The Chocoholics guide to self-employment: How much time will you need?

In the third of our series of guidelines for self-employment, we look at the amount of time you'll need to dedicate to being your own boss.

Many people believe that working for themselves will give them a lot more time then working for others. The reality is, whilst you'll be able to fit it in around any childcare arrangements or commitments you have, you'll probably find yourself working a few weekends and evenings. Effectively, you're doing all the finance, admin, marketing, customer services and sales for your business.

Luckily, the support team at Chocoholics are on hand to help with a lot of these areas, and we've already covered the financial requirements which should only take a couple of hours a month. But what other things do you need to consider when it comes to how your time is spent as a Chocoholics distributor.

• Time spent promoting your business: Whether you're dropping catalogues off to neighbourhoods and schools or contact local businesses, you'll need to put aside several hours a week to promote yourself and bring in new business. Double this for your first season. We'll outlline some great promotional suggestions in a future post in the series.

• Social media: If you're a Twitter or Facebook user, half an hour each day on your accounts promoting your business can really improve your chances of getting new customers

• Parties: We suggest you do three parties a week, which usual takes several hours. These take place during the evening, so you'll have to cater for loading up your car with the display range, getting to the venue, setting everything up, holding the party, packing it all down again and going home!

• Orders: You'll need to put your order in every week, which can take a couple of hours or summing everything up and then sending it to Chocoholics HQ. We recommend using a spreadsheet to keep track of everything.

• When the orders arrives, you'll need to package up each individual order and double check it's all there. It's fantastic if you can rope a friend or family member into double-checking it all  for you too. This can take up to five hours a week, depending on the size of your order. Then you have to....

• Deliver the chocolates: Most customers prefer if you can drop the chocolates off to them, so you'll need drop each order off. Thankfully most orders can be dropped off with each party hostess, who will distribute it to her guests.

So, overall it's a busy job! It's worth bearing in mind that the Chocoholics role is seasonal, so it'll be busy during the Easter and Christmas season, but you can enjoy some time with your family and friends during the summer.

If you'd like the sound of the job, get in contact! Either leave us a message in the comments or give us a call on 0118 9321043.

Next post: The Chocoholics guide to self-employment: How does childcare work if you're self-employed?