What should I do to not be "greedy"

[PaintMyHouse]

Right, you're a capitalist Marxist, I still don't know what that means

I'm a capitalist, who understands that Marx was more right than wrong

Yes, as I said...

Learn Marx, Smith, and how to quote.

 

[Politico]

What should I do to not be "greedy"

Don't be greedy.

 

[JoeB131]

wow, Double Wide, you really want us to think you are tis really successful person.

I think you are overcompensating for something.

 

[kaz]

This actually was a choice I had to make:

After a career in management and management consulting where I was embarrassingly overpaid, I risked everything and started my own business. I bought five businesses over three years. I spun two back off and merged the other three. There were a lot of difficult times, but over the last two years we have settled into year over year stability and profit and revenue growth. My life is pretty easy now and I have enough money. Sure, if I had a lot more it would change my life, but unless it's a lot more, it won't make any difference.

A year and a half ago, I had lunch with a friend of mine. He ran a business similar to mine, but about half my size. I proposed we merge and he would be COO and run operations and I would be CEO. Besides knowing each other, he knew my staff, I knew his, it would have been a good fit if he wanted to do it. We had a nice lunch and he said he'd think about it, but he said it would probably not work because we'd both want to run the company. I figured that before I asked, but I figured I'd throw it out there. About two weeks later, he had a brain aneurism and died pretty much instantly. We were the same age, wow.

---------------------------------------------

So here's the problem. I wanted to help out his widow and keep his staff employed, but liberals keep telling me that if I earn more than I need than I'm greedy, and I din't want to be greedy. So here were the choices, which would have I have done? The business was worth far more to me than anyone else because I knew his staff and I knew his business and I knew it folded right into mine. I also had the cash to close on a deal right away, and the widow wanted that badly.

1) Turn down the deal, let the widow know I'm sorry and let the jobs go. It's a difficult time to sell businesses, but she probably could get something for it and maybe they would have kept some of the staff, but hey, I can't earn more, I earn enough and I didn't need the money so it would have just been wrong for me to do that.

2) Buy the business and give all the earnings to the widow and her employees. OK, they turn out better, but I have to put up the money to buy the business, more money to operate it and I have to work harder to integrate it into mine and continue to run a company doing more work. I care about the people, but damn, I have to do all that and get nothing out of it?

3) Buy the business for a fair price so the widow is set, hire the people so they have jobs, and keep the money. But damn, I didn't need the money, so that would make me greedy.

So, those are the choices. Do I let the jobs go because I have enough money, do I spend my money and work for free or do I earn money that won't in any way change my life?

These BTW are the real choices you are giving business people and investors when you tell us we earned enough. What do you want us to do exactly? Please clarify

Shut up. Liberals are not telling you anything.

It's the voices in your head using your mouths?

 

[LordBrownTrout]

If you still have the piss and vinegar, do it kaz. I sure as hell didn't care about who gave a shit about me when I sold two companies.

I DID! Thanks lordbrowntrout. And I have no apologies either. I make more money, I have more in the bank. And it has changed nothing in my life, I live in the same place and spend the same money

I wish there was more that I could add but from reading your proposition, it looks like you have thought everything through. I do have a question though. I'm about to launch another business that involves bartering and I had a marketing firm that built my website. I'm going to need someone who is able to handle customer service calls that relate to any problems that arise while using the site. Would you hire someone first or do it yourself until the the work was too consuming?

Great question.

First, bartering is a difficult business. I know you didn't ask me about that, but I hope you really thought through the business model. I've had meetings with multiple bartering businesses who were pitching to me to join their exchange. From my end, I had a hard time getting my head around the model working from my perspective. I like the initial pitch, I'm providing things that are not full cost to me in exchange for my services which I'm saving the markup. However, when I try to envision the actual exchange, the things I couldn't get to are:

1) We carefully select all our vendors and test and retest them and change them if they don't work out. For the bartering, I'm limited to the vendors who join their network to get the bartering benefit. Every vendor evaluation rather than being with carefully selected vendors is somewhat random.

2) The pricing. While in theory prices would be the same, but in reality would they be? It struck me there would be an endless game of their trying to raise price and claim we get the benefit since we aren't paying full cost in our own products

3) Really it's an opportunity to expand your customer base. However, remember it's the same for them. I thought companies who would be interested in joining would generally be smaller, more desperate companies for work and what I get would be of inconsistent quality. And the good ones as they got profitable would stop bartering.

