speaker 0 

00:00:00 

Well, 

 welcome back to another episode of the business brothers podcast. My name is Purdeep Sangha 

 

speaker 1 

00:00:04 

And I'm Harjeet Sangha, and we are the builders as brothers. 

 

speaker 0 

00:00:08 

Well, thank you for joining us on this journey and today's topic or episode is all about the benefits of being in a family business. I know the last episode we talked about some of the challenges and there were plenty and they're pretty intense, but today we're going to talk about the benefits because there are a lot of benefits of being in a family business. And we're just going to touch on the most common ones that we see, we're working with our clients and just our personal experience growing up in a family business. What do you think Arch? 

 

speaker 1 

00:00:39 

yI think there's a lot of great things to talk about today. 

 

speaker 0 

00:00:41 

Okay. So let's talk about the first thing that kind of pops up into my mind when I think about family business and being in a family business is really the ability to be able to share your family beliefs and values, because it's a lot easier, from my personal opinion, to be able to disseminate your family beliefs and values, not only through your business, but what your business accomplish, and maybe even through philanthropy, as a result of the money that you're making, the profits that you're making from your business as well. And it's easy if everybody in your family is on the same page. And typically I'm not going to say this happens all the time, but growing up in a family, you tend to have similar values. What are your thoughts on that? 

 

speaker 1 

00:01:27 

Yeah, I think that's probably one of the more top of lines that comes to my mind is the ability to actually build the fabric of a company that you want to see out there, whether that's, you know, based on being more green and giving back to the environment or that that's getting back to more marginalized communities, you really have as much flexibility as possible to shape and format company to represent what your family and what you believe in. 

 

speaker 0 

00:01:51 

And I think it's the employees pick up on that too. They, they pick up on the family values and I personally believe that when you're in a family business, it's easier to find the right people too, because they're the ones that are fitting into the family business. They kind of gravitate towards you and the ones that don't, it's easy to kind of pick them out because when you have a larger corporation and those values, aren't really known, like we all talk about this, right. Corporations put their values up all the time. They have them on posters, they talk about their strategic plans in their AGM and all this kind of stuff, but rarely do they really live them. And I think it's easy for employees to get lost in these types of organizations where the values are not very clear, but in a family business, when the values are very clear, I personally believe that you either fit or you don't fit. So you end up having the people that should be on your team, on 

 

speaker 1 

00:02:46 

Your team. 

 

speaker 1 

00:02:46 

Yeah. I think in, in a family business, you can be a chameleon for so long until your actual true colors are represented or shown. So I would agree with that statement for sure. 

 

speaker 1 

00:02:54 

Yeah. Yeah. 

 

speaker 0 

00:02:55 

And I, I know we've had some, some interesting challenges with employees, but you know, the cool thing here is that we've always been lucky. I think from the perspective of before we had our own family business, we worked for another family who was in business and our family values aligned with their family values and things actually worked out very well. And we ended up being very good friends with our employers at that time, who are family friends now just because there was a, there was an alignment in values. And I think even now as we are still in the family business, our employees seem to want to work for us over our competitors over the other people that are in the same industry, because we tend to have different values and we tend to treat our employees differently. 

 

speaker 1 

00:03:39 

Yeah. That really just comes down just to the simple aspect of, you want people to treat you with respect and in course, to get respect, you have to give respect. So certainly if you treat people with a lot of love and humility and kindness, it should be reciprocated. And that's just the, I think a very simple foundation to operate your business then. 

 

speaker 0 

00:03:58 

So just, just summing that one up, you know, if you're in a family business and your families are aligned, sorry, I should say your family values are aligned. Not always are the beliefs aligned, but at least if most of your values are aligned, I think you're going to have a competitive advantage because a lot of organizations out there don't know who they really are. They strive to be a certain way, but they're, they're either too vague. They're kind of flushed out. They're not very clear. And a lot of them don't live by those values. So family businesses I think have the upper hand on that side. The second thing that pops into my mind Harj is, you know, what? You can get things done a lot quicker because there's less red tape. You can make decisions faster, you know, you and I use an example. If we want to pivot our business, you and I, we can debate it out. You know, we can argue it out if we want to, we can talk about the pros and cons, but it's a lot easier for us to say, okay, let's get past this and, and keep going. And let's make quick decisions and be somewhat nimble. 

