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Keeping The Auditor From The Door
Only a fraction of all businessesare audited each year. Some day, the tax man may come calling. But why call attention to yourself? There are ways to lower the odds that your business will be on the ...
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Chip Off the Old Bloch
Thomas M. Bloch is an accountant with a sense of humor. The south wall of his otherwise spare office in Kansas City, Missouri, is—dare we say it—chock-a-block with cartoons. They are the ...
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Hail to The Chiefs
My father, Sam Stone, and his two brothers, Mark and Arthur, worked together in business for more than three decades and were still good friends when they retired. Sam and his older brother, Mark, lau...
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Smart Campaigns: A Hard Sell in Family Firms
My company creates and places advertising for a number of small to medium-sized industrial firms. Since IBM and AT&T already have ad agencies, I look for clients in a tier that happens to be fille...
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The Secret Weapon of Family Business
Once upon a time, Margaret and Jack made an unspoken agreement. Jack would be in charge of family thinking, and Margaret would be in charge of family feelings. Of course they never negotiated. They re...
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When to Get Involved in a Family Conflict
To most viewers, the family feuds depicted on TV shows, such as those among the Ewings of Dallas and the Carringtons of Dynasty, probably appear to be the stuff of pure fiction. But these dramatized s...
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Artful Legacy
When your family's been selling paintings for five generations, longer than anyone else in the country, you're bound to have heard some pretty good stories. There's the time in 1938 when Robert C. ...
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The Toughest Deal I Ever Made
It is not easy to give up a long-term love affair with a business. The pain of separation is intense. I know, for I have experienced it. However, the effort is justified by the rewards of watching a...
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The Challenge of the Third Generation
"Three generations from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves," Andrew Carnegie commented on the tendency of families to squander their wealth in a relatively short span of time. There's a message in that for...
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You Can't Always Pay What You Want
A family enterprise is one that, by definition, engages in some degree of nepotism. Most of the time, nonfamily employees accept this as a fact of life. But can nepotism ever cross the line of accepte...
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Three Types of Founders--And Their Dark Sides
Though all founders of family businesses are entrepreneurs, not all entrepreneurs become founders. Founders are typically intuitive and emotional people. They obviously have the drive and ambition to ...
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A Smart Mentor Says, 'Take My Job. Please.'
To paraphrase an old adage, "Greater loyalty hath no executive than to give up his job to the boss's son." If you're the CEO or key manager of a family-owned business, and you're not related, you k...
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The Savvy Way to Shop for a Business Loan
When Leonard Wolf approached a bank to finance his seasonal candy-cane business, he was startled when the loan was approved almost immediately. His son Stevan, a stockholder in the candy factory locat...
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Calling the Family to Order
It happens all too often: Entrepreneurs start new businesses and succeed beyond their wildest dreams. But rather than adding to the quality of family life, the business threatens to destroy it. Some ...
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Who's In, Who's Out? The Case for Clear Rules
Too often, family businesses practice what I call birdcage management. Outside blood is rarely brought in to help the company grow or to tackle tough business problems.The same family members, with th...
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The Sweet Smell of Succession
ESTéE LAUDER INC. was literally a mom-and-pop company when Leonard Lauder joined it in 1958, after graduating from the Wharton School and serving three years as a Navy officer. The company fou...
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New Policies for the 'Uninsurable'
When it comes to estate-tax planning, the health of a family business need not be tied to the health of the business owner. Often, the preferred way to fund those estate taxes, which start at 18 perc...
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Whose Company is this Anyway?
"Don't get any fancy ideas about trying to make this a family company again." That's the sort of thing that an outside director really should not say to a proud descendant of the founder of a family ...
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Why Can't Family Life Be More Like a Business Lunch?
One of my clients recently commented that almost a year had passed since she last saw her brother or father anywhere other than at the office. "We get along well at the company," she said, "but I thin...
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Power and Priorities
HIGHLIGHTS Although women comprise more than half of the American work force, they are under-represented in management of family businesses. Those who are involved often complain of sex d...
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