Businesses you've failed at - Spill It !!!

Failed business? Been there done that.

Back in the 80's when everyone was making squillions, I used to be the sales manager for a wholesale health food distribution business. The owner went broke. I new the customers, the suppliers and why the owner went broke. So I took it over scaled it down to a one man business and very nearly went broke too.
Working up to 20 hours a day year after year. I had national distribution of my product in Woolworths. Supplied selected Coles stores. Supplied almost every health food store in Melbourne. Supplied school canteens with healthy confectionary. Even exported to USA a bit. Surely that would be enough to keep a one man business profitable. Nope, no where near profitable. 6 years later and not one profitable year. Bank came very close to foreclosing. I eventually split the business in two and sold both divisions for not very much.

Since then, my current photography business of 22 years has always shown a good profit, and I usually only work a few hours on weekends. Taught me that time working has very little to do with how much money you make. That's one reason why I like property.

 

Thanks for sharing.
You say you knew why the previous owner went broke, this must have been quite an advantage.
Can you pass on any lessons as to why this business didn't work for you?
All I can think of is the profit margins were too tight considering your distribution network looked quite healthy.

 

serious question, if its a one man business and you have no staff and I assume very little offices and other indirect fixed costs,
how on earth does it not return a profit?????

 

Nothing serious

Tried the like of Amway and another cosmetic type when I was 15. Not a seller and not comfortable asking family and friends whether they're interested.

A year later tried an affiliate marketing set up almost like MLM (or ponzi - too naive to recognise it) for a US company selling personal finance products and plan. Doing it in my home country and my English were terrible, can't get anyone in and lost my savings money instead (you need to pay membership etc).

Then co write an ebook which has pretty good sale for pocket money. Moved to Australia and sell my copyright for what seems to be a good amount of money at that time. Doesn't sound Ile a fail, but it is for me. I didn't manage to make time to market the product and leaving the co author doing everything alone.