 

speaker 1 

00:04:56 

Well, yeah. And you, and you have to be nimble certainly in this environment where the speed and change of technology. So around it, you have to have the ability to be flexible and kind of with bigger organizations, you probably need more approvals in place and more signatures in place to kind of sign off on that. But one of the luxuries of being in a family businesses, that when you're either forced to change or you're looking to change for, from a proactive standpoint, it's less of a daunting task when you're trying to make that, that change of pathway. 

 

speaker 0 

00:05:25 

And it's really interesting because I think we, we always compare ourselves, our businesses to other businesses. And we always say, Hey, look, look what they're doing. You know, the grass is greener on the other side, you know, look how fast they're going, but I can tell you, you know, those non-family businesses, it could take them a long time to move. It can take them a long time to make a decision. And a lot of the time there's no real reason for it. It's just really interesting. I think the family businesses have a super advantage over here because if everybody's aligned, then you can get things done a lot quicker. 

 

speaker 1 

00:05:58 

And you know, not to say that family businesses are always easier on that perspective. Not everyone has the same vision, but at least the conversation can be had in a more intimate setting where you could find alignment or you may not find alignment with, with certain individuals. But at least that, that ability to have the communication, it can be put right out there, 

 

speaker 0 

00:06:19 

You know, and I think, and just add on to that heart. I think there's, there's a reason for that too, because the interests are aligned. Right, when you're in a different corporation and let's just say you have an executive team that are non-family members, everybody out. They all have different motivations, right? They all have different interests. One person might be saying, well, if this decision is made, my career might be at jeopardy, right? My pension might be at jeopardy, whereas in a family business, everybody's on the same page to say, well, we're all, you know, we're all in this together. We all have a stake in this. And so I think it's a different approach from that perspective as well. The third thing, I don't know, it's hard. You've got something to say on that one, 

 

speaker 1 

00:06:59 

Yeah, it just come back down to it's a stakeholder model, right? You're, you're really looking at the entity as a whole. What's good for not just the owners, but also the employees as 

 

speaker 0 

00:07:08 

Well. Yeah. And ultimately, hopefully most people are making decisions in terms of the best interests of their families at the end of the day as well. Now the third thing that pops up is okay, and we've kind of seen this and this is kind of an Indian thing as well, but pooling of resources and especially in Canada, there is a lot of immigrant families that have come over from India, from other places as well that have been extremely successful in a very short period of time. I've always been amazed in terms of the fellow Indians in our community that I've seen that have only been around for 5 or 8 years and the properties that they've acquired or the businesses that they've built. It's pretty amazing Harj. And I think a big part of that, or reason why they're able to do that is because they pool resources. They, siblings will live together, extended families will live together, they'll pool the resources. And I think what they do is they put this, the interest of the family over the interest of the individual. And that's where they're able to leverage those resources and those finances to move forward a lot faster. 

 

speaker 0 

00:08:15 

Leverage 

 

speaker 1 

00:08:16 

Is the keyword there. When you're in a low interest rate environment, of course, the more you can borrow to expand your business and grow the bottom line. That's very key. And the ability to raise capital is, is one that I find when you're talking about a family oriented business. Yeah. You've ultimately expanded the number of individuals who can be there to inject capital in the company versus you know, being there yourself. 

