I personally don't play with cheats or hacks. Also, watch the thought bubble if/when a customer complains! They give you tips on how to make your business better without having to use hacks.

cheats for me.
I can't quite get the hang of making money in OFB, I just seem to keep losing money.

Just convince your customers they want 4 Wide Screen TV's and a few expensive stereos to go with it, works for me

If you don't want to cheat get a few snapdragons around the place, it should help a lot if your store isn't too big. I use a hack that stops my employees mood from dropping, so I just have to worry about my sim and the customers. I wouldn't call it cheating since the employees cant take care of there own needs if you do give them a break....

How is it cheating to hire someone with a gold flower badge to sit in the basement and make snapdragons all day, then fire them or re-assign them to something else when you have enough flowers for your lot? There are a bunch of townies who have gold badges in flower arranging. A few even have other useful skills.

I tend to use snapdragons not just for my employees but also for the customers. I also make use of the expresso machine and leave a cup in it for the employee on the lot (for some weird reason employees can't make coffee but they can pick up a cup of it's left there). I have an item for fun on the lot and a bathroom only for those who work there; my customers are lucky if I even give them a place to sit if the business isn't a venue.

I stick to the most basic selling social, since it doesn't seem to be rejected as much as the higher-level ones. I only use the highest selling maneuver when my salesperson is close to a break, since it drains energy. But in most businesses I run my salesperson ragged upselling, since it usually builds favorable opinion.

It has been easier to run businesses from the wholesale catalogue since it takes so long to build items. The few businesses I've done with crafted items have taken more time, since the owners have had to build up their inventory before they could reopen again.

I ignore folks who complain, just cancel the interaction before it can start. I also cancel the interaction when customers tell you they're just browsing, and then I ask them to leave. I let people do a certain amount of socializing on the lot; if there are just too many people and certain folks aren't interested in buying, I send them home.

I'm also wary of hiring Sims with various skills and badges that won't be needed, since their base rate of pay goes up based on how much they know. A gold badge in flower making isn't going to help my robot business and it'll end up costing me more per hour. I tend to pick townies with low or no skills or badges; that way, I can make them good in the areas I like. And if they marry into one of my families some day they'll have some badges under their belts.

I admit that I've been making my employees selectable with InSim because they tend to act so stupidly otherwise. I mean, I've seen an employee go on break, desperately needing to go to the bathroom and eat, but ending up watching tv instead. I know that it takes some of the challenge out of it but right now I just can't stand to go back to the ineptitude.

One of my favorite businesses is a home-based venue, basically a country club. The house is large, full of entertaining things (tv, food, bar, pool, hot tub, card table, karaoke machine, bookshelf, good seating, stereo, dj booth), and it's open 24/7, making a steady stream of money. Even while the family sleeps customers are around paying the hourly rate. When the family gets up, there's always someone around to talk to. I'm planning on making the lady of the house a vampire soon and it'll be a great way for her to have Sims to hang out with late at night. Every now and then I have one of the family members work at the bar or the dj booth, but employees aren't really necessary. God I want to play right now...

My best bussiness was just lots and lots of poker tables, and snap dragons everywhere. It made about $6000 in three days

This is too easy. Build any business that charges by the hour to be on the lot (gym, gameroom, arcade, anything). Hint: the more money the business is worth, the more you can charge. So if you dump money you make back into it (more equipment, etc.), you can raise the price.

Place 2 or 3 snapdragons, a coffee pot, and a bathroom in a small room in the basement. Sit in the room and meditate while your business runs itself.

Flood the rest of the building with snapdragons, as well, if you like.

Faaaast fooorwaaard.

My gym makes a 2 or 3 grand a real-life minute on fast forward.

Okay, cheating with Maximun Motives is 100% USELESS in restaurants since the customers backfire with full hunger (cosmetology case: full hygiene). You guys simply just use Venue or Wholesale/ Retail buisnesses, but Service and Restuarant buisnesses brings more greens to me.

Services: Simply have a Gold badges in Services and it BOOMS. I got 3 Cosmetologists and a Salesperson and my buisness also FLOURISHES while I'm having ZZzZZz! CHEATLESS

Restaurant: Have a good lot plan, good balance of employees, and emergency skills and your can earn as much as §5500 in two days. My top was §7000 in two days, CHEATLESS

But yeah, I agree with the Snapdragons formula.

in most of my busnuiss i have all i do is make a bussniss and hire employes, 1 or 2 dosent matter unless you have a really bg mall type thing like the micro mall, and i send the familay home that own the bussniss, then i go onto a really rich family which i use cheats with, and get them to constantly BUY BUT BUY! once all your money/or half has gone you go back onto the orignal famialy and has a look at the businiss levels!

sorry for my bad english

only just started learning and i used google translate for most of this

Ah yes. The good old maxmotives a little bit of patience.. AKA Three whole days doing business non stop. Make sure to moveobjects delete any complaining customers and pay attention to your sim and its workers. Having your sim call up some buddys to come over via joining them in the taxi to the business or using a cell or a phone on the lot may help as customers buy more when they like the seller. Im not one for businesses .comma. we only work together out of convenience when I find I cant sell my custom beer in a regular community lot.
If your wondering why my post looks a little freaking grammar impeded its because my keyboard is broken.

I have a question do teens get tired more easily? I once hired a teen to work at my place and her mood would get yellow SO fast I end up just laying her off.

I would think that would be based on the individuals personality traits. Lazy, playful Sims make the least productive workers as their energy and fun levels bottom out quickly.

I used to max motives all the time, but recently I started sending my sims to the lot in a good mood (first thing in the morning with all motives in the green) and then having the business open from 9-5. I've found that doing it like that keeps everyone relatively happy. If I end up with a grumpy customer, I simply ban them from the lot.

