How to Operate Successfully As A Family Business

Jordan Buckner: [00:00:00] One thing that I hear from a lot of founders starting businesses is that they're trying to figure out if they should go it alone or bring in co founders. But one way of starting a business that I actually see is increasingly popular, which is a throwback to how businesses were created, we're launching businesses with family members, either a spouse or a parent or a child in some cases.

And I've gone through this experience personally myself and launching TeaSquares at the beginning of my Mom was heavily involved. We manufacture the third commercial kitchen and it brought with it a lot of really great opportunities, also some challenges, and I want to talk through today, you know, how we're starting in running a business from your family can set you up as a better business and then also some ways of navigating some of the tensions and challenges throughout there.

And to help me with that conversation, I've invited on Josh and Shlomo. Who are two of the family members with Josh Packaging, a flexible and printing packaging company with U. S. made manufacturing. [00:01:00] And because they've been living this, they're the second generation running the business. There's multiple of them, the cousins and brothers who are running the business who have taken over from their fathers running it.

And there's a lot of really interesting stuff here that I think you'll be able to learn as you're navigating building a business with family. So Josh and Shlomo, welcome. Welcome. Thanks. Thanks. Hello. So, let's jump right into it. I'd love for you to share just a quick overview of what Josh Packaging the company is and how your father's started the company.

Josh: So, my father and Shlomo, so Abe and Ajot, they started the company back in the 80s and they started very small scale, you know, doing plain bags, nothing really customized in terms of printing. And then sort of over the years as customer needs have grown and, you know, , the bandwidth was there for themselves as well as spacing.

I think. They've been increasing the products that we offer. So it went from plain bags to printed bags to [00:02:00] wicketed bags over the years. And then now in the last, 10 years since our second generation has joined, we've also been increasing the variety of products that we can supply to our customers in wool stock packaging, laminated packaging pouches.

So a lot of. What we've been able to provide is we're growing with the customers that they started working with, you know, 20, 30 years ago. And as those companies have been growing, we've also been lucky enough to provide additional products that work their packaging needs as well as, you know, allowing us to broaden our customer base as well.

Jordan Buckner: I love that the fact that your dad started the company, You know, of course, I'm sure they had their own kind of challenges they've grown, but they were able to build a successful business. And then one of the inflection points I think that always happens is, you know, what do we do with , the business from here?

Are the kids going to take over running it? Are we going to like sell the business? Does it just phase out? And I'd love for you to take me to that moment when [00:03:00] Your generation decided to come in , and work within the business and how that decision happened for each of you. 

Shlomo: Well, for Ellie and Aaron were definitely the first ones to like, formally dive in.

So , they're the youngest of the five of us. And I think they decided to join like right after college. I always make the joke that it's because they had no other prospects, but I think they just really wanted to dive in. And join the family business. They're both like very hands on. They studied like different operational stuff in college.

So I think they were really willing to like to just dive in immediately. For me, myself, I Josh, also, we both went to your University of Maryland. So we kind of like, Settled into in the DC area. We had a lot of friends here. I'll let Josh talk about like his own previous job and all that stuff.

But I used to work in like healthcare consulting and operations as well. But I always had in the back of my mind that I did want to join eventually the company. So especially after Ellie and Eric joined, it was all, they were always like, Hey we could really use your help. And I was like, I'd love to.

And then I talked to my dad and [00:04:00] he's like, no, go get more experience , in the outside. We have it up right then we'll be like, come on dad. And then finally but yeah, like it was always in the back of my mouth. The joint is like, we all grew up really close. There's always something really interesting to kind of work with the family.

Obviously know that there are going to be challenges. And I would just talk to like different people and they'd be like, are you sure you want to join the family business? Like it might be really tough. I was like, yeah, I'm sure. It was just a matter of when. And around the time I was starting, I was getting married or preparing to get married.

A few years ago, I finally talked to my dad and I was like, listen, like I'm going to need to put in the hours. Like, hopefully we'll have a kid in the next couple of years. If I'm ever going to join, it's going to be now. And he's like. Okay. It's fine. So that's kind of like how I finally, I basically bribed him with kids that allowed him to like finally let me in.

But I'm curious what I, what more about, yeah. 

