Boss Life Boss Life: Surviving My Own Small Business by Paul Downs is hands down an amazing book. Every small business or future small business owner should read this book. Paul Downs has been crafting custom conference tables for the past twenty-six years. Which has been since the day he graduated from college. Paul started off making furniture in 1986 by himself. It was over the years when he took on employees and even a partner at one point. In the time span of his book his business has grown to six-teen employees, and brings in approximately one to two million dollars in sales each year. Of course, it didn’t start off that successful as most businesses do not. Transparency isn’t a weakness, it is a strength; it is important at that. Paul Downs decided to do exactly the opposite after his business partner told him that he should not be sharing the company’s financial struggles with the employees. He didn’t like keeping secrets from the men and one woman who relied on his business to make a living. So, every Monday morning Paul held a …show more content…
Paul has the most loyal and amazing craftsmen for all these years because he treats them with so much respect and genuinely good. Their wage is always just a little bit higher than what they might get paid elsewhere. Along with that they are also given benefits. Best thing of all is they are given honesty from Downs. Downs will take the pay cut before he cuts his employees pay. He was open to suggestions made to buy machinery from his workers. Instead of shooting down the suggestion right then and there he would calculate the numbers and make his decision on that. For example, an employee suggested to buy a machine that would cost Paul $30,000. Expecting a no out of Downs, he calculated the numbers to come up that with that investment he would save more than twice that number within the year! So he took action in ordering that