When Family Is in the Business (or in the Way)

Speaker A00:00:32

Running a business isn't easy. It's long hours, tough calls, and relentless pressure. No shortcuts, no handouts. Just grit, grind and the will to keep going when most would quit.Welcome to Grit and Growth Business, the show for entrepreneurs who know success is built the hard way.Hosted by Ralph Estep Jr. A seasoned business coach, accountant, and fellow fighter in the trenches, each episode brings you real talk, proven strategies, and the unfiltered truth about what it really takes to build something that lasts. Because if you've got persistence, perseverance, and determination, this is the place for you. This is Grit and Growth Business.

Speaker B00:01:19

Hey, friends, Ralph Estep Jr. here. Welcome back to Grit and Growth Business Live.Whether you're tuning in live right now, you're catching this on, repay later, I want you to know something. You're part of this movement. This isn't just a podcast, not just another business show. It's a movement for small business owners just like you.People who want real stories, real grit, real growth in the middle of all the chaos we call entrepreneurship. Listen, if you're an entrepreneur, you know what chaos looks like.And if you're new here, this is the place where we talk honestly about what it's really like to build a small business with your bare hands. Sometimes with hope. Hey. Sometimes with duct tape. And most of the time with prayer. And sometimes with nothing but stubborn determination.So you can probably appreciate what I'm talking about there. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Because here's the truth. Running a small business will test every part of you. It'll test your patience.It'll test your passion. It'll test your faith. It certainly will test your wallet. And for so many of us, it tests our sanity as well. And yes, even your family.And speaking of family, that's exactly what today's show is all about. Before we get into it, a quick reminder. We're going to have new action cheats community discussions and live Q and A clips.And come great business tools available in the Grit and growth business community. You can join the Grit and growth business community by going to gritandgrowthbusiness.com join. Here's the best part.Won't cost you a dime as we start this community. Now, we just got a few people signed up. I want to encourage you to go there again. It's at gritground and growth business.com join.That's where we go even deeper, where you can answer. Ask your questions and I'll answer them for you. And where you can submit topics for upcoming episodes. All right, well, let's dive in.Let me ask you a question. Have you ever brought a family member into the business and things suddenly got, well, a little complicated maybe? It started off great.Everybody was excited, oh, this is going to be fun. It's going to be a family business. You thought, this is going to be amazing. We're going to grow this thing together.But then for so many of us, reality sets in. Those expectations that you had don't quite match. Commitment levels weren't equal.Boundaries started slipping, and before long, you're thinking, am I running a business or am I mediating Thanksgiving dinner every day? Listen, I've been there, too. Been there many times. Or maybe you're on the opposite side.You, your spouse wants nothing to do with the business, but they still have plenty of opinions about it. Or maybe your kids think the business is easy money. Hey, mom and dad are in business.Or your parents are waiting to remind you that a real job has benefits. Son, you know what I mean. Family can be your biggest fuel or can also be your biggest friction. And tonight we're going to talk about both.We're talking about when family helps. We're talking about when family hurts, and how to create effective boundaries that protect your business and your relationships. Yes, we can do both.And later in the show, we've got five listener questions from business owners just like you dealing with everything from brothers who won't show up on time, spouses who accidentally sabotage the business and listen to this one, and in laws who think they're silent partners. You don't want to miss this.If you ever felt like your business is running you instead of the other way around, stay with me because today's episode might be the breakthrough you need to. Well, let's jump into the pressing issue of the week, which is this question. When family is in the business, or maybe better said in the way.And listen, I've coached small business for over 30 years, and I've seen all kinds of business challenges. I've seen hiring challenges. I've seen cash flow structure challenges. I've seen pricing challenges. I've seen people get burned out.But one topic consistently creates the biggest emotional weight, and that's family working in the business. Because when it's good, it's amazing. I'm talking about this is great. There's faith, there's trust, there's loyalty. It's all built.It's baked into the cake. But when it's bad, it's business threatening. And oftentimes it's relationship threatening because a business can replace an Employee.But you can't replace a brother or a daughter or a spouse or even a parent. Let me tell you a quick story. A business owner I work with, we'll call him Mike. He brought his son into the business. Man, he was excited.He was a smart kid. He had great intentions. But his son was a bit inconsistent. This kid didn't understand urgency.He had no understanding that payroll doesn't magically appear. You gotta go