Jordan Buckner: Do you think that he didn't want you to join it immediately? Because like was it about the 

experience? Was it about like 

Shlomo: No, I think, I mean, it definitely helped for me to continue to like learn different skill sets because. I was able to get you know, like, [00:05:00] I was a consultant, so I was able to have, like, those really you know, fancy, shiny tools at my exposure, which, you know, whether it was Excel or, like, PowerPoint or just, like, having some sort of executive writing skill that the company didn't necessarily have.

Just because, you know, it was just for a while it was like a really hands on mom and pop shop, you know, with a lot of hands on workers, but not necessarily someone that had like a different experience that I provide. So You know, I think 10 years was a nice number for him. And also I think he saw that I was ready to do it.

Jordan Buckner: And if I provide some just perspective of knowing something different and like where you are in , your life as well. 

Shlomo: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And Josh, Josh has a lot of, and me and Josh had very different work experiences, but it kind of just worked itself out. That's We were able to like provide different skill sets that really helped us out as an executive team.

Josh: Yeah, so I studied engineering in college. I worked for a general contractor in D. C. for 9, 10 years [00:06:00] before joining here. So it, not to say like the actual experience in construction. You know, transitions to this, but it was, you know, managing the budgets, the schedules, you know, dealing with all types of clientele, different types of architects, engineers, you know, all that type of stuff.

So for me, my sort of thought process of coming back was I just felt like I wanted to come back to New York, right? I grew up in New York. I was raised in New York. I'd been in, you know, the Maryland DC area for four years for college and then working. So it got to the point where I'm like, okay, I think for myself, it's a good time to come back.

And it worked out with the project I was on. It was like a five year project. So as that was closing out, I was able to transition to this job nicely. And coming here, there are You know, I didn't, I would help out over the summers in high school, stuff like that, but I never was really as hands on in terms of, you know, The manufacturing project process, or, you know, what products we give.

And honestly, when I left to go to [00:07:00] school in 2009 to where they were, when I came back in 2021, it was, they went from a smaller facility, the one that was like four times the size, the product offerings that we were doing there were significantly, you know, higher variety, higher quality, you know, type of projects as well.

So. Did I have like the basis of what they were doing yet, but until I, you know, showed up and was coming here every day, I didn't understand the full magnitude of it. But you know, growing up seeing my dad put all the effort in and Abe, you know, , they, you know, Put a lot of effort into building this company and sort of as a thank you to them, but also like seeing what we can do as ourselves as the next generation, we wanted to join, we wanted to, you know, continue growing what we're providing and keeping the company going as well.

So it's also continuing that legacy, let's say, is also part of, at least for me, an important thing of, you know, joining and continuing the family business is to keep that growing [00:08:00] from, you know, what they started in 1986 to where we are right now. it sort of shows the picture of, you know, the effort they put in, the work they put in and everything.

So, you know, continuing to grow where we are now to see where we are, you know, 5, 10 years and where we can take it. 

Jordan Buckner: Yes, I think that's super important. You know, it's interesting because when I first started my energy bar company, Teasquares. One of the main reasons I was able to do so was because my mom was a chef like a, and does catering and she had a commercial kitchen and that allowed us to allow me to like go there and produce and like test all of our product out in a certified commercial kitchen for free.

Right. And I think one of the main things that running a business with family provides is having people that you can trust, right? Like, I know every family is a little different, but if you're going to. Go into business , or work with family. There's a certain level of like trust that that person is going to like be around, or they're not gonna quite screw you over in the same way that like just an employee [00:09:00] might.

and especially if they , have some ownership over that. And so, you know, there were even times when we were, you know, I was making a product or needed like something done last minute and my mom would help out with that or stay till, you know, 8 PM, 9 PM, no problem to like help out. And over the years it was really really valuable.

At the same time with that business as TeaSquares grew, we ended up having like six employees when she just had like her and my brother running their catering company. And so like, yeah, that also created tension because I was like, all right, we started having, you know, not having, but like, you know, pay rent and we had more employees and we're kind of like stepping over what she's doing.

And there's like all these employees that are in. So it creates this other, a lot 

of, a lot of stepping over problems sometimes. 

