Please fellow nairalanders, kindly render your pieces of advice on this issue.

My friend who works invested over N1.3m to open a bar at Mile 12, Lagos.That was in May last year. The bar was promising in the first two months of commencement but it started nosediving afterwards.The issue is that he has had a lot of barmen and cook come and go but the bad aspect is that all of them came to liquidate the business and he is getting tired of these barmen.Now he is contemplating on selling off the business which I have strongly refused because I want him to succeed in the businees.

The truth of the matter is that he has not made any profit since he opened the bar instead he has been making expenses from his own pocket and not from the bar. The last time we checked, his cumulative loss was over N200,000. One of the major reasons for this loss is that he has no customers, so he does not sell enough to cover staff salary,fuel,dstv subscription etc and secondly he works,hence he does not have his eyes strongly on the business.

I believe if he gets a good and social barman, he would do well.I think he needs someone who would see the business as his and manage it properly.Well these are what I think but I know there are intelligent people on this forum who might have some wonderful ideas to share. Please kindly help him out.

Thanks

The main issue is his inability to be on ground to manage and monitor things himself due to his job. It's really difficult to get someone trust worthy, from experience, what I would advice him is to get someone who he can handover the bar to for day to day operation at an agreed monthly payback target. The manager would be responsible for paying your friend, for paying the staff and incharge of the day to day expenses of running the bar.