts and self-assessment. “So far, I haven’t made any money – but I’ve had a very useful tax rebate,” he comments.

The aspect of self-employment that Graham has so far found most challenging is having to sell his own services. “The selling has been a challenge,” he acknowledges. “I started by trying to persuade people who didn’t do PAT testing that they needed to do it, but I found it too difficult to persuade them that they should be doing this testing and that it should be me providing the service.”

Graham also tried local advertising, but found it ineffective. “It brought in no business at all,” he says.

Instead, Graham decided to focus on potential customers already familiar with PAT testing. He finds these potential customers through a simple method: looking around him locally. “Every shop or premises I go to, I look for the little labels, indicating that the devices have already been PAT tested,” he explains. “Then I look to see when the PAT test is due.” There are complex regulations on testing, but most users tend to test their equipment once a year.

Graham contacts the potential customer about a month before their existing PAT label expires, to offer his own services. He has found this a much more effective selling method. “I got a contract recently from the local vet, for instance,” he says. “I took the dog down there and noticed they had PAT testing, so I wrote to them, and got a contract not only from that practice, but from another two as well.”

Graham also attends networking events held by Enterprise Fenland, which he has also found useful in helping him find business.

Graham does not yet have a website, although he intends to set one up eventually. “At the moment, I don’t particularly need a website,” he says. “So far, I have had more work in the first five months of this financial year than in the whole of last, so things are building up nicely. The good thing about this work is that it is repetitive – people need to have their PAT testing done regularly. It doesn’t bring in lots of money, but I enjoy it. It is something I can go out and do, and meet nice people. I don’t intend to expand; I have spent enough of my career managing other people.”

Graham believes his age has been an asset in setting up his business. “I see it as a great advantage, because I have experience of all sorts of things,” he says. “I understand the admin; I understand how various agencies work; and I can talk to people very easily. The only area where my age might count against me is in sales, because I’m not a brash young salesman, but I really don’t see that as much of a drawback. I have a nice letter that I write to people and that seems to work well.”