Family businesses

[00:00:00] Sanjay Parekh: Welcome back to another episode of Side Hustle to Small Business. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. Throughout this season, we've had the privilege of meeting countless entrepreneurs who took their side hustle to the next level. Today, however, we will be a little different. We wanted to chat with entrepreneurs that went into business with their loved ones or joined an existing business run by their loved ones.

Family businesses have been around since the beginning of time. And while most people might think of little mom and pop convenience stores as their definition of a family business, it's important to note that family businesses can be in all different shapes and sizes and include all types of family relationships.

In an article by the Harvard Business Review titled, "What You Can Learn From Family Business," they say that 30 percent of companies earning over 1 billion a year in revenue are family businesses. Think the Waltons of Walmart or the Fords of the Ford Motor Company. So for the purpose of this episode, let's open our minds to all types of businesses where family members are regularly interacting with each other in a professional setting.

In a little while, you will meet Andy O'Brien, an entrepreneur who has been involved in multiple businesses with his loved ones. From going into the family moving business after college to opening a branch of a preexisting international organization with his wife and son, Andy has seen it all. Then you will meet Marika Flatt, an entrepreneur who started her own public relations firm that specializes in creating publicity campaigns for authors, five years post-graduation with her husband, Doug.

Although different circumstances, both entrepreneurs face similar challenges when working with family members and that is what this episode will focus on. We will delve deep into the delicate balance between professional and personal relationships in the workplace: setting boundaries with your loved ones, how family values can influence the business and the inevitable challenges that arise in the midst of it all. So, let's get on with it with our first guest, Andy O'Brien. 

Our first guest is Andy O'Brien. In 2011, Andy started the Central Texas Branch of Action Coach, an international business coaching firm with offices across the globe. Andy, with his wife, Jodee, employs roughly a dozen people. 

However, before we jump into telling you about Andy's business with his wife, we want to take you back to the 1980s, specifically 1989 when Andy first joined the family business.

A lot was going on in 1989. Notably, Taylor Swift was born, the Berlin Wall fell, and I was an awkward 15-year-old about to start the 10th grade. While that was all going on, Andy was graduating from college and joining his family business, O'Brien Moving and Storage, a moving company founded by his grandfather four decades prior. 

[00:03:11] Andy O'Brien: The business was started in 1947 by my grandfather after he got out of World War II. He ran that business. My father joined the business right after he got out of the Army in 1962 or 3. And then, that business went on. 

[00:03:32] Sanjay Parekh: Andy's grandfather died in 1984, five years prior to Andy joining the company. By the time Andy joined in 1989, his father was running the show. As far as the day-to-day of the company, Andy found it to be a little chaotic, to say the least. A topic we will dive into this episode is establishing boundaries and professional relationships within a family business, ensuring that communication needs are being met and everyone is happy.

When it came to establishing those boundaries at the moving company, Andy found them to be unmet. 

[00:04:05] Andy O'Brien: We didn't have any boundaries. We didn't have any rules of the game. We didn't have any expectations or standards as we talk about today. We didn't have any guidelines. We just, you know, do as I say, not as I do.

And you have to remember though that, this business was brought up in the 70s, right? My grandfather was a man of a lot of words and it was, do as I say, literally was the way it was. He is a 1970s white guy. My dad had a lot of those same belief systems. So anytime, just like we have today, the challenges with age groups, the challenges I have with my son, I have to really step back and listen to what he's saying and not be, ‘I know’ mindset, just be closed off.

But I have to, ‘tell me how you got to this. Please explain to me your data points, what are your expectations of it?’ So those are some areas that we have set up, but we never had that. I was just a loud mouth, hyperactive, lippy, 20-something working for my father. 

[00:05:12] Sanjay Parekh: The lack of boundaries even crossed over into the holidays. And as Andy describes it, every holiday was really just a board meeting in disguise. 

[00:05:20] Andy O'Brien: Every Sunday we had dinner together, all of us. And every Sunday, every Christmas, every Easter, every holiday was a board meeting hash out and believe it or not, everybody takes sides. When you don't, and a board meeting is at the dinner table, there are absolutely no rules of engagement and it didn't matter.

And back then, everybody picked sides, you have to remember as we got older it wasn't just family members, it was spouses, right? So, everybody was taking sides, so it drew a lot of animosity between family members: my dad, my aunt, my mother, my uncle, cousins, and even my grandmother.

[00:06:06] Sanjay Parekh: Andy went on to work for the family business for five years, until 1994, when he and his father had a falling out. 

[00:06:14] Andy O'Brien: As some family businesses go, my dad and I had a huge fight in 1994, and I can say it today, everybody will laugh, he was right, I was wrong. His name was on the building, mine was not, and I left that business.

[00:06:28] Sanjay Parekh: Now, it's 1994 and Andy is freshly unemployed, but Andy doesn't just wait around for opportunities. That's not the type of person he is. By using the skills he gained from working at O'Brien Moving and Storage, Andy became an independent sales representative and manager, working for a variety of companies in this role.

