Hi Jason,
Some fantastic advice above.
I'd like to stress that learning is your most powerful tool (unless you have one of those thingies that the Romulans use to blow up planets). Learning comes from courses, practical experience, and to some extent reading what boring people type on message boards
(although you have to be aware that many a pile of bulls***t is spouted on here and other places
)
You could get a lot worse than the NCCA courses, which are reputed to be impartial. Some suppliers/manufacturers do courses too, but beware of the education/sales pitch balance (not all are blatantly out only to sell stuff but some are).
Colin's leaflet suggestion is a good one, get yourself out there. I totally disagree on the Yellow pages & Thomson thing though, but he knows that already
you don't have anything to lose by trying a small, simple monochrome advert for a few hundred quid. You should see at least a 300% return on an ad like that. Pay out a fortune for a posh one and you'll lose out if you haven't got it spot on. Leave that till you have more experience and a marketing budget to lose.
You wife's business will probably be you biggest source of revenue initially. What a start to have in this game! Prepare a good mailshot to her existing customer base, you have an untapped goldmine there ripe for plundering! Keep mailing non-responders every few months but know when to stop wasting paper.
What's the wife's biz called? If it's suitable for carpet cleaning too there's everything to be gained from keeping it.
If you both go self employed you'll have to have your own insurance etc as said above. You'd have to speak to an accountant about the best way to get round this but you might be best setting up a ltd company and then having the two as subsidiaries. you may be able to get one insurance policy to cover the both. Just a thought, might be way out but never found out before so i don't know
To be honest, for a few hundred quid a year it may be better being separate, there may be other implications such as VAT which Joe mentions above. With a heavy marketing push you could turn over 20k in your first year, so where would that put the overall combined turnover with the wife's side? anywhere near 68k and you'll have to consider if VAT is the right thing for you or not.
Buy cheap, work cheap, earn cheap. Don't even bother if you want a karcher puzzi and are going to charge peanuts. Aim a bit bigger, it makes so much more sense.
Finally, I'm along the road in Kettering if you fancy a day out on the job. Not too far but far enough not to be competition
My email is on my profile.