First time post from a new member

[Mike Tyson]

Hello everybody.

My name is Mike, and yes, my surname really is Tyson! Thankfully I am nothing like my famous name sake.

I have stumbled upon the DSWA website, and subsequentally this discussion forum, as I am currently planning on pursuing a career that has walling heavily involved in it.

I was rasied on my parents farm, at Threlkeld just outside Keswick. I have been working in retail for the past 14 years and have become completly dissillusioned with it all. I have always helped my family on the farm in this time, and have now decided I would like to help my folks out, and also carve a new life for myself.

So in a nut shell, my plan is start my own business and be my own boss. I intend to spend the next 18-24 months helping my parents on their farm and also honing my walling and fencing skills before embarking on my own. Thankfully I have the perfect training ground, as time has gone by the wall gaps have increased and the fences have worsened on the farm and my parents are not getting younger. I feel it is time for me to give something back to them as they have always supported me.

There was no real purpose to this topic other than introducing myself to the community, I imagine I will be asking some questions and for advice from the vast exeprience there is from the exisiting members. I also thought it would be fun to post up a few snaps of the more challenging wall gaps I plan to tackle with my Dad this year! So hopeully I can get some uploaded soon and see what kind of reactions they bring!

In the mean time I would like to say I look forward to chatting to you all on the forum, and I hope I can achieve my ambitions.

Thanks,

Mike

[Nigel]

Welcome along,

We get quite a few people posting here asking for advice on how to start out in business, I think you may be going around it the right way, as soon as you have a few months under your belt and are happy with the quality of your work, get some cards printed and start giving them out, it may take a while for you to get your name established, doing it sooner than later will help once you have finished tidying up the farm.

good luck!

[Mike Tyson]

Hi Nigel,

Thanks for the kind welcome and reply. I hope I am going about it the right way, I am under no illusions it will be easy, but I am of good farming stock (!) and have the drive and determination to make this work. I think my Dad is secretly quite proud, and that makes me very happy as well.

I figured the best way to go about things was to get the hours in where I can practice and gain experience for free, and document my work with photo's etc to start builidng a bit of a portfolio? I am not sure how important something like that would be but it seemed like a logcial step to me. I strongly believe word of mouth to be the best advertising available so hopefully I can get me name banded about and get some work that way.

Thankfully my Dad is vastly experienced, and I hope to gain a lot of knowledge from him. There are 30+ wall gaps to work on of varying size and difficulty, not to mention the miles of fences to be replaced. If I can't master it after doing all those, I think I will have to turn to retail again, but pray that never happens!

Best regards,

Mike

[jerryg]

Hi Mike, welcome to the world of Cumbrian wallers. I am down south Cumbria and don't do any work at all around Keswick cos it's just too far away for us. I do occasionally get requests to work in Keswick so if you send me your number when you are a bit more 'into' walling I'll pass any work offers I get in your direction. I did advertise in the Cumbria Farmers network, but found it was a waste of money as all the job offers came from the Keswick/Penrith area so no good for me. I seem to be passing through Threlkeld quite often in my fell walkings at the moment and am always into giving free advice in passing. Is your farm on a footpath?

Best 3 forms of advertising is: word of mouth, your name on the side of your vehicle, and a website. Yell are a waste of money, I rarely give any cards out, I got 200 printed 10 years ago and still have loads left. They'll probably get me through to retirement.

http://www.thefarmernetwork.co.uk/cumbria/

[Mike Tyson]

Hi Jerry,

What can I say, thanks very much for the kind words and offer, I am most humbled.

My parents farm is adjacent to the Blencathra FSC, on Blease Road. I am moving back here shortly, so if you were in the area any passing advice would be massivly appreciated. I will send you my contact details, so if you were passing you could let me know. The kettle is always on and there is usually some of my mothers home made cake flying about as well.

From the small amount of research I have done, I am sure there is work to be had locally. But I am also a realist, I know that first impressions count for a lot and as mentioned word of mouth is key. I want to be sure I am capable of doing the work to the highest standrd before really pushing the advertising. I am very releived to see that my key focuses for advertising are the same as yours, that puts me at ease.

Best regards,

Mike