Closing my business

I've been struggling over the past year or so with whether or not to close a business that I have. Now it's decision time.

The business hasn't been making much money, mainly because I've had a terrible time booking clients. The clients I do book are extremely happy afterwards — ecstatic even. There just aren't enough of them! And the advertising and trade show expenses necessary to get those few clients has been extremely high. Add in equipment costs, cell phone bills, memberships, insurance, costs of production, materials, my time, self-employment tax, sales tax, income tax, etc and things look even bleaker. The business is profitable, but barely, and that's only because I pay myself pretty much nothing. It's a lot of work for very little return. I could make more getting paid minimum wage.

So I would not miss the discouraging aspects of it. But I will miss doing the thing that the business is based on. I really enjoy that aspect of it, which is the reason that I gave the business another year. I wanted to see if I could cut back on advertising significantly but still maintain my number of clients. Let's just say that that didn't work. I only got one client that way.

So I'm sad about this, but I think the business has to go. I just need to double-check on the tax implications, and make sure I'm not missing anything important. There are other questions too, like “What will I do with all of the sales and trade show materials?”. They're not anything that could be used by another company, since they were all made specifically for my business. At least I will free up some storage space, and some time in my life.