Retailers as well as most other people like to talk about themselves and their business. Be inquisitive about their business. Let them tell you how great they are and agree with them. Tell them you are impressed with their business knowledge and ask them how your product could fit into their business. They will most likely sell themselves on your product for you.

Try leading each conversation with “Business is terrible I’m barely getting by.” Then look at them like you’re sizing them up for a loan. They will depart very quickly.

You can also try TurboTax for business. That has a dialogue feature that will ask you questions and walk you through the tax process.

Give them away to your software customers as a promotional item. Then the cost becomes a part of your software business and you can deduct the loss from your software profits.

Dude, feeling that the staff isn’t doing their job and firing them is good business. Feeling that the staff is against you personally, waiting a few years to fire them and then firing 4/7 staff is bad business. You just destroyed the morale of the remaining staff members. That is too big a percent to fire at once. The remaining staff members will be severely and adversely affected due to the number of people you fired at once. Do you expect the remaining 3 members of the staff to pick up the work of the four fired because that is what the remaining three are thinking right now. They are also worried that they will be the next to be fired especially if you say that the reason you fired the four was that they were against you. It just sounds paranoid. So don’t transmit this to the remaining staff. You have some explaining to do. Tell them exactly what happened and why without sounding paranoid. Then tell them you are not going to fire them because they are all doing a good job and you will be hiring replacements immediately to replace the four fired. Be friendly, understanding and supportive of any issues this causes the remaining staff members or they won’t be around very long. Next time don’t wait so long and don’t fire almost 60 % of your staff at once.

Put up a sign : “Any corrections to this week’s payroll must be submitted to me in my office by noon Friday. Otherwise the corrections will be paid next pay period instead of this pay period.” Nobody likes to wait a an extra pay period to get paid for work this pay period. At least you’ll be able to leave on time on Friday.

What market are you serving? What are the prices of your competitors? You might try an upscale market that appreciates the quality of your product and will pay the price for it.

I haven’t but I know people who work a 4 day/12 hour shift and they do like it a lot. It’s not for everybody. So, I’d talk to your folks first before going to it. You may get some that like it and some that don’t.

Forget about all the questions until you can answer these two questions. Question number 1 where will you get customers and question number 2 where will you get the product or service you are supplying? Followed by why should customers buy from you at all and not buy from your competitors? if you can’t answer these questions you won’t be in business long.