As a small business owner...

originally posted by: dashen
1. stay righteous
2. gimme $$$

I'm losing $72,000 a month.

Care to pitch in?

a reply to: Lumenari

My situation is similar to yours.
I own a company that finds people for employers.
Not a temp service either, it’s more of a professional service for skilled labor.

Last week we only received three phone calls and one of them was halting our service.
You do not hire people if you are expecting to be shut down any day for an extended period.

I only employ six people and will probably have to cut back hours if this lasts very long.

Yeah, small business here as well. Was sitting with the leads of my staff today trying to figure on when this is gonna end ... Yeah crying here as well have no clue what to tell people. Been telling myself this will be over in a month or so and we can call it a staycation, but I know that's a pipe dream and this could drag on for quite some time.

a reply to: Lumenari

will meme for $$$

originally posted by: dashen
a reply to: Lumenari

im very talented.

put me to work

At the price of oil today you lose money if you pump the stuff...

You are an inspiration, I am also a small business owner. I have about 50 employees, and in the coming days I will have some hard decisions to make.

Your input will help provide confidence and guidance. Good luck to you and I think you will survive this.

a reply to: Lumenari

Ignore the idiots who are sniping at you being rich.

Even if you were rich it is none of their business and you worked hard for it.

I used to do a shift from 7 am to 3 pm and always got jealous comments and statements such as, "Wish I could go home at 3" as if I had earned some sort of special privilege. And why did I have the 7 am to 3 pm shift??? Because no one wanted to get up that early. Bunch of morons.

Anyway, good on you. You deserve what you have. And, by the response of your employees you have people who love you, respect you and are doing their part to ensure everyone is taken care of. This is very telling. Great job!

a reply to: Lumenari

Not much to add other than thank you for being a decent owner!

I had a small business for twenty years, still have the company but I have not worked in about fifteen years now because of my accident. I worked for all those years to slowly build my business and invested heavily in tools to do the work over those years, get hit from behind by a car on the highway, and my life changed forever.

I was at the point where I would have started to make some serious money, I even bought a building to make special moldings and cabinets and stuff. All the tools were paid off. I still have most of the tools, but sold the shop and gave away most of the supplies and a lot of tools to my relatives and some friends.

You do not get rich owning your own business, people do not understand how many hours you put into the business, the workers make more than you by the hour if you figure all the hours you put in and all the expenses you have.

You are right, when you go to sell, you get pennies on the dollar for what you invested.

If you keep paying the workers, they may get three months pay, but will not be working for much longer. It may be better to lay them off so you have start up money, otherwise they will be permanently out of work in three months. A lot of your expenses will still have to be paid, but you will lose more by dropping the liability insurance than if you keep it for that amount of time. Also, you will have to call the workers back to work a few weeks before you start. Unemployment is not that great a pay, but what can you do, you need to have a business left to give them work later.

a reply to: Lumenari

My family owns a very small bar, we've been shut for almost a week now, we can survive for a few months, but probably not much more than that. I'm in ontario, the province shut down all bars last tuesday and claimed it would only be for two weeks, i assume it will be more than that.

Good luck!

a reply to: Lumenari
What I like about you is that your posts never made me think you're rich.

I need to work to pay bills and you seem to be working class like me.

You got a good heart.

We are those people you employee. Americans working for start ups, small independent business.

a reply to: Lumenari

My uncle owns a carpet cleaning business. He has no work and he's behind on his property taxes.

My other uncle lost his job in January

My aunt had liver cancer and had a transplant. She takes drugs to suppress her immune system to keep it from attacking her new organ.

My mom was diagnosed with lung cancer a year ago. She had to quit her job to get treatment. I drove 50 miles round trip in the worst traffic imaginable to take her to chemo and radiation every day for months.

My mom lost everything she worked for. I got a call one morning the bank had goons in her house tossing stuff on the curb in the rain. Antique dressers that were passed down in the family for generations were being tossed in the rain.

My step dad lost his job of 30 years at the same time my mom got cancer. He hid the eviction notices from her.

My grandmother has Alzheimer's. I'm taking care of her full time.

This is all the family I have. To top it all off I'm living with schizophrenia. I'm preparing to be homeless in a worse case scenario.