out and work for it. And eventually, resentment started building.Mike started to feel like he had been taken advantage of, and his son and his fate thought that he was being micromanaged. And here's the kicker. They weren't even fighting about the business. They were fighting about the relationship. And that's why this matters tonight.Because when family is involved, every decision is double weighted. It's the business, it's the family, and it's the relationship.So I want to give you three key insights for quick wins tonight of how you can navigate this effectively. I always want to start off with some big wins here at the front end. Number one thing, you've got to assign roles.You can't just assume they're going to be assumed by everybody. Just because someone shares your last name doesn't mean they automatically know their role.I see so many small business people do that, especially husband and wives. They just assume, oh, you know your place, you know your role. That's not going to work.Give them a job description, put it in paper, put in paper and writing so they understand what the expectations are. Make clear responsibilities. Here's what your responsibilities are, here's your authority for those things. Set expectations.A lot of people don't understand that there are expectations. You got to look at this person as if they're a partner or they're an employee to the business and also create those boundaries.Counselor friend of mine one time said, the best neighbors have the best fences. It's all about boundaries. But if you're going to do this effectively, leave nothing unsaid, because I'm going to drop something on you right now.Assumption is the enemy of peace. So that's the first thing. Assign those roles, don't just assume them. Number two thing, family requires systems, not emotion.I would be willing to bet over my 30 years of practice, the thing I see the most time where people struggle with family businesses, it's the systems are broken and the emotions just build up. I tell my clients this all the time. Structure of the business is what saves family relationships.You got to run it like a business, not a family picnic. So many people try to run a small family business like it's a family picnic. They just assume everybody's emotionally on the same page.So you might be thinking, what does that require, Ralph? Regular check in meetings, treat it like a business. Written responsibilities like we talked about.The first thing tonight, written agreements, hey, maybe you have contracts between each other, document the processes, understand the systems and have clear accountability because in the end, it protects both of you. It prevents resentment. That's the thing I see a lot of times with people who have family businesses, it builds resentment.And if you can prevent resentment, you can prevent those emotions. This might just work. And it turns that ambiguity of family relationships and family business into clarity.So second thing, family requires systems, not emotion. And number three, loyalty cannot replace performance. We got some great questions tonight that are going to dive right into this one.But this is the tough one. The most difficult part, to be honest, is this part because we love our family. At least most of us love our family. We want them to succeed.But loyalty doesn't pay the rent. And that's a tough low kind of thing.Yes, it's great to be loyal to family, but if they're not cutting a mustard, as they say, it's not helping you meet the payments.It's not helping you pay the rent because you need people who perform consistently, you need people who take ownership consistently and you need people who show up consistently. Family doesn't get to skip standards. They should model them. And that's the thing I see broken a lot of times in family businesses.And if you lower that bar for the family, guess what happens? And I've seen this in organizations as well. The rest of your team watches and your culture just completely weakens. So let me ask you something.Does any of this sound familiar, like you're dealing with it right now? Do you have a family member who's creating friction? I'm talking about someone you love who isn't quite respecting the business the way they need to.Hold that in your mind. Because tonight's listener question is coming up. Might speak directly to your situation. Well, let's jump right into it.Let's get to our first listener question tonight. And this one comes to us from Maria from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She writes this.Ralph, my husband helps in the business when he can, but he still wants a say in every decision. How do I get him on the same page?Well, Maria, I get it that when he can part is the part that's building a little resentment, I bet, because right now you're feeling torn, you love your Spouse, but you feel like the business is being judged by someone who isn't fully in it. That's what I hear you saying, in it. You know, he's in it when he can be, but he wants to have a say in all the decisions. So you're feeling torn.And when he says stuff about the business, you feel like it's unsolicited advice without shared responsibility. Because that's what I hear you saying. So here's what I'm going to tell you to do. And this is going to be tough.When it's your husband, you've got to separate the feelings from the facts because the feelings in a relationship are always going to be on the surface. I know my wife and I used to work together and the feelings always came into the office, didn't matter.There might have been facts on the