What It Actually Takes to Hand a Family Business to the Next Generation

What does it actually take to prepare the next generation for ownership?

In this special replay episode, Elizabeth Ledoux and Andrea Carpenter join Family Business Magazine for a live webinar on designing a win-win-win handoff, a transition where the transitioner, the successor, and the business itself all get what matters most to them. Elizabeth and Andrea introduce two of TTS’s core tools, the Transition Compass (the why, what, who, when, how, and how much) and the Objectives Matrix, and explain why assumptions, not conflict, are usually what derail a family transition.

Then Laurie and Brad Irish-Jones of Irish Family Companies, a fourth-generation family business founded in 1932, join to share their own story. Laurie, the former CEO, describes what it felt like to be one of five sisters running the business together in their fifties with no clear timeline for who was leaving when. Brad, from the next generation, describes the frustration of “deal fatigue” and what it took for sixteen grandchildren across the family to find their footing. Together they discuss what held the family together through the harder conversations, what it actually felt like to let go, and what they would tell any family standing where they once stood.

Zach Needles of Family Business Magazine moderates an extended audience Q&A covering board governance, sibling disagreement over who wants in, and how often a transition plan should be revisited once it’s built.

Chapters in this Episode:
00:00 – Welcome and episode introduction
01:19 – Zach Needles opens the webinar
02:55 – Elizabeth: designing a win-win-win handoff
04:18 – Andrea: defining the win for transitioner, successor, and business
05:46 – Elizabeth: nobody gets everything, and why transition is a team sport
09:19 – Andrea: introducing the Transition Compass
11:10 – Elizabeth: the four W’s, the how, and the how much
14:33 – Andrea: gathering the next generation’s input
15:09 – Elizabeth: the Objectives Matrix, personal to business
18:27 – Andrea: preparing successors to actually engage
22:17 – Elizabeth: mapping timelines across business, successor, and transitioner
25:37 – Introducing Laurie and Brad Irish-Jones
26:54 – Laurie: five sisters, one business, no clear timeline
29:13 – Brad: what uncertainty cost the next generation
30:33 – Keeping “what’s best for the business” as the North Star
34:48 – Laurie: it wasn’t roses, the hardest conversations
36:52 – Brad: the consultants that didn’t work, and why
38:16 – Audience Q&A begins
44:46 – Brad: preparing as a unit before the handoff
47:57 – The 11 elements of a great invitation
49:46 – Andrea: the Evolve process, from where you are to the roadmap
52:23 – Elizabeth: three things to remember
54:00 – Audience Q&A resumes
59:48 – Revisiting and revising the plan over time
1:01:34 – Closing and where to learn more

Connect with Elizabeth Ledoux and the Transition Strategists:
Website: https://transitionstrategists.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thetransitionstrategists
Elizabeth on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethledoux/
Transition Strategists on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/transitionstrategists/
Transition Strategists on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@transitionstrategists

Subscribe to “The Business Transition Roadmap with Elizabeth Ledoux” on your favorite podcast player:
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3MxSYA2
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3IhMMux

Our Sister Show: Your Next Gen Friend
Hosted by Andrea Carpenter, Your Next Gen Friend is for the next generation stepping into leadership in family and private businesses. If you’re a successor figuring out your path, this show is for you.

Website: https://yournextgenfriend.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournextgenfriend/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@yournextgenfriend
Andrea on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreakcarpenter/
Spotify: https://yournextgenfriend.com/open-spotify
Apple Podcasts: https://yournextgenfriend.com/apple-podcast

Get Elizabeth Ledoux and Laura Chiesman’s latest book, “It’s A Journey: The MUST-HAVE Roadmap to Successful Succession Planning”: https://amzn.to/3oq2LQv

What It Actually Takes to Hand a Family Business to the Next Generation Transcript

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Business Transition Roadmap. I’m Elizabeth Ledoux, and this episode is a very special episode. A few weeks ago, Andrea Carpenter, who’s my business partner, and I were able to sit down with Family Business Magazine for a live webinar on preparing the next generation for ownership. We were also joined by Laurie Irish Jones and Brad Irish Jones.

A mother and son from the fourth generation Irish family companies. They’re a past client of ours, and they walked us through their own two generation transition. What actually worked, what they’d do differently, and the advice they’d give to families standing where you might be standing right now. It was a great conversation. It was real, not polished, and full of the kind of detail you only get from people who’ve actually lived

a business transition the way that they did. So instead of letting it letting it live in one place, we wanted to bring it to you here too. This episode is that full webinar, start to finish. So grab your coffee, settle in, and let’s get into it.

Zach Needles:
Welcome everyone and thank you for attending this webinar. I’m Zach Needles, editor-in-chief of Family Business Magazine. I hope you and your family members are all well. Today’s webinar is how to prepare the next generation for ownership. Designing a win-win-win handoff. This webinar will help you better understand how preparing the next generation for ownership starts by bringing them into the quote unquote real work now. How real readiness is a journey, not an event.

How a handoff doesn’t have to be win-lose, and how the strongest path forward is a shared process where the current owner and the next generation work on real issues together. But before we get started, some quick housekeeping details. We welcome your questions and especially your thoughts and comments throughout the session. Use the question box to the left of your screen under the video box. We will have time for QA from our attendees. So feel free to

To fire away with your questions, we’ll try to get to as many as we can. We will go for no more than 60 minutes today and get to as many questions and comments as possible during that time. This webinar will be led by Elizabeth Ledoux, founder and head strategist of the Transition Strategists, and Andrea Carpenter, president of the Transition Strategists. A bit later in the session, you’ll also hear from Laurie and Brad Irish Jones of the fourth generation family-owned Irish family companies.

