I keep seeing the same cycle in my city where I stay; small service businesses (laundromats, salons, carwashes, etc.) open,hustle for a year, build a base of customers… and then shut down.It feels like the model itself is broken man, high overhead, messy operations, and word-of-mouth marketing that doesn’t scale.
If you had to redesign a local service business from the ground up so it could actually survive and thrive, what bold moves would you make?I'm having a brainstorm lol
Why do so many local service businesses keep dying in my city?
byu/yourloverboy66 inbusiness
Posted by yourloverboy66
9 Comments
Those businesses are typically pretty hardy. Are these local independents or franchises/national brands?
I don’t know if I’m jaded but I find that like 90% of businesses do not provide good customer service, so maybe that’s why lol
Means no competitive advantage. But there is not an easy answer and if i knew i certainly wouldn’t tell you for some reddit cloud. I would do it myself.
High Operations cost made them do so always. They have to work on their expenses, wages, rents.
a smart marketing agency would target these small businesses and offer their services
They don’t market themselves.. is my guess.
Because the Rent is too damn high and they’re being bled to death by greedy property owners.
Probably because someone looks at potential revenue, plus obvious expenses, does some back of the envelope math and assumes it’s an easy profit. Then they open up, do everything they thought they had to do, and even get the customers, only to find out that they neglected to account for…. just about everything that eats a business alive. Owners work that first year, realize they’re working for minimum wage or less (which is actually pretty typical for the first 3 years of business ownership) and come to realize that they could get ANY OTHER JOB and earn more money at the end of the day without any of the headaches or stress.
The businesses I see like that that do the best have hands on owners. They are present, talking to customers, doing the work, and helping and working with their employees. And those people also usually treat their employees well and pay them ok.
I see other businesses where you will never, ever see the owner, and the owner has hired only minimum wage people to work part time with no benefits. When you turn your company almost fully over to people who aren’t qualified and have no investment in the company succeeding… you are going to fail.