Businesses Change With Time: We Have To Keep Up

Stupid Business Story:
One of my clients was a real estate broker when the real estate market crash happened. He had a big office, lots of staff, fancy cars and a bunch of property – all leveraged to the hilt.
It’s a familiar story to many in the states hit hardest by the collapse of the [...]

Stupid Business Story:
As a CPA/Tax Strategist advisor, I see a lot of tax strategies. Some work and some fail miserably. Here’s a story of a couple that came to me in a spot where it looked like their previous tax advisor had gone out of their way to make them pay too much [...]

Choose Your Business Partners Wisely

Stupid Business Story:
My business was booming and I needed to spend more time away from the office, working on additional marketing and joint venture promotion and deals. My Operation Manager had a small ownership in the company and wanted more. So we worked out a deal where he could continue to buy in [...]

3 Stages from Self-Employed to Business Success

Making the move from self-employed to successful business owner sounds easy on paper, but don’t be fooled! There’s plenty of work involved. However, on the other hand, there’s also the reward: money in your pocket and time on your hands to plan your next move.
So how do you get from Stage 1 to Stage 3? [...]

The Difference Between Self-Employment and a Business Owner

Stupid Business Story:
I’m gonna keep this real simple. When I was 22 I started a telecommunicatons company. Turn it into a million dollar business in 9 months. Over the next 3 years grew it by 50% each year. Then I was diagnosed (completely unexpectedly) with a life-threatening illness and could no [...]

Went Into Business With A Close Friend

Stupid Business Story:
Went into business with a close friend
Lesson From the Story:
DON’T GO INTO BUSINESS WITH A CLOSE FRIEND
Thanks To:
Chris Farmand
Do you have a business story you’d like to share? It can be your own story or someone else’s. You can include your name or be anonymous. Please go to http://www.smartbusinessstupidbusinessonline.com/stupidbizstories and [...]

Absentee Owner Needs to Pay Attention to the Numbers

PROBLEM:

I was hired as the CPA for a convenience store that was in complete chaos. The books and records, such as they were, didn’t make any sense at all. But the one thing that was certain was that the store was busy and they were always broke.
The owners fired the bookkeeper [...]

Keep Regular Backups

PROBLEM:

Among the first things we taught our clients about their new computer systems was backup at least once EVERY DAY! They all did, we think, almost religiously.
One day of our clients called and their disk drive had crashed. I said I’d come and repair the system and we’d restore from the back [...]

Beware Of Giving One Employee Too Much Responsibility

Problem

I have a repair business client who had a customer service person for several years. He seemed like a good guy. Was very good with customers and knew lots about the computer system and the way things ran in the office.
This was all good and well, except for a few things. I [...]

Hold Employees Responsible

PROBLEM:

Joan (not her real name) was a smart business woman who drove herself hard. She never drove the people around her as hard, though, letting them off deadlines and broken promises without much thought.
Her bookkeeper kept promising to get the records to her and he got sick, his son got sick, his computer crashed, [...]