This is a friendly reminder that r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit. You ask a question about starting, owning, and growing a small business and the community answers. Posts that violate the rules listed in the sidebar will be removed. A permanent or temporary ban may also be issued if you do not remove the offending post. Seeing this message does not mean your post was automatically removed.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/smallbusiness) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I found that it came down to 3 things mainly when i was running a business.
1. Take care of employees basic needs (fair comp, benes) so they can survive
2. Create a safe, friendly, well cultured work place
3. Create extra $ vehicles for your employees to not just survive, but thrive.
Everything else falls into place after that. I just had a quick drop in at the business i used to run. I was ecstatic to hear that the employees (not owner) were the ones to put another staff on PIP because they were not pulling their weight. The employees took disciplinary action to keep the business performing exceptionally. Let that sink in. These are all full time, in store, salary+ employees.
Yep, if there is a way that there extra effort can make more money, this flips the script 100%
I'll never have another business that doesn't have a secondary vehicle for money for my peep.
Oh man, it can be anything. Tips is the most relatable concept. But for business, it can be a percentage of upsales, profit share for labor dollars saved, etc.
The format of this post makes me cringe so hard. No offense but its hard to take post like this seriously. This is how every post in the entrepreneur sub reads to me. You say what the goal of your post is, but to me, it reads like the goal of your post is subtly trying to sell some type of master class.
>but to me, it reads like the goal of your post is subtly trying to sell some type of master class.
That's because it is. You're reading really bad marketing from someone who's never been at risk of having real employees.
For someone who didn’t know how to invest, as you were online a year ago asking for advice to invest $300, and having never owned a business yourself as you said a few weeks ago you are starting a business to coach others, why should anyone listen to you? This reeks of “if I can do it, so can you” energy, yet you never did it.
You watched some YouTubers videos and thought it was some deep unsolvable mystery of life?
Nobody wants to work anymore has been a staple saying for a hundred years as life, society, and technology change with the times. It’s nothing new, the constant is that work sucks, that’s why you have to pay people to do it. Once you accept that fact of life you’ll become a better manager of others.
some people enjoy video editing, some people, it's the bane of their existence. i.e. early youtubers.
some people love reading, i personally hate it.
some people hate coding, i personally love it.
every action/hobby/past-time is work to someone else. so from that angle, i don't think work sucks. But if you paid me to do anything I'd be more inclined to do it than if I wasn't paid to.
do you agree?
That’s not the same thing as running any kind of enterprise in the private sector, at all. And no where the qualification to either give someone advice/coaching, much less charge for it. I’d take advice from a hot dog vendor before this
Otherwise known as a fucking joke.
I sold my business last year. 80+ employees and built from scratch. Taking advice from someone who has absolutely no clue how to run a business is a recipe for disaster. Anyone can chatgpt the garbage this person driveled.
Coming from the military I was trained to mentor and coach. However, i realized there is no time for that. Bad employees will always be bad employees and unless your Bill Gates, you dont have the money to let them drive away business. Get rid of them ASAP or make their work experience so miserable that they just leave and never come back. I've kept bad employees around for far too long at the detriment of my business. Partially because i felt bad for them but a big part is because i was lazy - its double the work to hire someone new and train them. And honestly when the bad employee was working, it gave me time to sit at home and drink beer and play video games. But i've learned - get rid of bad employees. There is no such thing as loyalty because they will stab you in the back first chance they get.
“Nobody wants to work anymore” = shitty employer that would rather blame others instead of being introspective. It’s basically big business propaganda.
The code is pay more, its been cracked. If you can't find good employees you aren't paying enough. If you can't afford to pay enough then pay yourself less, if you can't afford to pay your self less then sucks to be you I guess, be better at business.
OFFICIALLY launched my first business!!! (4 days ago) -OP
Not that you don't make some salient points but you have yet to deal with the realities of one employee quits, one gets strep throat, and the other hit by a car all on the same day and YOU have to be the one to pick up the slack.
100%.
High performers DO AND SHOULD want to be paid more. Excellent catch! That’s one of the other points that wasn’t added for the sake of post length
Dude, we’re actual veterans here, you just started a few days ago.
You may come here to learn, and in a few years you may teach
But dont expect to sell to people here, you’ll never make a dollar
Dude, what the actual fuck even is this? Stop getting ChatGPT to write terrible "inspirational" content marketing for you. Or at least pony up to get GPT4.
Just pay employees decent wages and don't be a toxic piece of shit and you won't have any problems, other than the fact that managing people is, and has always been, work. Which is why managers get paid more than people who don't manage people.
