Family is bigger than business

If you see the letters FB, you probably think Facebook. For me this is the acronym I used so I didn’t have to say the words I disliked most, ‘Family Business’. The reason I used to shrink away from these words is because of how FBs are perceived. Probably even more than that is the fear of how I was perceived as a second generation family business owner.

It might be me, but doesn’t everybody think that second generation family business owners are a bunch of freeloaders? Can someone who has climbed their way up the corporate pole really have respect for the silver spoon-fed halfwit in front of them? I don’t know. The only thing I do know is that the fear that someone might think these things of me has driven me to work hard so I can bury the idea that Label Apeel is a "family" business.

It’s actually been a long time since Label Apeel was a true family business with more than one member of my family in it. Well, that was until January when Michelle, my wife took a sabbatical from teaching to do maternity cover for our sales manager. So here I am, having spent 20 years trying to distance myself from the family business moniker, back where I started working with the family.

It’s not my family that were at fault; they’re wonderful people. It was the idea of how I was perceived for taking the family shilling.

From cop to printer

It was never my plan to work for the FB. The aim was to get into the police force. That didn’t happen, so I did an apprenticeship as a film planner and platemaker. When the apprenticeship ended I had a fateful conversation with my grandmother over her ham, egg and chips that changed everything. I found myself moving from ‘Only sad losers work for their parents’ to ‘Yeah seems like a good move.’ I still don’t know how she did it, but the die was cast and I knew that I had no way out.

I set rules: only two years, only interested in a sales job and I wanted a company car.

I ended up with less money, on the worst printing press ever, with a new set of bike clips. Welcome to the heady world of family business!

Twelve months after joining we ran out of work. It was 1992 and what was left of the hosiery and knitwear industry was heading east. I stepped up as salesman. In my head I’d be ‘super rep’ in an RS Cosworth, prowling Britain looking for label opportunities, driving, eating and talking on a massive mobile phone. No chance! No mobile, not even my own landline. I used dad’s. No company car either. Instead, I got to drive mum’s Mini Metro and dad’s Volvo estate, but both came with the warning: ‘Don’t drop any crumbs.’

I realized I had to do make the best of a bad situation.

As Label Apeel grew I ended up in a business with both my parents and my sister and, at its largest, 40 staff. People often think working for a family business is a wholesome, round the kitchen table affair. Ours wasn’t. We often treated the people who worked with us badly. In short we treated our employees as if they were members of the family. In fact the only people we treated worse than the staff were each other. Stand up rows in the middle of the office and the sight of people storming out was not unusual. I resigned on at least three occasions. Yet we were successful, we had full order books, good profits and maintained a core staff over a long period of time.

Passion and energy required

At the time I wondered how we could make a success out of such a dysfunctional management setup. Although we lacked good management practice, we did have two key ingredients –  passion and energy. We cared about the product to the point of obsession and beneath the fighting we cared about each other. Passion in all its forms has the potential to be both negative and positive and thankfully we were able to ride the positives.

Passion is a very difficult energy to control and peoples’ passions are different. My parents started the business to create stable futures for their children. Their passion was to look after us. My sister was driven by the financial success of the business. My passion was to prove myself, to scour myself of the blemish of being daddy’s little helper. I was the only one with what you might consider a negative motivation. It was about me and how I was perceived.

This led to the ultimate bust up where I sacked my sister, and my parents decided to retire.

At last I had the opportunity to make my mark on my own. I discovered that the ownership was less than I had probably hoped for. I missed the trips to the pub with dad. I missed sharing the joy when we won a new customer with my sister and I missed the kind words from mum at the end of one of those awful days. Now I was on my own and I had eight years to discover just how lonely that could be.

Back to 2013

Now Michelle has joined, I’m able to truly appreciate the benefits of working in a family business. Being able to share thoughts and misgivings is a very rewarding thing and something that I missed. We haven’t yet had a falling out and I doubt we will. The difference is that Michelle and I share a common passion and we have a common goal. If the kids ever want to join us then that may be a different matter. I only hope they’re not as cruel to me as I was to my parents.

For those who are wondering, my sister and I are again firm friends and she’s in business with her husband. My parents were angry for about six months but we were with them the Christmas after they retired. Mum passed away a month ago and her retirement was too short and dogged by illness. Dad and I still enjoy a pint together and he loves thrashing me at chess. I suspect that I have been lucky to discover that family is bigger than business. It certainly was in our case.