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Trop tôt? Non. Trop tard? Non plus

Nous connaissons tous des gens qui ont commencé leurs projets un peu trop tard dans la vie. J’ose même suggérer que nous avons tous attendu un peu trop longtemps avant de démarrer quelques-uns de nos propres projets personnels.

Que ce soit épargner de l’argent pour sa retraite, arrêter de fumer, décider de se remettre en forme, ou de planifier la succession de son entreprise familiale, c’est presque jamais trop tard pour commencer.

De l’autre côté de la médaille, il y a la question opposée, est-ce qu’on peut commencer trop tôt? Ça, selon moi, c’est encore plus rare.

Prenons l’exemple des gens qui se pensent trop vieux pour apprendre à utiliser un ordinateur. Je connais personnellement deux octagénaires qui illustrent les deux extrêmes possibles. “Marc” est rendu un expert, qui fait des recherches sur sa région natale, communique avec sa parenté de l’autre côté de l’Atlantique, et il est devenu le lien entre sa famille canadienne et ceux qui demeurent encore en Europe. Il a 86 ans et il demeure dans le même bungalow depuis une cinquantaine d’années.

“Robert”, de son côté, a toujours crû qu’il était trop tard pour lui pour apprendre “à jouer avec ça”. Malgré le fait qu’il est plus jeune que Marc, et qu’il aurait eu plus de budget pour s’équiper et de se faire enseigner comment faire, il n’a jamais embarqué. Impossible pour ses enfants et ses petits-enfants de communiquer avec lui par courriel ou par Skype. Il ne sait pas ce qu’il manque, mais avec la technologie d’aujourd’hui, ça serait toujours une possibilité, s’il décidait qu’il voulait le faire.

Allons voir un exemple opposé, chez les jeunes. Sauvez son argent pour l’avenir, ou même pour la retraite, ça ne semble pas être fait par tout le monde. Certaines personnes embarquent parce qu’ils comprennent qu’en débutant tôt, c’est beaucoup plus facile d’avoir les résultats espérés à long terme. D’autres n’ont pas ce réflexe, et ils vont payer le prix plus tard, litérallement.

Le sujet qui me tient le plus à coeur se trouve entre les deux extêmes, dans les entreprises familiales. Le ou les membres de la première génération (G1) ont souvent de la difficulté à intégrer ceux de la génération qui suit (G2), que ce soit du point de vue de la gestion de la compagnie, ou encore plus, quand on parle de devenir actionnaires.

Ceux qui me connaissent vont déjà me voir venir, mais je vais tout de suite monter sur mon cheval de bataille préféré, la communication.

Si j’ai un secret à partager avec vous, c’est que ce n’est jamais trop tôt pour commencer à bien communiquer avec l’autre génération, et en même temps, ce n’est jamais trop tard non plus!

Je connais une famille où la communication n’a jamais été leur point fort. Le père est maintenant moins stable mentalement qu’il l’était, et les enfants agissent souvent comme si c’était trop tard pour communiquer sur les sujets importants. J’essaye de les convaincre qu’ils ont tort.

De mon côté, mes enfants sont des ados, et il n’y a presque pas de sujet interdit chez nous. Nous écoutons souvent des émissions de télé qui sont destinées aux adultes, mais nous le faisons ensemble, et leurs questions sont toujours les bienvenues. Et c’est souvent moi qui leur pose des questions pour être certain qu’ils ont bien compris. Et je parle évidemment pas seulement du fait d’avoir compris les jokes ou les histoires, mais aussi les questions de moralité (“Right” vs. “Wrong”).

Au bout de la ligne, si ça vaut la peine de le faire, ce n’est jamais trop tôt, ni trop tard.

Et je crois que la communication est parmie les sujets qui sont les plus importants, et donc ce n’est jamais trop tôt, ni trop tard, de commencer à bien communiquer.

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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What Kind of Snob Are You?

They are all around us, almost everywhere we look. We see them at breakfast, lunch, supper, and in the evening. I am talking about snobs here, what kind(s) are you, or are you agnostic?