Who completed their own transition as a family across two generations. And they’ll talk more about that process. Welcome everybody. Let’s get started. I’m gonna get out of the way here, Elizabeth. I’m gonna kick it over to you.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
All right. Hey, thank you so much, Zach. And you know, we are so excited to be here with all of you today. And we would like to invite you into exploring some tools and strategies that have worked for us and for our company for a long, long time with all of our clients and the people that and the family businesses that we’ve served. So I’m excited to be here and talk about.

how to get a win-win-win handoff in a family business transition. So what makes it a win-win-win is a really good question. And you know, designing a win-win-win, one thing that’s very important is to align

the dreams and the lives of everyone involved. These family businesses actually serve a community, whether it’s a family community or the community of the business, or even the community that the business exists within. And the if you can get a win-win-win, it helps everyone and it helps that business go on in a whole and healthy fashion. But it’s not easy to create a win-win-win. And even though it’s not easy and we’ll talk about that later,

it is so rewarding if you can keep everyone on board and really get to that win-win-win solution. Yeah.

Andrea Carpenter:
So we wanted to talk what is the win-win-win in in definition of each person. So there’s the current owner or the transitioners. For those people, a lot of times we’re hearing things like legacy in my business, the contribution that I’m able to make, harmony in my family, whether my kids are in the business or out of the business, or there’s multiple generations that the family is staying together. So what is that, what does that look like? And how do you define that success? That’s the win for the transitioner.

For our successors, it’s really about them living their best life, living their their dream. For some, that’s in the business. For others, that’s out of the business. This also works in the context of family wealth. So what is their role? How are they participating in that? And this could be from a job or a role perspective. It could also be from governance and potentially even ownership of the business. And then the third, the business itself.

Don’t forget about that. That’s a big component in wanting to transition your business well. The business should be whole, healthy, continue to thrive. That means your customers are taken care of, your vendor relationships are maintained, your employees are thriving. They they like their roles. They can continue to be a part of your team. Plus, family businesses tend to be so generous within our communities. And so the business can continue to positively impact.

not only the employees and the people working there, but the entire community and and people that you serve.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah, so in a family business transition, nobody gets everything they want. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t think everybody gets all they want in life anyway. So in a but in this one, nobody gets everything they want. And that is so important to remember and understand. In a win-win-win, what you’re trying to do is get what’s most important to the people involved.

That’s the focus is how to get what’s meaningful and most important. And it is this transition is not by definition an individual sport. It is a team sport because and I used to say, you know, you you can’t transition your business alone. And people would think, well, you’re talking about using advisors. And I’m saying, yes, you need to use advisors, but what’s really important is to have a successor. There are successors who are interested in coming in.

So it is a team sport between the transitioners and the successors. And there’s no version that gets you there without those successors. So the question is how do you prepare yourself so that you’re ready to get out of the way? and how do you prepare your successors and how do you prepare the business so that you can get that win-win-win solution?

When you think about I’ll just tell you a quick story of it’s a client of mine from probably it’s gotta be at least fifteen years ago, and he was making some assumptions. And so I was sitting across the table from him in his office and we were just having this conversation. I didn’t even know it was gonna go this direction, but he was telling me about his life and he said, You know, I’d really like to invite my son into the company. He’s qualified, he’s prepared.

He’s less than what I would pay because he was younger than a seasoned person who he was thinking about hiring to come in for this particular this particular spot. And he said, But you know what, even though it’s really a great solution, I’m not gonna do it. And I said, Well, why not? And he said, Because I think that my daughter, if I do it, is gonna be upset because her husband’s been out of work for 18 months and I don’t have a place for him in my company. There’s no work for him.

And so I can’t hire him and help her. So I’m not gonna be able to help my son and hire him, even though I’d love to work with him. And so we decided to he decided to work with us. We walked all the way through our process and it ended up that he was making assumptions, of course, that his daughter would be upset. by the time we got through our work, his daughter was happy. the son-in-law went and found his own job. The son was able to come in and they’ve been working together for

about 15 years now, 10 or 15. And what was going to happen there is the assumption was going to get in his way. And it was significant for him not to be able to work with his kids and and not to be able to do what he wanted. So we all make assumptions and we pulled up three big ones. In this case, his was I’ll lose my relationship. But some of them are let’s we’ll just figure it out along the way as we go.

Or you know, we’re all on the same page. I just know we are. But the kids, when they’re following you, of course they’re on your page. That’s how that works, right? When you’re the parent and they’re and they’re your children. So assumptions get us into trouble.

Andrea Carpenter:
And I I wanted to talk. So, how do you actually get past those assumptions? We use a lot of journey roadmap analogies in our work. We always say transition is a journey, not an event. So if you think of okay, where are we going and and what d where are we gonna start going on this path? How do you talk to each of your successors? In some families we work with, this is two of their children.

In other families, when you get third, fourth generation families, you’re talking twenty-five successors potentially who might have ownership or potential roles in in the governance. So how do you gather input from all of those different people so that you know what everyone wants before you start to design and to lean into this analogy a little bit more? I live in Denver until I know where I’m I’m going. Am I am I going from Denver towards

the the east coast or am I going from number towards the west coast? Do I need to pack my winter clothes or am I packing beach clothes? Until we know where you’re going, it’s illogical to believe that your next generation will will start to prepare for the path in the in the place where we’re going. You also don’t know what you are preparing them for. And it’s a little bit illogical to think that your next gen can prepare themselves. And that’s a big part of the process, right? Is

The next generation knows where we’re going and they can start to engage and prepare on a deeper level. And so we wanted to jump into that today. One of the tools that we use in our process is called the Transition Compass, which really helps find the collective direction, not only from the transitioners or the current owners, but also the next generation that’s coming forward. So what does that collective direction look like? We’ll run through on a super high and fast level some of the different points on this compass.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah, so the transition compass. many years ago when I was working, I found that people jumped into the how and how much, and that was where they started. And when you do that, there are almost an infinite number of directions that you can go to get through a family transition. So we built this compass and starting with the four W’s, the why, the what, the who, and the when, then going to the how and how much.

really streamlines things and it also allows you to bring in others so that you can understand and get a collective why and a collective compass. So we’re gonna we don’t have enough time to go through all of these because we have a tool for each one, but we’re gonna dive into two of the tools today. And so let’s we’ll go through the definitions and then we’ll go into the why. So the why, what do I really want? You know, as a transitioner, what do I really want? As a successor, what do I really want?

