CPA Bulletin

30 CPA Bulletin > May 2023 www.cpa.uk.net GUEST ARTICLE: 1 Ten days after closing the doors permanently on my family’s 106-year-old metalwork business, I walked into a networking event. “So, what do you do?” the chap opposite me asked, completely unaware of the anxiety this question would cause me. Previously, I would have just reached for my business card and word-perfectly recounted this well-rehearsed introduction: “I’m the CEO of a manufacturing business - we produce architectural metalwork and shopfittings.” But nowmy hand was empty. The words weren’t forming. I had no business card to fall back on or job title to hang my introduction around. Because there was no business. No job. Who was I without a business card or business? My identity and purpose were thrown into chaos. More importantly, it forced me to sort my whole self out. Part of sorting my own stuff was also realising just howmuch there is within and around family businesses - and for that fact, all owner-managed businesses in general. I’m not going to attempt to go into what all the family business nonsense is in this piece, because 1) there’s too much (you don’t need War and Peace right now), and 2) it’s different for all businesses. However, let’s take a little trip around some of the big-ticket items. Now, I can begin by boring you to death with the kind of stats that most professional advisors love to regurgitate - you know the type: family businesses provide over 51% of all private sector employment which is some mad figure like 13.9 million people, blah blah blah. The problemwith the facts and the figures is they don’t look at the reality you’re facing in and around your business or family each day. They don’t consider that you have a herd of elephants traipsing through the Board Room because you can’t tell your son that he’s not really pulling his weight, or his wife is a money-grabbing so-and-so. They don’t help when you are overwhelmed and exhausted, or even when it’s time to celebrate your successes. So, I’d rather begin with just a few of the basics - the stuff that would have been valuable to me back in the day and continues to be valuable to the people I work with now. Am I part of a family business? Yes. Next! Seriously though, knowing what a family business is can be a good conversation starter because there is no official ‘definition’. There are vague guidelines, and some organisations like to quote their own ‘definition’, but last I saw, there are about 30+ versions of what a family business is - or might be. What difference does that make to you? None, and that is my first issue with the The Good, The Bad and The Amazingly Ugly of Family and Owner-Managed Business! by Dani Saveker, CEO and Founder, GLAS Dani Saveker was a panel speaker at the CPA Conference 2022. Her contribution was so well received, CPA Bulletin invited her to contribute a guest article in her own words.