Any small business owners here?

So, I was just wondering if there are any other small business owners here that wouldn't mind lending their experience running there business. Whether good or bad? I'm looking to expand mine (we offer entertainment services for parties and event) but thought it'd be interesting to see if anyone here has anything they'd like to share about running there's.

I recently started my own small business, so I don't have a lot of experience yet, but I can tell my story briefly.

I graduated from college in 2010 with a bachelor's degree in biology. Between my work during school and after graduating I had 7 years experience in Quality Assurance for a contract blending and packaging company. I was involved in nearly every part of production from component and raw material inspections to blending operations and packaging as well. I ran a variety of analytical equipment to test actives in OTC drug products and helped the formulators with bench tests as well as directing line supervisors on adjustments to filling and packaging. I basically was the QA department for the 2nd shift crew.

But for all that experience, the pay was crappy and I hated my schedule. Other similar available jobs offered more of the same. I wanted to have more flexible hours to pursue other interests while I'm still young enough to do so and earn a fair wage without selling my soul to a company. I decided I wanted to try being my own boss.

So I quit my job and went to work for a friend who had a small but successful window cleaning company. I worked for him for about 7 months last year to learn the business. Over the winter I put everything into motion to start my own window cleaning company.

I have now been in business for a few months, doing window cleaning, pressure washing and similar jobs. It is a lot of work and at times is overwhelming but I am acclimating and settling in. As I am still just working to build my own customer base, it can be challenging at times, but the benefits are there. The harder I work, the better I do. I can make 4-5x more per hour than I did in the lab and I don't have to watch my boss pull in in new luxury vehicles every few months anymore while I fought for a $0.50 raise. I work hard but am able to pursue other endeavors as well and that makes me happy. I am optimistic about the future. I may not want to do this forever but at least I will have tried it and the experience gained is priceless.

That's my story.

And what a great story it is. I admire you for going ahead with it and jumping in there. How do you advertise/market your business? Do you use free marketing techniques such as Facebook, Craigslist, word of mouth, etc. Or do you pay for advertising? Also do you know how your customers find you?

I hope I'm not offending you by my questions but I have one more. Do you rent office space? The reason I ask is because in "expanding" one of the options is to rent office space and though I've found some on Officelist and Zillow Office Space that seem like they would work I'm just not sure if it's completely necessary.

Word of mouth will be huge for you , but it takes a while to develop that.
Our business uses the "paid" Facebook advertising. You can target your demographics ( age, location...) very nicely. It is not too expensive.
We have been open just over 14 months and have over 21,000 followers now. When we post ads for specials, openings, promotions, the response is quick & very well received.
You will need to do your homework on how this works, but we are very happy with our results.

On the flip side, my 9-5 job, also has a FB presence, but we do not promote it at all, and the response has been poor. This business relies heavily on word of mouth, but this one has also been in business over 30 years, and has a great reputation, so we are not pushing/paying for any FB ads.


My background is a Public Accountant for the last 30 years, recently opened a new concept business, which is doing very well. ( not even close to accounting).
You MUST monitor your advertising. Both budget & customer response. Approx 50% of advertising money is wasted, your job is to find out which 50% if effective.

Hire quality employees who care. Treat your employees with respect.
ALWAYS Remember CUSTOMER SERVICE is a #1 PRIORITY!!! Listen and serve you customer with top service.
Take the time to train and teach your employees the skills required to do the job correctly.

FlashKat said:

Hire quality employees who care. Treat your employees with respect.
ALWAYS Remember CUSTOMER SERVICE is a #1 PRIORITY!!! Listen and serve you customer with top service.
Take the time to train and teach your employees the skills required to do the job correctly.

Click to expand...

Excellent words of advice.I can think of 2 companies in the UK (names of stores removed-not nice) who purposely go out of the way to employ Mr & Mrs Muppet in every one of there retail stores as there staff are as thick as a tree trunk and completely clueless on any item they sell.

knotgoofy said:

So, I was just wondering if there are any other small business owners here that wouldn't mind lending their experience running there business. Whether good or bad? I'm looking to expand mine (we offer entertainment services for parties and event) but thought it'd be interesting to see if anyone here has anything they'd like to share about running there's.

Click to expand...

If you can own your own business, do it!

I am going on 24 years as a corporate photographer, and photojournalist. I started one day with a bag with two cameras and now own a studio worth over a million dollars, made more money than I ever thought possible, work with some of the best and largest corporations in America, and as a journalist have photographed 8 president's, three administrations, with the others out of office, (Nixon thru Obama). cover the biggest and best events in Hollywood, and have been around the world on both corporate and journalistic work. (Some is covered on my site, and we need to update that).