And understanding what everybody wants, what they really want, so that you can you can figure out that collective why. the what, what exactly do I or we have and and what do we desire to transition? And we’re not gonna talk about when yet, we’re just talking about why or about the what, but you know, what do we have? Because family businesses tend to have more than one asset. Then we’ll jump to the who and the who.

Who do I want to take over this business? Who I who do I believe is interested, capable? do I have more than one that could happen? And who do I need or want to take care of? It could be other family members that are not in the business. It could be key employees. sometimes employees have been with a family business for 40 or more years. So how do we who do we want to take care of? And then we’ll jump to the many wens.

The many wens, this is one of our favorite things, and we’re gonna talk about this later as well. when will quote unquote this happen? the many wens. when are you gonna you know leave your role? When are you gonna change governance? when are you gonna transact? And you can do all or any of those things along this journey. So understanding when all those things will happen, then we go to the how much.

How much? How much is enough for me? Let’s say I’m the transitioner and I want to be happy in my lifestyle. So how much is enough for me? how much is enough for my family? how much how much do I need for my next adventure? if I even know what that is, my next adventure right now, because many people don’t take the time to understand what that is. And then we jump to the how. And the how is how will I trans how will I transfer it? Does it

Do we want it and here’s where tax strategies show up as well. But yeah, is it gradual? Is it immediate? That could be a tax strategy. Is it, you know, at the time of death? Is it during life? is it a gift? Is it a sale? All of these things. And does it go into a trust? Those are all questions that need to be answered. So those are the big six we call them. And the big six, you will answer these by the time you finish. They will all be answered.

When you’re walking through the beginning of your journey, this is a discovery process where you’re trying to figure out what you know and what you don’t know and how you’re gonna walk through it.

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah. And it’s really the start of the collective direction because it’s not just inputs from the current generation of ownership. Again, you’re getting inputs from the next generation about what they want so that you don’t get that answer of, well, I don’t know if I want to participate in the business or I don’t think I’m interested in the business because often maybe they don’t even know or understand what it means to be a participant of that. And so you can start to see where there’s alignment and where there’s not, and the next generation gets support.

to understand what’s really important to them on that level. And that’s through this tool called the Objectives Matrix.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah. So this is this is a tool that we I guess in my experience, I’ve been doing this for thirty years. in my experience, this is one of the coolest things that we do with families is everybody fills out their objectives matrix and then they share it together. And the learning, we actually have the box of cleenex that we call the box because everybody starts, you know, crying a little bit as they find out what everybody wants in the family and how they can make that happen. So

The why, the objectives matrix. First, we start with what’s important to me personally. What are my objectives? How do I want to live my life? what does it look like? And then we move on to what do I perceive, or if I have a conversation with my spouse or partner and we’re doing this together, what’s important to my spouse or my partner in their life?

not just in the transaction and the transition, but how do we want to live our lives as individuals? And then we move on to what’s important to us as a couple. you know, are you thinking far ahead about maybe being an empty nester or get having grandchildren and, you know, what does it look like for us to enjoy each other as a couple and keep our relationship very strong? Where do we want to live and what do we want to be doing together?

then we move on to the immediate family. In a family business, you not only have the the transitioners family, right? which could be the founder owner at the time, but you also have the successors’ families. So what do they want for their children? how do they want to live their lives? How much money are they gonna need in being a successor to be able to actually achieve that and build the wealth that they’re interested in building for themselves?

And just a quick story. We’ve got we’ve got a family where we’ve got they have seven kids, so some are in the business and some are out. And some kids may not even want to be a part of the business. So that might be what’s important to their family. and that also showed up in the Irish companies. couple of them didn’t want to have their kids stay in the family, which was okay in the family business. So then we move on to what’s important for extended family. that could be mom, dad, aunt, aunt.

aunts and uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, but what’s important to those people and what would I like for them? And we jump into the business next. So what’s important for my business partners? These are owners. So they are my peers. They may not be my brothers, sisters. They might be, but they’re my business partners. So what do I want for my business partners going forward? And then what do I want for my employees?

Family businesses, they they are they take care of their employees. So what’s important for my employees? How do I want them to be and how do I want that culture to work for them? And then we go into what’s important for the business itself. Do you see it as a multi-generational business and want that? Or do you see it as, you know, maybe one more generation and that’s it? Do you want it to morph into something completely different? Those are all questions that get answered in the objectives matrix.

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah. So again, it really helps you know what your successors want, what you want, which also gives you a path forward as you think about stepping beyond the business and a clear path for successors to say, Is my next adventure, is my fulfilled life here? So it’s data gathering, which you have to do. It’s the soft stuff data gathering, which is not as common if you just directly start with what’s the best tax strategy for our family transition. So this is really leading us down this path of what it

What is the roadmap and and how do we actually prepare? So that’s the title of our presentation. How do you actually prepare the next generation? A, you need to know what they want so they can say, Yes, I want to engage. And then B, once they say I’m ready to engage, questions are going to come up. Questions like, How long do I have to get ready? what do I need to learn? When do I need to learn it by? at what point are you going to get out of my way?

Essentially, at what point are you stepping out and I’m stepping in and I’m making decisions now. getting ready to be a successor is is not easy. with this framework, you’re not asking them to come in and and wing it. You’re giving them a structure so they can say, okay, I understand what a commitment this is, and I’m ready to engage and move forward. And and one of the tools that we use for that is called the many wins. So the first is the role or the job.

What role are they actually taking over? How does that look? Some of the things here, maybe they need to go to school, get another degree, maybe there’s a certification they’re gonna get. Maybe it’s just on-the-job training as they work their way up through the company. That’s kind of an obvious one in terms of preparing your successors. Maybe where a lot of the learning really works truly in thinking about what does it mean to actually be an owner of this company, how do I participate, is at this governance or decision-making level.

In our experience, we see so many families believe that putting governance in place is gonna be restrictive and and complicated and it’s gonna make it hard. But actually we we have a client, he’s like, We don’t need regular board meetings and they invited the the kids in and now he’s like, yeah, I can really see how they’re learning so much every single month, getting exposed to what it means to be a member of this board, and that the board is a place to come talk about business stuff. So for many families as part of their transition.

