Complete Rebrand
Last week was National Mom and Pop Business Owner Day. That’s a real thing, at least according to the United States Census Bureau. I don’t know when this day was created, but I’m certain it is due for a complete rebrand. We have 26 people on staff at PJP and according to Census Bureau data, there are 738,035 businesses in the United States with 20 to 49 employees for a total payroll of $988.374,065 to 22,268,895 people in this country. Mom and Pop is such an innocuous term for something so valuable to our economy. JUST SAYING.
From our post last week, a lot of people reached out to ask about the pros and cons of family working together. So, let’s discuss:
Cons:
Well, when you work with your family, you never really leave your business. Maybe that is true for all business owners, family or not. But believe me when I say that Jason has been in the shower and I’ve been brushing my teeth and we are talking about PJP.
When things are frustrating - and I promise they will be - it is so easy to take it out on your family because they already love you and still will after you are super grouchy about something unrelated.
On occasion, I lay awake and night and think our entire livelihood rests upon something we’ve created. That hits different at 3am.
You’ll have to learn to let each person in your family work with their greatest skill and that takes time and a lot of personal insight. In our earliest days, Jeanne and I wanted to do every single task together. Now we’ve learned over the years that she excels at different things than I do and that’s fine. Sometimes I’ll tell Jason that I don’t care about a particular decision he has made and that’s only because I know he is significantly better at some things than me.
And my children would like to add here that we often make them cover shifts when people call out. That’s just the reality, but it certainly doesn’t make this any more charming.
Pros:
Each person in our family cares about our business so much. That Jason waits for me to spit out toothpaste before answering my thoughts on scheduling at 6:30 in the morning is a gift.
We are like a brain trust of ideas because our thoughts about PJP never turn off. Our family text chat is a treasure trove.
When we are irritated about something most people are never going to care about (like Inside Columbia dropped the Best Dessert category from Best of Columbia after we’ve won for consecutive years), our family does family righteous indignation REALLY WELL.
We don’t need to outsource for skill sets - between the five of us, we cover recipe creation, social media marketing, finances, human resources, graphic design, website design, systems automation, legal representation, and more. For zero third party dollars.
And finally, we have a common goal. That sounds pretty average, but when it seems insurmountable or like one of us is just over it, someone else is good at reminding why we’ve come too far to give up now. In full disclosure, I’m usually the most dramatic about it and the others are far more calm and focused. Thank goodness.