Too emotionally attached?

[Justloadit]

For a first time entrepreneur, it is very difficult to pull the plug. The typical thoughts going through your mind is that you are a failure if you close or liquidate.
This is a folly thought.

Been through this one, if I had closed earlier the first time I experienced it, i would have saved a packet of money.
The second time round, I closed far earlier, as I was seeing the signs that caused my first one to close, and basically cost me a couple of thousand Rand, as opposed to the first one, which was almost R800K.

What is great about closing, and starting again, is that you have a clean slate, and you operate differently.

[Citizen X]

Ego, passion, call it what you will - it's an emotional response rather than a purely rational one.

And I see it as a double edged sword.

It's a powerful driver in pushing a business towards success and often is the difference between success and failure. But it's also something that can get the owner to over-commit and end up losing everything on a lost cause, or as in the Machinik case in what I'm sure she saw as a temporary setback, grab "bridging finance" that wasn't hers to use.

It's more than about the money - It's just not easy to quit on your "baby".

A very good afternoon to you Dave,

Your thread made me realise that I really enjoy self-help books! I haven't read one in ages, bought several though. The one book that has consistently emerged as one to revisit is Dale Carnegie's 'How to win friends and influence people.' My position is that this classic holds some valuable insights into the human creature from a practical perspective...

[tec0]

It just so happens that before the end of 2012 that I was contacted by a friend. Now the business he works for is hitting real hard times and has difficulty paying their employees. Then the owner started giving warnings to everyone and has disciplinary hearings every day in hope to fire people rather than going through the retrenchment process.

The owner then continue to claim that things go missing from the storeroom and with no access control it is possible, however he deducts the value of the equipment from all the employees pay. Now that is not actually how it works but you can see a pattern of desperation forming.

Start of 2013 (last week) he announced to his clients that all the stuff that used to be for free is no longer for free and that he will be charging more for his services. Bing in an almost dead market I cannot see the logic behind that.

The reality is this; every ounce of money he had is in that business and because he doesn’t want it to fail he started taking aggressive and “questionable steps” hence the emotional attachment. However is it justifiable?

The man made himself guilty of questionable behaviour and when the CCMA gets involved I am sure he is going to have a terrible time explaining things. Not to mention the 24 month contracts he has with his clients. I am sure that the sudden demands may not sit well with the contractual agreement unless he provided for annual increases within the contract.

[ians]

I am in a position with one of my operations, had it for over 20 years and believe it is time to shut it down and start fresh, but it is easier said than done, it is not because it is not generating a profit, just stuff that hangs from the past and you just cant shake it free.

[PeterCarruthers]

I think it is very easy to look at her behaviour, in hindsight, and judge. I think the way the situation unfolds, slowly, is what leads to this kind of behaviour.

It is easy, when things are going well, to look at what she has done and think that she is either stupid or criminal. But, after dealing with hundreds of similar situations, with wonderful people all in a similar circumstantially challenged place, there are very few folk who can:
fire the staff, especially those who have been around for 15 years, while they walk away into the sunset;
close a business that is the source of all their income and security when they "know" the situation is temporary.

We are human first. Business owners second.

IMHO