I've seen my share of hardship in life. You'll get through this and you'll rebuild if you have to. Life tends to kick you when you're down. All you can do is get back up and be thankful for the things in life you do have.

a reply to: Lumenari

For you and your people (and all the small businesses), I pray things level out soon. If I owned an oil well, I would send the business your way.

Sounds like your crew have level heads. We need moire of that in the days to come.

a reply to: Lumenari

Forget the virus, you have to blame the completely insane over-reaction by federal and state governments.

Handing down orders which they have no lawful authority to do.

Bummer

You were in such a good mood about the outbreak the day before.

originally posted by: Lumenari
This will last about 6 months until the money runs out...

Then my options are to sell the equipment I have for pennies on the dollar, go to bankruptcy and go from there.

I will live through this... I took my chances to take the business over and if it dies I will find something else to do to keep living.

You posted, so you must expect something from us. I say, "Put your company in mothballs and weather the storm."

I started up a very successful small business back in the late '90s right after I retired from the military. I just didn't like running a business ... even though I was very good (successful) at it. Sold it to one of the guys who worked for me (never saw a penny of that). The rest of the guys who worked for me kept in touch. Always complained about how they had it good back then. I got tired of hearing it.

The difference between us is that you obviously love what you do. I'm gonna tell ya this, it's far harder coming back up from rock bottom, than from some semblance of wealth or means. You sell your equipment off to a LLC (better yet, get an attorney to do all that for you), salvage all the cash you can, and bunker down right now. The whole country might be in the same place in a month or two. If you get there first, you may be able to get on your feet first ... and make up the difference to your people. Anyone who can't see what's about to happen to the supply chain is being willfully shortsighted.

As for me, the folks I was working for made it real hard to stay on and ride the virus out. I cashed in and probably retired without the formalities. Does it suck? Yeah ... a little. Do I hold it against anyone? Just the Chinese.

a reply to: Lumenari

If you weren't already married, I'd ask you to marry me.

~Namaste

a reply to: Lumenari

As a business guy myself, I feel for you despite myself being well insulated (at this moment in time) from external circumstances. I've taken a hit, but only in trading.

I will live through this... I took my chances to take the business over and if it dies I will find something else to do to keep living.

YES! Yes you will!!! Even bigger and better.

Simply because we took the risk, put ourselves out there and were willing to lose everything for a dream.

You are obviously a courageous soul. That bravery hasn't diminished despite contemplating harsh possible realities and real current effects due to cause. The fact you created this thread to share your fears is proof of a brave soul.

I'm tired of getting sniped on ATS because I'm obviously rich and this current situation doesn't effect me.

I get that in real life outside of social media. I feel you. It wasn't handed to you/us. You worked for what you have built. That's all that matters. It's none of your business what other people think anyway...

They have all agreed to take a 50% pay cut so that we can as a company weather this and get back to work.

I agreed, hung up and cried like a little girl for a few hours.

Your empathy and compassion has come back to you.

This current situation affects the people that work for me, which is FAR more important than any of you here.

Best boss ever.

The point of this OP...

Over 50% of all Americans are employed by small businesses like mine.

We contribute to 44% of all sales in this country.

We are 39% of this countries GDP.

We are the lifeblood of the country, we are the ones that keep the lights on.

We are the ones that have EVERYTHING on the line right now...

That was a beautiful rant. I *imagine* and *believe* with deep *conviction* that you will come out of this fine. Maybe a bit bruised, but fine. I wish you much MORE success in the future.

Here in Michigan, we go into shelter in place at midnight, the perfect storm. After 20 years with this company, laid off by the government. I haven't been to work since middle of last week because of a death in the family -(we can't even have services for the burial) but, I had made some arrangements with my employer back in December. I go on SS (retired! ) on 1 April and made an agreement with the owner to take a 35% pay cut and give up all my benefits to work part time - if and when we open the shop back up after this mess is over with. I happen to be fortunate and have enough cash to weather this but I know a lot of us don't.

The point I'm making is there are a lot of great business owners like OP, the life blood of the country, hell the world if you ask me. I know that ower owner, Gary, is being torn up inside by this and a lot of other owners are as well. My kudos to you OP. After this is over, we need to stand up and have a small business owner day for all of these people.