The biggest issue is the difference between revenue and profit. Close family and friends see the revenue and think you are making tons of money. The second problem is they look at how much profit you make from a sale and think you are overcharging them or think once again you are making a lot of profit. But startup costs, equipment costs, insurance, rates, rents, taxes, bank fees, etc they all add up fast.

It can be really hard because they see just a small part of the picture and attempts to explain it to them just wind them up because they have watched too many movies and adverts and cannot understand or believe what you say.

The third problem is that you can lose a small fortune very fast. A 5% profit on a 40k job can kill the business when there is a big issue with a part, or if the customer’s cheque bounces, or they go bankrupt before payment is due! Even with experience and trusted customers or suppliers things can sometimes go horribly wrong….especially when deadlines are tight.

So I think the haters are mainly the greedy people who are jealous of your revenues. When you are doing well they won’t see the hard work you have put in and whatever you give them they won’t be satisfied because they want a share of the revenues and all they see is lots of money! Unfortunately, sometimes they will steal it from you. That happens a lot in restaurants which are cash rich. I have seen businesses where members of staff have stolen ten times their wages or a third of the takings. Such staff don’t care at all and are very greedy and selfish to the point that they don’t even look after themselves because they are going to be sacked when caught and could be in jail……and risk their job and the job of everyone they work with if the business goes under.