Now, keep in mind you can't do everything yourself, and I worked 18 hour days for almost 20 years with not really any days off. It is not easy, but it can be rewarding. Even if I did not get to do the work at the national level, I would have been just as happy working locally, as long as I made money at it, and the name on the door was mine.

My wife has worked for me most of this time as my second camera and post production artist, I could never have done any of this without her knowledge in IT and computers. All my assistants work hard for me, and I treat them well, never take all the credit, as you will need others to help you and you will need to trust them to do your work for you and in my case represent me at things I can't be at since we have multiple projects on the same day.

Once you become your own boss you can never go back to working for someone else, there is no way I could, and I worked for quite a few schmucks in my younger days.

We had a good run, but the entire photo business has been beat up the last few years like many industries, and this is hard physical work, so I am working on starting a school of photography to teach people photography in a real world kind of way, where they can learn quick, plus pass along the tricks you pick up doing something for so long.

When people ask me how I was able to do some of the things I have done, I really don't have a good answer, luck I guess.

Again, if you have something you are doing now, keep working at it, and look for new ideas, work hard at it and you will succeed. One piece of advice I can give is don't expand too fast.

Hope this helps,

You ask about office space, etc....

...So I'd point out that there's no one right answer, or even a set of questions. What I would say is to simply think through what running the business would be like WITHOUT an office first, and see if there's anything or things that jump out and scream it won't work.

For example, if your house is zoned/situated/sized/laid out such that you could run the biz from it, sure, save some $. The PORTION that is SOLELY used for the biz can be a tax write off for example. If you need to have clients go to you, and your place is not suited for it...then, you need an office.

If your biz requires more storage space than you have at home, the answer can be renting storage space instead of office space...or adding the space at home (Out buildings, etc). Home offices can be made in the same way when there's enough space at your home.

If you need company vehicles, or your biz makes noise, etc...and that's a problem in your neighborhood, sure, off site locations make more sense.

Are you disciplined? IE: If working at home, will you lounge around in your bathrobe all day, checking out CPF online and enjoying snacks, or, wake up like you had a boss expecting you at 7 am sharp and get cracking on your livelihood? If you had an office, would you treat it as your daily routine and have regular hours, etc?

Does your biz require the phones to be answered/email monitored, etc? Is that your job, or, are you hiring a receptionist/secretary/office manager, etc?

Do you want them showing up for work at your house, or, would you rather they are going to an off site office?

Are there small biz incubators near you? They offer dirt cheap space and use of office equipment and sometimes reception services, etc...but tend to be cramped and hard to expand from w/o moving...but are designed to get you up and running.

And so forth....just think it through, and the answers will gel.

Launch Mini said:

Word of mouth will be huge for you , but it takes a while to develop that.
Our business uses the "paid" Facebook advertising. You can target your demographics ( age, location...) very nicely. It is not too expensive.
We have been open just over 14 months and have over 21,000 followers now. When we post ads for specials, openings, promotions, the response is quick & very well received.
You will need to do your homework on how this works, but we are very happy with our results.

On the flip side, my 9-5 job, also has a FB presence, but we do not promote it at all, and the response has been poor. This business relies heavily on word of mouth, but this one has also been in business over 30 years, and has a great reputation, so we are not pushing/paying for any FB ads.


My background is a Public Accountant for the last 30 years, recently opened a new concept business, which is doing very well. ( not even close to accounting).
You MUST monitor your advertising. Both budget & customer response. Approx 50% of advertising money is wasted, your job is to find out which 50% if effective.

Click to expand...

We don't do FB for several reasons, I guess the clients we get we keep most and it does not fit our profile of word of mouth. After all these years, I don't want followers. But that is just how we want it.

TEEJ said:

You ask about office space, etc....

...So I'd point out that there's no one right answer, or even a set of questions. What I would say is to simply think through what running the business would be like WITHOUT an office first, and see if there's anything or things that jump out and scream it won't work.

For example, if your house is zoned/situated/sized/laid out such that you could run the biz from it, sure, save some $. The PORTION that is SOLELY used for the biz can be a tax write off for example. If you need to have clients go to you, and your place is not suited for it...then, you need an office.

If your biz requires more storage space than you have at home, the answer can be renting storage space instead of office space...or adding the space at home (Out buildings, etc). Home offices can be made in the same way when there's enough space at your home.

If you need company vehicles, or your biz makes noise, etc...and that's a problem in your neighborhood, sure, off site locations make more sense.

Are you disciplined? IE: If working at home, will you lounge around in your bathrobe all day, checking out CPF online and enjoying snacks, or, wake up like you had a boss expecting you at 7 am sharp and get cracking on your livelihood? If you had an office, would you treat it as your daily routine and have regular hours, etc?

