From your experience, what makes family business transitions emotionally and financially harder than other types of transitions?

That’s a really good question, Miles. And it really evolves around mostly the emotional side. And it’s interesting because children and parents have long memories.

When one brother or one sister is put into a position and is supervising another brother or sister, or being supervised by the parents, what they do is they remember things that might’ve happened twenty years ago, and it clouds their judgment. And maybe not really clouds their judgment, but it clouds their reaction. So rather than reacting with somebody as a peer, they’re reacting to a brother, sister, or parent, and it makes it much more difficult.

On the financial side, the financial transfer to an insider of any type, whether it be a family member or a key employee, is always more difficult than to a third party because of the finance issues. It’s rare that we find a situation where a family member has the money to pay for the business, and it has to be done over a much longer extended period of time, which is not necessarily bad. It’s just it’s more difficult. It’s easier to get a check than it is to finance it.

From your experience, what makes family business transitions emotionally and financially harder than other types of transitions?

That’s a really good question, Miles. And it really evolves around mostly the emotional side. And it’s interesting because children and parents have long memories.

When one brother or one sister is put into a position and is supervising another brother or sister, or being supervised by the parents, what they do is they remember things that might’ve happened twenty years ago, and it clouds their judgment. And maybe not really clouds their judgment, but it clouds their reaction. So rather than reacting with somebody as a peer, they’re reacting to a brother, sister, or parent, and it makes it much more difficult.

On the financial side, the financial transfer to an insider of any type, whether it be a family member or a key employee, is always more difficult than to a third party because of the finance issues. It’s rare that we find a situation where a family member has the money to pay for the business, and it has to be done over a much longer extended period of time, which is not necessarily bad. It’s just it’s more difficult. It’s easier to get a check than it is to finance it.

From your experience, what makes family business transitions emotionally and financially harder than other types of transitions?

That’s a really good question, Miles. And it really evolves around mostly the emotional side. And it’s interesting because children and parents have long memories.

When one brother or one sister is put into a position and is supervising another brother or sister, or being supervised by the parents, what they do is they remember things that might’ve happened twenty years ago, and it clouds their judgment. And maybe not really clouds their judgment, but it clouds their reaction. So rather than reacting with somebody as a peer, they’re reacting to a brother, sister, or parent, and it makes it much more difficult.

On the financial side, the financial transfer to an insider of any type, whether it be a family member or a key employee, is always more difficult than to a third party because of the finance issues. It’s rare that we find a situation where a family member has the money to pay for the business, and it has to be done over a much longer extended period of time, which is not necessarily bad. It’s just it’s more difficult. It’s easier to get a check than it is to finance it.

From your experience, what makes family business transitions emotionally and financially harder than other types of transitions?

That’s a really good question, Miles. And it really evolves around mostly the emotional side. And it’s interesting because children and parents have long memories.

When one brother or one sister is put into a position and is supervising another brother or sister, or being supervised by the parents, what they do is they remember things that might’ve happened twenty years ago, and it clouds their judgment. And maybe not really clouds their judgment, but it clouds their reaction. So rather than reacting with somebody as a peer, they’re reacting to a brother, sister, or parent, and it makes it much more difficult.

On the financial side, the financial transfer to an insider of any type, whether it be a family member or a key employee, is always more difficult than to a third party because of the finance issues. It’s rare that we find a situation where a family member has the money to pay for the business, and it has to be done over a much longer extended period of time, which is not necessarily bad. It’s just it’s more difficult. It’s easier to get a check than it is to finance it.