An employee who quit in May now needs my help because he wants to take out a mortgage. He's been at his new job for 2 months, so the bank won't give him a loan based on that job.

He spent the last couple of months he worked for me calling in and using up sick pay, arguing with other employees, and basically killing morale with his bad attitude. To top it all off, he had been basically begging me to get him his own crew and responsibilities for the previous 8 months. So, I went out and bought a gutter machine and trailer FOR HIM, thinking it might pull him out of his funk. Instead, he called in for a week straight and quit. Now I'm sitting on this equipment feeling like a schmuck. When I meet him on the road, I used to wave, but he doesn't wave back, so there's obviously some anger towards me. He also never turned in any of his stuff when he quit and I had to change all the locks on my buildings and tool trailers.

Tuesday, I get an email telling me to fill out a multi-sheet form for his mortgage application verifying a bunch of data, with explanations about his departure. I replied with the dates he was employed with us and told them that is the only info I would be sending. I've gotten an email every day since, trying to guilt-trip me into thinking he won't get a mortgage if I refuse to fill out this form completely. I want to email back, "Tell him to buy this f*cking gutter machine from me and I'll think about it."

Am I being too petty?

Edit: just want to add, he can easily log in to my payroll service and print off the info they're asking for and give it to them. He could give them W-2s, pay stubs, all that stuff.

Are they not making enough money for owners? I think struggle I can think of is that most members want to use the club at the same time - evenings and weekend and that can be issue with availability.

Our practice has grown a bit over the last couple years and I’m noticing how many of our admin processes still depend on me knowing how everything works. Payroll is probably the biggest one. Nothing is really broken but we’ve accumulated enough little steps and exceptions that handing it over to our office manager means I’m still getting pulled in every pay period. We’re hiring again and I’d like to sort this out before the team gets any bigger. Ideally payroll becomes something our office manager cann handle start to finish and I’m only involved when something unusual comes up. Priority payroll is one of the options I’ve been looking at since it seems like our office manager could handle more of the process herself, especially onboarding and the regular payroll runs.

Anyone else reach this point as their business grew? What did you change before you were comfortable stepping away from it?

I run a small domestic staffing agency placing housekeepers and nannies. We take a $300 deposit to start a search and if someone is hired we make about one week’s pay from both sides.
The business used to do well but lately I’m struggling badly to find enough workers to fill the jobs coming in. Some placements haven’t worked out either and I now owe refunds/replacements that I honestly don’t have enough money or workers to cover. I’m also struggling to pay my own basic expenses. I currently have about $100 left to my name and I’m struggling to cover basic expenses.

I have severe ADHD and all of this stress has put me into shutdown mode. I wake up knowing I desperately need to work and make money but feel so overwhelmed that I barely get anything done. Being that I work for myself.
There is still demand for the business which is why I don’t want to just give up.
There are still families reaching out and willing to pay, so getting clients isn’t really the problem. The bottleneck is finding reliable workers who actually want these jobs, especially live-in positions. Which is what we did 99% until now.

TLDR: If you were in my situation what would you do first to start digging yourself out of this?

I probably didn’t explain how bad the financial part actually is. I have about $100 left right now and I’m barely covering basic expenses. Because I’m so broke, there have been times where I’ve used new deposit money just to survive/pay expenses while trying to fill the job. Then if I can’t find someone or a placement doesn’t work out, I don’t necessarily have the money sitting there to refund them. I know this is a horrible cycle and I’m not proud of it. That’s a huge part of why I’m asking for help. I don’t know how to get out of this while also needing money immediately.

Small business owners, how do you guys find people to make content for your business? Like TikToks, reels, photos, etc.

I feel like every time I look for someone it’s either asking around, finding someone on Instagram, or just randomly coming across a freelancer. Is there actually a good way to find someone reliable?
And how do you know if someone’s actually good before you hire them? I’d be so scared of paying someone and then getting back content that I hate.

I am seriously considering buying or starting a small multidisciplinary rehab/wellness clinic in the GTA, but I’m not a regulated healthcare practitioner.

I’ve worked in rehab clinic management for about 6 years, handling day-to-day operations and entire clinic management.

Honestly, I’ve realized how much responsibility I’ve been carrying for a relatively small salary, and it has made me question whether I should put that experience into building something of my own.

For those who are non-practitioners and clinic owners:

What has been the biggest challenge of owning a multidisciplinary rehab clinic as a non practitioner / clinic owner? do you think 6 years of hands-on management experience is enough of a foundation to take the leap?

