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Growing to fast and I need help. Partner, employees or outscourcing?

Kokaka

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Hi all.
So as some of you know, Im in the beauty industry and it seems as I have struck gold. When I opend end of october, I was a burned out med-student who started from 0 (actually from negative if you factor in student loans) and now I have a business that has had a turnover of 230k with just over 100k profit in 7 month selling machines to clinics.
This is all great fun but I have encounterd another problem.
The thing is, I have a beauty clinic which I just love to manage and the goal is to open up a chain of them in many cities and countries. This is my passion.
I have reinvested about 50k from my first company to my second and have about 50k left.
The clinic is also doing great and I have had about 140k turnover with 20k profit on the clinic with just one employee. Will hire 3 more ASAP.

Thing is, I hate the business thats making all the money and how its operated. Selling is fun but I hate to take complaints from customers or sending mechanics to fix broken machines. I just stress to much for very minor things. I also dont like the process of doing nothing for a time, sell for alot of money and then do noting again.

This got me thinking, it has to be a solution to the problem.
I have identified 3 potential solutions.

Get a partner.
This is something I would like. However, I dont know anyone who can be my partner.
Is there somewhere you can find someone to run your business for you?

Employee
Hire a seller/Account manager
Will do all the things I dont like. But will cost alot of money. and I dont have anywhere for him/her to work. I just sit in my kirchen for a few hours every day so I need to get an office.

Outscource.
Hire and external account manager who work on provision. Easy process and seems like the route I will go.

Later on, I will develop my own brand and let other people sell the machines for me and take care of all the boring parts and I can focus on expanding my clinics.

So. Does anyone have any similar experience they want to share? Like what did you do when you gave your "money making system" over to someone else?
Thanks
 
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Bigguns50

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I can only give you my experience but maybe it will help.

Define WHO you want to be. The CEO of your company for example. This is my personal goal. So, I hire and contract people to free up my time to expand and scale my business. This does cost $$ in the moment. But. It allows me time to focus on the bigger goal.

The things you don't want to do or are not good at doing, contract or hire out asap.

Don't get caught in the trap of being the business owner who can't take any time off, is stressed constantly, and doesn't grow.
 
G

Guest-5ty5s4

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Hi all.
So as some of you know, Im in the beauty industry and it seems as I have struck gold. When I opend end of october, I was a burned out med-student who started from 0 (actually from negative if you factor in student loans) and now I have a business that has had a turnover of 230k with just over 100k profit in 7 month selling machines to clinics.
This is all great fun but I have encounterd another problem.
The thing is, I have a beauty clinic which I just love to manage and the goal is to open up a chain of them in many cities and countries. This is my passion.
I have reinvested about 50k from my first company to my second and have about 50k left.
The clinic is also doing great and I have had about 140k turnover with 20k profit on the clinic with just one employee. Will hire 3 more ASAP.

Thing is, I hate the business thats making all the money and how its operated. Selling is fun but I hate to take complaints from customers or sending mechanics to fix broken machines. I just stress to much for very minor things. I also dont like the process of doing nothing for a time, sell for alot of money and then do noting again.

This got me thinking, it has to be a solution to the problem.
I have identified 3 potential solutions.

Get a partner.
This is something I would like. However, I dont know anyone who can be my partner.
Is there somewhere you can find someone to run your business for you?

Employee
Hire a seller/Account manager
Will do all the things I dont like. But will cost alot of money. and I dont have anywhere for him/her to work. I just sit in my kirchen for a few hours every day so I need to get an office.

Outscource.
Hire and external account manager who work on provision. Easy process and seems like the route I will go.

Later on, I will develop my own brand and let other people sell the machines for me and take care of all the boring parts and I can focus on expanding my clinics.

So. Does anyone have any similar experience they want to share? Like what did you do when you gave your "money making system" over to someone else?
Thanks
Sell the other business.

If it's really doing as well as you say, I bet tons of people would buy it. Shoot, I would if I had the cash.
 

