It's difficult.
Very difficult.
Recommendations are the best way to go. It's a catch 22 though because without a "job" to do you can't get a recommendation.
When you bought your first car or hi-fi or whatever did you listen to the salesman or to your parents and friends? Probably the latter. And that essentially was a recommendation for the garage or shop you went to visit. There will have been cheaper cars or hi-fi sets around but you decided to listen to other customers.
Until you get the recommendations the key to it is marketing. Put very simply, you need to identify your typical customer. Age, gender, income bracket, where they live, and so on. Having done that bit you need to find out where you can leave your message (ie adverts). Are they school mums (school magazine), are they elderly (Age Concern magazine), are they full time workers and drive to work (local radio drive time slots), etc, etc. But you need to be careful advertising - it is very expensive and often not cost effective.
You also need to draw up an honest list of your strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities and work your business to this accordingly (avoiding your weaknesses and threats and building your strengths and opportunities).
You can go for two months with no job whatsoever. Then you might receive a call to fix a leaking tap then nothing for another month. Or two months then "Can you replace my boiler please?" And unless you're feeling particularly brave ...
You need patience, you need to battle your way through your down days, you need to fight the blisters when delivering business cards or leaflets through doors and so on.
You're not on your own though. Lots of people start new businesses (plumbing, candle shops, car dealers, etc) and they all go through this. If you sit and wait for the work to come to you it will take ages. The ones who succeed are the ones who find that gap in the market and who work hard and do that little extra for their customers.
Many people say those recommendation sites don't work and I've not used one. And how do you afford to live? You cut back on everything if you need to. But if it's that difficult it is worth looking around for grants for new businesses (Business Link is a start).
Hope it goes well and best of luck.
