Will Bridges

Over the last few days I have been having some issues with one of the employees of our corporation. He basically created a bidding war for himself. At first I was all about giving him whatever he wanted to stay because he's been a vital part to our business for so long. Then I actually discussed the issue with some colleages and family/friends. Their take is that he is a part owner in the company (he has shares) and for him to go to our client and ask for a job, which is what caused this bidding war, was not only a bad move but it was an embarrasment to the company which he in part owns. So, I basically ended up offering him two documents. One document is a complete removal of his relationship with the company aside from any contracting and the other is a complete renewal of his relationship with the company with new terms not allowing him to look for employment from our clients and also making him give the company a 60 days notice before ending his employment with the company.

My response was not to enter the bidding war. I didn't offer more money, more vacation or financial incentive as the competition is. My response is "If you want to make more money then work harder, come up with more ideas, sacrafice because  you are one of the two owners in the company." If it were an employee who did not also own the company and help control it's direction I may have offered more to him. But, if it's his company too I can't come up with any logic that says the company can give him more. Him asking for more seems to be like asking me to take less and generally I already take less than he does. Another thing I did was look back on his actual work and I noticed the time spent over the past couple months was not over or above by much on the normal 160 hours a month. So, it seems to me if you are complaining about pay, risk or insonsistancy you are not an entrepreneur but an employee posing as an entrepreneur. If you are an entrepreneur you don't complain about these things instead you work to fix them and stomach the risk while you are working on it. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone and I will say as I have said before stop saying "I want my own business because I want to set my own hours and I don't want a ceiling on my pay" if you can't take the risk necessary to make that happen and you aren't willing to take on a little temporary hardship to make it happen.

This whole article gives the impression that we may not being doing very well. When actually, the opposite is true. Most businesses take 3+ years to get where we have gotten in 9 months.  We've grown our monthly income 300% in those 9 months and have learned some very good lessons about pricing which made us increase our prices over the past two months. We have full coverage health insurance and are starting to now build some savings and pay off some of our early start-up costs with vendors we were in debt to.  We have enough clients and respect from our clients to build an even stronger and higher paying client base over the next 9 months. I feel we are in a very strong position and leaving a position of power in this company is a a foolish move. If he leaves then so be it. I can brush up enough do his job but he cannot do my job and I'll find someone soon enough that sees the potential and wants to replace him. There's no hard feelings here. This is business and the first one to get emotional about these type of things is the first one to lose. If he does leave he has left this company in a great position and he deserves an outstanding reference.