'It's my business now': Incompetent new owner tanks business by meddling with crucial employee, leaves and takes clients with them

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    Font - r/ProRevenge Posted by u/egnards 2 days ago 72 33 "I Guess it's my business now," A Tale in 5 Acts I've wanted to post this tale here for a long time, I've started the post many times, walking away from the computer and giving up each time. Note, that like many tales here many 'trivial to the story' details have been changed. What is important to note is that that the way my industry runs is essentially via monthly service contracts with clients. There are 3 major players in the story; my
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    Font - Act 1 - Do What you Love As an aimless teenager I started working for a small business owned by Steve. It turns out I really enjoyed what I did so slowly over time my life plans shifted to make sure I could continue to work for Steve for the long term - This included transferring to a local college, and because the business was predominantly run on 'part-time' hours making sure that any other jobs I had never conflicted with the hours I was expected to work for Steve.
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    Font - Steve was flawed, but overall a good boss who [mostly] looked out for me. I certainly think over the years he had taken advantage of me in small ways, but looking back I really have no complaints. The thing is, that while when I started working for Steve the business 'name recognition' was always directed towards Steve, over the years it eventually became, "Go to Egnards, he's the best!" This got to the point where I do indeed truly believe that if I did not end up working for Steve it's
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    Font - As years when on it was heavily implied that when Steve retired the business would go to me. It was never specifically stated, but Steve did have a way about skirting around those types of issues and giving me hope... Act 2: Enter Kyle About 3 years before Covid, Steve decided to retire and sell his business. He did indeed 'fulfill his promise' by making a half assed attempted to sell it to me at an unreasonable price, but it was very clear he already had another buyer in mind, Kyle.
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    Font - Kyle owned another local business just outside of our market area in the same industry; because of the way the industry worked there really was much, if any, overlap in potential customers, but Kyle had a very large amount of money and was willing to buy - What is important to note here is that, again, I do truly believe that if I didn't play ball and agree to work for Kyle, my role was so integral to operation at our business, that there as no possible way a sale could go through. Over t
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    Font - Act 3: Kyle's Kind of a Dick, and how I learned to stand up for myself All was well for awhile. Kyle would openly talk about me being the head honcho at my location and mostly left me alone to deal with my clients in the professional and personable nature that I had learned from Steve. Things first came to a head a year before Covid when Kyle sent me to an industry conference for 4 days - I would need to take off time from my other job, which I was fine with - At the conclusion of the con
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    Font - day, but instead did not account for hours for seminars that would help my boss but were ones I had wanted to attend] - The request was denied and I was told, "Industry Conferences are enriching activities, we pay for your admission but they're on your own time,' this took 2 weeks to resolve but ended with me essentially saying, "Look I'll still work for you because I love what I do, however, if I don't get paid I will never go to another one of these conferences again to get new ideas fo
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    Font - Act 4: Covid hits When Covid hit our locations were shut down, and for 3 weeks we weren't able to do anything, meanwhile our clients were still paying for services, and because Kyle had recently moved to a new client payment portal that I hadn't been trained on yet, I wasn't able to help any clients get their money back. At one point I messaged Kyle about going virtual and being able to still assist clients and got a very angry text back, full of curses, that essentially said, "Look, you'
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    Font - It was at this point that I knew shit was hitting the fan and I needed to start doing something. So over the course of the next 2 months I did a couple things: Spent an inordinate amount of time studying the best business structures • Communicated with all of the other staff at my location about my intentions • Continued to give 110% to my clients in a virtual capacity • Built a website and social media presence from the ground up I don't think Kyle was expecting any of this, and he proba
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    Font - Act 5: Surgical Strikes When everything was ready I waited very patiently only the end of a service month, as I mentioned, all of our clients had monthly costs, and I didn't want to put anyone out of any part of their costs. On the last weekday of the month I instructed the staff who would be helping clients that day to tell them to check their e-mails at the end of the day. At the end of the day I sent out an e-mail to all active [and some non-active] clients, as well as a texting servic
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    Font - Within 15 minutes of everything my phone was ringing off the hook, I had 50+ e-mails in my inbox from different people, and my Facebook accounts were completely blowing up with local chatter. I also heard from many of these people that they were calling Kyle to cancel their service - we hosted a Zoom meeting for all concerned parties and essentially decided to take the weekend to clear up any confusion with the systems and start fresh and open our doors on Monday. Within an hour of everyt
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    Font - At the start of Covid we had roughly 50 active "clients" at the business. On my first day of business I had signed up 75 active "clients," many inactive ones telling me, "Yea we stopped doing business with you guys because Kyle was kind of a dick." What is really important to keep in mind here is that I never wanted to, nor cared to be, a business owner. I was very happy working for somebody else as long as I wasn't treated like shit. Had Kyle treated me even remotely better the location
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    Font - We've been in business now almost 2 years, have nearly tripled Kyle's "active numbers," and continue to be a staple in our community. tl;dr old boss sold his business to someone who was kind of a dick. New guy didn't realize I was the face of the business and ended up losing out on everything.
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    Font - beerbellybegone - 2 days ago One day people will learn not to piss off the one person who holds their entire business together, but I don't see it happening anytime soon Reply Share 852 egnards OP 2 days ago You would think, though I've learned a lot of really great lessons from good management [mostly Steve], and from what bad management looks like [Totally Kyle]. While my business still is mostly "part-time" hours for any of my employees [it's just the nature of the industry that is rea
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    Font - cockitypussy But the million dollar question still remains unanswered - where is Kyle now? 136 Reply Share ... egnards OP. Kyle still has their business outside of my market - he was a very big proponent of social media use prior to everything going down, and I see much much less of it. As our client base was mostly isolated between the two locations, I don't know if any suffering they're dealing with is fully related to his poor business management, or anything to do with me (probably no
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    Font - Slevinkellevra710 Was there any risk to the idea that Kyle could have seen you as "stealing" his clients? Were there any concerns regarding trade secrets and inside knowledge about the company you worked for? I'm airways intrigued by these types of stories because obviously the clients like you, and are probably better off. I'm not in any way suggesting that you sabotaged kyle, but I'd imagine he might see it that way. For the right kind of person, a lawsuit doesn't seem absurd. Since you
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    Font - have gotten zero clients from it, and maybe lost some of the ones from their location; I did 2x/2week st their location and while I had nowhere near the familiarity with their clients, I was certainly well liked - I would have lost a business I never had to begin with, and I still work a full time job anyway (slowly hoping to move away from it). Also, while the client list I had was certainly from their database, the reality is that enough clients had my cellphone number (and vice versa)
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    Rectangle - bubblekiss9 Solid read. Glad you finally wrote this out! 104 Reply Share
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    Font - Bearmancartoons Kyle obviously didn't do his due diligence and have you sign a non compete 19 Reply Share egnards OP Very true, though in all honesty I wouldn't have signed one, and he would have bought a business without the support of someone essential to it continuing to make money. I'm sure he would have liked to but figured there was no way - he tried to buy my support and friendship pretty often, but also did very dumb things too 17 Reply Share
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    Font - Bo-staff_n_Aces Did Kyle ever get in touch with you about it and try to stop you? Or was it more of a "Dang! He got me!" And he just quietly faded into the distance? Reply Share.. 14 ↓ egnards OP So interestingly enough the night we did this I did text him first; "Hey Kyle, we've decided to do our own thing and go independent so I quit." The next morning I got: "Oh wow Egnards, I'm so happy for you, this is what I always wanted for you!" It was all bullshit, but he knew he lost and any ad

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