 

speaker 1 

00:08:40 

Yeah. Good 

 

speaker 0 

00:08:41 

Point. I think that's an important one to touch on because, and this may not apply as you, your business gets more mature and you have more funds and capital available, but if you're starting out and let's just say, there's two siblings Harj tonight, which we are facing because we're in two different places, but let's just say we were starting out and we had two different homes. We'll, we're paying two different mortgages, right. And two different utilities. And so that doubles our bills. But if we were living together, which a lot of people do and people are saying, no, there's no way we could do that. But people who have done this, has actually been successful in business. We have a couple of cousins ourselves that are in a specific industry. And its, I think they were in business for what, 20, 25 years living together with their teenage kids. And they finally just bought their own places, but they've been able to pool their resources and build a successful business as a result. And I think there's a lot to be said there. 

 

speaker 1 

00:09:34 

And it doesn't always start off as easy and rosy, when you're talking about living in the same household or pulling the resources, there certainly are challenges, but you can really allow yourself to focus on the growth of the business and what it means for you as opposed to be kind of challenged or kind of limited by your, your capital resources. So pulling gives you the leverage that you may not normally have as a, as a single business owner. 

 

speaker 0 

00:10:00 

Yeah. And this a little bit different too. If you go to your parents and you ask them for money, or you go to a sibling, ask them for money, but could you imagine going to, you know, your fellow, whoever it might be on the executive team at a typical corporation and saying, Hey, look, I need to borrow some money. And what do you think they would tell you? They'd probably tell you to go take a hike, right? Because you're not their family. They don't really care. I'm not going to say they don't care about you, but they don't. They don't have any interest in your family at the end of the day. So I think that there, there's, there's a different perspective in terms of being able to bring the resources together from a family perspective. Now, the next one that, that I personally like, I love myself and I love seeing this other families. 

 

speaker 0 

00:10:43 

And this is one of the reasons why Harj you and I have stayed in the agricultural business is because of, of longevity and legacy, right? We, we, you and I had a interesting conversation. We continue to have this interesting conversation around, do we sell our property or not? And we have our orchard, which was passed down to us by obviously the trigger was my dad, our dad, you know, it's different. It's easy for me to say my, but my brother's on this podcast too. So I got to say our now, but our dad obviously passed away suddenly. And, and, and as a result of business and the property was passed down to us. And one of the things that we had to contemplate was, do we sell it, right? Do we sell it? Do we, you know, I don't want to say cash in, but you know, cash in and do our own things or do we continue the family legacy? Do we continue the business? And it wasn't an easy decision. 

 

speaker 1 

00:11:39 

Yeah. And there's, there's no right or wrong decision. It only comes down to what makes best sense for the family. And, you know, there's some points when probably I felt like with everything going around with young families that you and I both have, and in our own careers, in different cities, that probably the easier decision would, would have been to sell it. But when you kind of look back at the, all the life morals and just the foundation, being a good person that we learned of growing up in that business and all now property, certainly we want to be able to pass that down to our kids and, and potentially their generation. So selling became less of an option at that standpoint because you want to go back to the business. You want to go back and relive your childhood memories, and you want that to, to go to the next generation. 

 

speaker 1 

00:12:29 

Now, having the conversation is how do you make it more profitable or viable? That's, that's the next step. But as long as everyone is aligned with that vision that we want that property businesses stay in our family for as long as we, we can then certainly we'll make every bit and, and, and effort to make that happen. But when you look at it outside of the business, it's also land that our kids go back to enjoy the ride, their dirt bikes, and ATVs. Well, not my son. He's, he's much too young, but your kids, even though they had an ATV accident this summer, thankfully they're okay. But when you look at it's not just a family business, you look at the other opportunities that afford it suddenly becomes more of a legacy asset in your family, as opposed to just a family, a business asset. 

 

speaker 0 

00:13:16 

Yeah. You know what I think, I think our industry is somewhat unique growing up on an orchard because it's a different environment. It's not a corporate, it's not an office building. You're actually out there in nature. And I absolutely loved growing up on an orchard. Our aunts were around, our uncles were around our cousins were around. I would say we were blessed to have grown up in that environment because we had so much family around that. Work really didn't feel like work. It just felt like a, a family outing that just happened to involve some physical labour, a lot of physical labour, but it was actually kind of fun. And I reminisced about those times I reminisce and I, I, I want my kids to experience that. I want my kids to have that connection to other family members. So I think there's a sentimental value there too. 