PST

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I totally agree to that.
I can only give you my experience but maybe it will help.

Define WHO you want to be. The CEO of your company for example. This is my personal goal. So, I hire and contract people to free up my time to expand and scale my business. This does cost $$ in the moment. But. It allows me time to focus on the bigger goal.

The things you don't want to do or are not good at doing, contract or hire out asap.

Don't get caught in the trap of being the business owner who can't take any time off, is stressed constantly, and doesn't grow.

I totally agree to that. Time is the most important thing, so spend money to save time. Don't everything yourself. Outsource the hard work.
 
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Johnny boy

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Be selfish and change the processes and systems of the business to make it work better for you.

1. All complaints must be emailed to a specific email address, no intrusive phone calls
2. Complaints are handled by an employee so you don't have to deal with the negativity
etc...

You will lose some people, but they are people you don't want anyways. I can share the experience of managing my lawn care company:

Complaints are handled by a customer service rep. Anything that's screwed up is taken care of on the next visit, we aren't coming back to take care of it on the same day. Customers have to sign a 12 month contract with a 2 month cancellation fee. We do basic services only.

An example of what you can do is to change what you're offering, or be upfront about not offering post-sale support and lower your prices a bit. You can change how your business works and set it up to be any way you want. If you don't like it, change it! You can tell each customer. "Here's the thing we are selling, no refunds and we do not answer calls, it's $4,000. Buy it or don't" You'll probably find that people still love your product and now you have no more headaches to deal with.
 

biophase

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You are making $100,000 in seven months, you can afford to hire somebody to do the customer service for you and manage the maintenance issues.
 

Brrr

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I would strongly recommend against getting a partner, giving away a bunch of equity because you can't be bothered to deal with customer service seems a little short-sighted.

There must be a lot of overlap between the two businesses surely so just hire someone that can take away a lot of the admin responsibilities and help you grow your original one. Even if you wanted to sell the sales biz down the line, or get a partner to run it, having staff in place equipped to handle customer service and aftersale is only going to help you.

I disagree with selling things without the aftersale services as a solution, it might work in the short term, but you need to manage your reputation too.
 
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Last edited:

Kokaka

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I can only give you my experience but maybe it will help.

Define WHO you want to be. The CEO of your company for example. This is my personal goal. So, I hire and contract people to free up my time to expand and scale my business. This does cost $$ in the moment. But. It allows me time to focus on the bigger goal.

The things you don't want to do or are not good at doing, contract or hire out asap.

Don't get caught in the trap of being the business owner who can't take any time off, is stressed constantly, and doesn't grow.
Yes I totally agree. Thats why I need to remove the selling part and customer service part to someone else.
I just need to se what would be the best and how to proceed.
If I outscource the selling to an Account Manager firm, they will take a big provision, but they will do all the incall sales and also outcall sales. So their job will be to call other businesses and sell over the phone.
Maybe they charge 20% out of 40k so 8k goes to them in provison. Alot of money but I believe they will be able so sell way more due to B2B sales.
Sell the other business.

If it's really doing as well as you say, I bet tons of people would buy it. Shoot, I would if I had the cash.
This is my goal in the future.
Problem is, I have no value at the moment because the only thing I have are some ads and me working in my kitchen.
I totally agree to that.


I totally agree to that. Time is the most important thing, so spend money to save time. Don't everything yourself. Outsource the hard work.
Absolutly. My goal is to make a money making machine where everything is automated so I dont have to do anything.
Be selfish and change the processes and systems of the business to make it work better for you.

1. All complaints must be emailed to a specific email address, no intrusive phone calls
2. Complaints are handled by an employee so you don't have to deal with the negativity
etc...

You will lose some people, but they are people you don't want anyways. I can share the experience of managing my lawn care company:

Complaints are handled by a customer service rep. Anything that's screwed up is taken care of on the next visit, we aren't coming back to take care of it on the same day. Customers have to sign a 12 month contract with a 2 month cancellation fee. We do basic services only.