table, but you didn't get past those because the feelings were so big in front of that. Well, one of the things you can do is schedule weekly check ins, keep a structured agenda, define decision zones.You know, maybe this is what you need to do, Maria. Decide on who gets to decide what, what you decide together and what gets updated on.Have a clear set of boundaries, have an understanding, have some systems in place. You got to clarify their involvement. Ask yourself. Ask your husband this. Is he a helper? Maybe he's a partner. Is he an advisor?Well, pick one of those and tell him to stay in his lane. I know that sounds kind of harsh, but if he wants to help you, great helpers don't get a say in the bottom line business decisions. Partners do.Advisors. Yeah, maybe so, but pick one expectation and set those expectations so there's no craziness. And reinforce respect, not silence.I see this a lot of times, especially in husband and wife businesses. One of them gets the silent treatment and then your customers pay the price.One of the things you might say to your husband is I need support, not second guessing. What about you? Has someone ever given you opinions without carrying a responsibility? That's a tough question, isn't it, Maria?Alright, well, let's move on to our second question. And our second question comes to us from Bryant from Denver, Colorado. And I just love this one when I got this one.This is going to set off some questions. Bryant said this. My brother works for me. He shows up whenever he wants. That's not good. And he expects me to understand because we're family.I'm losing my mind. I get it.You're losing your mind because your brother's disrespecting you, if I can be blunt, and this is the classic loyalty trap, because, Bryant, you feel obligated. This is your brother. You got to take care of your brother. Right? We want to live for our brothers.But you're also frustrated because you got a business to run. He's not showing up to be there for your customer. He's not showing up to be a part of the business.And every time you try to fix it, you feel guilty for even bringing it up because you're like, dude, you're not showing up for work. And he probably drops back at you. While I'm family, you got to give me some. You got to let me slide a little bit, brother.It's not going to work if you don't fix this. Brian, first thing I need you to do is reset expectations. Clearly, the expectations were never set.Or maybe they've slipped a little bit over time, but do it formally. Sit down. Document his hours, document the responsibilities, and document the consequences if he doesn't do what you've asked him to do.You didn't tell me he's a partner, so I'm just assuming your brother works for you, meaning that he's an employee. That's the first thing. Set those expectations or reset them. Second thing, you got to take guilt out of this equation. You're not being harsh.You're protecting the business. A lot of people don't get that there are emotional family decisions and then there's business decisions.It's not being harsh to say to your brother, who's an employee, dude, you're not showing up for work. You're killing the business. Because what you're doing there is you're protecting the business. And honestly, you're protecting him as well.Next thing I'm going to encourage you to do is give him a timeline for improvement, just like you do with any other employee. Hey, we're going to check in in 30 days. We're going to check in in 45 days. Maybe you're going to check in in 60 days.But listen, don't let it go that far. Have weekly check ins, and if he doesn't improve, guess what? Move him out gracefully. Now, I say gracefully because this is a delicate situation.He's got to be family first. But your business can't be held hostage. And that's kind of what I hear you saying, Brian.It's like, Ralph, I feel like my business is being held hostage and you got to look at your other employees. I don't know if you have other employees.Let's just make an assumption that you do if your brother can't do it, if he refuses to do it, if he refuses to step up and do what you've asked him to do. Now, like I said, if you haven't set the expectations, that's on you.So set those expectations, formally, put them in writing, all the responsibilities, and have a plan for getting back to where you need to be. But have open communication about it. And listen, if you can't do it, then out the door he goes. Now, be prepared.You might get some flack from your family members or other people. They're like, I can't believe you let your brother go. Well, sometimes it comes down to letting your brother go or letting the business go.And there could be other people involved in that. So I asked you right now who are listening, have you ever had to hold a family member accountable, like an employee? It's not easy.I've seen business owners really struggle with that. It's hard to disconnect from that emotion. Why about Move on to our third question.And our third question comes to us from Denise from Orlando, Florida. I know it's cold here in Delaware right now, and I'm thinking Orlando, Florida would sure be nice this time of year. But this is what Denise does it.She says, my adult daughter is amazing with customers, but terrible with follow through. How do I coach her without damaging our relationship? Yes. Wow. Great question. And a question that I've seen handled in tough ways.I actually had this situation with my own son a couple years back. My younger son decided he wanted to come work for me at the accounting practice. Now he's not an