You know whom I am referring to, so let’s start at breakfast. “Oh, you have a Keurig? I have a Nespresso, it brews much better coffee”.

At lunch you offer someone a San Pellegrino with their lunch. “Oh, you don’t have Perrier?” At supper you offer someone some Tabasco with their meal. “Oh, do you have Sriracha?”

In the evening you offer them a beer. “Stella?” “Oh, I prefer Heineken”.

The coffee snob, the carbonated water snob, the hot sauce snob, the beer snob. Ughh. They drive me crazy. Does it really make a f#?&*%@+#ing difference? I could have also added the cola snob, the phone snob, the car snob, and of course everyone’s favourite, the wine snob.

I am usually pretty indifferent to most of these issues, so sometimes I wonder if I am the one missing something. Deep down, I often secretly wish I could conduct a blind taste test with some people, and I feel pretty sure that half the people could not even tell the difference if the labels were missing.

So why did I feel the need to share these thoughts? I find that you can tell a lot about someone by the way they behave. Duh! No kidding. But sometimes these snob issues just jump out at me.

I read the book “The Millionaiire Next Door” almost 20 years ago, but I still remember the story about the guy who only drank two kinds of beer: “Free, and Budweiser”.

What he meant was that if you offered to buy him a beer, he did not care what kind it was, he would drink anything. If, however, he were buying, then he would insist on buying his favourite kind, a Bud.

I thought that was so cool, I must have repeated this story dozens of times over the years. And it remains my best “anti-snob” story.

Thanksgiving is now behind us in both Canada and the US, and the holidays are around the corner. Do we practice too much gratitude or not enough? For most people, it is the latter.

I volunteer at a food bank, and most of the people we serve are gratefully for most of the food we provide them with. But even there, exceptions exist. Some people are always thankful and smiling, others are bitter and complain every time. Guess which ones sometimes get a little extra?

As hard as some snobs are for me to listen too, the worst are the ones who try to convince you that they are right, and that whatever they eat/drink/drive/use is the best, and if you do not agree with them, there MUST be something wrong with you.

I inherited many traits from my father, and I am happy to say that this was one that missed me.

He would cook up some kinds of foods that he grew up with, involving part of animals that North Americans would not dream of eating, and then he would offer to share.

He was a hard person to say “no” to, but my sisters and I usually resisted. But he wouldn’t just be satisfied with “Oh, you don’t know what you are missing”, or “OK, then there will be more for me”.

He always tried to make us feel wrong, and I remember it like it was yesterday.

Oh well, more chicken feet for him!

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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The Long and the Short of It

Most people spend so much time looking at the short term, they end up ignoring the long term. I usually have the opposite problem.

That is often a good thing, though, if only because focussing on the future usually helps guide your shorter term decisions. Let’s look at some examples of this issue.

I am relatively new to the field of family business consulting, and anxious to learn as much as I can from those who have been at it for years. I recently came across the Purposeful Planning Institute, which is a group of like-minded people who help others with their planning (in a purposeful way!).

For the past couple of months I have been listening in on their weekly calls and I have realized that the majority of the speakers seem to be far ahead of where I am, which is not that surprising. But not only that, they also seem to be looking so much further into the future on behalf of their clients.

Maybe I notice this because my typical preferred client is just starting to look more at their family, rather than simply their business. I identify most easily with my own family and that of my in-laws, both of which were lead by founders who focussed a great deal on their businesses, possibly at the expense of their families, despite the best of intentions.

Looking at the long term has many advantages, but can you look too far ahead? Maybe yes, but I find that it is better to look ahead too often, and too far, than the reverse. So many people are so busy putting out day-to-day fires in their business, making the long-term view suffer.

A great example of the long versus short question came from an unexpected source recently. I was considering having laser eye surgery to correct a problem with my vision. I wear glasses for driving and going to sports events, as they help me see clearly at longer distances. I don’t need glasses for reading, although my arms seem to be getting a bit too short when dealing with very fine print.

