Being a good surveyor and running a business are not the same skill

A guest on the This is Surveying podcast said something recently that hit the nail on the head.

He put it simply.

Being a good surveyor and running a business are two entirely different skill sets.

He is right, and I think the running a business side gets the least support.

There is a lot of support for the technical side. CPD, standards updates, qualification pathways, professional development. All necessary and well served in most areas.

Running the firm is a different matter. For most SMEs, owners have always told me the same thing: they want more support with that side of it. It is isolating. It is challenging. It is often stressful.

Some of this is unique to surveying. Some of it is not.

For over fifteen years, I have been running my own businesses and I can really sympathise with the challenges running your own business brings.

There is the day job, and then there is everything underneath it. Admin. Legal. Operational processes that nobody teaches you and that you build by trial and error. Pricing. Complaints, and the particular discomfort of handling one you have never had to handle before. Hiring, and once you have hired someone, paying them, on time, regardless of how the month has gone. And running underneath all of that, where is the next ££ coming from.

This shows up across every area of surveying. Residential, commercial, rural, building, quantity, geospatial, whatever the discipline, the problems business owners raise with me are largely the same.

I have been embedded in this profession for seven years now, talking to surveyors week in and week out, and it is these conversations that shaped what Surveyors UK became. I have been through my own challenges getting Surveyors UK off the ground. Its been very hard at times and the need to be resilient has been tested countless times.

The signfiicant next stage of Surevyors UK is now live and it was designed to fill these gaps for firm owners. It is not aimed at any one type of practice or any one professional body. Whatever background you come from, if you are running a business, this is for you.

What is firm membership on Surveyors UK

I have gone through this properly, pain point by pain point, so here is where things stand.

• Community. The Surveying Room is open to the whole profession, and firms who join now get access to a dedicated forum just for firm members, a private space to share what you cannot always say in the open room.
• A marketplace of trusted partners, launched earlier this year and growing steadily. Products and services firms already need, with discounts and terms arranged with providers we trust, so you are not negotiating that alone either.
• Visibility, done properly. A directory listing on Find the Right Surveyor that you are not paying to rank in. Getting found in search and in AI results, not bought placement. Your own account dashboard to manage your profile and keep it up to date, and room to publish things like your own reports and your own pricing, on your terms.
• A referral network between firms. Work passed firm to firm, no money changing hands, structured and trackable rather than a favour you hope someone remembers. this has been the most popular feature by far.
• A job board for all types of surveying, all job types. Years back, I spent a decade in recruitment and launched a successful job board in a differnet industry so I have strong experience in this.
  Free CPD.
• Featured employer articles, coming this autumn and winter, for firms that want to stand out to the people they are trying to hire.
• Succession UK. A confidential space for firms open to buying, selling, or partnering, because most people doing that today have nowhere obvious to look and nobody independent to ask.

That is a lot in one list, and it is meant to be. Every item on it came from an actual conversation with a firm owner about something they were stuck on.

Any background, any size

This is not built around one professional body or one type of firm. Any background. Any size. All disciplines, from residential to rural to quantity surveying and beyond. All accreditations. Whatever professional body or trade body you belong to, you are welcome.

We are still learning what firms want and need as more of you join, and that shapes what gets built next. If you run a firm, I would like to hear from you either way.

Take a look at firm membership

Nina