Family Members in Business Together – Is it Right For You?
Kent Jacobson, a.k.a. "Mr. Success"

Running a business with members of your family is a desirable
prospect for some people; let me give you five (5) items to
consider before you get to a point of no return that may
influence the chances of you business not being successful and
possibly straining your family relationships.

Nowadays more than ever, home based and centralized businesses
have become a perceptible place in many peoples mind, for
families and extended family members to begin their
entrepreneurship journey. As in the business world, each family
member may provide a different skill set that actually can
contribute to the successful start of a business. However,
extensive consideration and a lot of pre-planning must go into
the business plan before you launch full force or extend any
funding into your business project.

Five (5) items you need to consider prior to committing to your
*Family Business*
1. Create and develop a Business Plan. The business plan as a
minimum should describe the Mission and Vision of the business,
product or service to be provided, long and short term goals
(include financial expectations), roles and responsibilities.
This needs to be completed independent as possible of family
member role allocation. Why, because you do not want the
beginning of your business plan to get bogged down in the
creating phase. 

**Note: The plan can of course evolve as you get farther and
further into the process, my point is to have a structured way to
start planning and discussion, especially if you are going to
seek institutional funding, they will require a very formal
business plan.

2. Define Your Financial Commitment and Goals. How much money is
going to be required to start the business, maintain overheads
(standard recurring expenses) and of course expected salaries.
Where is this money coming from? There needs to be some real sole
searching done in this area, benchmarking of other similar
companies and a careful look so you do not impoverish your family
if things don’t start as fast as expected. The financial plan
should extend a minimum of two years, with a goal to break even
the first year. Seek out financial professionals to help you with
this if there is any doubt what amount of money it may take to
start your business, better safe than broke!

3. Establish a Schedule of Major Milestones you expect to achieve
during the first year. You can be as detailed as your personality
allows. The Milestone chart needs to be a large visual reminder
to every one of expectations and what you all are working
towards. The milestone chart will also serve to keep everyone
focused in the event *new ideas* and innovations crop up for
discussion that may take peoples focus off the original plan.

4. Identify and Define the Roles and Tasks of each position a
family member may fill. This is critical for you as the business
*leader* and each family member to clearly help each other and
not have overlapping tasks being confounded or duplicated. You
want to be as efficient and productive at the start of a business
as possible. You can not afford to have any wasted effort or the
potential internal conflict of who does what and when. Have a
discussion on how conflicts and problems will be addressed and
who will be the final decision maker. Everyone must buy into and
agree to this process at the beginning because you do not want
infighting to carryover into the family side of your life.

5. Separate the Business and the Family activities. My experience
is you must leave the business out of family get together or
events as much as you can. Sure there may be a discussion or two,
but every member of the family must continue to put for the
effort into maintaining the family structure and values as hard
as they are putting effort into the business. You want to
minimize the carryover from the business to the family and deal
with any conflicts when they occur. What happens a lot is the
tensions of the business begin to creep into family events; you
must recognize and deal with these situations immediately. I know
I’m repeating this point, but it is a backbreaker of many
families and small businesses. 
 
 A family can have enough of normal stresses in there day to day
activities raising children, maintaining a household, paying
bills, getting the kids to their sporting events…on and on the
list goes let alone starting a business, give your situation
careful consideration. 

I support you in your entrepreneurship and desire to be
independent, with the caveat do you preplanning and preparation
before getting into a *family* business because, you can not let
the family part of your life fail!