The woman who tested my eyes suggested I delay any surgery for a few years. I was not too surprised, because my eyesight is generally better than most people’s my age, and I have been told in the past that I was not an ideal candidate for laser surgery.

But then she really explained it to me in a way that I could understand, which I really appreciated, because I pride myself in being able to clarify confusing things for others.

She told me that everyone has a certain range of vision over which they have the ability to focus clearly without glasses or contacts. For some it is on the far end, for others, it is up close. Here is where it got really interesting. If you have surgery to alter the range, in my case to improve my distance viewing, then you will also affect the other end, adversely.

The surgery just moves the range in one direction or the other, it doesn’t make the range any longer. You cannot extend the range, you can just move it closer or farther.

Getting back to my family business analogy, let me attempt to put it in the proverbial nutshell.

If you want to start looking at the long term, you actually MUST stop spending time on the short term. You CANNOT do it all.

You have to make a conscious shift in you thinking. And that is the long and the short of it.

 

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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Leading Family Firms at IVEY

This week I attended a two-day program in London Ontario, at the fantastic Ivey Spencer Leadership Centre. The course was put on by the Ivey Business Families Centre, which is run by David Simpson.

David has been running the “Leading Family Firms” program for 6 years, bringing in families who are in business together, and getting them to learn about, and start talking about, some of the important issues that so often get too little attention.

We had an eclectic mix of people in the room, including a couple of brothers who are part of a third-generation company along with some of their cousins; two brothers-in-law who work along with two of their other brothers-in-law; as well as a Mom & Dad, & Son team.

In addition, we had a father with his recently graduated Ivey daughter, who does not work in Dad’s business, but who has been helping guide him in many ways thanks to her Ivey degree, as well as a handful of current Ivey students who come from family businesses to which they will likely eventually return.

I never get tired of hearing people’s stories about working with their families. There are always similarities to other situations, but then there are huge differences too. But because of this, there is always something we can learn from others in this field. Some is “what to do”, and some is “what NOT to do”.

Simpson started off the first day by congratulating everyone who was there. He clearly recognized that making the effort to take two full days away from your business is not a step that everyone is prepared to make, but that he was happy that they had all taken a couple of days to work ON their businesses (and their families!) instead of IN their businesses.

The course itself is based on the Roadmap course put together by the Business Families Foundation, which includes a series of videos about the ficticious Dupont family, and the trials and tribulations they face in running their hotel business. The videos are a bit dated and over-acted, but they do a great job of depicting situations that participants can identify with, and thus are wonderful conversation starters.

And conversations are the single biggest key to most of the issues that business families face. Actually, maybe I should say that conversations that have not happended are often the source of most of the problems that arise in family businesses.

While I was doing the Family Enterprise Advisor program this year, we used many of the same videos, and covered a lot of the same topics. One thing I can attest to is that the people who live in a business family are much faster at learning this stuff than most advisors.

Simpson told me beforehand that he accelerates the material when teaching families because a slower pace just isn’t needed. Having gone through it with him now, I get his point. But he gets it because he has been involved on all sides in family business with his own family and as a teacher in the Entrepreneurship program at Ivey.

On Friday afternoon as we were wrapping up, each person was asked to commit to one or two things that they were going to do in the coming months. There seemed to have been lots of progress made over two short days, as people were committing to some key steps that they were planning on taking very soon, which otherwise might have been left to “someday”.

All in all, it was an interesting, fun, and educational program, and I am certain everyone who was there found it worthwhile.

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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How May I Sell You Today? #FAIL (2 of 2)

Last week we looked at selling versus helping, from Zig Ziglar’s viewpoint that you should just stop selling and start helping, to getting paid to help in a field where clients are not accustomed to paying for it.

In addition to all that stuff, something that has thrown me for a bit of a loop recently was a twitter post from a business coach.

