F&B industry definitely have to tie down yourself into day to day operation granted you are the one who operate it unless you had decided to hire a operation manger to take care the shop on your behalf.

If you have the intention to do so, sit down & compose a SOP(Standard Operation Procedure) which allowed you hand over the work to the operation manager in an manner.

I would suggest you look for a Operation Manager instead of business partner. The reason i said so because :

1. Operation manager & Business partner have different function to your business. People looking for business partner when he/she is short of capital or certain skill set to mantle/running a business. Operation manager was tailored to take care day-to-day operation issue.

2. From my understanding, I assumed that your F&B venture are quite stable. (Am i right? no external or internal issue were endanger your business)
The pro for you getting a operation manger is you can focus on marketing & R&D development on your recipe and all. If you able to cope it, start another business concurrently is possible & achievable.

3. Assumed you is a serial entrepreneur (which i feel little bit from your words pertaining the keen to jump into another business) and your ultimate goal is sold your business & franchisee and jump into another business. The first thing you have to do is let the business survice without you. Here is the system are where necessary implemented. Even you missing for 10 days, the business is still running & doing well. At this point, Investor would only bought over the business which is profitable & sustainable.

That would be too much to discuss. If you are interested & ready to discuss further, just drop a a PM and we shall continue from there.

In the end, Moolah for your business ! I would visit the shop try for the dessert when i am free

LOL,i would against that. If normal hawker stall or Coffee shop would be no problem for that.
Running a manner F&B, you need more experience & knowledge person taking care for you who able conduct sales report & weekly report for shop. Most importantly is woman are emotional. I have to admit i'm a bit bias on this issue.

That's the dilemma for most of the people, especially Chinese. They do not trust somebody else when it's come into business. That's why you saw a lot 'Family Business' around Asia region. Of course there have the pros & cons on family business which i shall skip on here because had drifted from our topic.

I handled such case for the mistrust issue before, was for my friend's tyre service business. Now he is doing quite well & having 3 different type of business(Tyre service,Cafe, Grocery shop) which have people taking care of his business. Here i can share with you some (not all of course) of the trick/method you could retain those good manager.

1) Why would a operation manager work for you for 7 years or longer than that?
Just very simple, think in the shoes of other person. Why would you work for a boss for 7 years or more than that?
It's very realistic issue. People would go for better opportunity to earn more money if they got the chance, so would you do that.
The best way for hiring a correct & sustainable manager was bind them with a period of service contract. (Annual basis)

Here is a few option to retain a manager/employee in long term or permanent.

A) Breakdown your annual bonus into 2 part withdrawing which every 6 month they will get the bonus as you promised for it.(Casino distribute bonus to their staff every 3 months,they break into 4 parts. LOL) There is one more aggressive way which adopted by most SME was offer a long term bonus saving. I shall explain it when comes to the end. (this part applicable your manager & normal employee)

B)Offer financial rewards. Consider offer stocks option to allow them to share profit or other financial awards for the manager. Provided he is a good candidate (as you define in term how he benefit your business). With the profit sharing, he would actually lock-in into the business as taking good care of it. If he able to maximize the profit of your business,he would getting more in annual or semi-annual bonus. Portion for sharing profit as you define which is most reasonable & accpetable to both party.

Continue the part for A. Consider to offer a competitive benefits package that fits your employees’ needs such as health insurance/life insurance/ retirement saving plan or child education saving plan for elder employee/ education,training or investment saving plan for younger employee. Show employee you willing to accommodate to their outside live. However some of the company have the lock in period, at least 2 year service period. if you resign on second year you can only withdraw 30% (as your preference.) of those saving plan your business fund to the employee. If resigned on fifth year, can withdraw 80% of the perks.

other way to retain and the list go on.

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I. Communicate your business’s mission. (What you delivery your service & vision)
II. Make sure your employees know what you expect of them. (If they don't know what you expect from their responsibilty, they can't performance up to standard & morale begin to drop at this point)
III. Give employees a clear picture for path of advancement when they work for you. (Show a picture of their advancement if they work for you,nobody will want to work for a boss which no promotion & no career advancement given)

These 3 are the most important fraction which i thinking it's most important when hiring a staff.

''Take'' more than ''Give'' is the shortcoming for most of the businessman failed to retain the great employee. Long terms employee create a strong work force to your business with healthy growth. High turnover rate increase the training cost for new staff & affect performance as well because they have to pick up their work from 0. Offer some extra perks to retain them if they are the right person.

This is one of my belief.

If you hired a crew of right person and able running the business with your absence. After profit sharing & perks, even though only generate 1 or 2k per month. It's still provide you a positive & healthy cash flow. After all you own the assets as well (business & people).