I didn't do it, so I can't say that is correct, but it was my fear. I felt in the end we were better off just dealing with the best firms in real currency and our time was better expended growing the business instead of trying to manage that.

That aside, my thought on how I would approach customer service is this:

1) Set up a virtual PBX with a firm like OOMA or Vonage. That way you can have several extensions and have them ring anywhere.

2) Look for a firm that places people with disabilities. We use OE Enterprises for some jobs where we need variable staff, like fulfillment projects.

OE Enterprise

If you talk to them about what you want, they will work very hard with you to find people who can do it and people who don't have disabilities that would affect your business. For phone, I would think there would be plenty of people with physical disabilities who would be great at it. They will work any number of hours, and they really appreciate it, they have great attitudes.

So what you do is work out a schedule. For busy times, you can set up the PBX so it rings to your variable staff. For other times, you can route calls to home or to your mobile. You can also set up so your mobile is backup, so they get the first call when they are on duty, then the calls roll over to you as long as they are tied up, then it goes to VM. That sort of thing.

Hope that helps

Thanks much, kaz. Any consulting fees, just send them my way. It's not a true barter system but does involve money to transfer for an item. I decided against a full barter system for your exact reasoning.

 

[rickm19]

Your money is yours. Don't be ashamed of being prosperous. And for the life of you, don't succumb to those liberals who think you're "greedy" for making a lot of money!

Do what you think is best, kaz.

Holy shit! Sage advice from a certified slacker! Awesome!

And why do you call liberals slackers?

 

[kaz]

Sounds like a personal problem, but it's like this: Don't work yourself into an early grave, don't take food off of a poor man's table and most importantly, don't let your possessions own you.

Thanks! I don't believe I do any of those. I work to live, I don't live to work, but you spend so much time at your career it's important to do something rewarding, and that involves work. Now I'm in my 50s and I'm deciding where to go from here. I feel I've paid my dues, I am glad I worked my ass off the last 30, but I don't plan to do that the rest of my days

Move somewhere warm, buy a sailboat, drink good booze, catch fish and do something rewarding to keep food on the table, worked for me.

That's the plan, but being 51 I'm not ready to do that yet. I need a middle course for a while first

I'm the same age you are, got tired of the high pressure rat race living in a city, started getting high blood pressure, road rage alone on my commute was killing me, had to do something. I still work hard 5-6 days a week for a lot less money but I got to throw away the blood pressure medicine.

People who have never run a business have no idea what it takes to do and what it takes out of it, do they occupied? I wouldn't give up the experience of doing it for anything. But I can totally see how after that going to a routine job could make you very happy to have that all off your back and just enjoy life.

I have the right personality and experience for it though. I have been in management doing projects for companies or in management consulting my whole career and my job has always included working myself out of a job. For the first four years buying and merging was tons of work. The last two I've had things come up, like the situation in this thread, but other than that I work about 10 hours a week right now. I have the final say obviously for big decisions and I get involved with performance and other issues, but other than that my staff run the business and they love it. In six plus years I have yet to have a full time employee quit and go to another job.

After all the years of traveling and moving and now running my own business, I am trying to figure where to go from here. I am not cracking like you felt you were. No ulcers, no road rage, no stress issues. But I don't want to go all in again, meaning I don't want to do something like take over a bigger company and risk everything like I did the first time. I took a full time three month contract at Cisco and was able to do that and run my company fine. I've explored selling the company. Two larger companies have indicated they want it if we can work out a price, but I haven't decided if I want to do that.

I'm still motivated to do something, but I'm not sure what that is. I'm exploring options until I figure that out. At some point I'll pick something and decide to pull the trigger. That may be with my company or to sell it and move on to something else. Just not sure yet.

 

[kaz]

This actually was a choice I had to make:

After a career in management and management consulting where I was embarrassingly overpaid, I risked everything and started my own business. I bought five businesses over three years. I spun two back off and merged the other three. There were a lot of difficult times, but over the last two years we have settled into year over year stability and profit and revenue growth. My life is pretty easy now and I have enough money. Sure, if I had a lot more it would change my life, but unless it's a lot more, it won't make any difference.

