5 Things You Need To Run A Highly Successful Family Business

Feb 18

An Interview With Jason Hartman for Authority Magazine.

Cultivate generational harmony — When there are different generations within the family participating in the business, this can be a wonderful thing. But there can be problems, too. Each generation may look at strategies and tactics very differently. Even general management of things in the businesses can be done differently. The older generation often finds comfort with the status quo while the young want change and adventure.

As a part of our series about 5 Things You Need To Run A Highly Successful Family Business, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lovelynn Ivey.

For over three decades Lovelynn Ivey has gained a wealth of managerial, organizational, communication, and marketing skills in industries such as Hospitality, Insurance, Real Estate, and Medical Practices. As a business navigator, and drawing on her wealth of knowledge from having grown up in a family-owned business, she is able to offer her bounty of skills to family businesses having firsthand knowledge of their unique challenges and desire to create a lasting legacy. With Lovelynn’s guidance, her clients can navigate their transitions with transparency and strengthen their legacy, while still preserving family harmony at the dinner table.

To read Lovelynn Ivey’s full story visit https://www.lovelynn.com/lovelynns-story

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit and my boys were not going to be in the classroom, I needed to step down from my corporate job and take care of my family. This break provided me with the opportunity to reflect on what matters most to me, helping other’s grow.

As Albert Einstein said, “In the middle of a difficulty lies opportunity.”

Lovelynn Ivey Consulting is the result. When I stepped back and looked at all the businesses I have helped grow over the years, I realized almost all of them are family-owned companies. Having grown up in a family business and understanding the nuances they hold, I am drawn to them. I truly gain a great sense of accomplishment helping others grow. I have a passion for teaching and a wealth of knowledge in a wide variety of industries that I can bring to each family enterprise.

Can you tell us a bit about your family business and your role in it?

I grew up working in my parents’ sail making business just outside of San Francisco where conversations about boats, sails, and customers continued through family dinners, weekends, and vacations. Everyone was involved in the annual silk-screening of logo t-shirts and painting of the loft floor. If the business was doing well, the family was doing well. I learned about keeping clients happy, the books straight, and planning amazing holiday parties.

I bring that grass roots knowledge, as well as three decades of business development, to each of my clients as I help them travel through succession transition and building their legacies. I tell my clients that I am like their business navigator — I bring in the GPS to see where they are, provide the compass to pinpoint where they are going, and help navigate through the process of accomplishing what they set out to do.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this career?

My family is made up of artists of all kinds, from painters to sailmakers to musicians. It is no surprise that I gravitated towards design during the early part of my professional career. What is surprising, is how much of a technology geek I have become. I enjoy helping develop and customize software systems to run businesses. I adore creating spreadsheets with graphs that pull data from other sheets in a workbook. I have the pleasure of working with a tech start up company right now and am elated by learning how to integrate the cloud-based programs they use into my work. We are always learning, and tech excites me as much as design. Who knew?

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Coming from a creative family and having helped many companies rebrand and design websites, when I started my own company I thought, “I can build my own website, no problem!” I was passionate about getting started and knew what I wanted to say. I spent two days at my desk and came up with what I thought was a fantastic design. The funny thing was that while I understood my messaging, others did not. After showing it to a few friends I realized the site was just not there yet. I talked with a consultant friend of mine who specializes in marketing and very shortly she showed me what it could look like. I was not being bold enough! So I went back to the drawing board and within a month I had a whole new website. This time I hired a professional designer. I learned that even if I can do something, hiring a professional to do something I do not specialize in will get me a better product. I laugh at myself because, as a consultant, I had forgotten to hire a consultant. You really do need an outside view to get out of your comfort zone.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

There are a lot of people who do what I do, but I am different because I strive to make it fun to talk about every part of succession, including, believe it or not, death. I was working with a family that had a hard time talking about transition, so I put together a Jeopardy game with historic facts about the business and its history. Through playing this game they became more engaged with the history which opened the door to talk about the future and how to preserve the family mission. If your family gatherings focus entirely on business and education, interest in attending will go down. I like to make it fun so we can cut through the tension and talk openly about difficult topics.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I have become so passionate about helping these companies I work with tell their Legacy Stories that I reached out to a videographer friend with a concept to create an offshoot business. We are at the starting position of creating Family Business Legacy Videos, a company that will combine interviews, photos and old home movies into a video that will immortalize the family legacy and educate future generations.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My job as a consultant is to ask hard questions, help my clients discover what roadblocks they have and get beyond them. Sometimes, I forget to ask those questions of myself. My best friend Rusty is remarkable at helping me see where I need to work on getting past my own roadblocks. I asked her to read over my website text for me. In her own clever way, she asked me some of the same questions I ask my clients. We laughed so hard together as she pointed out places I could get out of my own way. It is important to have someone in your life who can be brutally honest with you in a gentle way.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Everything I have ever done in my life, I have ended up teaching. You must give back and help others grow for your industry to be successful. I often say, “If we don’t train them, who will? Someone else might give them bad habits that will give our profession a bad name and then we all suffer.” There is a moment as a teacher where you see that light bulb go off in your student’s eyes, and that moment is worth every bit of effort we put in. Few things in life are more gratifying than knowing you have helped another person become a better version of themself.