Shlomo: Yeah. I mean, I think. Josh and Micah at the benefit of coming after Ellie and Aaron had been there for like, you know, six or seven years. So I think not that we haven't been exposed to some significant growing pains and growing tension with like, you know, different ways to [00:10:00] do things, making different decisions, trying to scale appropriately.

But I would say like, Especially Ellie and Aaron being the first job out of college, you know, it was really, I, I know there was some significant tension and growing pains there because it was really the beginning of the old school meeting the new school. And if there's no exposure to that before it can be really challenging.

And you know, they, I give a lot of credit to Abe and Najat, my dad and my uncle, Josh's dad. Who you know, allowed Ellie and Aaron to put in the effort and trust me, they put in a lot of effort on the floor, doing anything they could to like learn and make connections and stuff like that. But you know, it was a real learning experience for Ellie and Aaron also, because they hadn't had any experience anywhere else.

So it was really important for them to learn. The business itself, and I think what that allowed for me, Josh and Micah was, especially with the experience from the outside is to come in with fresh perspective with an understanding of like how different businesses and corporations operate and to try to put in new policies, procedures, [00:11:00] processes we have, we started like the first thing that I did.

Was make a weekly meeting, which we don't necessarily meet every week, but we call it family meeting. And that's essentially like our executive team meeting, where we talk about all important things, bring up things that we need to change. Talk about like new developments, new potential opportunities. That was something that was completely new.

Like they didn't have any designated time to just like sit. And a big reason for that was one, they didn't have that experience elsewhere to know, like, that's how certain companies operate. And two, they didn't have the bandwidth. You know, they didn't have processes to create, and it was a tough operation for them to continue.

Not that they weren't successful doing it, I mean. They were able to continue to grow organically, like Josh said, like new technology every single year, new customers, but there was a lot less bandwidth and it didn't allow them to pursue the projects, the improvement initiatives and SQF, like Josh mentioned before.

Because they weren't able to,

Jordan Buckner: let me ask you this too. What have you found to be some of the key ways of [00:12:00] navigating working within the family business when there are multiple stakeholders and multiple viewpoints and everyone feels strong and not this like all figured out, but I like, you know, that you had this weekly meeting that's there to discuss all the issues so that everyone's on the same page.

What else have you had to figure out along the way? 

Shlomo: My thing is. And this is just kind of a lesson that I keep with me for any sort of really close relationship is that you need to be willing to apologize and you can't let things fester because everyone is really passionate about, you know, when you're in something like this, you're very passionate, not just about your business, but about your relationships with your people.

And sometimes people say things that they don't mean, or sometimes they, You know, they're very passionate about one direction and someone's passionate about other direction. But like the most important thing is to put your relationships on a pedestal. So one way to do that is by making sure that you apologize when you do something wrong or when you think you may have done something wrong, I've read some of the wrong way.

So that's something that I try to remind myself of over and over and over again. I would say. [00:13:00] From personal experience, when I first got started, my father and I would get into significant arguments and I just like, it was really difficult because he wanted me to do things one way and I want to do things another way.

And honestly, it was my fault because he's someone that's been in the industry for 40 years. I'm someone that doesn't, I don't know, am I allowed to cuss on this podcast? I don't know jack shit. And I was coming in with like this sort of like fancy Excel tool that told me how much they should price and he's like, not how much it should cost.

And we would get into these arguments and I really had to build his trust and same vice versa. And you know, it's really come to a point where we can come at things at a completely different play. Like, well, I do a lot of quotes, right? That's one of my main jobs is I work in sales.

I create quotes. So we'll talk to customers. And now we play this game where, like, he'll come up with a quote his own way, doing math in his head, and I'll come up with a quote using, like, this fancy Excel tool that I created, and we're literally within, like, three dollars of each other, a majority of the time.

And that wasn't [00:14:00] easy to get to, but I think the way that we got to there was trusting our relationship, and honestly, me knowing that I was the new person apologizing as much as I could when I stepped out of line. And I definitely did step out of line for sure. So, yeah,

Jordan Buckner: I appreciate the, you went through that experience and learned from that because I think , that's really key.