That’s something that they put in place. you can also teach about family values, how to run the business, how to take care of the community. All of that can happen at this governance and decision-making level. And then the last one is equity and ownership. Every family will structure it different. Sometimes people are owners at a younger age for tax advantages. Sometimes they’re asking their children to buy in as part of the strategy. Sometimes it’s gifted. Again, there’s lots of different options.

That you can do here, but if they’re an owner, what are they expected to learn? and then you can actually design out what the timeline looks like so things happen at the right time. As a successor myself, both in my own family and for Elizabeth and in our business at the transition strategist, knowing the distinctions between these things helps me show up better as a successor because I know what is expected of me when I need to learn it by. and we can have a discussion if I’m like, hey, I think I need a little bit more time here.

Or I actually pick that up really quickly. I’m moving fast. Like what else could I learn? What else is coming up? And that’s why in in our work, a lot of times we’re plotting it on actual timelines. So I’ll let Elizabeth talk about some of the common components that we see plotted on these timelines, not only for the successors who are learning, and there can be multiple timelines for the successors, but also the transitioners so that everyone is on the same page.

about the direction that you’re starting to go, which is really in in my opinion, one of the best ways to prepare your next generation.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah. So so one of the things that we see is people underestimate the learning curve that a successor is going to go through, but also the learning curve of the transitioner. Because you’re both behaviorally moving into a different, a different role, a different place. So this allows you to plot out

What’s going to happen? So at the bottom, we always have these four components. At the bottom, you’ve got the business or businesses because you might have more than one. You’ve got your successors in the blue. And then you’ve got the transitioners journey in the red. And then you’ve got the actual equity transfer, the transaction, whether it’s a gift or whatever it is, you’ve got that up at the top in the gold.

The key components that I wanted to highlight is you’ll have milestones along each one of the road along each one of those timelines. And you also will have time spans. And the time spans, like Andrea talked about, were they’re how, you know, the time frame that everybody agrees on for somebody to take over a role or a responsibility or get through school or whatever that might be. so common transitioner components, like exploring your next adventure, you really can’t invite a

thanks, Andrea. You really cannot invite a successor in if you do not know what you’re doing or not know where you’re going. So that’s a big one. But you might want to do some travel. you might have some decision-making things or creating invitations or maybe purchasing your second home or your next home where you really want to be. Your successor components, they’re going to be completing education, accreditations, doing those kinds of things. They’re going to be coming in.

They’re gonna have to sign agreements and get maybe people to read them so they understand them, taking over roles. And some of our clients, even the kids relocate. they come back home because they’re coming home to run the business and they can’t run it from afar. And then the business things, gosh, we already talked about decision levels, whether you’re gonna have a multi-generational board and what that means. shareholder agreements, sometimes estates need to be.

updated to which goes to transitioner and successor around what the business is going, the strategy is going to be. And you’ve got growth, because usually a business has to grow to take on more people in that next generation. So there are a lot of things that get mapped out. This helps you to have alignment conversations that need to happen around this project.

And also let you have accountability, like Andrea was just talking about, right? We know when she’s supposed to learn something by. She either is ahead or behind. We can have conversations and then we can move on to the next thing. So it allows you to have accountability and also tackle issues as they come up with ease.

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah. I I love the phrase people line up to their commitments, not your expectations of them. And this really helps them participate in making a commitment on on what that forward journey looks like. And it’s a shared collective vision of that. So we are so excited to have Brad and Laurie here with us today. We thought the best example really of what this actually looks like in practice would be to let you hear from people who have have gone through it. So

Elizabeth, I will hand it over and and let you introduce Laurie and Brad.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, this is a real treat for me, and I am absolutely thrilled to introduce Laurie and Brad Irish Jones of the Irish companies that I’m out of Buffalo, New York. It’s a fourth generation family business now, and it’s been serving Western New York since 1932. It’s a long time that this business has been around. Laurie is the prior CEO.

And she was, she led this family through a successful transition from the third to the fourth generation that she’s going to share some of her insights and Brad’s going to share what it’s been like to be in the fourth generation as a successor. and they’ve worked through some real challenges, but in the end, they’re through it and the business is thriving forward. So I’m just grateful that you’re here and please, you know, let’s welcome Laurie and Brad. Laurie, I think I’ll start off with you.

And I’d like to ask you to just give us a quick picture of where you were when we first started working together. you know, five sisters, third generation going to the fourth, next gen already working in the business, right? And so where what did it where were you? And then where were you stuck?

Laurie Irish-Jones:
I’d love to do that. So we had been working together. I I have four sisters. At the time when we met you, Elizabeth, we had four of us working in the business. And we all ch we all had our defined roles. my one sister is a CPA, my other sister works with computers and data and systems, and I was the CEO and my

Other sister was the COO. So we all had our defined positions, but we were in our fifties. And I kept thinking, my gosh, you know what? Before we know it, we’re gonna blink an eye. We’ve been together now for twenty five years. We’re gonna blink our eyes and we’re gonna be in our sixties. And so I kept thinking about like what is the transition and what do we do and how do we approach it? And we also had the next generation and we had

Brad in and we had Matt in and that was the normal tension where you have the young your generation kind of like pushing for more change and then we holding tight onto what we were doing. Not that it was horrible. I think that that’s a very natural thing. But we were stuck because we were so busy in the business, we weren’t even thinking about transitioning.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Laurie Irish-Jones:
And that made me very, very nervous.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yes, that’s yeah. And so that that feeling is what they were kinda like, hey, we’ve got to go do something about this and start to to get a runway here. And yeah, what when what I remember is that there was a lack of clarity on timelines too. And y you know, ’cause you did have one sister out of the business who didn’t really have a timeline at all, but you had four working in the business and some were not not ready to leave at all.

And others were sort of like, hey, you know, I I’d like to go do something else fairly soon. So you there was a lack of clarity on timelines and everyone you you were just kind of waiting for somebody to do something. You’re just working together. So Brad, from where you sat as the next generation, what did that uncertainly feel like? And what it what do you think it cost you and your cousins while you were waiting?

