Setting up own business – HELP!

From my experience in finance sector you’re best course of action is to attend networking events and putting your name out there.

If you receive a piece of business that would be too large for you or out of your scope, forward this onto someone you’ve met at the networking events.

This will then lead these individuals of bigger groups passing smaller business to you. Sort of like scratch their back and thrill scratch yours

Well, the approach i would take personally, i will begin.. by asking myself:

What are my interests?
What are my expertise?

If tax is your interest and you have a good qualification paired with great work experience than then tax is a good choice. As you mentioned the you are progressing to become CTA qualified so you just need now a work experience to pair it with.
You need to make sure the criteria you choose for yourself, you come up to that level, you need to be skillful. The reason behind saying this is to have – “Professional Competence” .

If you want to start off your business, I recommend to work methodically. Plan first then execute. Take things into consideration necessary for starting up a business like out of the many just to list a few… Costs (legal costs, licensing fee, registration fee, etc)…then type of sector, clients, getting yourself familiarised with the legalities…and The list goes on. So do a good research.

Then let’s come to how to attract clients. Networking with people… I would advise setting up a a LinkedIn profile…
I don’t know whether you have come across the career webinar conducted by ACCA where they have mentioned how one can “brand” themselves. Though this was for how one can stand out in terms of recruitment, it would be worth a shot going through it to get helpful advice. You may be able to find it over the Internet may be on the ACCA website or/and the Student Accountant Magazine. Meanwhile, you can read the following along with that…
https://careers.accaglobal.com/careers-advice/career-development/networking/linkedin-how-to-stand-out.html

Then further to this and what you have mentioned regarding advertising and appealing to clients…
I personally think that it is better NOT to state yourself as an all-rounder. Though this may seem a good way to gain client’s attention, this is risky since you are raising the expectations of your clients. This may have a counter effect afterwards, if you are not able to come up to the client’s expectations with your work… You may end up losing them. We dont want that to happen, do we?

Look the first few years of setting up one’s own practice will be tough but you need to surpass that. You need to prove to your (potential) clients that even though you are new in town, you are an expert in what you do and no one can do your job better than you.
And how can you do this? As I mentioned above, you need to have a great qualification (which you do) & work experience, so need to have both skills and knowledge.

I would personally advise you to complete CTA then begin with the business. This will help you draw attention of potential clients because then you can mention yourself as a qualified Charter Tax Advisor and NOT a CTA in progress. And if you would like to to be an all rounder then gain experience in audit ( in which you said you have minimal experience) and any other criteria needed to be an all rounder. This will also give you time to plan out for your business and do your research.

Please see what all I have mentioned is NOT a cast-iron rule… It is just a personal opinion and how I would also approach to this personally.

Hope this helps.