The way you lead has a wide range of impacts on your business. A business can survive and even thrive for some time with a fire-breathing ego-monster. However when looking to retain your best and brightest, this is not your best strategy. Sure, the opportunity to "run the show" one day may motivate them [...]
Have you ever been asked what you do for a living? Rhetorical question, yes, but one that is often asked in social gatherings, and even from customers and vendors who may not truly understand what you do. Even though they know you are in the "franchise" business and own your own thing, there is [...]
“Often, all that stands between you and what you want is a better set of questions”. - Tim Ferriss How do you eat an elephant? The phrase “succession planning” means different things to different people. Often, it’s misrepresented as simply having a buy-sell, or confused with having a basic estate plan. In our forty [...]
Why do family businesses have a high chance of dying on the vine when the kids take over? As you might guess, there are a multitude of factors; like the perspective and motivation of ownership (sometimes a sale is the goal from the start); key managers might have other plans as the business moves [...]
Transitioning a family business to the next generation can feel a lot like hunkering down for a tremendous storm. Just like the winds and rain that push the walls and windows of a home, so too can the anxiety and stress in the family business push many past their breaking point. Often, you know [...]
“Here we are again”, I say to myself as I climb a ladder up towards my mother-in-law’s Christmas decorations, held precariously in the rafters of her garage for the past eleven months. I feel like I find myself saying something like this more often each year as the seasons roll on by, and yet [...]
I recently had a late lunch with my good friend, George. Ten minutes late, I entered the restaurant feeling rushed, but also feeling energized after the phone conversation I had just ended. Apologizing for my delay, I explained to George the call was with a business owner interested in engaging our firm to help [...]
What is your workday mantra? The Chairman of The Rawls Group, Loyd Rawls, reminds us often to “do good, have fun, and make money.” I believe it is a tone to set for the day. The order in which it’s spoken makes all the difference. I find myself often wondering if I’ll hit all [...]
For family business big or small, family dynamics is often their heaviest weight to lift into the next generation. There’s an essay on weightlifting and life by Henry Rollins that’s well known in the fitness community (by folks in my generation, anyway). In it, Rollins talks about how finding weightlifting as a young man helped [...]
My family and I recently took the plunge into the world of RV’ing. I enjoy operating all kinds of vehicles, so towing our new purchase round trip for the first time did not present too much concern, but I knew I’d have to be on my game. Anything new and different presents learning curves. One [...]
