JENI ALEXANDER: Before you go into business with your family, take my advice
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Sharon Leon Carpets’ partner & managing director Jeni Alexander discusses the positives and negatives of following in your parents footsteps...
Volkswagen, Aldi, Dell, Farmfoods: what do some of the most famous companies in the world have in common? They likely wouldn’t be the behemoths they are today without family. If you’re lucky enough to grow up surrounded by successful people, it makes sense to tap into that resource. And smaller, local businesses are no exception.
I learned everything I know from my parents and our incredible team at Sharon Leon Carpets. There are new businesses that don’t have the knowledge base of generations before, and others that don’t have anyone to pass garnered knowledge onto. I was lucky enough to have mentors to guide me in my role, having previously worked as a teacher down south.
In 2021 the Scottish Government found that 80 per cent of SME employers in Scotland were family-owned. Family relationships can be challenging to navigate, but they can be even more complex when you bring business into it. So how is it possible to run a successful family business and still want to spend Christmases and birthdays together? I don’t think I have the magic bullet, but I think my parents have done a pretty good job at showing me the ropes….
The adage of ‘listen to your elders’ is often forgotten about. The older generation has such a vast wisdom about business, people and the world. They have lived and experienced so much more than those of us with less years on this planet. They have made the mistakes and learned the lessons. They have taken risks and learned when to trust their gut, or not. We may end up making costly decisions if we ignore the words of those who have gone before us. I think the sage advice that has been passed onto me by my parents, and the staff who have worked at Sharon Leon for decades before I came in, has been priceless. I had to be teachable, and receptive to what they had to say. Attitude is everything when starting a new role – especially one of leadership.
However, that guidance is only half of the story. My parents aren’t control freaks and they’ve honoured me with the space to make changes. There are things that I wanted to bring to the business to help bring it forward, and make it more suitable for the current customer base – things that they perhaps didn’t have the knowledge or skills for. They have been brilliant at letting me make decisions, which couldn’t have been easy for them after 40 years of running the business themselves. If they hadn’t been so open-minded, I think that our success may have been different.
Running a business means being able to be open to new ideas and ways of doing things. That’s not just from family who are coming into business, but from staff members too. Running a business requires more listening than it does talking (something I am still trying to get right). There is a reason we were born with two ears and one mouth.
My parents also didn’t force me into the family business. They both encouraged me and my siblings to pursue our passions, rather than pigeonholing us into taking on the business. Sharon Leon would have survived anyway – we have staff who are capable, and a community who support us, so it didn’t need me. I have three daughters, and there is no way I would force them to follow in my footsteps either. I’d rather see my children pursue what they love, than do something that doesn’t bring them joy.
My last piece of advice for managing a local family business is to keep work at work. My mum is the master of this. Unless it’s something urgent, we don’t talk about it when we’re spending time together. And if I must rant about something, I go to my husband or friends, not to my parents. I also tell my staff not to take work home with them either – our jobs should never be more important than family… whether you work together or not!