Brad Irish-Jones:
I think in the beginning, when we first started working for the business, we had a very important rule that you had to have two years of outside work experience before when and if you were asked to come into the business. So when you came into the business, right off the bat, you’re just trying to get your feet wet, you’re trying to learn everything. One of the things I appreciated from the

o existing ownership is they showed us everything from the top down. So we got to learn the business from the very early stages, anywhere from financials to SOPs to any aspect of the business. And I think that that was really important for the growth of the next gen. And then once we had been there for a little while, we started wondering ourselves, hey, you know,

What is the timeline? How is this gonna work? How are we gonna navigate this process? And being stuck in that mode for a very long time can be a little frustrating. And then as the deal progresses, everyone starts to get something what I call deal fatigue. And at that point, you have a lot of focus on the deal and it’s really taken away from your focus on the business. So that was the timeline.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah. So the business doesn’t get all the attention that it might have because I guess both generations are focused over there. Right. You’ve got both and and yeah, you’re all trying to figure out how to make it work. So as we were preparing for this, you both mentioned that what held the family together through some of the harder parts, right? And we can you can talk about what some of those challenges were if you’d like to share that as well.

But that you always kept the question on the table, what’s best for the business? Right. What’s best for the business? What’s best for the business? And how did how did that actually work for you? And how did you use that when things got emotional? And how did you navigate balancing putting the family first for harmony? Right, because you need to do that while also keeping the business first in your thinking for the business.

you know, ongoing success.

Laurie Irish-Jones:
I think from my perspective, because we had meetings very frequently, we did focus on what’s best for the business. And that kind of kept it at a level like, okay, if we are focusing on what’s best on the business, what flows from that is then what’s then best for each of us. And it helped keep the emotion out of it s somewhat because it once we got into

I think our our biggest area of conflict was the timeline. because if you have different people wanting different things at different times and you have people that have no idea what they want, or a timeline, you can’t get movement. You’re stuck. So it’s it’s something has to align to make you move and

having that focus on what’s best for the business because everybody cared that the business went on. Everybody wanted the next generation to take over. So with that as the theme, then working out the details of it, even though it’s really difficult and you have to confront it and you have to have hard conversations, there’s a way to do it as long as the focus is we need to do this for the business.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Brad, do you have anything to add on that one?

Brad Irish-Jones:
That that was a very good description. There’s just two things that I’ll add. One is how important the relationships are. So the relationship between the next gen and your cousins, siblings, whoever that may be, and then also the relationship with the generation a ahead of you and focusing on that relationship and as Laurie said, focusing on what is best for the business will help you navigate to the finish line.

But without those two components, it’s tough to make progression.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah. Yeah. It is. Alignment is really helpful. And if you can align on one thing, right? The big project and keep that as your North Star. Stay on that North Star and keep going. And when you run into something else, it’s like, Where’s that North Star? What are we trying to achieve? Which to me goes back to that collective why, right? This is what we want. So let’s go back and see if we can make that as close as we can to happening. yeah, that’s the energy that’s behind the whole thing.

Otherwise it would be really easy to quit and just say forget it. We’re not doing it.

Laurie Irish-Jones:
It’s almost like that’s

Andrea Carpenter:
All right.

Yeah. I wanted to pop in, Elizabeth, and and just sort of ask, because we’re we’re skirting around like this theme where you got alignment, but obviously it’s hard to get to that point where you start to have alignment in a direction. Do either of you have a story or an example of something that happened on that path as as you started to move towards alignment that might be be worth sharing with people? Cause it’s it’s not all all roses and and happy things all the time. There are hard

Definitely hard things that you had to move through.

Laurie Irish-Jones:
And I would emphasize that it’s not roses at all. It’s very, very difficult. And it’s also when you have your sisters and when you have your business partners, when you have to ask these kind of questions and there’s avoidance, it gets very, very difficult to get the answers to address like how are we gonna move forward? So I would say a couple things happened.

First of all, we never answered those questions before, right? We never looked at like what is the timeline? What what are you thinking? And again, I was the one saying, Okay, I have this vision at 65, I’m thinking about going. And I had another sister who said, I am also gonna be transitioning at that time. She was younger than me. And we’re all close and a close enough in age that you know that, well, now you’re gonna have four people exiting at once, right? So

You gotta think about this because the next generation at that point had three people. We’re four people. We gotta figure out who’s going in in what position. So by my saying this is what I am doing, and I did Pathfinders with Elizabeth, which when I look back on it, I did exactly what we planned. my one sister who said at this age, I want to be out.

it was within a year or two, but she did do that. And then my other sisters then at that point had to have some kind of timeline because our unit as as the successors was not intact. So now other people had to come in to fill those positions. So it was kind of like once we got movement, then things started to move. But it just we needed that help in order to

to make that move. Otherwise we would have just kept on doing what we were doing. Yeah. Which would have been nothing.

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah.

Brad Irish-Jones:
And you know, before we got to the transition strategist and Elizabeth, we had consultants that didn’t work out. And we had some tough conversations, we had people stop talking for certain periods of time. we had frustrations, but it’s all part of the process.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah. It absolutely is. And I think that we have I think that we have some questions coming in from the audience. So I would like to ask you all to just answer, just finish the sentence, each one of you for us, and then Zach will go over to you. So the families that actually make it. So here’s the sentence. The family the families that actually make it through this well.

Are the ones who do what, in your opinion?

Laurie Irish-Jones:
Who plan, ask the hard questions, and address it.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Brad, from your perspective.

Brad Irish-Jones:
Have lifelong relationships and a plan on how to move forward.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
All right. Thank you. So Zach, you’ve got a cup a question or two?

Zach Needles:
We do, yeah. so the first one is for Brad. the required the requirement that you work outside the business for two years, did that have to be in the same industry?

Brad Irish-Jones:
It did not have to be in the same industry, but you had to have a college education and you had to have two years of outside work experience before when and if asked to come into the business.

Zach Needles:
Excellent.

Laurie Irish-Jones:
Can I add to that, if you don’t mind, Zach? Please. Okay, so between five sisters, we had 16 grandchildren. And so that number was so big that we as the team, my sisters and myself, decided that we have to have some kind of structure because to absorb 16 people, you have to have some kind of plan. So we did plan that.