Fast forward to 2011, Andy and his wife, Jodee, started the Central Texas Branch of Action Coach, an international business coaching firm. Their son, Tanner, is also involved in the business as a senior partner and COO and CFO. And I have to say, when I first heard that, after leaving his family's moving business in 1994, I was surprised to hear that he went back into business with family once again.

But as Andy will tell us, he built this business on different principles and relationships than he had experienced in the past. Now before we go on, we know Action Coach isn't a traditional family business, given that it is an international organization. However, we believe that even establishing a branch of an organization with your loved ones can be considered a family business.

As Andy will soon point out to us, his business faces all the same challenges that any other family business would face. However, before we dive into those challenges, let's hear about how Andy took the lessons he learned as a young adult at his family moving business and transferred them to his current organization.

[00:07:58] Andy O'Brien: We have a no drama clause. Like our immediate family, there's no drama. So, in our business, there's no drama. If drama comes up, that's where we have the grace and the, "Okay, they're mad. Thank you for expressing, let it all out, get it all out. We'll deal with it another day." Or when we have to be like, "Okay, is this really valuable to the business?"

When we're at home, we can have these disagreements and they can carry on, we can carry over. The one value that we did bring into the business though is, if you're mad about this stuff today and you're mad about it tomorrow, you better speak about it and let's get it over with. Because it's like a teapot, people are, that they just fester, fester, and then they blow. Teapot — same way. We don't allow that in our business. We address things head on, whether we like it or not. And that value has really helped, because it is one of those things that drives logic instead of emotion. 

[00:09:06] Sanjay Parekh: Addressing things head on, as Andy says, and opening up channels of communication is a key to success in family businesses. Or, really, any business. And while Andy tries his best to ensure this standard is met, sometimes it's not. 

[00:09:22] Andy O'Brien: It was a learning curve. We had to put into place like look, for me, I'm a seven o'clock guy you talk about business after that, I will be up all night thinking about it. I'm done. I am done thinking about business.

We had to really start asking ourselves, "Is the importance of being right or the importance of the conversation worth the fight that was going to go on with it?" Because it doesn't matter who you are. If I sit at home and I stew about something all day long and then I drop it on Tanner or my other partner or Jodee at seven o'clock at night, there was no value in that. So today we have boundaries. Saturdays and Sundays, we don't talk about business stuff. We have a set time every Thursday as a board where we get together and we talk about the things that are stressing people out. Because we have a team now. We have got 12 employees on top of the people that are family members. They don't need our stuff, right? What I've learned is by having those hard and fast rules for us as a family is, we're not going to talk about it at dinner. We're not going to talk about it at lunch. We're not going to, especially when the grandkids around, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, we have drawn a line.

If somebody else asks us, we'll talk about it. But if we ask each other, somebody has to be the adult and be like, "Yeah, that's not a subject for today." And that's a hard rule to learn because as a younger person, I just wanted to know my opinion mattered. As an older person, it matters, but it matters on a Monday at 8 o'clock, not on a Sunday at 2 pm when there's grandkids and kids and family and functions. 

[00:11:03] Sanjay Parekh: Also, within boundaries, it's how you speak to one another. 

[00:11:06] Andy O'Brien: And that is something that we consistently, as a team, as a coaching firm, as an executive coach, I have to bring up to clients and myself is, would you ever speak to another woman employee the same way you'd speak to your wife? Or your son or your daughter or vice versa and the answer is always no. 

[00:11:30] Sanjay Parekh: As an experienced member of multiple family businesses, Andy has shared some insightful commentary on what it's like to be both a part of a family business and to run one. Here's Andy for some final pieces of advice. 

[00:11:43] Andy O'Brien: Clarity kills drama. By definition, having clear concise roles, right? Stay in your lane. Second thing is, the responsibilities that go with that role and that every person has a set five to six outcomes that they are responsible for every year. And from there you can work back into it. But if you have all of those things and you have it clear and concise, knowing what you're supposed to do and how you're supposed to do it, then clarity kills drama, family members can work together.

They are no longer any harder or any easier than any other business. They're just your business. You need to figure it out with your family members. And if you're joining a business, the same thing is, don't just join because you think you're going to get a free paycheck, right? Join because you have a value asset for the business and that you're going to be a valuable asset to the organization.

[00:12:54] Sanjay Parekh: Our second guest is Marika Flatt, the owner of PR by the Book, a public relations firm that specializes in helping authors gain influence in the online world. After graduating from college in 1997, Marika worked in the publishing world for half a decade before cofounding PR by the Book with her husband, Doug.

In the 21 years since the company was established, Marika and Doug have worked with over 2,000 authors and have worked with some of the top publishers in the business. 

[00:13:22] Marika Flatt: Funny enough, originally, it was my way of just having my own, let's just call it, freelancing business. But my husband, with his business background, he said, "No, we're going to set PR by the Book up as a business."