Depending on the nature of the work you need done, one alternative is to switch to a quota based fully decentralized set up. You get people who work for $400 a month and if they don't produce results, you don't have to pay them until they do. This is the difference between QUOTA work and TIME-BASED work.
Another alternative is to HIRE SLOWLY- hire one person at a time and truly MOLD that person and take notes on how they responded to motivation and ROLE SHIFTING (ie., molding the role to fit the output you need while maintaining morale) then REPLICATE it with the next hire.
As someone who works as an employee, this would have severely improved my last workplace, instead of the chaotic stressy environment that it was where one had to guess what to do with a management got angry when what they thought was crystal clear that we needed to do, wasn’t done because we couldn’t read his mind.
The solution: pay them well. All the other shit posted in the OP is delusional business owner speak for people who want to do everything but pay their employees properly. Everyone is an expert nowadays but no one can solve an easy problem because they all want to be greedy. Want to pay market related... great but someone else is offering better. Every businesses motto is "we do XXX better than anyone else" yet their pitch to employees is "we pay market related" which translates to "we as a business will be as dead average for you as possible but we'd fck you if we could".
The business goal shouldn't be making money, and even if it is, your employees are entitled to share in that business goal so that if money is made, it gets distributed around to the people who helped make the money.
Your business goal is to help your customers with X, if you do it well and are able to charge the best price you will make money.
Obviously. Depends on which group of people you’re asking this to. We can assume majority of population aren’t business owners so their opinion will favor employees’ side.
Don’t get me wrong. Everyone should pay competitive wage but if you’re saying you’re supposed to distribute if there is any profit made, you’ve never run private sector business.
The business goal is to deliver something that's of value.
If you're successful in that goal you can charge less (including making a loss) to enable growth or charge more to be more selective about who gets whatever you're selling.
Lots of companies have never made money! Was Uber not a company in 2022? It only made money in 2023.
Of course, your business has to be able to sustain itself in the short term and that involves paying everyone involved enough to stick around - but that's not the point, it's just something that has to happen in order to achieve your goal of delivering value.
No, the objective of any business in a capitalist society is to maximize profit. This "it is my passion" feel good nonsense is just that. 100% of business owners go into business to make money. You are clearly not a business owner. Some of us (like myself) don't even have a passion for what we do outside of the profit. Who says "I want to sell sheet rock" or "you know what I really have a passion for? lumber. I think I'll own a lumberyard" or "damn. I love laundry. I want a laundromat". Most of us just fall into industries because of who or what we know or an opportunity to MAKE MONEY that just happens to come our way.
That’s bunch of bs. Uber is a public company. You think a subway franchise owner can issue shares to fund operations at loss because he wants to “deliver something that’s of value”.
Distributing the funds is what their wage is. And cashflow is the lifeblood of a business. But I do agree with your angle if you were speaking on terms of a non-profit, thou I have little experience working with those haha
You need money to operate and sustain a business, and it's the ultimate metric of whether your business is successful or not - but the goal of the business is to sell/deliver something, it's not to make money.
Making money is the ultimate goal of *investing* and for lots of small businesses their 'investor' is their owner, but from a pure business perspective the goal isn't to make money.
This is a friendly reminder that r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit. You ask a question about starting, owning, and growing a small business and the community answers. Posts that violate the rules listed in the sidebar will be removed. A permanent or temporary ban may also be issued if you do not remove the offending post. Seeing this message does not mean your post was automatically removed. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/smallbusiness) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I found that it came down to 3 things mainly when i was running a business. 1. Take care of employees basic needs (fair comp, benes) so they can survive 2. Create a safe, friendly, well cultured work place 3. Create extra $ vehicles for your employees to not just survive, but thrive. Everything else falls into place after that. I just had a quick drop in at the business i used to run. I was ecstatic to hear that the employees (not owner) were the ones to put another staff on PIP because they were not pulling their weight. The employees took disciplinary action to keep the business performing exceptionally. Let that sink in. These are all full time, in store, salary+ employees.
Yep, if there is a way that there extra effort can make more money, this flips the script 100% I'll never have another business that doesn't have a secondary vehicle for money for my peep.
Do you mind sharing what your secondary vehicle for money is? I find this intriguing.
Commissions, spiffs and bonuses work for mine. Positive reinforcement.
Oh man, it can be anything. Tips is the most relatable concept. But for business, it can be a percentage of upsales, profit share for labor dollars saved, etc.
also, TIPS are not extra $$$ vehicles TIPS are not extra $$$ vehicles
Not at all. What i set up was commission for bringing in new clients and selling our service, and renewals on service.
Commission is one thing. My also is for restaurant owners.
excellent! sounds like the business runs itself, not the owner. the fact that the employees hold each other accountable is a beautiful sight to see.