A year and a half ago, I had lunch with a friend of mine. He ran a business similar to mine, but about half my size. I proposed we merge and he would be COO and run operations and I would be CEO. Besides knowing each other, he knew my staff, I knew his, it would have been a good fit if he wanted to do it. We had a nice lunch and he said he'd think about it, but he said it would probably not work because we'd both want to run the company. I figured that before I asked, but I figured I'd throw it out there. About two weeks later, he had a brain aneurism and died pretty much instantly. We were the same age, wow.

---------------------------------------------

So here's the problem. I wanted to help out his widow and keep his staff employed, but liberals keep telling me that if I earn more than I need than I'm greedy, and I din't want to be greedy. So here were the choices, which would have I have done? The business was worth far more to me than anyone else because I knew his staff and I knew his business and I knew it folded right into mine. I also had the cash to close on a deal right away, and the widow wanted that badly.

1) Turn down the deal, let the widow know I'm sorry and let the jobs go. It's a difficult time to sell businesses, but she probably could get something for it and maybe they would have kept some of the staff, but hey, I can't earn more, I earn enough and I didn't need the money so it would have just been wrong for me to do that.

2) Buy the business and give all the earnings to the widow and her employees. OK, they turn out better, but I have to put up the money to buy the business, more money to operate it and I have to work harder to integrate it into mine and continue to run a company doing more work. I care about the people, but damn, I have to do all that and get nothing out of it?

3) Buy the business for a fair price so the widow is set, hire the people so they have jobs, and keep the money. But damn, I didn't need the money, so that would make me greedy.

So, those are the choices. Do I let the jobs go because I have enough money, do I spend my money and work for free or do I earn money that won't in any way change my life?

These BTW are the real choices you are giving business people and investors when you tell us we earned enough. What do you want us to do exactly? Please clarify

Keep it open and keep the people working....Ansd please...Do not be concerned with being popular with the liberals.
if your conscience bothers you, donate to charities of your choice.
Build a habitat for humanity home.
Give back to the community in the best way you know how....To hell with the opinions of naysayers.

Thanks spoon, I am not actually concerned with what liberals think, that part was tongue in cheek

 

[kaz]

Right, you're a capitalist Marxist, I still don't know what that means

I'm a capitalist, who understands that Marx was more right than wrong

Yes, as I said...

Learn Marx, Smith, and how to quote.

I quoted the part I was addressing. When you quote that's what you do, you don't quote the part you are not addressing. You are worse than knowing nothing, what you think you know is wrong. You have to undo that part first.

Agreeing with Marx on most things speaks for itself, and it's what I was referring to. You think the guy who spews anti rich, anti capitalist, anti freedom rhetoric is mostly right. Exactly, you do

 

[kaz]

What should I do to not be "greedy"

Don't be greedy.

What a useless post, was that supposed to be funny or something?

 

[kaz]

Option 4. Buy the business, (the widow is set) integrate into yours, promote within the company to offset the workload. Put more faith in your help and give them opportunities to have a share and a stake in the business. If you don't need the money im sure the people that have busted their ass for you would love to have an opportunity to do more with their lives. You don't have to do everything yourself. I know there is a lot that goes on in business today with all the stupid laws we need to follow but i'm sure people are qualified even if they don't have a piece of paper that says so. I think too many people get caught up in thinking they know what is best for everything and forget to listen to the world around them. You know that story sounds very familiar...

What do you mean "put more faith in your help." What makes you say I am not?

As for stake in the business, they get that with salary and variable pay (bonuses). They perform and help the company make money, they make money.

If you mean to give them the company, then pass

 

[LordBrownTrout]

Sounds like a personal problem, but it's like this: Don't work yourself into an early grave, don't take food off of a poor man's table and most importantly, don't let your possessions own you.

Thanks! I don't believe I do any of those. I work to live, I don't live to work, but you spend so much time at your career it's important to do something rewarding, and that involves work. Now I'm in my 50s and I'm deciding where to go from here. I feel I've paid my dues, I am glad I worked my ass off the last 30, but I don't plan to do that the rest of my days

Move somewhere warm, buy a sailboat, drink good booze, catch fish and do something rewarding to keep food on the table, worked for me.

