Be Proactive, Not Reactive

Listen to Anthony Esposito’s advice on preventative action and governance structures.

Well the biggest thing I would suggest from personal experience and from just studying family business is a family business must be proactive as opposed to reactive. So before you open your first store, before you open the first door, what you really have to do is take the time to sit down and come up with every possible thing you can imagine and write it down on paper. So whether it’s your shareholders agreement, whether its possible ways of solving disputes, what are the rules on entering and exiting the business, what are the rules when we get married and have kids, what are the rules for everything you can possibly think of and have them written down and have everyone agree on it, understand it and then I think, people won’t be surprised when they don’t deserve, or the don’t get what another family member gets, because it’s clearly written before anything happened.