Boss is horribly disorganized and unprofessional.

Phew, thought you might be an employee of mine for a minute there

Get paid as long as you can, and then jump off of the burning wreckage just before it hits the ground.

In all seriousness, I wouldn't be able to stomach that situation unless the pay was REALLY good. Good luck to you, it sounds like you'll do well at your own things.

The problem here is that it is his business and not yours, although you may care about it and not want it to fail, you actually have no input.

Let this guy do whatever he wants (which is in reality what will happen whether you give him advice or not) and if his business fails, learn from his mistakes, open your own business and run it the way you want (I can guarantee that your employees will think they can run it better, they always do).

If you make a successful business then maybe you can hire this guy if he is as good a salesman as you say he is.

Alternatively, ask him if he would consider hiring a full time marketing person, then let that person run your advertising etc

I recommend you "Show Him The Money." That is, chart- diagram- color pencil- (whatever it takes) an easy-to-understand report that shows him where and why the company is losing money. Financial losses always seem to scare people straight.

If you prefer a more positive route, turn the chart upside down (jk), and tell him where and how the company can make more money just by eliminating some of his bizarre behaviors.

/\ Thats a really great idea actually people definitely do seem to learn better visually afaic. So that will be the first thing I do today when I get into the office.

Aside from that I also love the comment about employees always thinking they could run a business better. And that was something I myself definitely needed to hear.

Maybe yeh he is disorganized but he obviously had some type of skillset that has helped him stay in the game this long (been about 10 years now in a home improvement business). I think we just need a simple approach. Write down all the things that are hurting the company. Stop or drop those things. Find out the right way to do those things, then give them a proper shot.

What pissed me off was he just dropped another 6g's on advertising 2 weeks ago and guess how many phone calls we got? 0

This is probably the 3rd time this has happened where he contact these magazines/theclipper/valpak and the deadline for the ad is always so short, they we never have time to write a proper ad up.

I felt like I knew before that ad went out that it was just burning money. And of course the results showed exactly that. We're just burning money.

I had started by buying that book "tested advertising methods", and already I've been able to point out in our last 3 ads what was wrong. I mean we just really suck at writing ads its unbelievable what this book is saying. So maybe if I just follow the book, get some organization going on, MAYBE we'll have better results to look forward to.

And if not, I guess I'll just ride the train till the rails melt away.

I have to say this sounds exactly like the owner of the company I work for. Its hard to tell your boss he/she is doing it wrong, perhaps telling them with facts and the idea of making more money if you changed it to do it a different way. Sometimes the only message that gets through to people like this is money.

The training that you get from your perseverance will make you a great boss one day. At that point, your work mates will just be saying that they just cannot understand their boss!

I believe I have heard a principle...workers rise to their level of incompetence. This guy obviously has hit it!!!

Sourcing has some good ideas. If they don't work, I would go with specialized's recommendation.

What's the point of this post?

I would recommend you start running the numbers on everything, ever.

I worked for a guy like this for a while. He was hard to keep track of and we had to force ourselves to intervene when he made bad choices.

Sadly he kept making them anyways and is out of business now, but we stemmed some of the damage before it took him down.

You should never talk about it at work, or show that you think so in any way, if you don't want to loose your job. Plus, I think, it takes some level of organization and professionalism to become a boss. People always are complaining about their jobs, when in our days, we need to be grateful to have a job period.

Why cant bosses be held responsible for there verbal attacks. The verbal harrassment the verbal assults, and why cant there be LAWS to be PASSED for the way that workers are being treated??? Why cant there be LAWSUITS???

I'm amused at how some posts here bring out the best in people (or maybe the best people), and some threads bring out the worst.

I can sympathize 100% with the OP. He described to a T a guy I used to work with. Key difference being that we were more partners than employee / employer. Although he was still paying me for my services. Anyway, he was a pure genius on the phone. He could thumb through the yellow pages, pick someone at random and literally in about 10 minutes he would have them buying $1,500 of whatever he was selling. It was really amazing to watch.

But the rest of him was a total mess. His brief case was overflowing with loose paper and coffee stained notes. You couldn't see his desk for all the junk on it. If you opened the door to his car things would just fall out of it. Old fast food bags, soda cans, papers, who knows. He was a MESS. Absolutely no direction, no focus, no organization.

I had casual conversations where I would lightheartedly suggest he ought to clean out his office so he can get some work done, or maybe clean out his briefcase so he could find things he needed. It never took. He would just laugh it off and run out the door to some important meeting where he was going to land an investor so we could do things right. The investors never came.

I had a vision for how I thought the business could succeed and thrive on it's own. I saw a way for us to be self-funded. I wrote up a lengthy business proposal and laid out my vision for him in detail. I had a 12 week, week by week plan to get us from zero to operationally funded in 12 weeks. He read it and had little to say about it. He didn't bash me or "fire" me .. but he didn't take my advice either. I eventually left and went on to other things.

The last time I saw him, he was checking people in at a local gym. I still like the guy, but he just can't get out of his own way. I hope he eventually succeeds with something that makes him happy.