That's the plan, but being 51 I'm not ready to do that yet. I need a middle course for a while first

I'm the same age you are, got tired of the high pressure rat race living in a city, started getting high blood pressure, road rage alone on my commute was killing me, had to do something. I still work hard 5-6 days a week for a lot less money but I got to throw away the blood pressure medicine.

People who have never run a business have no idea what it takes to do and what it takes out of it, do they occupied? I wouldn't give up the experience of doing it for anything. But I can totally see how after that going to a routine job could make you very happy to have that all off your back and just enjoy life.

I have the right personality and experience for it though. I have been in management doing projects for companies or in management consulting my whole career and my job has always included working myself out of a job. For the first four years buying and merging was tons of work. The last two I've had things come up, like the situation in this thread, but other than that I work about 10 hours a week right now. I have the final say obviously for big decisions and I get involved with performance and other issues, but other than that my staff run the business and they love it. In six plus years I have yet to have a full time employee quit and go to another job.

After all the years of traveling and moving and now running my own business, I am trying to figure where to go from here. I am not cracking like you felt you were. No ulcers, no road rage, no stress issues. But I don't want to go all in again, meaning I don't want to do something like take over a bigger company and risk everything like I did the first time. I took a full time three month contract at Cisco and was able to do that and run my company fine. I've explored selling the company. Two larger companies have indicated they want it if we can work out a price, but I haven't decided if I want to do that.

I'm still motivated to do something, but I'm not sure what that is. I'm exploring options until I figure that out. At some point I'll pick something and decide to pull the trigger. That may be with my company or to sell it and move on to something else. Just not sure yet.

I had to go all in with the companies that I sold. I built them from scratch and then they took off. Within three years, I sold them to a larger company in california. If I hadn't jumped and went all in, I don't think they would have taken off. There's just so much planning, building client base, travelling, that I couldn't find time for both jobs so I quit my full time job. Now, four years younger than you, Im considering resigning as a petroleum geologist to continue another chase. The unknown journey is fun and worrisome all at the same time but it sure makes one feel alive!!

 

[kaz]

wow, Double Wide, you really want us to think you are tis really successful person.

I think you are overcompensating for something.

Hey doublewide, welcome back from the buffet! It's sad how my real life is greater than your imagination. But then as you keep posting, you are a life loser.

So this is your chance to school a capitalist, fat ass. You endlessly spew your Marxist dogma. I put it out there, my pure capitalist greed. It's your chance to go through that and point by point show why Marx got it right and how you would do it. Go to it, Flipper

 

[kaz]

Your money is yours. Don't be ashamed of being prosperous. And for the life of you, don't succumb to those liberals who think you're "greedy" for making a lot of money!

Do what you think is best, kaz.

Holy shit! Sage advice from a certified slacker! Awesome!

And why do you call liberals slackers?

Liberals advocate that government should solve their problems for them and other people should fund what they consider charity. What would you call them?

 

[kaz]

#3 but hire more people,give current workers nice raises,donate it to charity etc.

Actually that's choice #2, buy it and work for free. You have to read the questions more carefully. Why would I want to work for free? Do you do that?

How is that working for free? You A. Hire more people would produce more work which gives you more money or B. Just keep current workers and give them raises or even better C. Do both. Keep them but since you have MORE business on your hands give them raises and hire more people.

I meant if I give it away I'm working for free, but I see what you are saying, I can do that, my choice. Underpaying people is bad, so is overpaying them. It causes a lot of problems. You need to teach them they get paid for performance and contributing to the company. Paying them just cuse is a terrible incentive. It also causes problems as no matter what you do people have a sense what each other make and then either you overpay everyone and disincent everyone or you overpay some and the others feel cheated. Then if you fire them, you screwed them because they can't get another job for what you paid them.

It also screws up the capital structure of the business. You hit an economic downturn and you have major cost issues and suddenly they are faced with massive layoffs and/or pay cuts. No, overpaying is a bad idea, very bad.

 

[Moonglow]

I used to be in that space where you could earn more money or have more free time.....If you earn more money you tend to spend more...but free time cost money...

 

[kaz]

Let it go.

If you do what seems to be the right thing you'll have a stroke from the high blood pressure it'll give you.

In fact, if you have enough, watch who buys the business and, while they're in a spending mood, take their money to buy yours two and run like hell. Your own "Atlas Shrugged" moment!

