Friends and family can ruin your business

[Chibson]

This is definitely very true and that is the reason why every business man must try as much as possible to avoid his family or friends from interfering in his business affairs or even trying to purchase things. Some of them may not feel like paying you because you are their relation. Such can definitely ruin your business.

 

[Mika]

I think this depends on what kind of family you have and how your friends are. There are friends and family who would like to help you, so when they are buying the products that you are selling, they will always buy from you and also bring their acquaintances to make purchases from you.

 

[Mandy96]

You might be right though, but not actually all types of friends and family will ruin your business, the ones that are not supportive of what you do will be able to do that to you, one of the ways they can destroy your establishment is when they expect you to always give them a very heavy discount on every single thing they buy from you, even some of them will not be willing to pay. They will think you should be able to give them for free. That is being called “cruelty”. They will even go to the extent of bringing you a customer and still expect you to give the person the same amount of discount you gave to them.

 

[Skysaint]

Well, such things do happen but someone once told me that there are no friends in business and I guess he's right. An example is when you elder brother is running a firm or a company and he employs you to work in the company maybe after examining and knowing you are equal to the task. When you are at work you wouldn't call him by his name or refer to him as "brother", you will have to use that official language "sir", but when you both are at home you can call him any funny name you like. My point here is that business is business and family are family, don't let one affect the progress of another.

 

[Mika]

Sometimes you cannot just deny. let say you sell clothes, your own sister comes to your store, can you flatly deny if she ask you to give a product for free? Even if she does not ask for free, how can you charge money to your own sister, your own blood and bone

 

[Jasmine]

Well this can happen to anyone, but why should you let your friends and family to ruin your business? There are a lot of ways to tackle this issue, and the most important one is to flatly deny when your friends and family asks for favors such as free products, huge discounts, etc.

 

[Dora Wi]

What you write about is a frequent issue, and I think it's important to set your boundaries in this case. The rule I have with my friends is that if we want to use each others' services, we pay for it because we want to support each others' business. Discounts are okay, but no freebies, really.

 

[niche]

In some cases, for online business, well connected married relatives may falsely claim to own the online business of their single relative. In some countries, government agencies are prejudiced against single business owners, so they are involved in cybercrime, business ownership fraud. Though the married relative is only cooking, cleaning for her crooked husband, the government agencies will falsely claim that she is owning the online business of her single relative, who is actually spending time doing computer work.

 

[sincerem]

During business we shouldn't give room to any of our relation, friends to joke with business. Some can simply use such relationship and drain our business down, taking credits after credit without replacing it with money. Such shrink business down, that's why we nerd to adopt strict measures too to make sure they don't take our business for fool's thing.

 

[Abigael]

It is true that friends and family can really ruin your business. They take things for free, or they take on credit and never pay back or others take it a really high discounts that you don't earn any profits. I prefer for one to set boundaries in business. Just because you are a friend or family does not mean that you should not respect my business.

 

[Babatunde Ogunfowoke]

You are correct , the moment you start giving preferential treatment to families and friends as regards paying for goods or services, that's the moment you start to make losses, families and friends should be treated like every customer, business should be separated from friendship if you want the business to last

 

[Mika]

If you have a business, your friends and family can ruin your business. Let say, you have a shop where you sell clothes. Your sister comes to your shop and wants a T-shirt for herself. Your sister may not feel like paying money in her brother's shop, or even if she wants to pay, you may not feel like accepting payment from your sister. If you are in such a situation frequently, and if do not charge money to your friends and family, or provide huge discounts, you may end up losing a lot of money.

Well, this has not happened to me because I have never owned a brick-and-mortar business. However, I do believe that if you operate a brick-and-mortar business, this kind of thing is likely to happen, especially when you are dealing with goods for everyday use, for example, grocery, restaurants, clothing stores, etc. If you have a shop where you sell computers, it is less likely that your friends and relatives will come asking you to give you a computer for free. However, they might want to get a computer on credit or for a lower price. For goods such as computers, it might be easy to deny as a computer costs a lot of money. However, if you are selling stuff that does not cost a lot of money, it might be difficult to deny.

 

[Mataracy]

I belive when it's a business one should not allow any thing that can destroy it tamper with it including friends or family.
Though t also depend on the type of family that individual belong because some family do not play with any thing call business due to the way they were brought up.

 

[Jasmine]

I have been asked by friends and family many times to provide then free services. I am a digital marketer and designer, and it does not cost me money to design or market, except my time. Therefore, I help friends and family once in a while. I also sell products, however, I never give free products because it cost me money to develop products.

 

[Alexandoy]

My first employment is with a bank owned by a politician whose children and relatives are handling high positions in the business. Fortunately the politician who is also the chairman was respected by his relatives that quarrels were not heard of although there were rumors that cousins were bickering. That would not happen if the executives are not relatives of the owner.

 

[sincerem]

You have spoken well from your angle. It takes a discipline fellow to have and run a business. Every Harry and dick can own a business but not everybody is gifted to run a business. My mum lost all her goods because she allowed too many friends and families. Some may buy on credit while she will out of pity dashed some. Until everything went down for her.

Chaii, that's a sad one there, that your mum family and friends ruined her business time and halted her progress in time. I hope you aren't among those family people who ruined it for her? Sometimes children contribute more than 40% of running down their parents business, by stealing from the shop constantly.

 

[btaliat]

You have spoken well from your angle. It takes a discipline fellow to have and run a business. Every Harry and dick can own a business but not everybody is gifted to run a business. My mum lost all her goods because she allowed too many friends and families. Some may buy on credit while she will out of pity dashed some. Until everything went down for her.

 

[Sotherefore]

I know this is actually what is happening in reality and thank you for the enlightenment because I've seen a lot of people who do not know what to do in this similar situation but if I am in this situation I will never give my family member anything if it was not within my own decisions to do so.

 

[funmi]

Most times,I have witnessed family and friends ruining businesses for people. At times,when I want to start a business, I do not tell my friends at the beginning because they will be the ones that will make critics on the business and discourage you on the business. They may tell you that you can't manage the business well or how can you advise to people? And so many discouraging statements that may end the business even before it started.

 

[Samuel72]

It all depends on the decisions or the rules and regulation of the organisation, over here in my country many organisation does not allow brothers or family members to work in the same organisation this is because they might gang up together and do something bad in the organisation, so it is preferable for just one person to work in a family.