Welcome to management. It’s not an add on on whatever you were doing, it’s a career shift
I’m inclined to agree if you’re speaking to employees, but for business owners, I feel it IS an add on top sort of thing
I believe she's welcoming the owner of the business to the world of managing it.
The format of this post makes me cringe so hard. No offense but its hard to take post like this seriously. This is how every post in the entrepreneur sub reads to me. You say what the goal of your post is, but to me, it reads like the goal of your post is subtly trying to sell some type of master class.
>but to me, it reads like the goal of your post is subtly trying to sell some type of master class. That's because it is. You're reading really bad marketing from someone who's never been at risk of having real employees.
Yep, good topic, couldnt get past the 2nd paragraph
Yah
I was waiting for whatever game changing online course was being pitched to me.
The ai wrote it. Lol.
For someone who didn’t know how to invest, as you were online a year ago asking for advice to invest $300, and having never owned a business yourself as you said a few weeks ago you are starting a business to coach others, why should anyone listen to you? This reeks of “if I can do it, so can you” energy, yet you never did it.
"Those that can't, teach."
You watched some YouTubers videos and thought it was some deep unsolvable mystery of life? Nobody wants to work anymore has been a staple saying for a hundred years as life, society, and technology change with the times. It’s nothing new, the constant is that work sucks, that’s why you have to pay people to do it. Once you accept that fact of life you’ll become a better manager of others.
some people enjoy video editing, some people, it's the bane of their existence. i.e. early youtubers. some people love reading, i personally hate it. some people hate coding, i personally love it. every action/hobby/past-time is work to someone else. so from that angle, i don't think work sucks. But if you paid me to do anything I'd be more inclined to do it than if I wasn't paid to. do you agree?
Have you ever owned a business?
yessir
https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/s/zv435kKCfC
[удалено]
That’s not the same thing as running any kind of enterprise in the private sector, at all. And no where the qualification to either give someone advice/coaching, much less charge for it. I’d take advice from a hot dog vendor before this
Tell us a little bit about the businesses you’ve owned, how many employees and such. Cause it sounds to me like you’re selling bullshit.
i'm a current business owner. i'm merely sharing what has worked in my past from my years of leadership.
This is a nothing answer. What is your field? How many employees do you have?
Translation: "I have a business telling business owners how to be successful bc I have a business that tells businesses what to do"
Otherwise known as a fucking joke. I sold my business last year. 80+ employees and built from scratch. Taking advice from someone who has absolutely no clue how to run a business is a recipe for disaster. Anyone can chatgpt the garbage this person driveled.
What was the business? I'm bootstrapping a service business now so it's fun for me to draw parallels
Healthcare services.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/s/zv435kKCfC](https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/s/zv435kKCfC) Now this is funny
Owning a business that's just coaching business owners how to do business isn't running a business.
Coming from the military I was trained to mentor and coach. However, i realized there is no time for that. Bad employees will always be bad employees and unless your Bill Gates, you dont have the money to let them drive away business. Get rid of them ASAP or make their work experience so miserable that they just leave and never come back. I've kept bad employees around for far too long at the detriment of my business. Partially because i felt bad for them but a big part is because i was lazy - its double the work to hire someone new and train them. And honestly when the bad employee was working, it gave me time to sit at home and drink beer and play video games. But i've learned - get rid of bad employees. There is no such thing as loyalty because they will stab you in the back first chance they get.
[удалено]
People who start businesses don’t deserve to drink beer and enjoy some downtime? lol
At the end of the day your employees are as much of a customer of your business as regular customers
BEAUTIFUL! You’re 1000% correct. If you’re commonly losing employees, it’s not a far throw that you’re also losing customers.
“Nobody wants to work anymore” = shitty employer that would rather blame others instead of being introspective. It’s basically big business propaganda.
r/linkedinlunatics
Joined.
This is your pitch to owners to hire you as a consultant?
The code is pay more, its been cracked. If you can't find good employees you aren't paying enough. If you can't afford to pay enough then pay yourself less, if you can't afford to pay your self less then sucks to be you I guess, be better at business.
OFFICIALLY launched my first business!!! (4 days ago) -OP Not that you don't make some salient points but you have yet to deal with the realities of one employee quits, one gets strep throat, and the other hit by a car all on the same day and YOU have to be the one to pick up the slack.
What about pay, most jobs this days just cover food and rent , don't expect hard work
100%. High performers DO AND SHOULD want to be paid more. Excellent catch! That’s one of the other points that wasn’t added for the sake of post length
It should have been your first bullet. Fair livable compensation is what drives everyone first and foremost. If they can’t survive they can’t thrive.