I am more concerned with the lives other than Kaz's that this affects.
He can always clear his conscience by giving back to the community.

QFT. My friend was a good man and his staff loved him and loved working for him. More than anything they were devastated emotionally. And as I said there was no warning, he dropped over dead. Fortunately when I bought the business our staffs did integrate and things have worked out for everyone. The widow got cashed out, our organizations did mesh and things are smooth now. He and I were so similar in our management styles, which really helped his staff get comfortable with me quickly.

 

[Moonglow]

Your money is yours. Don't be ashamed of being prosperous. And for the life of you, don't succumb to those liberals who think you're "greedy" for making a lot of money!

Do what you think is best, kaz.

Holy shit! Sage advice from a certified slacker! Awesome!

And why do you call liberals slackers?

Liberals advocate that government should solve their problems for them and other people should fund what they consider charity. What would you call them?

So all the to big to fail companies are liberals?

 

[kaz]

Thanks! I don't believe I do any of those. I work to live, I don't live to work, but you spend so much time at your career it's important to do something rewarding, and that involves work. Now I'm in my 50s and I'm deciding where to go from here. I feel I've paid my dues, I am glad I worked my ass off the last 30, but I don't plan to do that the rest of my days

Move somewhere warm, buy a sailboat, drink good booze, catch fish and do something rewarding to keep food on the table, worked for me.

That's the plan, but being 51 I'm not ready to do that yet. I need a middle course for a while first

I'm the same age you are, got tired of the high pressure rat race living in a city, started getting high blood pressure, road rage alone on my commute was killing me, had to do something. I still work hard 5-6 days a week for a lot less money but I got to throw away the blood pressure medicine.

People who have never run a business have no idea what it takes to do and what it takes out of it, do they occupied? I wouldn't give up the experience of doing it for anything. But I can totally see how after that going to a routine job could make you very happy to have that all off your back and just enjoy life.

I have the right personality and experience for it though. I have been in management doing projects for companies or in management consulting my whole career and my job has always included working myself out of a job. For the first four years buying and merging was tons of work. The last two I've had things come up, like the situation in this thread, but other than that I work about 10 hours a week right now. I have the final say obviously for big decisions and I get involved with performance and other issues, but other than that my staff run the business and they love it. In six plus years I have yet to have a full time employee quit and go to another job.

After all the years of traveling and moving and now running my own business, I am trying to figure where to go from here. I am not cracking like you felt you were. No ulcers, no road rage, no stress issues. But I don't want to go all in again, meaning I don't want to do something like take over a bigger company and risk everything like I did the first time. I took a full time three month contract at Cisco and was able to do that and run my company fine. I've explored selling the company. Two larger companies have indicated they want it if we can work out a price, but I haven't decided if I want to do that.

I'm still motivated to do something, but I'm not sure what that is. I'm exploring options until I figure that out. At some point I'll pick something and decide to pull the trigger. That may be with my company or to sell it and move on to something else. Just not sure yet.

I had to go all in with the companies that I sold. I built them from scratch and then they took off. Within three years, I sold them to a larger company in california. If I hadn't jumped and went all in, I don't think they would have taken off. There's just so much planning, building client base, travelling, that I couldn't find time for both jobs so I quit my full time job. Now, four years younger than you, Im considering resigning as a petroleum geologist to continue another chase. The unknown journey is fun and worrisome all at the same time but it sure makes one feel alive!!

It is unlike anything else, isn't it? Even if I had failed and my business flopped and I had to start over, I would have done it again. It changes your perspective on everything in life. No matter what happens to me now, I know the steel I am forged in and I can overcome it

 

[kaz]

Your money is yours. Don't be ashamed of being prosperous. And for the life of you, don't succumb to those liberals who think you're "greedy" for making a lot of money!

Do what you think is best, kaz.

Holy shit! Sage advice from a certified slacker! Awesome!

And why do you call liberals slackers?

Liberals advocate that government should solve their problems for them and other people should fund what they consider charity. What would you call them?

So all the to big to fail companies are liberals?

I don't see the logical flow from what I said to that question.

Is this another form of the how I opposed the government actions that pushed American companies into failure and I opposed the bailout so the whole thing is my fault question?