accountant. He didn't have any skills to do that.He said, well, dad, what can I do? I said, okay, you know what you can do? At the time, I didn't have a receptionist, and I said, son, this would be great.You can come in, I can show you how to do things, and we can make this work. And I sat him down. We had clear expectations. Like, I followed my own directions here. We had clear expectations.We talked about, here's what I want you to do, here's the other things I want you to do. The problem is, we realized in just a couple days it wasn't a good fit. And Denise, you might be feeling the same thing.Like you said, your daughter's great with customers, so you feel proud about that. But the problem is with that pride, you're also feeling stressed because there's no follow through.It's one thing to be good with customers, it's another thing to not be able to follow through and make commitments happen. But here's the thing, you got to balance. And I had to do this same thing with my son. You don't want to crush your confidence, man.Because if she's amazing with customers, that means she's got some confidence. But that inconsistency creates messes that you end up having to clean up. So, Denise, here's what I recommend you do.And this is going to be one of those tough love situations. Praise the strength. Hey, it's great how you handle these customer calls. It's great that you're doing this.It's great that customers are appreciating the way you talk to them. Maybe she's great about showing up for work, all those things, but then take and build on the weaknesses.Maybe say something like this, you're amazing with people. Let's build systems for follow through. Because maybe that's the issue.Maybe your daughter or you haven't built a system so that she can be successful. I see that a lot of times too. They just. There's just an assumption that, well, because I know how to do it, my son will know how to do it.I really thought that when my son started working for me, I said, he'll understand how to answer the phone. An effective way he'll understand. But listen, I made assumptions I shouldn't have made. So start there.Praise the strength, build on the weakness, and help her build systems to follow through things. Second thing I'm going to do is give her some tools, not just criticism.Maybe there's some CRM programs you can build up, maybe some follow up checklists, maybe some scripts. We actually do this in our accounting practice. We use a product called Zendesk.Now, I don't have any family members working here now, but even accountability for my staff is we've got checklists. When a client calls in with a question or sends an email to, depending upon the type of situation it is, there's a checklist for that.Denise, maybe you need to do the same thing with your daughter. Give her a checklist. Hey, you're great with the customers, but you need to make sure you do this, this and this.Because maybe she just doesn't understand it or maybe even she doesn't understand the big picture. Maybe you need to spend some time and show her the big picture, because I've seen that happen too.Another thing you've got to do is you've got to be a good coach and you got to assign responsibilities based on her strengths. Now maybe she's great with more customer facing things, but when it comes to administration, maybe that's not her strong suit. And that's okay.Now you have to make a decision whether the business can handle that. Maybe your business is so small that you need somebody that can do both.Well, then maybe it's not the right fit for her, but maybe your business has gotten to the point where you can use her maybe on the customer facing side or on the sales side, and that would work great. And then maybe you have somebody else that comes in and do the admin side. Big picture, you got to coach with compassion and not pressure.It's so easy to fall back into that daughter and mother relationship or that father, son relationship, because that's a relationship that you nurtured. It's a relationship that you understood from the beginning. You know, I was thinking about it today.You say to your kids, no, because you're protecting them. When a business. You got to start to tune that down a little bit. You got to have compassion without pressure.Let me ask you, have you ever had someone who shines in one area but struggles in another? That's a tough thing to deal with. All right, well, let's move on to our fourth question. And our fourth question comes to us. Kevin from Boise, Idaho.I think this is the first person I've had a question from. From Boise, Idaho. Never visited there myself, but seems like a cool place to go.The only thing I think about when I think about Boise, Idaho is potatoes. Idaho and potatoes. But, man, I'm on a tangent tonight. All right, well, let's see what Kevin has to say.Kevin says my parents think they're silent partners. Uh oh, here we go. You think they think we're solid partners because they loaned me money five years ago? These are like forever partners.They're demanding input. Now what do I do? All right, Kevin, you ready for some tough love?I think the problem is you never set clear expectations or boundaries from the beginning. And right now you're feeling trapped because you're grateful that they helped you.It sounds like you needed that money five years ago and your parents stepped in and did it. That's great. That's what your parents did. They wanted to do that. That's fantastic. So, Kevin, you want to honor them.I get that that's the right thing to do, but you don't want to hand over the steering wheel