Ok thank you for that. Let’s now pivot to the main parts of our interview. How do you define a family business? How is a family business different from a regular business?

Family business may mean the company was started and/or run by a husband and wife, brothers, sisters, or the whole family. Some have been passed down for generations. They bring family members together on a shared project, or mission. Did you know the oldest family run business is a Japanese hotel called Houshi Ryokan, and it has been run by the same family since the year 718? That is 46 generations!

In your opinion or experience, what are the unique advantages that family owned businesses have?

Family-owned businesses have the benefit of shared values which infuse the company’s culture and mission. Family members have a strong commitment and personal loyalty to one another which strengthens the business. During downtimes (which occur in any business), families are more likely to stick together and do what is necessary to keep the business going. When non-family employees join the business, they are often treated like family, and therefore, the people who work for family-owned businesses tend to take more ownership of the service and value they provide.

What are the unique drawbacks or blind spots that family owned businesses have?

Communication and transparency are essential in business families. Many families find it difficult to separate personal and professional differences. When making business decisions, families need to leave their feuds at home. It works both ways. When at home, you don’t want to bring work into the kitchen. No matter what happened at the office that day, when you walk into your home, you are family first.

Non-family employees can feel overlooked for promotions that are given to less qualified family members. It is important to have clear job descriptions and educational policies for all positions whether they are filled by family or non-family employees.

What are some of the common mistakes you have seen family businesses make? What would you recommend to avoid those errors?

The biggest mistake I see family-owned business leadership make is not talk about difficult subjects. It is easy to avoid uncomfortable conversations but that will lead to misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and sometimes, loosing the business. You must talk about succession, exit plans, next-gen education plans, and financial compensation early. How you expose your young children to your business will mold their passion for the family business as they grow up. Even if they are not interested in the service or product your company provides, they might become the most brilliant VP of Marketing your company will every have (until their children take over). Succession is a process, not a destination, and can take up to 12 years. Talking about how that process works for everyone early will ease tensions later. Yes, talking about death is hard, but do you want your family to fight about ownership and figure out how to run the business while they are freshly mourning your death too?

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders of family businesses to help their employees to thrive?

Be transparent! I have to get on my soapbox here. The more you practice open communication and plan out in advance how you will deal with difficult situations when they arrive, the more likely you will be to preserve that harmony at the dinner table. Non-family employees need to know they are valued just as much as family member employees. Be transparent about education paths, job descriptions and paths to promotion. If they do not know the policies, they will assume the worst and ill feelings stemming from miscommunication can ruin a great employee relationship.

How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean with a story or example?

I love this question as it is so important to know the difference between leadership and management. A good leader creates an environment where others can learn for themselves. They inspire and influence, not direct and delegate. Leaders ask questions and allow others to discover the answers.

I was working with a client that was having a hard time with an employee. She said the employee never got her work completed correctly the first time and always had to go back for many revisions. I discovered that while the employee was in a creative position, the manager was telling the employee exactly how to design each item and not letting the employee contribute creatively. The employee felt under valued and did the bare minimum which led the manager to micromanage even more. I guided the manager to ask the employee what they would do and how they would design the item. By asking these questions and letting the employee share their creativity, the manager saw that the employee had great solutions and the employee felt valued and produced excellent work, often on the very first try.

Here is our main question. What are the “5 Things You Need To Run A Highly Successful Family Business”? Please share a story or example for each.

1.Cultivate generational harmony

When there are different generations within the family participating in the business, this can be a wonderful thing. But there can be problems, too. Each generation may look at strategies and tactics very differently. Even general management of things in the businesses can be done differently. The older generation often finds comfort with the status quo while the young want change and adventure.