I have been following Leanne Hoagland-Smith (a.k.a. Coach Lee) for several months and she posts lots of great stuff. But then a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised that she was telling people to stop pushing the fact that they wanted to help.

She was encouraging people to stop saying that they were there to help, since so many clients, when they hear the word “help”, now actually mentally substitute the word “sell”.

What? Was Zig wrong? Or is his messge now out of date?

So I started thinking about it, and I realize that maybe the word “help” does get overused, and maybe it isn’t much “softer on the ears”. Maybe Coach Lee is right. But then where does that leave us?

Maybe we should no longer emphasize that we want to help, maybe we need to say that we want to “work with” people to achieve certain results.

After all, much of what we offer in business family consulting isn’t content (a product) but much more assistance with process issues, the “how” more than the “what”. We don’t really want to do things FOR clients as much as work through things WITH them, to the point where they can do these things on their own, without our “help”.

So perhaps the real answer is that while we should still start helping (à la Zig) we shouldn’t SAY that we want to help (à la Coach Lee). The key might be to show some help, do some helping, just help, but not use the word, talk about it, or ever say out loud that we are helping.

In the process of receiving our help, clients will soon feel like we have become “indespensible”, to the point where we don’t have to sell them anything, because they will be so ready to buy from us.

Maybe what Zig was really getting at was that we should just start to make things easier for people. This reminds me of the word “facilitator”, as in “facile”, which is the closest translation into French that I can think of for the word “easy”.

But if I am actually making things easier, am I not helping? Well yes, but saying you want to help may be about as poorly received as saying that you want to facilitate. Very few people wake up in the morning and decide that they are going to find themselves a facilitator, even if that may be just what they need.
When speaking to classmates and colleagues in this area, I often make the distinction that while there is a great deal of need for our services, there is not necessarily a lot of demand.

Many potential clients do not know that they could use our services. A large part of the reason stems from the fact that they do not know who we are, what we do, and how we can help, without them feeling like we sold them anything.

As we mature as an industry, we need to do a better job of explaining how much of a diffference we can make with family businesses, and more importantly, with business families.

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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How May I Sell You Today? #FAIL (1 of 2)

Today I want to talk about the debate between selling and helping.

There are some important distinctions that I will look at, mostly to help my own understanding of the subject as I wrestle with some of these questions in my mind.

For years one of my favourite speakers was Zig Ziglar, one of the most popular motivational speakers of his time. Ziglar passed away a few months ago, and a few of his fans started sharing some of their most memorable Zig quotes on Twitter.

The quote that struck me and stayed with me was this one: “Stop selling. Start helping.”

What I take out of this, is that if you forget about what you are trying to sell, and instead just focus on the client and how you can help them, then the selling will take care of itself.

My father used to make a similar point, in making the distinction between marketing and selling. “Marketing is solving the customer’s problem. Selling is reducing your inventory”. Thanks Dad.

But that was from the perspective of someone who spent his life solving customers’ problems by providing them (selling) a product. Can it still apply when you are providing a service?

And what if the service that you are providing is actually your help, i.e. your knowledge, experience, ability, time? Help!

As I was going through my recently completed Family Enterprise Advisor Program, we had a very interesting discussion on this subject.

You see, the program is aimed at professionals from a variety of fields, all of which deal with family business (or, as I preer to say, business families). But the variety, in addition to providing the spice of life, is also a source of confusion, especially as it applies to helping and selling, and getting paid to help.

I will just use my project group as an example. I was working with “Robert”, a CPA with an international firm, “Cathy”, a private banker from one of the big five Canadian banks, and “Gary”, a licensed insurance specialist with his own firm.

We worked together on a pro bono basis, on a project for a real business family. Although framed as an “academic exercise”, we treated it as real because it was real. The fact that we were all educated, experienced professionals, averaging around 50 years of age, also added to the seriousness.

But let’s bring this back to the selling vs helping question. If we had provided the exact same help to the family in a real life situation, how would we have been paid, or how would we be compensated for our help?

