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Mom and Pop is Now Mom and Daughter

The Success Gene

Why some family businesses thrive year after year after year.

From: Inc. Magazine| By: Adam Bluestein

  • Even successful family businesses tend to resemble fireflies. They flicker brightly for a brief moment, then die away. Consultants call this the rule of thirds: Only about a third of businesses make it to a second generation, a third of those live to see a third generation, and on and on. A precious few family businesses, though, do manage to beat the odds. They are passed down, revived, and reinvented from generation to generation, while all the others have long since gone bust, been bought, or just slowly faded away, done in by family feuds, hard times, or changing tastes.
  • We have taken a close look at half a dozen fifth- and sixth-generation family businesses. It turns out they are a very special breed. They tend to make and sell products that last: guitars, pool tables, furniture. They have managed to keep much of their manufacturing in the United States. And they are able to put today’s challenges — globalization, say — in perspective. “You think this is bad?” they might say. “You should have seen what happened during the Great Depression!”
  • For the entire article go to inc.com

You have to love this article. Family businesses are back and, arguably, some family or close knit operations are the backbone of American manufacturing. These are the companies that actually produce goods and other things. These are the companies as the article attests, that prefer not to outsource but rather find manufacturing operations here.

With the cost of fuel on the increase, this isn’t a bad idea at all. Coupled with the low dollar value, this is an opportune time to ship overseas or to domestic companies who would rather not pay the high cost of trans-oceanic shipping.

If you are one of these small companies, you could be a Mom and Pop operation. You could be a young couple starting out and wanting to have a go at being entrepreneurs. You could be on the other side of the equation–boomers who have had enough of the corporate world and now decide to go it on their own. Increasingly the Mom and Pop operations, or the father and son operations, now list Mom and Daughter as part of the growing list of entrepreneurs. This is terrific and a sure sign of economic progress.

When you are doing business you should be conducting Corra background checks on the people you are hiring and business research on the companies with which you wish to do business. Spend the few bucks and have a pre-employment screening program, with screening packages for your different hires. And be sure to run the business credit reports for vendors and clients alike. It’s one thing to have clients and vendors, but it’s another to be assure they will either pay you or provide you with their needed goods and services.

Check them out before you do business.

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.