AmericanBeauty

Not trying to be critical or anything, but if your incoming can only cover half of your expenses, maybe you need to look at your company's strategy and try to generate more revenue.  If you are just starting a company but your saving is not enough to cover your expense until the company starts to make money, maybe you should have saved up more before you do that.  If the company has been around for a while but you still have to take money from your bank account to cover its expenses, maybe the business was not a good idea.  I' had my company when I was in my early 20s.  It wasn't making enough money and I had to take money out from my bank account every month.  At the end, I decided it's not worth the stress and I closed down the company once and for all.  It was the only way to really lift the burden off my shoulders.  If you are only in your 20s but your health is already suffering, it won't be a bad idea to examine what you are doing and try to switch things around.  Massage and movies can only supress the pain for a while!  It won't cure the problem!

For myself, my choices of "pain killer" are movies, music, reading, and sleep.  Sleep was definitely my preferred choice! :p

AmericanBeauty

原帖由 -chunchun- 於 2008-1-24 02:39 發表
My business was running 3 years already, and was making good money on the first 2 years. Coz i was doing the electronics supplier before, but due to a lot of competitors came out and cut down the pric ...

I used to own an IT consulting company, focused mostly on web site design.  It was established at a really bad time because the entire computer industry was suffering a lot from the 911 incident.  And also, I was not very competitive because I was not familar with marketing stratgies and I was also very inexperienced in general.  Luckily it was not a huge investment and I realized needed to do something different before I lost all the captial.

I've been told by a very wise friend of mine that you have to be the top 2% of the field you are in if you want to be very successful.  Obviously I was not in the top 2% when comes to running an IT company.  However, my knowledge in database seemed to be some sort of an edge.  I was able to obtain a short term work on database consulting during a visit to Hong Kong, and I eventually get a contract as a database operator in Canada.  Photography is my other passion, and I am working towards building a career in that area.

In my case, because I realized changing my business strategy was not going to help my business (because I simpily sucked at IT / web design), I changed my field once and for all.  In my current job, I constantly have to examine our strategy and adjust it to make sure it is fitting our business needs.  Sometimes it is as simple as recognizing low performes and bringing them up to speed.  Sometimes it call for changes in the way we do certain processes and we have to brain storm a lot.  If you realize your business has the potential to turn around, but you are just suffering a lot from a transition period, maybe the best thing for you is to cut short in things you can affort not to have tempoarily.  For example, lease fewer vehicles, have less stock in your inventory, work longer hours yourself instead of hiring an employee to work for you, and so forth.  The biggest danger is not being able to see the light at the other end of the tunnel.  If you know you will get out of the dark tunnel eventually, then you do no have to close down the business.  You just need to have a little faith.   You mentioned that you are the only income source of the household.  If feisible, maybe have your partner work a part time job as a short term relief until your business is back on track again?  That is a possible strategy too.  The most important strategy to keep in mind is not to set yourself up for failure.  It is OK to close down a business if you recognize it is not going to work, but it is not OK to have false hope over a business that won't blossom into something fuller and better.  It is your business, you should know how it is doing better then any of us.  Consider the different things before you stress yourself out because the answers to our questions are usually there; we are just not aware of them. =)