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jc.pearson  
#1 Posted : 02 August 2025 18:12:09(UTC)
Rank: New forum user
jc.pearson

Hi

I am CMIOSH and am considering going free lance,  my experiance is within the the construction industry, where is the best place to addvertise?

Kate  
#2 Posted : 02 August 2025 18:56:36(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Kate

What you need to do in my opinion is not advertising as such, but marketing more broadly, including networking.

LinkedIn is a good place to do this. 

thanks 1 user thanked Kate for this useful post.
peter gotch on 03/08/2025(UTC)
Jonny95  
#3 Posted : 04 August 2025 07:56:50(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Jonny95

Good Morning Kate, 

Not something I feel ready for at this stage in my career and I don't want to hijack this thread completley but I’d absolutely love to hear a bit more about it and your journey into consulting if you’d be open to sharing?

Just the basics really, what initially appealed to you about consulting, how it’s impacted your work-life balance, and roughly how long it took you to build a solid customer base? Did you stick to the sectors you already had worked in? I often imagine that selling the services is actually harder than delivering the service sometimes, I think it's something I'd be really interested in the future. 

Kate  
#4 Posted : 04 August 2025 12:35:03(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Kate

Hi Jonny

I won't go in to detail here.  The one key point I'll mention is that I left employment and went freelance only once I had secured my first client.

thanks 1 user thanked Kate for this useful post.
peter gotch on 04/08/2025(UTC)
BLH666  
#5 Posted : 11 November 2025 12:30:07(UTC)
Rank: New forum user
BLH666

I am thinking of going as a consultant at this moment in time, going to put some flyers out to clients, architects and general builders to see what the response is before I go full hog.

WatsonD  
#6 Posted : 11 November 2025 14:33:00(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
WatsonD

In rerefence to the ealrier advice, I agree that it is more marketing. You need to build a good reputation in your field and then use this to start putting the word out you are moving into consultancy and start to network and market based on this.

I think cold calling when there are many consultancy companies already out there and big ones like Peninsula that also offer HR who are able to 'mop up' a lot of the smaller and new start companies.

A few years ago I picked up work as a consultant, which I run alongside working fulltime (employer aware), basically from an ex-employer. Gradually I have added a couple more and am looking at more in the new year. It makes life very busy for now, but eventually I will hit the right tipping pointfinancially and be able to hang up my PAYE role.

peter gotch  
#7 Posted : 11 November 2025 16:53:24(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
peter gotch

Hi BLH666

Welcome to these Forums.

I honestly doubt that in this social media age, you are going to open many doors with flyers.

I am guessing from what you have written that your background is in construction but that doesn't tell the readers here whether you experience has been in designing and/or constructing (constructing in the widest sens of the term as in CDM) structures, as an H&S professional in the sector or perhaps a mix of both.

You can in broad terms split Contractors into three groups:

1. Those who generally know what they are doing and usually employ an in house H&S etc professional resource. 

2. Those that don't really care and if the accident happens, even if that results in prosecution probably won't change their ways. The very small chance of being prosecuted is just one of the risks of doing business, not dissimilar to choosing not to pay for parking and occasionally being hit with a Fixed Penalty Notice.

3. The ones in the middle who are not that sure how to progress and who might be looking for help from one or more external consultants. 

You are going to be wasting time and money if you start leafleting those in groups 1 and 2.

So you need to try and work out which Contractors are in group 2 and consider how best to get your foot in the door. Word of mouth recommdation is much more likely to be fruitful than a leaflet through the door.

AND very similar considerations would apply to the Clients and Architects (and other Designers) except perhaps more so as they seem to have been a protected species from very soon after the first iteration of CDM came into force.

If you look at the HSE databases for prosecutions and notices and home in on CDM (as it is much more difficult to analyse than e.g. HSWA) then you will find that prosecutions and notices against the front end CDM duty holders have been VERY, VERY rare events for nearly 30 YEARS! [OK, the databases don't go that far back, but the overall pattern has been largely the same, with the trend, if any, being LESS enforcement against the front end CDM duty holders].

In the run up to CDM Mark I, I was working for a large multidisciplinary consultancy so we put on a road show to provide CDM training for our own Design etc staff and invited both existing Clients, but also targeted Clients and some Contractors who we thought might wish to turn up.

So some "leafleting" from 1993 except we wrote letters to the relevant people with a glossy flyer for whichever course(s) would be convenitent to the target audience. The grand plan was not so much to sell out H&S consultancy services but to use H&S as a way through to getting a broader range of work from some new Clients. That "leafleting" was almost entirely fruitless except in terms of strengthening EXISTING business relationships.

The advice given to jc pearson from the start of this thread has been sound. I think you need to be much more imaginative in trying to find clients than some leafleting.

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