Small business is a driving force in our economy. It’s not much of a leap to correlate small business and family business, especially when they are starting out. Not all family businesses remain within the financial or government definition of a “small business.” A better understanding of the dynamics of starting, developing, sustaining and passing along a family run business was the focus of our recent meeting. Bob Martin introduced the club to Catherine Wygant Fossett, the Executive Director of the Institute for Family-Owned Business (IFOB), and Jennifer Nemi, a third generation principal of Franklin Printing located in Farmington, Maine.
Catherine was well armed with charts and statistics laying out the challenges that are common to small business and are often accentuated when it’s a family affair. It is claimed that as much as 70% of our U.S. GNP can be traced to small, family-owned businesses. Clearly, they represent a significant and powerful segment of the economy and are worthy of assistance. It comes as no surprise that it was a prominent patriarch of a family-owned business who started the IFOB. In 1994 Shep Lee and his daughter, Candace Lee, were living the life and working through the labyrinth-like path toward a successful transition of a family-owned business to an offspring. They employed their experience and financial support to get the IFOB off to a great start and the success is proven. The Institute works in association with the University of Southern Maine, Thomas College and Husson College to assist family businesses prepare for the known and unexpected hurdles of business, as well as the olympian high jump of transfer and transition to succeeding generations.
The IFOB has been working on coming up with solutions to the problems of family-run businesses and has developed over 40 programs to offer examples of successful solutions. They hold a number of social gatherings to facilitate the development of relationships that can become mentoring opportunities. We now have the luxury of the internet which provides an easy access portal for members to access as they search to find the secrets of a successful family-owned business and the successive transfer of such.
We were introduced to Jennifer Nemi, a third-generation principal of Franklin Printing. The company has been active in the IFOB for many years and enthusiastically endorses the organization as a resource. Franklin Printing was started by Jennifer’s grandfather some years ago and has gone through the typical periods of downturn and obstacles. The initial iteration of Franklin was that of a small local journal. The world of newspapers, long before the internet, has always been extremely competitive, demanding and littered with failures. As times and finances changed for Franklin they evolved from the nucleus of being a newspaper into a printing facility, thus capitalizing off of the fundamentals of the business. It follows that you are always taking the job home with you and that can magnify the explosiveness of dinner discussions. It is essential that those involved with running a family-owned business have both an information source as well as an outlet for those pent up emotions and problems.
The statistics accentuate the need for an organization such as the Institute for Family-Owned Business, in order to facilitate the development and transition of this huge economic engine. Family-owned businesses represent 80-90 percent of U.S. commercial ventures while providing jobs for about 62% of the workforce. The Institute for Family-Owned Business is a valuable resource for this segment of the economy and the business secrets for day-to-day operations and their continued success.
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(Photo: Bob Clark, Bob Martin, Catherine Fossett, Jennifer Nemi, and President Don Zillman.)