Robert, as a CPA with an accounting firm, would get paid for the hours he put in on behalf of the client, and most businesses have professional fees to pay for outside accounting services as a matter of course.

Cathy, working as a private banker, would not charge for her services per se, so the hours she put in are paid by her employer, the bank, who make a cut off the client’s wealth in other ways.

Gary, for his part, would get paid if and when the client purchased an insurance product from him.

So to summarize, every one of us would have been paid in a different fashion. But wait, I forgot someone. Me. Uh-oh. How is this gonna work?

The only this that I am actually selling is my help. And I am also going to need some help selling.

Next week, in part 2, we will get into a couple of other issues, like client resistance to people who are just trying to help.

See you then.

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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Ça finit quand, ça?

Depuis la fin janvier de cette année, je me suis lancé dans le domaine des entreprises familiales, en suivant un cours qui s’appelle le “Family Enterprise Advisor Program”.

Si vous lisez le Globe and Mail, vous avez peut-être vu l’annonce d’une pleine page qui a passé le 18 octobre, avec les noms et les photos des finissants des programmes de Toronto et de Vancouver.

Mais ce qui est drôle dans tout ça, c’est que le programme n’était pas encore terminé, puisque j’étais de retour à Toronto pour notre présentation finale le 1er novembre.

Certains membres de mon équipe de projet ont reçu des commentaires de proches, qui les ont félicité pour avoir fini, mais pendant ce temps, on continuait notre travail.

Mais ça finit quand? Bien, le programme vient de se terminé, et nous sommes enfin gradué. Mais ça ne sera pas encore fini non plus. Oui, nous aurons terminé le programme comme tel. Mais pour avoir la désignation “FEA”, il nous reste encore quelques étapes.

Il nous reste un examen écrit en novembre, et ensuite un examen oral en février (Yes! Un autre voyage à Toronto…en hiver en plus!).

Je ne mentionne pas ça pour me plaindre, mais pour illustrer quelque chose. Les affaires qui valent la peine de faire, valent le temps que ça prend pour les faire. Je ne sais pas si j’ai mal traduit une expression anglaise, mais je crois que vous me comprenez.

Ça me rappelle les commentaires de certains de mes proches concernant mon retour au études pour un Xième fois. “Quand est-ce que tu auras enfin fini tes études?”

Pour moi, ça ne finira peut-être jamais, et j’aime ça comme ça. C’est vrai que dans ma jeunesse, je faisais mes études pour prouver quelque chose à mes parents et à moi-même. Mais en approchant la cinquantaine
ce n’est plus mon cas.

J’ai adoré le programme et je le recommande fortement à toute personne qui travail dans le domaine des entreprises familiales. La plupart de ceux qui ont suivi le cours avec moi sont des comptables, des vendeurs de produits d’assurances et des planificateurs financiers.

Pour moi, je suis un peu comme un intru dans la gang, puisque je parviens du monde d’une entreprise que mon père avait parti, et que nous avons vendu quand j’étais dans la vingtaine. Depuis ce temps, je m’occupe de tout ce qui restait, incluant l’immobilier, la propriété intellectuelle et les investissements.

En réalité, durant les classes, je m’identifiais beaucoup plus avec les profs qui donnaient le cours, qu’avec ceux qui apprenaient avec moi.

Pour ceux qui travaillent dans une compagnie familiale, vous pouvez probablement identifier aussi avec le titre de ce blog. Ça ne finit jamais non plus!

Développer son entreprise et les capacités des membres de la famille à s’en occuper, sont les genres d’affaires avec lesquels on n’en fini jamais.

Aussitôt qu’on se sent confortable d’avoir régler un dossier, deux ou trois autres seront déjà sur le point de demander notre attention.

Je suis parmi ceux qui voient la vie comme une escapade, ou un voyage sans fin. Je n’ai pas hâte que ça finisse non plus.

Ce blogue, par contre, va finir bientôt. Mais n’inquiètez-vous pas, il y en aura un autre la semaine prochaine. Mais celui-ci prend fin ici, maintenant.

