Tips for starting up your own engineering business

Starting your own business is a journey but an exciting one – especially when you are starting up your own engineering business! It takes a lot of hard work, dedication and consistency, but when you are successful, you will reap the rewards – there is nothing more enjoyable than not having to ask for a holiday anymore and being able to work hard and increase your pay. 

So the question is, what considerations should you make when starting up your own engineering business? Every business should have a good website as this is extremely important, social media channels are also very important and you should have the correct contracts in place (nec contract management software, can help with this). Alongside these, having an accounts package will help with your finances and putting together an advertising budget will help to bring in new customers. 

There are many different things to consider when starting up your own engineering business, so for this reason, it’s important you start the process as soon as possible. The sooner you start the less overwhelming it will be and the less stressful the whole process will be as well. 

Keep on reading for our guide on six tips for starting up your own engineering business. We hope our guide can give you some inspiration when starting up your new company. 

Creating your own website 

Having a website is important no matter your business, whether it’s an engineering business or a personal training website. A website is your shop front – a good website and your customers will visit, stay and shop with you. A bad website and they will leave and shop with one of your competitors. Having a website created is easily done and you can have one created at a reasonable price – a lot of companies will use freelancers to create one. If you are being really strict with your budget, you can have a go at using a drag-and-drop builder, to create your own. Alternatively, you could turn to an agency to build you a custom website, but this will be costly. 

Creating social media channels 

You can’t run a successful business without having social media channels. Most customers will use social media to look you up before working with you, so it’s important you have a selection of them set up. You don’t need them all, but it’s useful to use some of the key ones, which include Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok. Depending on the content you are creating, other channels like Linked In or YouTube may be useful. If you haven’t got time to create content, hiring a social media expert may be useful. 

Signing up for an accounts package

The money coming in and out of your business is what will decide whether you are successful or not. The more money coming in, the more profitable you will be, but the only way to know this is to track your revenue. To track your income and expenditure, you will need to sign up for an accounts package. A lot of accounting software will help you with your payroll, report on your profit and loss as well as help you with your end-of-year accounts. 

Setting an advertising budget 

To be successful you will need to bring in regular clients who require your engineering services. As a new company, it may be hard to bring in new clients initially, so to do this, you will need to run some ad campaigns. Before starting, set aside an advertising budget that you can dedicate to advertising strategies such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, sponsored posts, sponsored competitions and banner ads. Start off with a lower budget and then increase it once you know what methods are working best for you. 

Will you need to employ people?

Are you going to need to employ people to help you with your engineering business? If yes, then you will need to budget the costs of hiring people as well as advertising to find your new employees. When advertising for employees, you can do this on social media or use a recruitment agency to help you. The type of contract you are going to offer them will depend on the type of engineering business that you are going to start. At the start, you can offer 0-hour contracts, to reduce the risk to you. 

What technology will you require? 

Every business will require different pieces of equipment when starting out – mobile phones, laptops, vehicles, printers, desks, chairs, etc. Every item will have a cost attached to it, so it’s vital that you put together a spreadsheet to tally up all the costs involved when buying technology pieces. Try to split the list into sections, like must-haves and would like. By splitting the list, you can be cautious, helping reduce the chances of overspending – this can easily be done, especially when starting out. Often businesses buy things they think they will need when in actual fact they never needed it in the first place. It’s always worth reaching out to a friend or family member who has started up their own business, as they may have a list they created that you can use to help. 

It can take a lot of determination when starting a business, but as mentioned above, it’s well worth it and when successful, you will enjoy many rewards. You will have plenty of highs and lows, so remember to enjoy the highs when you have them and don’t be afraid to take risks – without risk, comes no reward. 

Take into account all our tips and see which ones you can apply to your business. Try to apply them one at a time, as this will help reduce how overwhelming starting a business can be.  

What tips would you recommend to someone starting up their own engineering business? Which of the above tips will you be applying to your business? Is there anything that you think we are missing in our guide? Let us know in the comment box below, we would love to hear from you.