Entrepreneur Bootcamp

Mixing Business, Family & Friends – A Recipe for Marketing Chaos

By Adriana Parsons, Cranial Crush

Hello fellow Airpark Entrepreneurs. It’s almost Q4 and you still have time to make changes and close the year surpassing your revenue goals! Here’s some advice that will help you think about a business makeover.

I’ve been tangled in a successful family business for over 15 years, and I’ve seen the good and the bad side of working together. Luckily my husband has more than 25 years of family-owned business experience, so we know how to balance our roles and almost always avoid the chaos.

When you start a business, you own it and have control over every decision. Then your business grows, and you need help. Often my clients bring in their husbands, wives, daughters, sons and friends to help grow their company.

It’s a great idea, you should trust your family and close friends—but are they interested in your business? Are they experts at helping in the departments you need help in? Usually they are not. Yes, we can all learn sales, marketing, accounting, human resources, etc., but is your cousin who loves video games best suited to design your website? Absolutely not.

In the last few years, I have identified one huge problem that can easily be solved by asking for help from professional consultants. Sometimes it just takes a simple reorganization or third-party perspective to put your business back on track. Start-ups continue to act like start-ups and never grow up or mature their brand because they are afraid to admit that their son or wife or friend is not the right person for the job.

As your business grows, you need to periodically evaluate your staff, software, office space, resources. Don’t let a friend or family relationship stop your business from growing in a certain area. As a business owner who has co-mingled family with business, chances are your family member/employee is also feeling inadequate in his/her position and is stuck in a rut and afraid to ask for help.

Or, I have seen the other extreme where family members are taking advantage of their position and working less while asking for more pay.

What does this have to do with websites and marketing? Everything. If your business is not functioning properly with the right decision makers and expertise in place, your prospects and customers will know it. These are extreme cases but they are right here in the Airpark.

I’ve helped companies that had 10 versions of their logo, three different websites without brand continuity, disagreement in pricing, crappy packaging and overall the companies were not working as a cohesive unit. Your customer needs to trust that your business is working smoothly and that you have your act together. Otherwise, they will shop elsewhere.

Don’t just start firing your family! Take a look at your leadership skills: you might be the problem; You might need to hire a CEO to manage you. But if that’s not the case and you have a good sense of leadership and business, take control of your brand. It’s your money, isn’t it?

  Adriana Parsons is co-founder of Cranial Crush Consulting, offering expertise in fixing bad websites and more. Contact: 480-236-2462; adriana@cranialcrush.com.