Josh: yeah, so the, sort of. Not piggyback off that, but to sort of bring my point to it or thoughts. At the end of the day, , it's a family business, right? We're family first. So just like Shlomo said, you have to be okay to apologize. You have to view it as no matter what happens here at the end of the day.

We're still the family, right? That is the ultimate goal. So we want to make sure those relationships, those feelings, you know, cause everybody has feelings whether they want to admit it or not. That's still something you're going to have to navigate through. And then sort of the growing pains that Shlomo was talking about.

I also had to deal with it. Right. We did, you know, implement this family meeting that we were doing every week, but that was also like, [00:15:00] initially when I was just my dad and Abe, they would commute to work together every day. They were the only two in the office. Right. So they were consistently communicating right and then slowly so they didn't need a set time to sit down and discuss as they were literally talking 24 7 right and then once Ellie and Aaron joined like there was still communication but as more people joined more people have different roles and responsibilities like I don't know everything Shlomo does I don't know everything Ellie does they don't know everything I do right so Something that helped us as the family businesses, having these meetings, making sure we're communicating consistently, right?

So we have a text message group. We have our emails. We use teams pretty consistently. So as something comes up, we're talking about it. Right. Are there times we forget to communicate about things a hundred percent, right? No right. It happens. , like, you forget, you get pulled in one direction.

 It's part of the process, right? Yeah. , and I think. [00:16:00] Art of growing pains that we were dealing with in terms of communication style and sort of the same side of, you know, our dad had a certain way of doing something. We're coming in with that new perspective where, you know, I worked for this type of customer, right?

Shlomo worked for this other type of customer. We have these different Business experiences where maybe they didn't have it before. So we can bring that insight in, but then also like my dad and Abe were doing everything on their own. Right. So one thing that they had to learn and, you know, get used to doing is delegating and giving up work.

Right. Like I run into that sometimes where. I might have too many things on my plate and I send something out. Is it going to be to the, and I know Shlomo runs into this, is it going to be to like the level I probably thought it would be? Or is it going to be in the same process I thought it would be? No, right?

So when we join, like Shlomo in doing this pricing, he does it a different way than his dad. They get up to the same weight, but that's part of that growing process. And then same [00:17:00] thing, like for me, the way I sort of took the reins with HR and, you know, hiring the compliance of it, the paperwork, how they did it before to how we're doing it now is a little different, it is more streamlined per se, right?

But in order to streamline it and make sure. Works there's like more checks and balances, right? 

Jordan Buckner: One thing I'm curious about too with that. Yeah. Have you had to up specific Responsibility zones that you say like, okay This is my area and that's your area and like trust there or there a lot of overlap or how has that job?

Responsibility changed over time. So I know a lot of the not conflict, just like tension that happens is when people are responsible for overlapping things, or it's not completely clear who takes charge over certain areas. 

Josh: In the beginning, there was a lot of that and just figuring out who's responsible for what as, you know, the last two, three years, the more that's joined, we've fallen, I think, into our specified roles and responsibilities a lot better.

Like, if it's something sales related, Shlomo [00:18:00] will get involved. If it's payment, AR, crediting, they know to get me involved. If it's manufacturing, scheduling, timeline type stuff, they'll let Ellie and Aaron sort of take the lead of that. 

Shlomo: It's definitely organically kind of happened, but not unintentional, you know, what we're talking about, Jordan, honestly, it's like basic business practices, right?

Like what's the, one of the most important things you need, you need to determine what your roles and responsibilities are, right? The only difference is you're dealing with your family, you know, so like, or like, how do we come up with a process that's new? Like, that's the thing that's so challenging is you're dealing with people.

That you've been, that you've lived your life with in a totally different way. And you have to experience your relationship with them in a totally different way. I know I said I think one thing that I was thinking about before the podcast is like, people always say, it's not personal, it's business.

But like, when you're working in a family business, it is personal. So like, it's the same thing when I say like, apologizing. Like, you have to know that like, Every single decision that you make with your executive team that are your family [00:19:00] members that you're really close with it's personal So like anyone thinking about joining a family business, I would say make sure you have really strong foundational understanding of what your relationship is with that person because like if you're already starting and there's like some cracks in the armor or like don't have a strong relationship.