 

speaker 0 

00:14:06 

But I think from a bit making a business decision perspective, but as a happening in a family business is the executive team or the CEO or the people making the decisions. If they're in the family, end up making decisions that are based on the long-term rather than the short-term because I, I rarely, there are some big family businesses I've come across harsh. Maybe you've come across them, but rarely do I come across family businesses where they're in it for the short har haul where they're like, okay, let's build this business and sell it three years. Some there's super entrepreneurial families that are like that. But I think a lot of them are about longevity. I think a lot of them are about to let's create a legacy, not only for the family, but also the clients and the customer's service and their employees. I think there's some commitment there to clients and employees as well. 

 

speaker 1 

00:14:56 

Yeah. From my knowledge and experience, certainly seen more of a longer-term commitment to, to everybody involved. As you mentioned, like the, the employees, the clients, really an extension of the family themselves, but that is their goal. Their goal is to build something and, you know, you see more shorter term decisions as they kind of see more clarity of, of a transition or a sale of business. But ultimately when I hear of individuals that they're buying into the business or expand their business, they're almost always thinking longterm as opposed to just, you know, the next 1 to 3 years here. 

 

speaker 0 

00:15:27 

Yeah. And again, it's something that we're taking a look at too, is do we continue to stay in the agriculture business or do we lease, lease the property out? And that's again, a tough question. And one of the things that popped into our minds and pop into the minds of our mom and the first thing that she thought of was, well, what about the workers that have been working for us for 6, 7, 8, 9 years, 10 years? You know, if we, if we have someone else manage our property, then these people won't be able to come back and work anymore. And what is that going to do to their lifestyles? So that's, that's, you know, that's my mom's commitment. That's our commitment to our employees. And I think family businesses have a different perspective on what it means to run a business. 

 

speaker 1 

00:16:15 

Absolutely. The continuity of your, of your staff, your employees, everyone who's engaged in. It means a lot. And that's really, without them, the family business wouldn't exist. Right. So I think often we think about the owners putting everything on the line, the restaurant, certainly, they do take on a lot of the risks, but if the business is not successful without the staff and without the employees. So it takes the ability from everybody to come together. But it is very, very key that those individuals are looked after and then sometimes they can get lost in kind of the, the bigger shuffle of things when it comes to bigger companies. 

 

speaker 0 

00:16:51 

Yeah. So, you know, as we mentioned before, there's, there's some downsides to the family businesses. There's definitely a lot of upsides and let's, let's talk about some of the other ones. I think family businesses can also be fun. I think it takes a, I think it takes a little bit of willpower. I think it takes effective communication, but there is some fun involved with it when your family's engaged in your long-term vision, when your spouses are excited about what you're doing, when your kids want to be involved in the business, my kids are always running around and saying, oh, you know what? Chacha and dad, you know, Chacha for those of you who don't understand in our language, Punjabi actually means dad's younger brother, which is really interesting because every, every relationship in the Indian, in the Punjabi language has a specific word for it. 

 

speaker 0 

00:17:44 

So you can tell by saying the word Chacha, for example, that it's my dad's younger brothers. So that's what they call harsh. And they're always running around, like, what are you guys working on yesterday? Our son, my son was here figuring out, okay, he's doing an illustration and hard drive to send it to you still, but he did this illustration of what our cover art should look like for our new program that we're launching here in January. And for those of you who don't know parts, and I also, we do a lot of advising. And one of the things that we're doing in January is doing our annual mastermind for family business owners. And we call it the F-bomb and yeah, you know what, it sounds kind of out there, but we call it the F-bomb for a reason. It's because it's for the family business owners and the M stands for the mastermind. And our goal there is to bring a dozen family business owners together through a journey over the course of 12 months, to help you establish and optimize and enhance your business profits, your personal and your family wealth, as well as show you how to deal with those family dynamics in the best possible way. So your business is successful and you are successful as a business leader and as a, as a leader of your family. So hardly any thoughts about the program? Are you excited about it? 

