Business owners share your story

I ran a company that provided similar services from 1996 to 2004. When I started the Internet was not big and companies counted on local businesses for equipment and tech support. As time evolved, the hardware business dried up as Dell and CDW took over. I did not go into the home support market. Basically as I grew consulting services, other parts of the business dried up. While I employed a staff to and did not go broke, I decided the business was not where I wanted it to be after years of work and having a more stable financial position would be nice. Like you, employees get paid before I did and some months were better than others.

All I can say is, try to cut expenses, I paid too much for office space. If you have 7 employees, but only work for 4 or 5, then you may need to cut an employee or two. I know how hard it is to look at someone who is counting on you to support themselves and their family and say, sorry, but you have to go. However, that will save their salaries and if you don't, they will be out of a job anyway. Sounds like the area you are in will be hard to grow the business anyway, because there are only going to be so many customers in your rural area. But are there other specific area's you could expand into. For example, I kinda ended up with a niche of auto body shops and knew a particular auto body shop program. Is there something like a quickbooks, peachtree or other specific application for farming that you could advertise expertise in and drive business to you for people with that application. Are you in the home market, trying to compete with Geek Squad, if not, that could be a new area to expand, although I am sure you have thought of all of this.

I know it was a hard decision for me to decide to move on, so I know that you must have the same issues.

 

Your kids want a lemon-aid stand? Sorry, that's going to be shut down by the Feds.

You own a legal medical marijuana distributor? Sorry the Feds are going to raid that.

You want to... Nope. Sorry.

But... No.

 

Odd, every time you're totally wrong, often, you claim I'm emotional.

Perhaps English is not your native language.

When "the rich" get $490 billion., [numbers I supplied] and "everyman" gets $2.1 TRILLION. Then an idiot knows that "everyman" got more money than "the rich."

However when a paid stooge liberal intentionally misinterprets "everyman" as every man, then each man of the "everyman" group would get less. But that was not the issue, ever. And "everyman" went out and spent every cent of that $2.1 trillion. Did that help or hurt the economy more than the unfair massive amount, $490 billion, that "the rich," had to spend. But of course, "the rich," just acquired more wealth from their $490 billion. They weren't so stupid as to go out and spend, $2.1 trillion, as "everyman," did.

And more of your intentional disinformation. Do they pay you by the post or by the word?

NOWHERE will you find me saying or inferring that "GOP is absolutely right on all counts." What you would find if truth was of any advantage to you, its obviously not, is that I have often said that I distrust the GOP almost as much as I distrust the Dems. And I have said that if the GOP gains power, AND retains power, they will AGAIN become every bit as bad as the Democrats. I am a registered Independent with conservative views. I AM FOR SHORT TERM LIMITS so neither party can gain and hold power for a long period. And analyzing the actions of politicians of both parties, I see no down side to replacing all the dummies every 2 terms. 535 Congresspeople, not a single spark of brilliance to be found. And the White House holds an empty suit.

 

Like it's a lot of freakin' work! Fortunately, I come from a long line of workaholics, so I might as well cash in on that.

It's not impossible to make a profit. I cater to people that don't have a ton of money in the first place -- and, these days, there are a lot of those.

 

I'm doing pretty well as a sole proprietor. It's going to be awhile before I can expand... and that's not so much due to the economy (the customers are out there, they still have money to spend), it's more to do with competition (making it difficult to grab a sufficient enough chunk of the market that would justify/sustain more people) and the cost of buying more equipment for said people to operate...

I'm in no rush though I'm comfortable enough, and better things will come naturally provided I keep doing my part

 

I think what he might be referencing is probably profits in economic theory. In economic theory, there is an idea that competition will drive down prices to the point of zero profits. However, that assumes perfect competition, and many other things that don't actually exist. On top of that, profit isn't required if you are a small business owner. As long as you pay yourself a salary, you need only cover costs(one of which is to pay yourself) to make a living. There is only really a problem when you are losing money, then of course the consideration becomes will you lose more money by shutting down or not, because if you won't you should just shut down. However some people find that the fixed costs of doing business, like an unbreakable contract for office space for example, are greater than the amount of losses accrued by staying open. Which means the business would then likely stay open, at least for a time, even though it was losing money.


PS. In the real world, emotion also plays a role. People are hesitant to allow a business, which they invested a great deal of themselves into, to just fold. So sometimes they will keep it open even when it isn't economically rational to do so, based on emotional and time investments in the company.

 

My name is Rupert (as in Winnie the Poo) Murdoch.

I have built this wee empire by terrorising politicians with threats that I will reveal how many mistresses they have and how much they pay them. It's a recipe that has worked a treat. No money has exchanged hands (except with the British police), but I could do pretty much what I liked in getting the sort of regulation that suited me from compliant politicians I had the wood on.

That is until one of my looser cannons - who completely misinterpreted the guidelines on my ethical approach to irresponsible journalism - started hacking the phone of some kid who was already dead.

This totally pissed off the British public who had swallowed my tripe for decades. Apparently I managed to achieve a standard even lower than theirs. And that was something up for which they would not stand.

So my wee empire is now under investigation on a worldwide basis. I will probably have to leave Great Britain - where my name is trashed even by football fans - and seek my redemption in the US of A, which has even lower standards than the British.

The moral of all this? Someone once said you cannot lose money under-estimating the taste of Americans. I hope to prove whoever said that right.

 

Lets pretend that I adopted the liberal ideas on taxing the rich etc.
Here is how I would explain it others.

Hey people let's get busy and tax our way into prosperity and let's do it NOW.
The more money we give to government the more my company will make
I am not sure how that is, but Obama Say's that's the plan, right?

Yeah I should have thought of this long time ago, I should give 2 times more than they
want from my company, that way I can make 2 times more. Who would have thought
that you could tax yourself into prosperity???


...

 

Truth is only a small % of businesses make a substantial profit. The rest struggle to stay open or right off a ton off things. Of course the owner gets his money regardless as that is why a business is open. But the actual business struggles.

 

Politicians let Rupert pull their willies out of their pants and put it in their mistresses? Dam clever that Rupert.

Nice the way you skip over the original slime balls and blame it all on the next slime ball in line.

 

Even in today's time this is still the rule.

 

I kind of think this bit deserves some sort of award.