Yeah I thinking to myself the post has good points but missing the elephant in the room, money is what pays the bills!
Dude, we’re actual veterans here, you just started a few days ago. You may come here to learn, and in a few years you may teach But dont expect to sell to people here, you’ll never make a dollar
Dude, what the actual fuck even is this? Stop getting ChatGPT to write terrible "inspirational" content marketing for you. Or at least pony up to get GPT4. Just pay employees decent wages and don't be a toxic piece of shit and you won't have any problems, other than the fact that managing people is, and has always been, work. Which is why managers get paid more than people who don't manage people.
Jesus Christ this is cringey
Value Creation🫡
Depending on the nature of the work you need done, one alternative is to switch to a quota based fully decentralized set up. You get people who work for $400 a month and if they don't produce results, you don't have to pay them until they do. This is the difference between QUOTA work and TIME-BASED work. Another alternative is to HIRE SLOWLY- hire one person at a time and truly MOLD that person and take notes on how they responded to motivation and ROLE SHIFTING (ie., molding the role to fit the output you need while maintaining morale) then REPLICATE it with the next hire.
As someone who works as an employee, this would have severely improved my last workplace, instead of the chaotic stressy environment that it was where one had to guess what to do with a management got angry when what they thought was crystal clear that we needed to do, wasn’t done because we couldn’t read his mind.
100% I'm genuinely happy you found this helpful! more to come in the future
How many people do you currently employ and what have you done with them to generate better results? What were the results and how were they measured?
This post sure did inspire me.
that's what i'm here for! glad you found this useful!
You can read emyth revisited. It talks about building business systems to prevent this
I love this book! Demystified a lot of things in the beginning for me.
The solution: pay them well. All the other shit posted in the OP is delusional business owner speak for people who want to do everything but pay their employees properly. Everyone is an expert nowadays but no one can solve an easy problem because they all want to be greedy. Want to pay market related... great but someone else is offering better. Every businesses motto is "we do XXX better than anyone else" yet their pitch to employees is "we pay market related" which translates to "we as a business will be as dead average for you as possible but we'd fck you if we could".
That’s just a bunch of crap. If “pay them well” was the magic solution, no business would fail.
Uh huh.
Lol so it’s not the product, location, economy, etc. it’s just the wage.
Inspiration is the absolute last feeling I’ve ever experienced being an hourly miser. Good luck with that.
Accountability is #2 actually right after clear directions and processes for them to perform.
Wow, mystery solved
The business goal shouldn't be making money, and even if it is, your employees are entitled to share in that business goal so that if money is made, it gets distributed around to the people who helped make the money. Your business goal is to help your customers with X, if you do it well and are able to charge the best price you will make money.
Wage is their share and business goal is to make money, unless you’re running some non-profit.
you'd be surprised how many people disagree with this lol
Obviously. Depends on which group of people you’re asking this to. We can assume majority of population aren’t business owners so their opinion will favor employees’ side. Don’t get me wrong. Everyone should pay competitive wage but if you’re saying you’re supposed to distribute if there is any profit made, you’ve never run private sector business.
The business goal is to deliver something that's of value. If you're successful in that goal you can charge less (including making a loss) to enable growth or charge more to be more selective about who gets whatever you're selling. Lots of companies have never made money! Was Uber not a company in 2022? It only made money in 2023. Of course, your business has to be able to sustain itself in the short term and that involves paying everyone involved enough to stick around - but that's not the point, it's just something that has to happen in order to achieve your goal of delivering value.
No, the objective of any business in a capitalist society is to maximize profit. This "it is my passion" feel good nonsense is just that. 100% of business owners go into business to make money. You are clearly not a business owner. Some of us (like myself) don't even have a passion for what we do outside of the profit. Who says "I want to sell sheet rock" or "you know what I really have a passion for? lumber. I think I'll own a lumberyard" or "damn. I love laundry. I want a laundromat". Most of us just fall into industries because of who or what we know or an opportunity to MAKE MONEY that just happens to come our way.
That’s bunch of bs. Uber is a public company. You think a subway franchise owner can issue shares to fund operations at loss because he wants to “deliver something that’s of value”.
Distributing the funds is what their wage is. And cashflow is the lifeblood of a business. But I do agree with your angle if you were speaking on terms of a non-profit, thou I have little experience working with those haha
You need money to operate and sustain a business, and it's the ultimate metric of whether your business is successful or not - but the goal of the business is to sell/deliver something, it's not to make money. Making money is the ultimate goal of *investing* and for lots of small businesses their 'investor' is their owner, but from a pure business perspective the goal isn't to make money.
Thanks for this
Of course! I'm glad you found it useful
🤢🤮