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Knowing how to fire someone is never a formulaic thing. That’s what Richard Baccus has learned over the year of running his business. Richard runs  ABC Vacuum Warehouse and Gruene Steam with his dad Ralph. ABC Vacuum  started in 1977 as a mail order vacuum business. They operate  a brick-and-mortar store as well as 20,000 sq. ft. warehouse and employ 28 staff. Since 2008 Gruene Steam provides alternatives to harsh chemical cleaning products because after decades in the retail floor business they knew there was a better way. They used German innovations to come up with  steam products to clean floors.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • [0:11] Jeremy’s introduction to this week’s guest: Richard Baccus
  • [1:19] Richard’s lowest moment in business: having to let employees go.
  • [2:18] The high point in business: moving into a new facility.
  • [4:25] 30 years before the new facility was possible.
  • [4:41] The hardest part of Richard’s job as a CEO.
  • [5:51] The best and worst parts of working with his father.
  • [6:30] Richard’s advice about running effective e commerce business.
  • [7:45] One of the things Richard kept trying that finally worked.

In this episode…

On these “One Question” episodes of Inspired Insider Jeremy tries to dig deeply into the real life struggles of the entrepreneurial life. Richard Baccus tells why some of the most difficult things he has to deal with are the situations when an employee or team member has to be removed from the team.

It’s never easy to know how to fire someone and in over 30 years of doing business Richard Baccus has never found that it gets easier. But he knows by now that there are situations when reassignment or retraining simply don’t work and an employee has to be terminated.

In this conversation, Jeremy and Richard talk about the difficulties of letting an employee go and how the people on the team really are the most important resource a company has.

You’ll also hear some of the highest moments in Richard’s long career running ABC Vacuum Warehouse and how it took over 30 years to build to the point that a new, state of the art facility was a possibility. He also shares what the company has been able to do now that the new building is a reality.

Resources Mentioned on this episode

The Sponsor for this episode

This is part of the Skubana Ecommerce Mastery Series where top Sellers and Experts teach you what really works to boost your ecommerce business. Skubana is a platform to manage your entire ecommerce operation.

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