 

speaker 1 

00:19:06 

Yeah. I just wanted to add, it was so exciting to see the next generation have an interest in the founding business. So it certainly does provide a boost of energy. When you see, you know, your kids or nieces and nephews fully engaged, you may not see that in other careers, just simply not the opportunities you don't. If you're, if you're a physician, it may be hard to bring a child into the operating room, but when it's your family business, they get to see the intricate details of your business, both the good and the bad, but you can see their interest pop-out and equally important. You get to see if they want to take on the business, or if they want to go and pursue something outside the family business. I think that's a very good conversation that we maybe have for, for another podcast episode, but to see that engagement at a young level, from my experience, I just haven't seen that when I was doing, you know, other things outside of the family business. So it's great to see the next generation involved and ask them a lot of questions is ultimate, you know, they're going to shape their future either in the business or around the businesses, but they, they get to use the platform and our experience and knowledge to build off of. 

 

speaker 0 

00:20:11 

Yeah, that's actually a really good point, they heard. And I kind of forgot about that because when, when I was younger and when mom and dad got into the business originally, I always used to wonder, well, why are they, why are mom and dad doing better than other people out there in the same industry, but how did they approach things differently? What was her systems? What, what was her work ethic like? And I learned a lot about business from mom and dad, just in terms of how they did business and how they treated other employees, good stuff, as well as the not so great stuff, you know, what not to do as well. But there's something to be said again, to be able to bring your kids to work in the typical environment and business, they have, you know, an annual bring your kids to work day. But as a family business owner, you can bring your kids to work any day. You want maybe every day, if you want, if you don't have daycare out there, but actually that's one of the things that heart does is roughing it out right now. They're trying to figure out how to find a good reputable daycare. Cause I guess I'll, I guess a lot of young families are having a kids man. 

 

speaker 1 

00:21:12 

Well, it's, it certainly feels like a, a, a bigger challenge here in Vancouver. Just kind of with, you know, a big city, not having affordability, some of the other smaller municipalities, but nonetheless, I think across this nation, you are seeing the challenge with new parents of, you know, who's going to raise your kids, but you know, the situation my wife and I found ourselves in, daycare might be a good business to venture into. So maybe we'll, we'll set up for another podcast, as well as we're seeing this challenge, you know, your, your business mindset starts to, to kind of brighten up and say, yeah, that might not be a bad business to get into if the demand is high and supply is very low. 

 

speaker 0 

00:21:52 

Yeah. Well, we'll talk about that in another episode, in terms of entrepreneurial families, because they're the ones that do get into different business ventures based on the gaps and challenges and problems that they see in the market out there. Now there's one, one quick point that I want to make before we kind of close up this episode and it is talking about your kids. I'm a firm believer and here's my personal opinion. That there are two things that your kids should definitely learn outside of emotional intelligence, how to deal with relationships. But let's just say the practical world one is science. And I think science teaches you a lot of discipline and teaches you how your mind works, how your body works. And that's super important. The second one is business, because if you can teach your kids business at a young age, I believe they're going to be a lot more successful because it's a real-world, right? 

 

speaker 0 

00:22:38 

It's not just academics. It's a real world. It's how to make deals, how to sell, learning about marketing, how to do, how to negotiate. My son's like a super negotiator. I don't know where he got that skill from. Definitely not from me, but he's, he's really good at it. But I think it's important for you, if you're in a family business to at least allow your kids to learn some of those skills as well. So I just wanted to, to close it out on that note. So again, I want to thank you for joining us in this episode. If you want to check out more episodes, please go to business brothers podcast.com, please subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and leave a review. If you're getting value from these episodes, we would greatly appreciate you leaving a review because that supports us. That gives us strive to continue to move forward with this podcast. 

 

speaker 0 

00:23:26 

Stay focused and stay tuned. 

 

speaker 0 

00:23:27 

Until next time.