How to Start a Will Writing Business

The setup takes a fortnight and costs very little. Client acquisition takes years and is the entire business. Plan accordingly.

The setup, in order#

1. Train first. Free, UKRLP-registered. Do not sell advice you cannot give.
2. Get accredited. Free with Project Will, and it puts you on a register a client can check — which matters enormously when you have no reputation yet.
3. Sort the structure. Sole trader or limited company; ask an accountant, the answer depends on your other income.
4. Professional indemnity insurance. Before your first paid client, not after.
5. Register with the ICO. Legally required. £40–£60.
6. Separate bank account. From day one.
7. A simple website. One page that says what you do, where you cover and how to ring you, beats an elaborate one that takes six months.
8. Software, once people are paying. £150 a month is nothing against a £1,200 package and a lot against no income.

Getting the first clients#

This is the part that decides it. The approaches that consistently work for new practitioners:

Existing network first. Everyone you know has parents. Write four wills for nothing, do them exceptionally well, and ask each person to mention you to one other person.

Referral partners. Financial advisers, accountants, mortgage brokers and estate agents all have clients who need wills and no way to write them. One good adviser relationship can carry a practice.

Local presence. Rotary clubs, WI, community groups, retirement associations. Estate planning is a subject people will listen to a talk about, and a room of thirty retired people is thirty potential clients who have just watched you be competent for forty minutes.

Care homes and funeral directors. Handle with care and propriety, but the need is real and constant.

Home visits. Advertise them explicitly. A large share of your market would rather not travel, and high-street firms rarely offer it.

More in marketing ideas for estate planners.

What to charge#

See the fee ranges in how much do will writers earn. The common error is pricing nervously, which attracts price-sensitive clients and makes the work miserable. Price against the value of the decision, not the time at the keyboard.

The mistakes that close practices in year one#

No marketing budget of time. Two hours a week, every week, regardless of how busy you are. The practices that die are the ones that marketed only when quiet, so feast and famine alternated until the famine outlasted the savings.

Not following up. The single biggest leak. A quote sent and never chased is money you have already spent to acquire and then abandoned.

Only selling wills. Wills are the entry point. LPAs and trusts are where a sustainable average fee comes from.

Working completely alone. The reason most people leave is isolation, not incompetence.

Related#

How to become a will writer · Becoming an estate planner · Starting out · Training