As many as 12 new Paraplanning businesses could be appearing on the horizon after a dozen Paraplanners said they were considering setting up their own companies.
IFP board member Richard Allum has received interest in his workshop on setting up a Paraplanning business from 24 professionals – half of whom said they have been weighing up establishing a firm themselves. Half had already started a business.
Mr Allum, founder of The Paraplanners, will run a half day event on 19 March to provide advice on creating an outsourced Paraplanning business.
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Running the workshop will help fulfil his goal of pushing the Paraplanner profession forward - a pledge he made when elected to the IFP board.
He said: "It's good to see people are interested in developing their own Paraplanning skills and thinking about starting their own business, it's a positive sign.
"I know there's a lot of interest out there and it will be really good to meet people. "There'll be a few of us old timers to share the mistakes we've made along the way.
"It's a great way for them to actually see what it's all about rather than taking a huge leap into the known."
In 2013 Mr Allum launched the now well-established Paraplanner Powwows, which have developed into a series of events around the country.
He said: "Although it's not a Powwow its run in a kind of similar way, with an open forum."
Mr Allum has been running a survey on what topics aspiring business owners want to learn about at the workshop.
He said: "The most popular by far was how to set fees and the prices of their service.
"There's always a temptation to go really low and under value, just to get the business going, but then it can be harder to start to charge for value.
"There's a decision to take on whether to charge hourly rates, ad hoc charges, retainers, there are lots of permutations. How much to charge is the big one.
"People also wanted to talk about which software and system to use and in particular how licenses work."
Other topics Paraplanners said they wanted to learn more about were marketing and promotion, staying on top of professional development, taking care of customers, tax accounting, VAT and employing staff.
The workshop will take place at The Paraplanners' Oxfordshire offices on 19 March.
Tickets, which are free, will be available on a first come, first serve basis from the Paraplanners blog at the end of this week, with a likely maximum of 20 places.   

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