Joining the Family Business

Listen to Angelo Esposito outline two helpful tips in integrating the rising generation into the family business. It is important that the rising generation earns their position in a family business, working through the different levels in the company. Additionally, it is important to create clear ground rules at the beginning, in order to set shared expectations between the generations.

I guess my first corner would be to earn it, and not expect it. So a lot of families may just think that, oh well I’m the son or the daughter of the owner so I’ll get it passed on, but I think that you have to earn it, so starting from the bottom and really, you know, learning the ropes from A to Z, I think that’s the first step, and not just assuming you deserve it cause, you know what, there’s probably somebody that could be hired that would probably cost less than you would seeing as your part of the family, who could do an equivalent if not better job, so you have to really go in there with the mentality that I’m going to earn the respect of my family and I’m going to work my way up. I think that would be the first thing I’d say. And then the second thing would be to really make roles clear at the beginning, so sometimes you know, you assume that we’re family and things may be good at the moment, but when business comes in, a lot of things change. And I’ve seen this with friends, but I know it’s similar with family where sometimes you can step on each other’s toes, things weren’t outlined well at the beginning so there starts to be conflict, so I think that the more you can put on paper at the beginning and the more you can outline at the beginning, the better chances of success and less conflict down the line.