Relatively speaking
Joining family business takes planning, hard work
When it comes time to think about a possible career path, most young adults consider their likes and dislikes, skills and aptitudes, and perhaps some more concrete factors like job availability and earning potential.
But for the kids of business owners, there’s another question thrown into the mix: Do I want to join, and eventually have the potential to inherit, the family business?
The economy has been notoriously tough on new college graduates and young workers, and Tommy Knapp, associate director of the Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at USC Marshall School of Business, says that more people overall are seeing the value of joining their family firm. But Knapp, who teaches a course on family business, also notes that most success stories come when kids plan ahead rather than falling into the company because they don’t have other options.
“The workplace is not the place to take care of your kid,” Knapp says. “We find the best success when parents make the kids work from the bottom up and other employees can see the value of the kid.”
In addition, it’s critical for the young person to look at where he or she can add value in the company. For example, says Knapp, many kids are inherently more tech-savvy than their parents, which can be a great way to come in and help improve parts of the business. Adding value right off the bat helps the kids escape the shadow of their parents, he says.
From the bottom up
Erin Walter knows first-hand the value of starting at the bottom. Her father is the founder of Chicago-based Tasty Catering, but that didn’t mean she was exempt from beginning as a picnic server for the company during her teenage years.
“I had to work harder than anyone else to prove I wasn’t just a part of the business because of my last name,” Walter says. “Starting at the bottom gave me a better insight into the business itself and the opportunity to work with all different kinds of people and see the business through their eyes.”
When Walter went to college, she already had the notion that she’d want to join the family business, and also knew that she had “the entrepreneurial bug embedded” in her.
“I took classes with the thinking that I needed to make Tasty Catering a better place,” she says. “My groups were always working on Tasty Catering projects because I always brought its problems to the class.”
Walter did join Tasty Catering after graduation, but it turned out that her entrepreneurial bug didn’t stop there. In January 2011, she co-founded creative marketing agency Nuphoriq with her brother Tim, which now does the marketing for Tasty Catering— still keeping it all in the family.
“It’s tough because they’re just a client to us now,” she says. “I want to do whatever I can to make Tasty Catering better, but as a business woman I can’t favor one company over the other.”
Value of outside experience
As she got work experience before starting her career, Walter also made sure to go outside the company as well, which Knapp says is critical to ensuring that the family business is a career path you truly want to take.
“It’s hard to decide where you want to be if [the family business is] the only place you’ve ever been,” Walter says. “I knew it was a passion of mine, versus what was expected of me. If you’re just expected to do it, you’re going to end up unhappy, especially because you have to work harder to prove yourself.”
For Colin Piepho, director of corporate strategy at Piepho Moving & Storage, the decision to join the company that his grandfather started in 1952 was hardly a no-brainer. He studied economics with a minor in finance in college knowing that he wanted pursue a business career.
Since he’d been working in the Minnesotabased family business since age 12 cleaning the warehouse, Piepho thought it would be beneficial to get some outside experience. His junior year, he landed a financial analyst internship with General Mills, which eventually led to a full-time job opportunity that Piepho turned down to stick with the family business.
“Working at General Mills was great, and it made the decision that much harder,” Piepho says. “They’re known for great management and employee services. We did a plant tour down in Cedar Rapids, and I remember walking into the warehouse and thinking that one day I wanted to have a warehouse this big, and I wanted it to be mine.”
“Long-term, I wanted to make choices about where the company would go and work for myself in the family business,” he says.
—