Hishem AzzouzHost Of Recruitment Mentors Podcast

One of The Hardest Things To Do as a Business Owner

Name: One of The Hardest Things To Do as a Business Owner
Uploaded: 2026-03-26T16:02:08+00:00
Duration: 1 min 11 s
Channel: Hishem Azzouz
Description: In this candid first‑person account, a business owner describes the difficult choices he faced when his company entered liquidation. Although the…

26 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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1:11

In this candid first‑person account, a business owner describes the difficult choices he faced when his company entered liquidation. Although the liquidators offered to handle staff communications, he insisted on personally delivering the news, believing it was his responsibility to look employees in the eye. He recounts a private, careful conversation with an employee named Callum, balancing transparency with legal caution, and later meeting two high‑performing female staff members to apologize and acknowledge their hard work. The narrative highlights his emotional commitment, ethical stance against delegating bad news, and the tension between legal constraints and personal empathy during a business wind‑down.

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I just had to put my big girl pants on and do it. Like, I didn't have a choice. And the liquidators were like, you don't need to come in and do this, like, we'll do it. Like, people don't normally come in and do it. I was like, there's no way that I'm just gonna let you go in the office and have that conversation with people. I really— it meant a lot to me to kind of like sit there and look people in the eye and tell them. And again, that morning they were just like, it has to be a round table. Like, they didn't want me to put my foot in my mouth with anything. They wanted to be involved in the chat. Yeah. But again, I didn't want to catch Callum off guard. Like, that just really didn't feel right. Obviously, we were having these conversations anyway, like, but I couldn't like fully disclose to him exactly what was going on. Plus, just legally, I just, I had to be a bit careful. And then there were two people who had like performed pretty well throughout that period and, and throughout the year as well, and I actually just felt really bad that they were like getting wrapped up in this when actually they were the ones that really deserved to have opportunities built around them. So I went in before the liquidator got there, and I just I sat down with Callum and we had a chat and I just told him what was happening and we just kind of hugged it out. And then I sat down with two of the girls as well and I just apologized to them for the situation we were in. I just wanted to like recognize like the hard work and everything they'd put into the business.