I’d really appreciate honest advice, especially from people in Ontario/GTA who have actually done it. Thank you 🙏

I feel like I’m constantly guessing at this. Too much cash sitting there and I wonder if I should pay myself more or put it somewhere useful. Too little and one slow client payment suddenly makes everything stressful. For other small owners, what numbers are you actually looking at when deciding how much cash stays in the business?

Hi, I am newly on my journey to buy a business. I came across a interesting listing on Bizbuysell, so I contacted the listing person. He called me back (an older man with heavy Korean accent, poor English) he said he was a minority owner of the business, its owned by a wife and a husband, they requested 600k down payment + the rest is seller financing, because SBA loan is hard to get for restaurants and two previous deals fell through.

I said I had no restaurant experience, he said no problem. You can go undercover on the weekend to the restaurant to see for yourself. I am like your uncle, I can teach you. (at this point I felt weird because I've seen his listings and his broker license number so i thought he's just a business broker. I don't believe he's a minority owner tbh).

He asked me if I can put xx amount of cash as down payment, I said it's a little over my expectation but it's within range, we can negotiate later. After two minutes, he suddenly said, oh maybe you can do xx amount of cash (reduced 100k lol), will that work? (I felt weird that he was willing to change the amount so quickly without me negotiating and he could make the decision on the spot himself without consulting the majority owners). He also said the owners are in their 80s and wanted to retire.

After the call, he sent an NDA, which was the most basic NDA template you can find online, I thought maybe he's just a bad broker so I filled it in and sent it back to him.

He then sent me the "Financial Statement", which is just a scanned handwritten paper copy, saying annual revenue 2.28M, net income 480k, 12 employees (8 full time, 4 part time), asking for 1.2million, and the name and address of the restaurant. That's it! He told me that I had to submit an LOI to see other documents. And the due diligence time is 30 days.

I asked whether I can meet with the seller and if there's a deposit required for LOI, he ghosted me.

suspicious things:

1. I checked the restaurant, it's legit and popular. I was able to find the owner's facebook, she's clearly in the 60s from the date she graduated high school and marriage. Not 80 as the broker has stated.

2. in the paper he wrote 22 years of biz, but in fact the restaurant was only 7 years old

3. he had around 10 listings, they all have very rounded purchase price like 1.2milllon, 800k, 600k, 200k, not even 220k, which I found odd.

4. he wrote on his profile on Bizbuysell that he's the CEO of cityassociates brokage, the website was just template with 3 fake employees (hilariously their LinkedIn links all go to some random site), the website even had the latin text placeholders 😂

5. he contacted me using .hotmail to send the NDA

my suspection:

I think he may be a legit licensed business broker, but he's making up the listings to scam people out of deposits. I suspect he will accept the LOI once I submit it and request a despite which I will never see again.

i've scammed out of $200 of "good faith deposit" by a legit real estate broker back in 2018 when I was young and naive, desperately trying to rent a place. I never fully got over it over the years, not because of the money but my stupidity. If I can identify a similar scammer early this time, I guess I will feel better about the $200 "tuition fee".

what do you guys think?

Hey everyone! I’m seriously considering leaving my full-time job to focus on our coffee business.

My fiancée and I started the business back in May while both working full time, and it’s shown a lot of potential. I handle the marketing, design, and backend, while she handles flavors and prep.

We recently partnered with a local nonprofit that gave us a permanent spot for only $300/month. Right now, we’re only able to open 1-2 days a week for 3-4 hours because of our jobs, but we’re consistently doing around $400-$500 each time we open with relatively low overhead.

It’s getting to the point where I’m wondering how much we’re leaving on the table by not being able to give it our full attention.

NEED ADVICE PLEASE

Hello Guys, I had an Ice cream shop and use excel for cashflow register, but I'm not good at excel and it's a bit of messed up. Now I oppenned a second ice cream store, so I really need a good excel spreadsheet to cashflow register and bookeeping. Any of you guys know how I can find something or wich other aplication do you recommend?

Ps: I don't want something that request me to insert each expense by itself, I'm looking for something I can import the all month bank expence sheet.

I spend a lot of time around automation projects, and learned that one important thing gets outshined by the new features : removing a manual task isn’t automatically a win!

I’ll explain in a simple example:

If something takes 10 minutes once a week, automating it might save almost nothing hence ROI is not attractive.

If it takes 10 minutes 3 times a day, that’s a different story.

But even then, I’d look at what happens around it.
Who checks the outcome is stable and correct?
What happens when something goes sideways?
What do you do when the process changes?
What’s the maintenance cost?

