Who's Owned a Small Business?
 

Like a franchise of some kind, or another small business (outside of porn) where you had employees, payroll, and all that jazz??

I'm looking for some experienced folks who've had this. I know some have said it's enough to make a grown man cry. But I want to hear some more.

I hate to break it to you but, 'employees, payroll, and all that jazz' works the same way whether you are in porn or not so far as the IRS is concerned :2 cents:

Regards,

Lee

It depends on how big your porn company is first of all. Also if they contracted (1099) models, or actual hourly employees sire. You're jumping the gun.

:2 cents:

However, as one might pick up from the subjects I am referring to, I am looking at other investment opportunities outside of porn.

:helpme

I've had a couple... best resource, if you really no idea, is your local SBA.

Last year i sold a IT-service company I had started myself. Build it from the ground and ended up with 3 people fulltime. We were Certified Cisco, MS and Novell partners and it was very profitable. Only problem for me was, I never got to do the things I liked. it was 5-6 hours of management and advertising and almost no hands-on work. I'm a good leader, but I hate it - I hate having to tell people things twice, so when I got a reasonable offer, i sold.

I was the best thing I have EVER done. Now I only do what I want. I work on my sites if I want, I fix server and networks if I want or I play Warcraft if i Want.

I reccomend:
- Outsource all book keeping
- Get pro advetivcers - it cost more, but its worth it
- When hiring people, look more at the chemistry than the persons qualifications. Its easier to teach him what he dont know, than it is to make a good guy out of a asshole.
- If you arent a good boss, dont try to act like one. Let your staff help you, they want to and its what you pay them to do.

Much appreciated. I've heard that the SBA can help with some of that. My C.P.A. could as well. But he gets pricey.

I am looking for experiences people have had. I make nice money now, but if something like a franchise is 1000 times the headaches for an extra 100k between employees, customers, and the corporate, that's nothing I need, and will keep looking for other opps.

Excellent post and feedback!

:thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

Good input Ebus_dk...

At one point my mainstream business had 5 employees, not counting my wife and I.

I used ADP for accounting (good fixed price, plus it's a write-off - all I needed to do was call in the gross pay for everyone, and they took it from there, calculating and paying all of the taxes and filing the quarterly reports).

I used Blue Shield for Medical/Dental.

I negotiated a very good deal for phone service (since my bills ran in the thousands per month), by having all the major companies bid on it, and then making the company I wanted all along match the best bid.

Ebus nailed it on the head when it comes to hiring employees. I expected each person to pull in a pretty good chunk of change for the biz, so I treated it as a big decision. Finding self-motivated people that know how to get along with others is golden. The rest you can teach them.

After 9/11, the Marketing Departments of many Fortune 500 companies (our target clients) pulled in the reigns on outsourcing, and as a result we had to change our business to adapt to a very different environment. We gave nice severence packages to everyone, had a tearful goodbye party, and re-invented our company.

We now only hire people as sub-contractors for specific projects. Life is much easier and the company always operates in the black, allowing me to focus more time and energy on my adult businesses, although I miss the comaraderie of working with a group of people for several years (I do almost all of the adult biz myself, although I also hire people for specfic projects).

Outsourcing is back on the rise, however we are continuing with the sub-contrator model since it is much more flexible and entails less overhead.

If you have any specific questions, I would be happy to try and answer them, either here or offline.

Good luck,

ADG Webmaster

I ran a Blockbuster Franchise for a pretty good while. DMK Entertainment, look it up, we've won awards.

Another nice one.

I see a lot of it works the same as sorting through dozens of models a week. In the end it comes down to work ethic, and their teamwork, can-do mentality.

I've heard plenty of nightmares about once you start hiring employees, that is when you start weeping, pulling out what's left of your hair, and contimplating suicide. Not because of the business, but because of your employees.

never had one, but have always wanted to start one :)

Excellent recommendations...and all of them very true.