Let's illustrate a scenario.

If with your involvement & daily operation basis taking care of your business. Your business earn 5k net profit.
you saw a great candidate accommodate you need, you hired him for 3.5k to take care of your business. He can handle without your existing.

In such case,you need no involve into day to day operation issue & visit the shop and look at the report every week and you still earning 1.5k + your business value (which will grow time by time basis). Therefore you able take part into other task or start another business in order generate more income source for yourself.

Does it make sense for you? It make sense & align to my vision.

That's why even though other running business for you, you will still have to monitor financial statement regular because it's still your business.
If your employee acting integrity issue,hire another one work for you. As long as you pay decent salary, people are queue to work for you.

This post has been edited by LawrenceTan: May 24 2013, 01:41 AM

''Use contests and incentives to help keep workers motivated and feeling rewarded. Done right, these kinds of programs can keep employees focused and excited about their jobs.''
I quote this from one of the hr advise portal for your reference.

If you worried about their integrity, CCTV to monitor is sufficient.

Hi,

Before we continue the discussion on this. Do you mind answer few question? Haha (I'm curious)

How old are you this year?
I clicked into the link and saw all the product. Do you selling this via drop shipping method?

I assumed you had purchased from apmex or others reseller instead of Royal Canadian/US Mint all these manufacturer. (For such small scale of order i don't think they would actually nominate silverstreet with partnership.)

Btw,i saw your thread saying that you planning to run a physical shop for coin dealer. My question is : Is it a physical shop or showroom is a must? Could you elaborate why you have the thought ?
Since you are leveraging internet as your distribution channel why would you want to open a physical store increase your overhead expenses since your business are in small now? (I noticed that you are selling lot of variety of stuff in Lowyat forum, i'm not sure whether you are ready & equip with sufficient knowledge to operate as a gold/silver dealer.)

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I am gold/silver investor for the time being,Major in paper silver.
Gold/silver coin or bar dealer profit margin usually cap at 10-15%. Which mean if you operate a physical store, in a rough calculation your breakeven point is 20k sales per month (assume your rental 1k + 500 utilities/admiistration fees + 500 for your salary). Althought many factor will incur & calculation shall be different case by case but this is a rough calculation.

Anyway, below are the suggestion from me :

I. Define your target market. A well defined market is a first approach in business.
(There is 2 type of person who would purchase gold/silver bullion. 1. Investor 2. Collector)
They have different needs though. Investor looking for mainsteam bullion/coin,low premium & reputable dealer(to avoid fraud). Collector looking for special/limited edition coin/they don't mind paying premium for the coin/bullion.
You may go for hybird model but it may diverse your capital into different type of coins.

2.Redesign your website content & e-commerce store structure. (I do think not quite messy & difficulty for browsing compare to other many proper proper website.)
In the bullion/coin buying process, Trust & relationship within buyer & seller are always come first. Thus transparency on your price & every info are important.

3.Adjust your pricing.
Premium for the bullion you are selling are slighty higher. Maybe you can take my advise focus on mainstream bullion/coins in order for you getting lower premium from your supplier. Hence you able resell in lower premium to compete.

For Coins :American Eagle Silver**, Canadian Maple leaf** Austrian Silver Philharmonic, China Panda**, Australian Silver Koala, Australian Kookaburra.
For Bars : Scottsdale**, PAMP Suisse, Sunshine Minting.

P/S : Those i marked with ** are the main stream are having high demand all times.

4. Hit up with the RSP Program (Regular Saving Plan)
Once you established a stable relationship with a group of your consumer. This will work well for them & ensure you having positive cash flow & steady sales.
of course the details incur such as price lock in, variant are upon to your policy.

Just FYI. Importing Gold coins/bar , Silver bar are exempted in tax based on Malaysia Customs regulation. Silver Coins have to pay 15.5% (Sales tax & import duty). Silver coin are legal tender therefore HS code for importing are different & have to pay tax for it.

You may give suggestion to your potential customer who are intended to accomodate silver/gold into investment portfolio buying silver bar is more worth to invest due to exempted tax in malaysia compare to coins. Compare to silver coins in Malaysia, silver bars is much cheaper & worth to invest in term of value.

Perform sales pitch to the business owner. Drop an email or make a call give a brief what you doing.
Ask for permission whether could arrange a meeting for discussion and showtime.

But first please know your strength before perform sales pitch.

Why they have to switch from their current service provider. Emphasize your strength and convince them.

Are you in the industry? have you try your channel to reach potential supplier?

do you have business or accounting background?

I had been informed that violated the forum rules. Therefore had removed by moderator.

However will keep gather and connecting entrepreneur and professional across Malaysia.

Link to the group still exist on my signature.