(This is a guest post from The Franchise King®, Joel Libava)
Did you know that "family firms" comprise 80 to 90 percent of all businesses in North America, based on figures compiled by the Family Firm Institute?
Approximetly 60 percent of total U.S. employment, 78 percent of all new jobs and 65 percent of wages recieved come from family-owned businesses.
Wal-Mart is a family owned business, for instance. So is Spring-Green Lawn Care Corp. If you're considering franchise ownership, maybe some family involvement would ease your concerns...
After all, if you can't trust family, who can you trust? (I know; underhanded stuff can happen with family members too.)
It's not a perfect world; there's bound to be some friction between a father-son, or a father-daughter business relationship. As a matter of fact, if some friction didn't exist, I would consider it a bit abnormal.
From an earlier post on the Spring-Green Franchise Blog concerning family businesses;
"Make sure that define the roles of everyone involved-ahead of time, and set-up some short-term, and long term goals, once you decide on the franchise you're going to become a part of."
So important. No one likes surprises, and in a family business situation, emotions can make them so much more intense.
Then there are those resentments.
Let's say that you come from a family of 6. Your mom goes into business, and decides that only two of you can work with here. Do you think it's possible that the other two siblings could feel hurt because they weren't asked to participate in your mom's new business? It happens.
What about the other employees? Some of them may become resentful because they feel that the owner's kids were "born with a silver spoon," which is one reason the kids got in.
Positives
Even with issues like the ones I described, owning and running a family business can be a great experience, and an even better business decision.
Several franchise owners of Spring-Green involve their families. Lots of people, before they even set out to look into becoming franchise owners, already have had the thought of involving their family members in their businesses. (The family members may not even know it!)
Kevin Holker moved back to Minnesota, to join his dad's thriving franchise business, after spending four years as an active duty member of the US Air Force. There will be lots lots of military veterans coming back from Afghanistan and !raq during the next few years.
An opportunity
I'm thinking that there could be some amazing opportunities here that involve an entire segment of our population. (Our returning Veterans.) If you have a son or daughter in the military, you must be worried about how they'll be able to make a living-a decent living, when they come back from their deployments. Think of a way to offer them an opportunity. Like, working for you in a family business.
Maybe you could even arrange a buyout of some type, so they can become the owner, someday. I know that I'm going pretty far down the road here, but I think big.
Why not?
What if you're someone who's always wanted to own his or her own business, but always hesitated because of that "employee thing?" You didn't know how you'd even find employees, and you had always heard about things like employee theft. You just didn't want those types of headaches.
Maybe your answer is your family.
Learn about the Spring-Green Franchise Opportunity. It could work.
*My own franchise consulting firm was started by my own father, the late Jerry Libava. So, even I own a family business.
(The Franchise King®, Joel Libava, is president of Franchise Selection Specialists Inc. Joel provides straightforward franchise information, and helps would-be franchise owners not lose money. He's quite involved in franchise social media, too www.thefranchisekingblog.com)
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