>> As mentioned the work really is feast or famine and personally I have not got enough clients to go on my own yet, also in the past 5 years the competition for CAD services etc has increased greatly, just google CAD services, CAD outsourcing and you will see. <<

This is so true Alexander. And the reason for this is that the market is rather saturated, regardless of what country you live in. But there's hope in this... as a client of mine put very succinctly:

"There are about 2000 'CAD guys' in Cape Town but you can count on your two hands those that actually know what they are doing and are prepared to offer a professional service. The rest are a bunch of chancers that are holed up in their living rooms with a pirated copy of whatever."

I think his point was that if you want to be taken seriously then go the distance. Start a registered company, use legitimate software, keep proper records, get professionals to do your advertising, etc.

Interestingly, all the people I spoken to reckon the biggest put-off is a @gmail or @yahoo email address (as opposed to @companyname)...