An example of what you can do is to change what you're offering, or be upfront about not offering post-sale support and lower your prices a bit. You can change how your business works and set it up to be any way you want. If you don't like it, change it! You can tell each customer. "Here's the thing we are selling, no refunds and we do not answer calls, it's $4,000. Buy it or don't" You'll probably find that people still love your product and now you have no more headaches to deal with.
I understand the point, but I do deals that range from 40k to 100k so I need to have excellent service due to the very high order values.
You are making $100,000 in seven months, you can afford to hire somebody to do the customer service for you and manage the maintenance issues.
Yes on paper I can afford it. However I dont have anywhere to put the staff yet, so it will come with additional fees. Like, I work in my kitchen with this a few hours per week. I would need an office, staff etc.
Also some of the profit it leased to some clients. Because of covid, no leasing companies have helped me so I do have quite alot of money "lended" to my customers. Ex, they pay 15k for a 30k machine upfront and 24 month monthly payment intrest free for the remaining value.
I will try to Factoring my invoices and as such get all my money directly for a small fee to the factoring bank.
If I get this I will look into hire staff asap.

I have also now linked up an outscourced service center who take all the technical and service errands. Helps alot with my stress and only cost me 300usd a month.
I would strongly recommend against getting a partner, giving away a bunch of equity because you can't be bothered to deal with customer service seems a little short-sighted.

There must be a lot of overlap between the two businesses surely so just hire someone that can take away a lot of the admin responsibilities and help you grow your original one. Even if you wanted to sell the sales biz down the line, or get a partner to run it, having staff in place equipped to handle customer service and aftersale are is only going to help you.

I disagree with selling things without the aftersale services as a solution, it might work in the short term, but you need to manage your reputation too.

Yes the overlap has been the thing that make this business work in the first place.

Yes maybe it is bad to give away a bunch of quitity. Maybe hire someone to run the business for with provision instead of equity.
 

biophase

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Absolutly. My goal is to make a money making machine where everything is automated so I dont have to do anything.

This is why your business will fail. I’d love to come back to this thread in one year and see how you are doing.

Honestly, the part that concerns me is that you said you were broke in October, and it is only May. So in the span of 7 months you went from broke to making money and you are ready tired of running your business. Most people don’t get to this point until about 2 to 3 years in where the money just they’re making just becomes normal. You haven’t even gotten to the point where are you have had a steady income for a while.

You want to make money without doing anything. And you also don’t want to pay anybody to do the work that you don’t want to do.

Why can’t the people you hire work from home? Why can’t they just go out to the locations when service or repairs need to be done? Why do you need an office for them?
 
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Kokaka

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This is why your business will fail. I’d love to come back to this thread in one year and see how you are doing.

Honestly, the part that concerns me is that you said you were broke in October, and it is only May. So in the span of 7 months you went from broke to making money and you are ready tired of running your business. Most people don’t get to this point until about 2 to 3 years in where the money just they’re making just becomes normal. You haven’t even gotten to the point where are you have had a steady income for a while.

You want to make money without doing anything. And you also don’t want to pay anybody to do the work that you don’t want to do.

Why can’t the people you hire work from home? Why can’t they just go out to the locations when service or repairs need to be done? Why do you need an office for them?
When I talk about automatisation, its not that Im tired of the business or am not botherd with it. But I need crack how to remove the parts that can be done by others while still under my control.
First to get more time, but most of all to remove stress, because I have unrealistic high standards for myself and my business, if something isnt 100% I start to stress. Like now. 2 weeks delay on a machine, it stresses me to fix the problem because the order value is about 30k, so ton of money, even though the customer is ok with waiting a little.
I read somewhere that initial stress is common with ex. military in business, because they train for that if they fail, they die. But as soon as your subconcious realise that its ok to fail, they become unstoppable.

Also, I believe you solved the problem for me. Just hire someone who works from home with a computer and a phone. Didnt think about this possibility.
No need to get a fancy office just because my competitor has one.
Its also common now post covid.
Thanks alot, opend a new way of thinking.
 
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