It's going to be really tough for you to move forward because you're going to go through challenges like anyone does when you're doing a job or you're working with people. And if you don't have that sort of strong relationship foundation, like I have with Josh or like I have with my brothers, like I have with Nejat or my dad, it's going to be really tough to go through it.

Jordan Buckner: One thing that, you know, I'm curious about a lot of companies Are able to coalesce around like a shared vision or mission that the founder or founding team creates. And it kind of helps everyone go in the same direction. And I found that to be really powerful when there's multiple owners, family or not as a family business, how you all had to think about and talk about like, okay, , where are we going with the business so that you have a [00:20:00] common alignment to work together in health, that process gone.

Shlomo: So I would say. The main thing that my dad and Ned John have instilled in us is that we are a manufacturing company, but honestly, we're more about service, right? So we try to do what we can to appease our customers, whether that's having a really agile logistics team or figuring out like what we need to do with production to get things to our customers in a timely manner.

Or, you know how do we figure out what the pricing needs to be to work with a customer who's struggling, or do we offer credit or something like that? So like from a shared goal perspective, I would say we try to do things To meet the customers where they need to be. And I know that my dad and Nejad have really built their business and organic growth through creating these relationships and trust with their customers.

So, you know, I would say that's like the key contributing factor. Josh mentioned you know, different technologies that we're able to go into, whether it's like interlock or easy stand or pouches. And that [00:21:00] came as a result of them working with specific customers that they've established really good relationships with and trying to understand what their needs were.

And that's a reason why our growth has felt so organic is because we're allowing our customers to tell us where we need to go next. 

Jordan Buckner: Well, and I think that's one thing that's really strong about family businesses , when done right. And it sounds like. You all , have worked through and figure it out to say like, okay, we're going to focus on delivering for the customer.

And so when any problems come up, you essentially have a owner within all parts of the business so that there's responsibility kind of shared to make sure those things get done. And because of the relationship and there's that equity across the business. I just see that having more of an impact where you're like, okay, if something's wrong, like we'll fix it because it's not just my job.

It's my company and it matters. And I want to have that strong relationship and reputation. 

It's Josh's name. 

And so I'd love that you know, , that at its most [00:22:00] impactful, it creates such value , for customers as well. 

Shlomo: I think the other thing is We have a lot of, I mean, this is just our company in general.

We have a lot of balance in the way we think about our business. Like we have a single mindset or, you know, what we want to do, want to serve our customers, want to have really high quality product, but we come from it at different angles and from different experiences, whether it was from our backgrounds or just from like our jobs.

And because of that, we're able to like. Triangulate or come, that was a fancy word, come to like a specific decision making process and how we want to grow organically just through natural discussion like Josh comes from the compliance and financial side so like he's able to check us, check me. If I have an opinion on how we can grow this company from a sales perspective and my father has the perspective of like someone who's been in the industry for 35 plus years and has the industry knowledge, Nedjott has the knowledge [00:23:00] of, you know, basically running the operations for the past 30 years, you know, Ellie and Aaron come from it from manufacturing perspective, Mike comes from it from a technological perspective, So for whatever reason our family has been able to like buy these specific niches of expertise, if you will, within our business and that kind of ties into what happened before where like you were saying how we organically kind of found our zones, but we're able to like appreciate each other's specific expertise and knowledge base.

And make really good decisions without ruffling anyone's feathers to an nth degree because , we appreciate and respect each other from that lens. 

Jordan Buckner: Yeah, and when it all comes down to you which are my two tenets of any relationship. It's clear and effective communication from both parties and setting your own expectations and understanding the other person's expectations, right?

Whether it's family, whether it's employees, like whoever it is, that's what it comes down to to build in a strong relationship. And the basis of that then is what builds trust to build a relationship. A [00:24:00] successful company. So, I absolutely love that. Alright guys, well thanks so much for being on today and sharing about what it's like on the inside of running a family business.

To our listeners, if you are in need of packaging, flexible packaging for your products, Work with Josh Packaging. They live and own everything within here and they want to make sure that you have a successful experience that you're able to grow your business because your success is their success and their success is your success.

We'll put the info on how to get in touch in the show notes. Thanks guys. Sounds good. 

Shlomo: Thank you very much.