Does your biz require the phones to be answered/email monitored, etc? Is that your job, or, are you hiring a receptionist/secretary/office manager, etc?

Do you want them showing up for work at your house, or, would you rather they are going to an off site office?

Are there small biz incubators near you? They offer dirt cheap space and use of office equipment and sometimes reception services, etc...but tend to be cramped and hard to expand from w/o moving...but are designed to get you up and running.

And so forth....just think it through, and the answers will gel.

Click to expand...

Some good points here, I started working from home, but it became too complex. And T is right you could just watch "Wheel of Fortune" all day, and tell yourself, I will work tomorrow. However, in the beginning if you can manage it working from home can be good for your expenses, and fun, too.

Dump all hobbies and sports. Once I started, I did not play golf, or do any hobbies, and re-invested all the profits back in the company. After 10 years, I became less worried and started to enjoy some of the profits. Thing is, we would go to Las Vegas, or Hawaii, and I could not wait to get back to my desk, as I loved running my business more than recreational things. Still do.

Also, I would never have a partner in business. Maybe it is just me, but only the lawyers have profited from all the partnerships I have seen and knew people in over the years. Again that is just my thoughts and something to think about.

Posted by mistake.

Posted by mistake.

The partnership and free time issues are going to be very specific. Everyone is going to have different needs. For example, some businesses require 24/7 service, and/or being able to go more than one place at a time, and, some people need time off to recharge/not get burnt out.

I would not say to never have a partner, but, as mentioned, partnerships can sour if there is insufficient leverage to level the work loads and drive the business to more than double its cash flow past what one owner could do. Doubling the cash flow is only a break even point if its being split two ways.

For many businesses, and for many owners, never being able to take a vacation/time off = unhappy spouse/progeny = you are always working. Some relationships will survive that (Family business, all happily working together for the mutual good), and some will not (You're never home/friends and family think you love the business more than you do them, feel neglected, etc), or, the family member(s) see your business as an entitlement for them, and don't feel they need to "work", just show up, etc....and act as expensive dead wood.

Some businesses are of the nature that you CAN simply tell a client you're not able to help them for a few weeks...and, they can wait. If you're fixing leaking roofs, mowing their lawn, a mortician, or plumber, etc, they may need to call your competition. Having a partner means that 1) You can go on vacation/take time off, take a sick day if needed, because the other owner is still there to run things. 2) You have given another person half your business, and, they may try to take it from you later, or, make decisions you disagree with that hurt the business, and/or that you disagree with that help the business. IE: Their involvement is a crap shoot. (On their side, they are deciding if YOU are a risky partner as well, etc..)

So most new businesses tend to have the owner do EVERYTHING, and work 48 hours a day 14 days a week to get it all done, until the business gets up and running and they can start delegating some responsibilities. Some NEVER get past that point, and, some go bankrupt trying, and, some actually succeed. The key to success is cash flow though. If you have no kitty to draw from, you have a rolling kitty that you feed/drain hand to mouth. That means that if under capitalized, one slow period, or one fatal mistake, or one injury can kill your fledgling business. Getting working capital is probably a main reason people find a partner in the first place....one provides the money to buy equipment and pay staff to get things going, the other provides the technical expertise. The trouble comes later, when each feels THEIR contribution was worth more, and, wants something in return for the difference to compensate.

The compromise is to hire a manager who can run things when you're not around, but who you pay a salary/compensation of some type...as opposed to giving a percentage of ownership....or, give a lower percentage of ownership to, say in terms of stock as opposed to controlling interest, etc. The downside is that, especially for a new company that might not have developed the cash flow required to pay a manager in addition to supporting YOU...you may not be able to afford to hire people of the needed caliber, which can include those candidates being able to fog a mirror, etc. Going to the bank/venture capitalist, etc...for a loan, is a popular way to get start up capital...but, they want a return on their investment....and, if there's no cash coming in, its your house, etc, that might be used to pay them back.

Living small, even when things look like they're going well, so that if things change (Recession/depression, regulatory change that cripples you, losing key client(s), new product from a competitor you can't match, family illness/emergencies, etc), your monthly nut is easier to crack/less likely to break you. The lower your overhead, the less you NEED to make every month to pay it...and the more you can sock away the difference. If used to getting a salary, getting paid randomly can be hard to adjust to for some people, and, you need to essentially give your self an operating budget for the business and home life as well....and sock away the left over to get you through the lean periods, rather than "celebrating" with new cars and larger houses etc...or, appeasing the neglected family members, etc. They typically want your time more anyway....and that's the most expensive gift of all.