I sometimes use maxmotives, but most of the time, I use motivedecay off to fix the motives from decaying. My rationale is that if the clock is unchanged when Sims return home, I would assume that no time has passed, and thus Sims shouldn't have decreased motives.

In sales, I try to find a good, employable townie to work for the business -- one that has the desired talent badge or skill set. I hire that townie and make that townie work. Sometimes, I like to have playable Sims work for other playable Sims' businesses. Because the employees are playable characters, I can control them when I play the employee's lot and help them become more adjusted to the job by studying for skills and badges.

For me it's just no fun to play with all these cheats. There's no challenge in it. Then again, I do like to have my game as realistic as possible and that's just a personal play style, not a judgment of other people. I don't even know how to do maxmotives or the cheat that gives you money. When it's time to go home, it's time to go home.

I think running a business is like a mini-game. I love the sound of the ka-ching - that means I'm scoring more points. My business methods are as follows (always evolving!):

- To make a lot in a short amount of time sell real estate. You can buy the same cheap lots over and over and sell them to the same people. Sell one moderately expensive lot a few times and you're rolling in dough.
- Easiest businesses are the ticket ones, but I'm starting to find them boring because my Sim has nothing to do all day. The tickets sell themselves. Ticket business on a home lot is ideal.
- Something I just learned recently: call friends to your new lot to be your first customers. If you can invite a household even better. Gets sales and stars going quickly which encourages more people to come.
- I avoid elevators in my businesses (like the one in Papaya Regime). Sims are really stupid about elevators.
- If you have a Sim who has worked in a family member's business or had their own but sold it/has it managed, then that Sim has undoubtedly built up some useful badges, especially gold sales. HIRE THIS SIM. Old retired folks with gold sales badges will run around like crazy selling your stuff. I just saw a toy shop jump 5 ranks in a day.
- Newspaper deliverers have high skills for some reason and they're often popularity Sims. If you get one into one of your households they make awesome employees who badge quickly.
- I haven't tried this yet but what about Servos? Seems like they'd make great employees.
- Don't just let the clothing sell itself; recommend outfits to townies. Put in a makeover chair and they'll go from fug to fab.
- Agree with the earlier advice that it is worth it to put in a flower arranger set and hire a Sim with a gold flower badge just to make some Snapdragons. One of my Sims with a home business stopped needing anything but sleep (and she could work long before needing sleep). I could have had her drink expresso and then she wouldn't have even needed sleep. All of her other needs were kept up by the snapdragons around the cash register where she stood all day. She never had to eat again.

Interesting definition of "realistic".

I don't really get restaurants and bandatron-businesses. Restaurants don't profit unless your own sims work as employees, and bandatron businesses take forever to reach level 10. I maxed out one and never wanted to deal with another. Now if I feel like it, some of my sims max out a cheap shop first, in order to change it to a bandatron-business later.

I had a home business bakery for a while, but with all the Sims on the lot I kept getting crashes so I closed that up after a few hours.

Im trying the bakery now. It was my first business so I learned a lot from it. Like dont start building it from scratch with the sim because it makes you do into 'debt' and you dont make a lot of profit later on. I also dont make my sims make their food at home so the restaurant doesnt see it as 'spending money'

Babahara -- Bandatron businesses do take forever to gain stars, although they are good at gaining money (especially if you use the dazzle 'cheat'). One attempt at a build a city challenge I married in a sim whose LTW was to reach the top of the dance career (one position opens when a dance studio reaches level 5, open to all when the career is topped) and even with the business open 24/7 it took a couple of sim weeks to get to level 5.

The most profitable businesses I've had which also gained stars easily was an electronics store. Once I had enough cash to start selling the 10k TVs introduced in Apartment Life my sims got more money than they knew what to do with it (although a lot of it was donated towards a university).

I do use Business Runs You and hire family whenever I can -- generally if it's a new business the low badge levels don't matter too much, and by the time I can get other family members in who have low badges, they're covered by those who have silver or gold badges. I only hire outside employees if it's a business where I think they're needed (which at the moment is a cosmetology business because it takes quite a while to do a makeover and ties up a sim). I've given up on restaurants unless they're needed for a challenge.

Ha Ha I felt that Burn! LOL you're right though.

When I play a business I usually make sure that there are enough family members to run it, since I hate having to deal with disgruntled employees. I also do not depend on the game to generate my customers. One of the family members will be sent over to the phone and will call all his or her friends and invite the households to the business, this way I get lots of customers, and then each family member takes turns Dazzling the customers into buying the most expensive items in stock, and when they get a bit tired I switch them off with whoever is running the register, or restocking shelves. Once everyone is a bit tired I close up shop, and send them home for the rest of the day.

Start home business. Build living area as an apartment type thing on top of the business. Build servo's and make them do everything.

One thing I did when I first started OFB was have a sim be a "jack of all trades" with her business. It was just a few shelves of catalog items - first at home, then selling flowers/toys/random items at the Bluewater Village flower shop* - but my sim was doing everything: Register, restocking, and sales. When I decided to sell her business, she had enough badges to qualify as a manager, so the new owner could just check in to the business every once in awhile, without having to re-earn more badges.

*A flower shop that ended up selling everything except the craftable flowers.

All of you who succeed at restaurants, how do you get sims to sit at a bar to eat? I made over Club Dante, and I wanted to just have bar seating, and all the customers refused to be seated because there weren't any tables. So I put in three--but uncontrollable sims only dine alone and it ruins the aesthetic of the joint, and if a fourth sim wants to be seated they complain about no tables again, while there are twenty or so empty bar stools. There's nothing wrong with the bar part of things--sims sit there and order drinks just fine.