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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Solving Problems with Money

Money makes the world go around, they say. And it truly is a very important element in our lives, although sometimes it takes on a much bigger role than it needs to.

Plenty of people believe that having more money would solve all of their problems. Most of them are likely correct that more money would make some things easier, for a time, but they often over-estimate the ability of the money alone to solve everything, forever. Others are reluctant to spend any money when it could help them greatly.

I have dealt with people from all over the wealth spectrum, and I find it interesting how those on the higher end sometimes seem as if they have more money problems than those on the lower end. Could it be that it is not the amount of money you have, but how you use it, and how you think about it?

I came across a video on Twitter last week, where a guy was going around giving $100 to homeless people, and it was incredible to watch their reactions. The guy got plenty of hugs, thanks, and “God bless you’s”, but I could not help thinking that those people were likely not much better off a few days later. I only hope that one or two of them managed to find a way to use their windfall in positive way to improve their long-term situation.

When dealing with families in business, money is often at the root of their issues, and it is not always the lack of money that stands out. Very often, problems arise around the use of money, and perceived fairness surrounding money, rather than not having enough of it.

I recently had one of my occasional brain malfunctions, when I locked the keys inside the cab of a truck that I had just rented, as I parked it in front of my office. The plan was to load up some furniture, go home and load some more stuff, and then head off on the first half of a 10-hour drive to the cottage. The extra hour or so that it would have cost me, to get a lift back to the rental company to get another key, was not in my time budget.

I called my wife and once again she had the solution: she called a cab and sent it to my office, and the cab driver used a tool that he had in his trunk to “break in” to the truck, while my partner Tom and I brought the furniture down using the elevator.

It cost me $25 and I gave him a good tip too, since he saved me from an extra hassle when I could not afford it. That’s when I said to Tom, “When money can solve a problem, then it’s not really a problem. Provided you have the money”.

I wrote down that quote, knowing it would come in handy some day, at least for a blog post.

How many problems do you think you have, that you could afford to pay someone to take care of for you, but you don’t? Instead, you continue to live with the problems, because you don’t want to spend the money?

Some people go through their lives being so frugal that they are miserable, even though they could well afford to spend some money that would actually make some of their problems go away. I have trouble understanding those people. You can’t take it with you when you die.

I do not suggest you spend every last cent, so that you become homeless, and need to depend on the kindness of strangers giving away money, but to spend a reasonable amount, to improve your quality of life, can make a huge difference in your happiness level. Can you think of some areas in your life where this might apply?

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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Say Goodbye to Succession Planning

So many advisors spend so much time talking to their family business clients about the importance of succession planning. Many of us are guilty of over-using the term to the point of rendering it nearly meaningless.

I hereby implore everyone to just STOP. I am not saying that we should not talk about how to get the business, the family, and the ownership from where they are today, to where they will need to be some time in the future, because those are are still very relevant and important. But can we please stop using the term “succession planning”?

My feeling is that when clients hear anyone talk about the importance of succession planning, what goes on in their minds is some sort of replay of their mother telling them to eat their vegetables. Yes, Mom, I know I should eat my vegetables, thanks for the reminder. But I’m an adult now with kids of my own, so please back off. There is only so much you can take.

Then there are the advisors who use the term succession planning in their own way, turning it into something that they will help their clients get through painlessly, with very clear benefits. Just put together this little tax-minimizing strategy now, and then you can go on doing what you were doing before, knowing that your succession plan has been taken care of.

These advisors have hijacked the fact that clients realize that they must do something that can be called succession planning so that they can check that box off and tell everyone, “don’t bother me with that, I already did it”, as if “it” is a one-shot deal.