I'm really surprised by some of the responses here. "He should fire you." Really? I know everyone has different management styles, but if you're strategy is to fire people who disagree with you or offer heartfelt criticism I fear you'll have a pretty thin team. And the team you're left with will be "yes-men" who who challenge you to get better. I'd also suggest that most true innovation doesn't come from management or executives. The first place it comes from is customers, and the close second place it comes from is employees .. especially the ones in the field or the ones closest to the customers.

I think another response was something like "Guess what? It's not your business, you're not the owner, so you don't have any input." If you said he doesn't have any "control" I would agree, but what kind of boss or employer doesn't allow input? That's absurd. If you're a strong manager or boss, you can receive input from anyone. You don't have to implement it, or even like it. But if you want employees that want to work for you and want to do a good job for you, I think you're best bet is to make sure you're employees know and feel like you respect them, even if you don't implement their ideas. Most people just want to have a voice. Let them have it and I propose they'll be loyal.

I guess that's probably more than my $.02

Chris

It's natural to feel concerned but this is his company and his responsibility not yours, so stay well out of it. If it's so stressful, my advice is look for another job!

Remember its not your responsibility whether the company fails or succeeds, but you can do all that is humanly possible to show off to your boss (in a nice way) that you have a better way of doing things.

Tempt him.

Say to him "If you let me run this for a week, and you dont see results, I will never hassle you about it again."
Tell him to take a week off or something.

2 possible outcomes will happen
-Your Boss will think you are a Godsend and promote you to run his business for him
-You will make the comapny money and your boss will take credit for it, and then it will plunge the next week and he will run to you to ask for advice.

I sort of see it as a win win situation!

Tell me your thoughts.

Zayne

100% right

To the OP, you just described my first business partner. Things didn't get better until we parted ways. The guy will probably never change, if you can't work with it move on.

I feel for you, I think we've all had situations like that in the past. Thankfully mine were all pre-Uni.

IMO learning a little about sales copy is always a good thing, even if this mess of a boss never lets you use it. It will become invaluable later on.

I would look for another opportunity, because the stress seems to bad you have to actually vent on warrior forum, and make this thread.

In a business perspective, the business owner can technically do whatever he/she wants as long he`s not racial profiling or any harassment.

Get a new job. You don't own the business so who cares about his success. He doesn't care about yours I am sure.

Weird post.

There really isn't much you can do, he's your boss and you pretty much just have to swallow it.

Basically, in the 90's it was $100/week for an ad in the newspaper. You got 200 calls and had 20 prospects. Well, now the same ad is $200/week and you are lucky to get one. Call that is.

Times have changed and for the worse. I would limit my ads in newspapers. Also, do not do magazines. People no longer read em. OK so instead do some Google Adwords and you pay approx $1 per click on keywords that are important to you. If I remodel a bath room my profit is approx $5,000 now. It use to be $15,000 years ago. However, my competition is a lot more severe now. Also, jobs are few and harder to pick up.

It should cost you approx $400 in clicks to get one remodelling job, but that is not all gravy. People do not like to pay. That means taking them to court and issuing a mechanical lien; as well as spending time going to small claims court and they never show up - it is a mess.

I was thinking the same thing about my boss … and then I realize that I'm my own boss.

Just my point of view, I have been on both sides now I rub my own business, if your boss lacks the brain power to address his personal forthcoming's their is nothing you can do. The first thing your boss needs to do is accept the fact their is a problem, once he does that then the boss can start looking at what is the problem then the third thing what can they do to over come the problem. You cant make him over come the problem with out him knowing their is a problem. If I was you, I would set up my own business in the same industry and show him how its done.

Yeah, I'd fire someone too who is concerned about the way my business is going (downhill) and wants to educate themselves to better the business and save me wasted money. I much prefer workers who sit back for a ride and only do the bare minimum.

Why would a boss make their employee think that their opinion matters?

when any one gets more than he deserves, then this kind of S*** happens.
he is born to be a sales man not a business owner. if i was you then i would just screw him off.

One of my bosses can be unprofessional. I have been close to filing a formal complaint with HR... but not for now, and hopefully I will not feel forced into doing so. Wish me luck.

"The leads are weak..."

That sounds very horrible and I don't think I can stay with that type of boss, well good for you that you are able to stand on his disorganized attitude. You are under a complicated situation, I suggest you to meet with the board and see what you can do.

I'm sorry that you're in such a stressful situation at work --> makes for physical symptoms if you're there for any length of time.

I have a great need to "help" by way of using my talents and gifts to make a positive difference. I work from home, am my own boss, so I get to lavish all of my "help" on myself.

Could you possibly transition to working at home in some capacity?

Take Care,

I admire you being a good and concerned worker. How i wish i could have one like you.

If you've got any decent online marketing skills, you can transfer a bit of these to the offline world and makes his advertising dollars actually start working for him and bringing in new business. If you don't frequent right now, check out the offline forums.

One thing you don't want to do is spoil your boss. Don't do all of his work (on top of yours), and allow him to leave the office early to go play golf with his buddies... all while you're holding the fort down yourself.