Zach Needles:
Excellent. definitely. And and this this audience question, I I would say it’s for for Brad and Laurie. w what were some of the things that didn’t go right with with previous consultants? What what did they miss? You don’t have to name names, but just things that they may have missed about the the process.

Laurie Irish-Jones:
Great.

Do you want me to go first, Brad?

Brad Irish-Jones:
Sure.

Laurie Irish-Jones:
As a team we weren’t ready. And it was a different type of consultant. It was a consultant more for operations and sales. And it it we just weren’t weren’t ready or we didn’t have the ability as a team to listen yet on what they were suggesting. But I’m very interested to hear Brad’s take on that.

Brad Irish-Jones:
Yeah, I I I think some people just weren’t willing to listen and more than the consultants’ fault, it was our own internal process and the way that we functioned within the business. It just eliminated us on a path to go forward.

Zach Needles:
Excellent. we have another question that I think this one would be would be for Laurie. and essentially what what the question is from the from the audience is we’ve talked a lot about what the process of letting go was like, but but now that you’ve gone through it, what did it actually feel like to to let go finally?

Laurie Irish-Jones:
It was really hard and I thought going into it I would be fine. a lot of your identity is your career and your job. And I had no doubt that they would be fine. But I so loved what I was doing that for me to just walk out of that office and say, Okay, that’s it So I knew I knew I was gonna struggle with that.

And I knew that I had to plan what was I gonna do next in order to like fill myself so that I didn’t feel that sense of loss. And so we purchased an RV and started traveling around the country. and I can tell you that it now in in hindsight, as much as I struggled at first with it, I’m three years down the road and it’s absolutely fine. So I would say to people that

Don’t expect that you walk out the door and you’re like, roses, I’m free. You know, this is great because it’s it’s all of it is a process and you get to a place where you’re fine, but it takes time.

Zach Needles:
Just as a quick follow on to that, do you have any advice for people on on how to explore what they might want to do after they transition out of the business? Because we hear stories where, you know, we bought an R V and now we’re gonna travel the country for the rest of my retirement and then three days into it they’re like, Yeah, don’t I don’t want to do that. How do you kind of have a a sense that this it is something that I could see myself doing for a long time after I’m not?

Laurie Irish-Jones:
So I th that’s a very good point because when we did this I thought, my gosh, what if we absolutely hate this? And I thought, well, if we hate it, then we just sell the R V and we go to plan B. So I had known that one of the motivating reasons for me to transition out was that we have nine grandchildren and I knew that, you know, I wanted to spend more time with them as

as they were growing up and I knew that if I was working my job I wouldn’t be able to do that. I also knew that I ha our one daughter is out on the West Coast. I knew I wanted to travel out there. So I I had different like options of things I wanted to do, but I would say you need to be thinking about that when you transition. When you when you have your timeline and you say, Okay, I’m thinking of this date, I think it’s really important you say, Okay, what am I gonna go to next? I mean, it could be anything. It can be charity work. It can be

I there’s so many options out there where you can still give back and I’ve been very lucky because even in this transition, I’ve been asked different questions, asked to help in different ways. And I’m not in the day, which I’m very thankful for. But so I still have a part. It’s just not the same part, which is fine.

Zach Needles:
Excellent. and we have one more we have a ton of audience questions, but we have one more specifically for for Laurie and Brad, and then many for for the whole group that we I think we could probably save for the end. So for for Laurie and Brad, there was a question about for the owners who who did exit, were there were there buyouts for those owners?

Laurie Irish-Jones:
Yes.

Zach Needles:
There were. Okay.

Laurie Irish-Jones:
There’s one other thing I’m gonna mention too, which I think is really, really important when you’re doing transitions. The next generation, while we were working through this, they were also meeting as their own unit. And they were having regular meetings on what they were going to do when that transition took place. So they were prepared. I mean, they

you know, knew exactly who was going in what position, they knew what parts they were playing, they knew their roles. And I think that was allowed them to when it did happen, they were ready and they were they took off, you know, like a rocket, which was a wonderful thing to see.

Andrea Carpenter:
And before we transition out, Brad, I think you should share from the s successor perspective what that was actually like to put that together and types of conversations that you were having that were helpful.

Brad Irish-Jones:
well I go back to the appreciation that I have for the first gen ahead of me. opening up the doors to all of the business from day one. It really helped us grow. And you know, I’m I’m an entrepreneur at heart. I love work. but it’s also about the team, right? and knowing who’s the correct person to put in

that part of the bus. So for instance, my younger brother is the CEO, but he’s better fit for the position. And I think all of us and every generation, and I don’t think we get to the fourth generation without the mindset of what is best for the business. And when you have that mindset and when you’re all rowing in the same direction and everyone wants to see the business succeed and you know, you’re organized

and everyone around you has a strong work ethic, that’s when you can really see the business take off. and you never and you don’t know what the future is either, right? So the next generation that purchased that business, assumed some debt, had a payback and a buyouts, right? Businesses can transition the other way too. So there is a risk to that. And, you know, sometimes if you’re organized and you do it the right way, there can be a big reward and

Sometimes if you don’t do it the right way, it can also be a financial burden.

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah. Awesome. I absolutely well thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Brad and Laurie, for sharing part of your story. I know you’ll come back for QA at the end. So if there’s any other questions specifically for them, feel free to put that in in the chat. Elizabeth and I wanted to wrap up a few pieces and I think something that Brad was alluding to, you didn’t use this word specifically, but it was this idea of of being invited in.

and making an invitation and and finding the right role. And there’s so many ways to make an invitation, but we wanted to start to talk about that today because that is one way that a successor starts to engage in the process itself. And so when you think of an invitation, it could be as simple as I want you to be a part of exploring this. It might not even mean they have to have a role or or they have to be an owner. I want you to be a part of exploring it. I don’t know the answers yet. And I want to figure it out together. Let’s figure this out together.