anymore. This is your business. Again, I don't know what happened at the beginning. So that's what I'm going to start with. Clarify the agreement in writing.And I'm gonna take a step back. This needs to be prevented from the start. I've seen it happen so many times. It could be prevented.If you're a small business person getting started and you're asking people to help you, especially if you're asking them to help you with money. Put things in writing that explain what their role is.Because, Kevin, what I hear you saying was your parents role was that of being a bank, not of being a partner. And now you're resenting that. So was it a loan? If it was a loan, great. Say to your parents, this was a loan. As the bank.The bank doesn't tell me how to run the business. Now, you got to be careful how you say this, but you say it in a kind way. Maybe it was a gift. Hey, it was a gift.You say, hey, thank you for the gift. I really appreciate that. But if you give somebody a gift, you don't tell them how to use it.Now, unfortunately, maybe your parents saw it as a partnership. Maybe you brought them in. Because I could just see this, Kevin, and I don't know you, but I'm just guessing. You probably shared your vision.You probably shared this beautiful idea you had for a business. And maybe your parents are like, oh, that's a great idea. We'd love to be involved. Well, see, there you go. We'd love to be involved.Sounds like a partnership. So clarify this in writing. Define it from the front end. And Kevin, if you haven't defined it yet, it's time to have a family.Sit down and define it now. Which means you may have to make some tough decisions. Maybe you've got to repay the loan right away.You got to say, look, mom and dad, there was a clear misunderstanding about where this goes. I'm going to repay it a loan right now. Maybe you can't afford to do that. You got to refinance it. Maybe your parents don't want to be involved.And if they, if they don't want to be involved, you got to take them and figure out a way to do it. And realize this, sometimes the freedom is going to cost you some interest dollars.But Kevin, what I hear you saying is you don't want them as partners. So create those boundaries with love. You can say things like this. I value your input, but I'm responsible for the daily decisions.There's a way to say this, but protect that relationship first. That's the thing I want to.I want you to hear in all the questions tonight, I probably should have done a better job Explaining that this is tough work. Decide up front that at all costs, I have to. I have to protect the relationship. Because that's the most important thing.At least I'm making an assumption that you want to have the relationship with your parents, but clarity prevents that resentment down the road. So, Kevin, I hope I've given you some tools here. This is not an easy situation. This is delicate, dude. But if you haven't, set the boundaries.And listen, if you're one of those business owners that think about doing this, first of all, I'm going to tell you not to do it. I just think it causes so many problems if you can go borrow money from something else, from a traditional lender, traditional bank.I would say go do that, because I've seen these things get sideways and upside down, especially when there's multiple children involved and your brother's mad because they lent you money or your sister's upset because Mom's always taking care of little Sally or little. Little Kevin or whatever that looks like. So protect that relationship first. And sometimes it means you got to go pay interest with a bank first.So let me ask you, have you ever had someone help you, then later, want to control you? It's not an easy situation. All right, well, let's move to our fifth and final question for tonight.And this one comes to us from Summer from Sacramento, California. And again, see, it's cold here. And now we've got a name of Summer from Sacramento. Man, it makes me want to go to. To the islands or go to.I've never even been to California, but I can just imagine when a name like Summer, it must be a great place out there. But here's what Summer had to say. She said, ralph, I want to. Oh, here we go.Listen to this question, Ralph, I want to fire my cousin, but I don't want to blow up the whole family. How do I do this without nuclear fallout? What a great question, Summer. Yeah, listen, I've seen this one, too.And Summer, what I really hear you saying is you're scared. But you're scared because, yeah, you don't want to blow up the family, but you're scared bigger because the business is suffering.But the family dynamics, for you, they're even scarier. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking about these holiday decisions. You're thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas.Man, how are you going to face these people?You're going to have those awkward dinners, those birthday parties, those weddings, and you're going to be like, I can't talk to this person, that's somebody I let go. Maybe you're going to get silent treatment from three generations of people. So there's a lot of scared. There's a lot of fear here somewhere. I get it.Here's what I'm going to tell you to do. First thing, you've got to treat this like a business relationship and an employer and employee relationship.And you got to document everything, just like you do with your other employees. Maybe you don't have any other employees. Well, guess what you should be doing. You should have a personnel policy.That personnel policy should clearly lay out what expectations