We're going to have all the systems in place. We're going to do everything like a business. And so, we did. And I was freelancing for a year and a half on my own. And then when I had left the company that I was at, we immediately started bringing on team members. And so, we just celebrated 21 years in business with PR by the Book. actioncoachcentraltx.com

[00:14:03] Sanjay Parekh: As Marika says, PR by the Book has been in business for over 21 years. So obviously working together as business partners while also being husband and wife works for Marika and Doug. We asked her why she thinks that they work so well together as business partners. 

[00:14:18] Marika Flatt: We really balance each other out a lot because he is a very analytical, process-oriented thinker and I'm very much, it's a great idea, let's hit the ground running, pedal to the metal. Let's do it. Let's get that checked off our list. And so, we very much balance each other out because we have very different personalities, and I am the face of the company. I'm the one who manages most of our team and the one bringing in clients and he's very happy to be behind the scenes.

[00:14:54] Sanjay Parekh: While Marika and Doug work great together, we wanted to circle back to a topic we previously discussed with Andy about boundaries and balancing a professional and personal relationship with your spouse. While Andy finds that open communication is key, he still occasionally makes mistakes. We asked Marika about boundaries within her and Doug's home.

[00:15:14] Marika Flatt: I will admit, we're not so good at leaving work in the office necessarily. I can't tell you how many times we've been in the kitchen getting dinner ready and I'm talking to him about something that came out of the day, and he might say to me, "Can we just table that until tomorrow?" So that definitely happens. I will tell you, this past weekend, we took two walks, one on Saturday and one on Sunday, and they were for the sole purpose of doing our meeting, our weekly meeting, that we have on our calendar. So, we blur the lines there, but I will say that there's a lot of times where we're discussing a business topic and it might become like a more heated conversation, and I might say to my husband, "Please talk to me as if I am your business partner and not your wife." So that definitely comes up. 

[00:16:15] Sanjay Parekh: “Please talk to me like your business partner and not your wife.” It's true. When working with family, it's completely possible to, as Marika says, blur the lines of your relationship.

Say you get a really good idea for the business at 9pm on a Saturday night. It might be very tempting to tell your business partner about it, especially if they are sitting on the other side of the couch with you. This is where setting those boundaries is so important. Such as Andy's rule of no work talk on the weekends or Doug asking Marika to table a certain topic until the next business day.

Of course, avoiding work talk after hours may be impossible for some. After all, remember how Marika says she works up to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week? Limiting the amount that you do is possible, such as how Andy doesn't use holidays to hold board meetings like his family did in the moving business.

Building on the blurred lines of personal and professional relationships, we asked Marika If she and her husband ever butt heads about how her and her husband deal with conflict between the two of them, when it does arise.

[00:17:22] Marika Flatt: It's inevitable. I mean, we come from two different schools of thought on different things. And so we certainly don't agree on everything. And so I think that it's important that we work hard to be empathetic and to put ourself in the other person's position and try to look at that topic from the other person's position. Because some of that stems from personality traits. I mentioned my husband is a very process-oriented thinker, and so where I might want to just come up with a quick solution, implement it, he wants to look at it from all four sides of the square. And ultimately, that benefits our company, because we need both of those perspectives, but yes, it does frustrate me sometimes. And so, I have to step back and just remind myself that number one, it comes from something that's very hardwired in him, and that those two perspectives ultimately serve the business. So, I do think conflict is inevitable, but also just ultimately remembering sometimes that we do have to not discuss it at dinner and not discuss it on the weekends and you know if we take that rare date night and go out to eat, but it doesn't end up we're talking about PR by the Book the whole time, you know?

[00:18:55] Sanjay Parekh: Finally, we wanted to ask Marika for her advice for those looking to start or join a family business. 

[00:19:02] Marika Flatt: Have a long-term plan in place for how you want to grow. How are you going to get there? If you don't have a road map, how are you going to arrive at your destination? And so, to make sure that you know where you're going, what is this thing going to look like in three years, in five years, in 10 years? What's important to you? I would recommend not waiting 21 years to write your mission, vision statements. And learn from our mistake on that. But I think that it's not to be taken lightly. And then, if someone is thinking of joining a family business, I would just encourage them to know that, get ready to be part of the work family. Because one of our mis hires this past year was someone who really wasn't necessarily comfortable with that approach, was just really wanted to get in, get her work done, leave at five o'clock, not really have real responsibilities, and not have any kind of close relationships with team members. And I think that's hard to avoid if you're in a small family-owned business. prbythebook.com.

[00:20:27] Sanjay Parekh: As we learned today, family businesses come in all shapes and sizes, but no matter who you work with, communication and boundaries are the key to success. We want to thank both Andy and Marika today for coming on and sharing their unique perspectives around starting and growing a family business. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast. To learn more about Hiscox business insurance visit the Hiscox blog at www.hiscox.com/blog.