And there are some components of the invitation. Sometimes at the beginning, it’s more like, let’s just start exploring this. But as your successors start to step through the information that you need to give them to help them make a decision on is this something I’m going to engage in, is often one of these 11 elements. So I’m going to let Elizabeth, we’re going to go through it so, so fast today. We do promise that we’ll send out a more detailed version and descriptions of all of this afterwards.

but some of those elements of the invitation, it’s not all positive things, right? It’s also things that they need to know and understand. So

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Please. Yeah, thank you. So in families, I think that we try to help our successors come in thinking that it’s, you know, going to be great. And we try to protect them a little bit and make sure that everything works well for them. And these are 11 key elements of a great invitation that we’ve come up with because coming into business and running a business, it is not all rosy. It’s not all easy.

And as they take it over, you know, they do have risk. You can see down there in the red on the right. we we want to make sure that we talk about these things, the relationships, that they’re important and they’re primary and key, that the business needs to go on well. And, you know, but talk to them about timing and talk to them about risk and the reward and the money and the debt that they may have to take on even personally to come in, depending on the type of family business.

So sometimes I think again we want to sugarcoat all of it, but there’s a we want to give them a picture of the responsibility, the pressure, and also the timing. And sometimes I think about this as like a, you know, a din ver a dinner invitation. It’s like, hey, do you want to come to dinner? Well, that’s a great invitation, but it’s really nice to know where it is, what time it is, you know, what you should bring and what’s expected of you. So we just wanna have more elements in a great invitation.

And the foundation of this, if you’re going to provide a great invitation to your successors, it requires clarity on the inviters side. So the invitee then can say yes and make a good commitment instead of like, yeah, sure, I’d love to come to dinner. Sure, I’d love to own and run this company someday. That’s a pretty that’s a pretty broad invitation. So we like more detail in that.

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah. And we we wanted to take a minute to show you. Our program is called Evolve. Obviously, if anyone is interested in exploring, we’re more than happy to share what that looks like. But even if you’re gonna go through this process on your own or with consultants that you have, these four steps are so crucial. So when families come into our our program, what we’re looking at is where are you today? What really is building that shared understanding of of all the individuals in the family system.

The business, all the components that are going together. Then we sort of move around. We’re talking about where are we going? What is the direction that’s again that transition compass, alignment around the North Star. Then you’re actually developing the roadmap itself. And from here, there’s so many different ways that this comes to life. And some families they’re building governance structures or we’re actually helping build invitations. We’re talking about decision levels, accountability. There could be

ongoing coaching and support that the successors need to grow in their role, or maybe even Laurie mentioned that she did the Pathfinder. That helps you as a transitioner. Like what is the direction that I’m going? What is my next adventure? So so many components that interface completely. We’re honored to serve all of the families that that we serve through through this program to help guide you through the transition and to have help you have a guide on the way. That being said,

There’s so many things that we didn’t even have a chance to touch on today and we went over everything really quickly. Elizabeth wrote a book called It’s a Journey. The second edition is actually releasing in July this month. So we wanted to offer to share a copy of this book with you. Detailed descriptions of every tool in the compass, how the roadmaps work, all of those pieces. We’ll also include a PDF with the elements of great invitations and some detailed descriptions of each of those. So

If you scan that QR code, you can you can grab that book. Would love for you to have that if you’d like. And if you’re interested in exploring more and talking with our team, myself and and Micah from our team, we do 30-minute calls. anyone who books a call by July 10th, when the new version comes out, I’m would love to mail you a hard copy in the mail. So again, just an invitation to explore this a little bit more. The timing is always an interesting thing. When am I going to start? How far away are we?

just start exploring and thinking about what this looks like. if if you’re not a good fit for our program right now, we’ll be we’ll be honest and and we would tell you honestly. So I think Elizabeth’s gonna wrap us up with a couple of things to remember and then we’ll take more questions. So if there’s any, please go ahead and start putting them in the chat.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah, so I would just personally like to thank everybody for being here. And, you know, if you’re gonna remember three things from what we talked about today, one is having a collective direction helps your successors better prepare themselves. successors need to know what they need to learn, how soon they need to learn it, and make the commitment to the family and to the business that they’re gonna do their very best to try to make that happen.

so having that collective direction makes a big difference. A clear invitation helps your successors know what they’re saying yes to and actually engage well. And I gave you a great example of that. They, you know, people do live up to their own commitments. They don’t live up to your expectations because they don’t know what they really are. So getting a commitment and a clear invitation helps with that. And then last, a great roadmap enables a win-win-win, the model that

Andrea went through with you, that’s our evolved model. There’s a reason why it’s a circle is because this journey can go on literally. sometimes our roadmaps with families are 10 years, 15 years or more. Sometimes we put a little angel at the end because the owners really aren’t going to leave until they aren’t here on the planet. And that’s okay as long as they have a plan. So the great roadmap, it does enable that win-win-win.

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah. Awesome. Well thank you again, everyone, for for being here today. And we’ll bring Brad, Laurie and and Zach back up to take any other questions. I know there’s a few.

Laurie Irish-Jones:
Yeah.

Zach Needles:
Excellent.

Yes. So there’s about seven minutes left and I we have at least seven questions. So we’ll try to get through as many as we can. this is a good one. In in a family business that has a board of directors that consists of family members and non-family directors, should the non-family directors be involved in the succession process and decision making?

Laurie Irish-Jones:
Okay, so that’s remote.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
This did just jump in? Yeah.

Zach Needles:
For anybody who wants it, yeah.

Laurie Irish-Jones:
I would say yes. I think we have outside perspective.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Absolutely. Excellent. And and it depends, I think, on on what type of advisors they are. And you know, I think it’s important for the if they’re gonna be non family members, they’ll give you perspective, but they also have to be kind of in the middle between the the transitioners and successors, not on one side or the other. So I think that those advisors really need to again go what’s best for the business and that’s not what’s best for one generation or another.

So you just need to kind of check that one off the box if you’re gonna invite them.

Brad Irish-Jones:
Yeah, I th I think in most cases it probably would make sense, but maybe not always.

Zach Needles:
Thank you.