But it feels good to do that, because not only have your advisors shown you exactly how much you will save in taxes with their plan (down to the penny!) but you can get on with your life knowing that you have taken care of this important issue. This is like your Aunt Bea, who shows you how to drown your broccoli in a thick cheese sauce so that eating your vegetables is somehow palatable, despite the fact that the overall benefit is questionable at best.
I think that the main reason people hesitate to open themselves to discussing succession is that it focuses on change, and it is the kind of change that has them moving from a good position now, to a worse position later. Most people will try to delay dealing with questions about when THEY will retire, and when THEY will die. And if Grandpa hated to talk about it, and Dad hated to talk about it, why should I enjoy talking about it?

So if I am suggesting that you say goodbye to talking about succession planning, what I am I offering instead? Welcome to the world of Continuity Planning. Now I understand that you may be sceptical about the benefits of changing one single word, but let’s look at some of the ways that continuity is a better label.

Rather than focussing on change, like succession does, continuity focusses instead on what remains the same. I want my business to continue, I want my family to continue, and I need to figure out the best way for the ownership to allow the other two to continue.

In essence, the continuity plan is the long-range plan, the overarching plan, the big picture plan. Within the continuity plan, there are indeed a number of succession issues that need to be dealt with,

But when we start by stepping back, and concentrate on all of the things that we want to have continue, long after we are out of the picture, the succession issues become a lot smaller in that context.

When people can better grasp WHY they are doing something, as part of a larger whole, better results are almost assured.

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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Philanthropy for All Ages in Business Families

Last week the TV series “Breaking Bad” wrapped up with its final episode, which featured one brief scene that most people probably did not really notice, but that struck me, as a family business advisor.

The show revolves around former high school chemistry teacher Walter White, who ends up becoming one of the biggest suppliers of illegal drugs in the southwestern US, thanks to his ability to “cook” very potent batches of crystal meth.

There are plenty of interesting twists in the plot over the 5 seasons of the show. The finale culminates in predictable fashion, with Walt becoming the subject of an international manhunt, set against his need to take care of some unfinished business before getting caught, succumbing to his cancer, or getting killed.

The show flew under the radar for its first few seasons, since it ran on AMC, a US cable network that could be considered HBO’s poor cousin. I learned about the show as its third season was winding down, thanks to my twitter timeline.

I follow a diverse crowd of people on my personal twitter account, covering sports, business, politics, and entertainment. On Sundays, I started to see tweets from a huge variety of people saying that they could not wait for tonight’s episode of Breaking Bad, or that they were closing down their computers so as not to be distracted during that evening’s show.

From those comments alone, I immediately ordered the DVDs of seasons 1,2, and 3.

I started watching the first season at the cottage, since I am the early bird in the family, and I could watch by myself before the others woke up. I should note that watching a violent show about illegal drugs is not something most people want to do as a family.

The show is addictive, kind of like crystal meth. Just kidding. Although one can assume that meth is also addictive, I am happy to say that I cannot speak from experience on this.

Sometimes my son would wake up early too, and join me in the living room, but I could not stop watching, so I kind of just hoped that he would not really catch on to what was happening on screen. That lasted about 5 minutes. Thankfully there was not a lot of foul language or nudity.

My parenting style is very open, in that just about anything that can be shared, is shared. The important part is that when it is shared, it is also explained. There are plenty of teaching moments in Breaking Bad, but you need to pause pretty often.

The Family Business angle that I mentioned earlier came when Walt went to see his wife one last time, and he started to repeat his old line about why he did everything he did. She interrupts him and says she can’t stand to hear him say it was for the kids.

Then Walt does something that too few famiy entrepreneurs ever do. He admitted that he did it for HIMSELF. He surprised me (pleasantly) by saying that he loved the power that he had, and that it made him feel good.

How many business people do you know that SAY they are doing it for their kids? How many of their kids would say, “What? He never asked me what I wanted”?

Walt brought his wife into the business, in order to launder all of the money he made, thanks to the success of his meth cooking. But Walter Junior did not learn of his real business until the end, and he was not exactly proud of his Dad.

My advice is to keep any family business on the right side of the law, but also to acknowledge for whom you are doing it. If it really IS for the kids, maybe you could ask for their input!

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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