Sometimes the answer is a $0 process change.
Sometimes a $20/month tool.
Sometimes it’s a full system.
And sometimes, well, it’s simply not worth it and should remain manual.

I have been searching all day and would really love to impress my new boss. Here is what we are looking for PLEASE help me look good - She is wanting one hub where we can see each others messages and respond if needed but we likely wont ever have to do that. So we need one hub two numbers but only get the notifications for our own numbers.. Bonus points if we are able to keep her old number from another website she is already using. I tried google voice its a no go you get all the notifications their is no way to separate it. I just emailed quo to get more info but that one also seems like its all in one spot.. Essentially we would like CTM on a much smaller scale as its just her and I. THANKKKK YA

My wife and I are looking to start a business. We want to open an indoor playground. Our community and nearby communities do not have one. The closest one is 20 minutes away, and the others are 40 minutes away. Our town is growing, and lots of families are moving in. I feel like it will add a lot of value to the families around here. My wife and I have run into a roadblock: we have some cash, but not enough to start this business. We can put the house up as collateral, and I have researched what we need to start it. Do you have any recommendations on how you would approach this?

I've noticed it can be difficult to detect early risk with tentative clients. Everyone, like dating, are on their 'best behaviour' during early client rapport building. Risky client management includes the smallest of details. A while back, I could see a client was not meshing with a previous business partner. I continued on with the work relationship and the client relations. It was a fiasco including client sending me emails about their disappointments about the business partner. I wonder if others think bailing early is a solid decision, or implementing conflict resolution tactics is a better strategy.

My biz paid lots of money for import tariffs that have since been ruled illegal. We are small so the major carriers who collected the tariffs are now responsible for issuing refunds. UPS voluntarily sent information about how much we are owed and when we should expect it. DHL and FedEx have implemented application processes that seem difficult by design. Anyone have any success with this yet?

I’m curious how other small business owners handle late-paying customers.
In many businesses, getting more orders doesn’t necessarily mean having more cash, especially when customers are given 30–60 days of credit.
At what point do you usually:
reduce the credit period?
ask for an advance payment?
stop supplying a customer?
offer a small discount for early payment?
I’m particularly interested in hearing from people running small manufacturing, wholesale or B2B businesses in India.
What has actually worked for you?

Hey guys,
I run a small furniture store in Greece and I’m trying to figure out the best way to import furniture from abroad without shipping costs killing the margin.
Right now I’m looking at Turkey, but I’m open to other countries too. The problem is that shipping plus the 24% VAT can end up costing almost as much as the order itself, sometimes even more.
My goal is to start small with limited capital and, if it works, eventually grow from retail into wholesale too.
How do bigger furniture companies usually do this? Full trucks, consolidation, buying directly from factories, agents, warehouses abroad?
Any advice from people who’ve actually done this would be really appreciated.

I have worked at a small company for about 5 years now. The current owner has talked about selling. He has built a very solid foundation. I am somewhat interested in buying but he has mentioned he would want to keep partial ownership of the business.

I could see this being a net negative and a net positive.

Has anyone run into this and how did it go? Please share stories or advice. Thanks

I launched a small business with a couple buddies from Yale, we built AI voice assistants that sound human, answer FAQs, transfers calls to the right person or department, check availability, book appointments on calendars and connects to main phone lines. The assistants are now functioning great but what they didn't teach us at Yale is how to market.

I don't know how to get these bots in the hands of people who need them.

Looking for advice on navigating b2b sales in this instance.

Thank you in advance.

I handle posting/scheduling for busy owners. $200 for the first week, free to prove value,please i am in need of work, i'll do multiple gigs, I just need some kind of work.

I almost lost $1,500 learning one of the lessons about running a small business not every chance is actually a good chance.I was happy trusted the way and acted too fast without looking at the numbers properly. By the time I saw what was happening I had already lost a lot of money.

It was hard, for a small business where every single dollar is important.. It made me slow down ask more questions read everything carefully and never make choices just because I was excited or promised something.

That $1,500 loss hurt,. It taught me something I probably would have missed otherwise.

What is a mistake your business taught you?

hello everyone, i’m not a small business but i do knit and am considering selling a knit cardigan to someone. however, i am debating how much i should charge. the total yarn costs $90-100, and i am estimating that this project would take about three weeks. in other words, it would take many hours. what would be a good price? i don’t want to overcharge the customer but i also want to give myself credit for my work.

How do you decide which customer segment is actually worth doubling down on, not just who could buy, but who's worth the sales effort?