This question again for for everybody, but it it might be something for for Laurie and Brad to kind of think of. I don’t know that this happened in their family, but just just to kind of role play here. How do you handle a situation where my parents want all three children to take over the business, but I’m the only one that wants to do it? So as a next gen, how do you communicate like, Hey, mom and dad, I’m the only one who’s interested.

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah. Brad, do you have anything? Otherwise I can start.

Laurie Irish-Jones:
Yeah.

Brad Irish-Jones:
so I think that it’s important to understand the end goal, right? If only one person has interest and focus within that business, how can you work a model that will work for that individual taking on the business and then figure out a way that the other two siblings are compensated in a different way?

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah. I I was just gonna say my my passion is is next gen’s my podcast is actually called Your Next Gen Friend. And so I’ve talked to so many different next gen people who wanted in, who didn’t want in. And I think being in a facilitated place where you can actually share what your next adventure looks like. We talked about the objectives matrix today. And to be in a spot where you can actually share that vision and and paint that picture, but also for the other siblings to get more understanding.

Would there be a structure where they’re more just owners and there’s a different compensation structure for the person who is actively working in a role in a business? Or maybe there’s a different structure that makes sense for your family. And that’s why answering all those different points on the compass helps you actually then figure out the structure because it’s it feels black and white when you’re like one person once in and two on out. But until you know all of those other different components and and how they fit together.

It’s hard to say in a specific way, yeah, your family should go down this path or you should do this thing. And I think that’s why our success rate is is so high, ninety-five percent, because there’s so many creative things that no other business has ever structured or done it that way. But it’s totally right for every single person in that family in that transition. And that’s why it works for them. So to to be able to go through and and talk about that honestly, like maybe they don’t want an ownership role or maybe they do.

and maybe there’s some some other way that that could work well to make sure that everyone’s taken care of.

Zach Needles:
Excellent. And before we go too much further, I do want to also mention that any questions we don’t get to, the the presenters here will will see those questions and they can answer after the webinar. So so don’t fear if we don’t get to your question live here, we we can find an answer for you. But this question is for is for Brad and Lars specifically. Were were there how did the next gens in your family determine what roles they were the best fit for? And were there any situations where next gen’s kind of wanted the same role and that had to be resolved?

Brad Irish-Jones:
There there were a few situations where people thought, hey, I could do this, but at the end of the day, when everyone wants what’s correct for the business, and people swallow their egos and make that transition of what is best for the business. you know, people have different skill sets, they’re good at different stuff. So encouraging someone to be

In the correct part of the bus is essential for the business to survive.

Laurie Irish-Jones:
And I would add to that that that’s a process too when you have the next generation come in a business and depending on what their education is and what their history is of working, you don’t know sometimes exactly where they’re gonna fit. So as they come into the business and they take on roles and they grow and they change, you know, they kinda involve into it. So I know when my sisters and I came into the company, we came

from outside the company and we did not end up in the roles that were kind of defined for us, except for my one sister who’s the CPA. So there was not a lot of planning. We just kind of took the role. And I thought, you know, that’s not that’s not the safest best way to do it because it’s unfair to the person that’s trying to take the role. So with the next gen, we made sure that that if we’re gonna do this, then you guys have to know your roles.

And you have to tell us, you know, we have to agree who is gonna do what. And that worked out very well.

Zach Needles:
Excellent. we probably have time for for one more question and I think I know the answer to this one, but I would love to hear you all expound on this and maybe hear about what it was like in your family, Brad and Lari. After developing a transition strategy, should there be a plan to periodically revisit and revise that strategy?

Laurie Irish-Jones:
Absolutely, because we had to keep revising it because things changed. it’s never static. and you should review I would think reviewing it every year, if not every six months, depending on where you’re at. And like I said, it’s a it’s kind of a living entity. So you have to adjust and you have to, as Elizabeth always said, you don’t always get everything you want.

And you have to be open to negotiate and you have to be open to understand where is it that we need to get to and end up?

Andrea Carpenter:
And that’s why we don’t build transition strategies. We build transition roadmaps because again, it’s it’s kind of a guidebook that says, okay, we’re going this direction. These are the things we want. And then to go to to a road analogy, we don’t know if there’s going to be construction or the world’s giant largest ball of yarn that we want to like take a detour and and go see that as we drive through the Midwest, right? So there are so many different components and and things that can come up. And that’s why it’s a roadmap and

our evolved processes helping you think through all of those steps and and navigating it as they come up. That’s really the power of it is we don’t build a strategy and then say, good luck, here’s your strategy, go implement it, but that we actually walk with you as you go through and implement that.

Zach Needles:
Excellent. And when you’re on that road, it’s good to have an R V so you can take

Andrea Carpenter:
There

you go.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
That’s right.

Laurie Irish-Jones:
Absolutely.

Zach Needles:
Well, I wanna thank you all. I wanna thank everyone who who tuned in today. As I mentioned, we will get to the rest of the questions that we didn’t get to during the actual webinar, but but thank you to all our our presenters and speakers.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Business Transition Roadmap. If you’re ready to start shaping your own transition strategy, which I’m really hoping that you are, our team at the Transition Strategist would love to offer you a free discovery strategy session where you can explore what might be good for you and just some new ideas. We’ve got a new perspective and a new approach with people first.

And a lot of what we talk about, nobody has ever really done before. So I want to encourage you to think about that and to go to transitionstrategist.comslash discovery to schedule your call if you are even curious. it’s free, no pressure, we’d love to talk to you. And by the way, if you’re a successor or if you’ve got one in your business, you’ll also want to check out for sure.

Your next gen friend, a successor’s guide to business transition. It’s a podcast that’s hosted by my successor, Andrea Carpenter. She’s incredible. And this one is specifically designed for rising leaders in family businesses. So thanks again for listening. I’ll see you next time on the Business Transition Roadmap.

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The Business Transition Roadmap with Elizabeth Ledoux

How do communities thrive? When businesses experience healthy growth and transition. Join CEO of The Transition Strategists, Elizabeth Ledoux as she and her guests identify what makes a successful business transition roadmap. If you know you want to transition or exit your business “one day”, today is the right day to start planning. This show will give you the roadmap.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, you can check out other episodes here: Podcasts – The Transition Strategists