are. If you've gotten to the point where you want to fire your cousin, my guess is there's a lot of stuff going on, so you need to document these things.Maybe he's missing time. Maybe he's not showing up at all. Maybe he's not doing a good job. Whatever those things are, document those things. Because. For two reasons.And we're going to talk about this in a second Thing number one is when you let your cousin go, he might go collect unemployment. You might want to battle that. Be like, wait a minute. This dude doesn't deserve unemployment. But you need clarity before action.Another thing I'm going to encourage you to do, have private, compassionate conversations. Say things like, this isn't personal. This is your performance. See, what a lot of people do is they bring the other family members into it.Hey, can you talk to. Can you talk to cousin Lou? Cousin Lou's not doing a good job. No, you've got to go directly to cousin Lou yourself. And maybe you've made a decision.Look, this isn't working. Well, here's one way you can save that relationship. Offer support for a transition. You might say to him, look, this isn't working. You and I know it.We just got to figure out a better plan. But maybe help him. Maybe help him write a reference letter. Maybe you help him find something new.Maybe this isn't what he's designed or desires to do. That's okay. But do that out of love. Do that out of compassion. Because you got to own your peace in all this.You got to remember, and a lot of people get hung up on this one. You're not firing your family. That's the first thing you got to understand. You're not firing your family.You're removing them from a role they weren't meant for. You casted them wrong. As the coach, you got to make tough decisions. Sometimes you may need to trade them to another team. And that's okay.You just have to do it in a way that documents it, in a way that's loving, in a way that, and listen above all else, don't get all the other family members involved.If they ask you about, say, you know, that's a private business relationship thing that's between Lou and I, because you're going to get all kinds of pressure from all directions when this stuff hits the fan, as they say. But in the end, you got to own your piece because you got to own your business. And if your business is suffering, you got to make the right decision.And sometimes that's a tough decision to make. So let me ask you, would you fire a family member if it meant saving your business? It's a tough call.And that's why we get into these discussions because. And that's the whole big takeaway for tonight. It's tough when you've got business.And if the truth is, if, if, if today's conversation, tonight's conversation is hit close to home, you're not alone in this. I deal with this all the time. And every week inside the grit and growth business community, we talk about these exact kind of situations.We talk about families and systems and stress and struggle and leadership and momentum and how to keep it going. And every week we release action sheets.We talk about coaching tools, Q and A clips and, and some business resources to help you grow with confidence. I can help you through these situations.And if you want to be part of the community, if you want to submit questions, if you want to get support or maybe you want to dive into some one on one coaching, you can head right over and right now and join because I'm going to be in that community as well. You can post questions out there and yes, I will actually meet you one on one. I will answer your questions and help you through these situations.Go to gritandgrowthbusiness.com join again. That's gritandgrowthbusiness.com join because I want you to be a part of the community. You'll have access to all of our action sheets.Here's the best part. You'll have action to all of the action sheets in all the episodes we've done. I think tonight's episode is actually episode number 30.So you will have 30 action sheets to go and find ways to make your business. You don't have to build your business alone. We can grow together. All right, so today we covered a big one.Family in business or as I started the business show tonight, or are they in the way of business? We talked about that emotional weight. We talked about building those boundaries and setting expectations.We worked on building systems and we talked about the courage it takes to lead with both a heart and clarity. It's not easy. Like I said, this is not an easy topic for anybody to cover.We answered those questions about spouses and siblings and children and parents and cousin Lou and beautiful weather in Orlando and Sacramento, California. And honestly, we talked about cousins who shouldn't be anywhere near your payroll.So if you got value tonight, I want you to take just one action this week. Set one clear bounty. And listen, this doesn't have to be if you have family members involved.All the things we talked about are also very effective things if you've got regular employees. So if you hear value tonight, I want to encourage you, take one action this week. Set one clear boundary.And maybe if it's with a family member, set those boundaries. But just do one in one area of your business, just one, and you're going to see how peace can follow.And if you haven't joined the community again, yes, I'm going to say it again. I'd love for you to go to gritandgrowthbusiness.com join and as always, grit builds growth. Growth builds freedom.And I'll see you again next week in the trenches. God bless you and you have a great night tonight.