Involving family and friends in your business

Janiya

Member
I always suggest to avoid involving the family members or friends specially in the starting because there are many issue that rise in one stage and it destroyed the business with friends and relations both.
Do start your business alone and hire the employees from outside they will work for you and will put their all efforts in working.
 

Nii41

Member
It is not advisable because family and friends will not take the job seriously, they can do anyhow because they know you won't react or fire them. You can involve them for positions in your company or business that is not too serious and won't affect the company due to their actions, then employ others that are serious in those positions that will help the company to grow. By doing so their actions or unseriousness won't affect your company/business in any way. Although one can still employ family members and friends, just depends on their character and how serious they are, from looking at how they are and their behavior, you will know whether it is wise to employ them or not.
 

Donkiz

Active member
I don't think there's anything wrong with involving your family members in the early stage of your business if they are qualified to hold such positions. Having your family members in your business will help you cut down your expenses, you won't need to place adverts and setup recruitment process to fill some positions as some members of your family will take them up for you, also you can afford to pay them less for the meantime till your business stabilize.

The only problem with having your family members as part of your staff is if you are not strong enough to own your business 100% and let everyone know that you won't tolerate anyone that is performing below expectation, family or not.
 

Peppul

Active member
Well involving families and friends in a business is not something a lot of people will do, especially here in nigeria, the truth is there are a lot of greedy people out there including families and friends, and once you involve them in your busness they will only be thinking of how to gain from your business instead of helping you grow your business. If you have families you trust well it's okay to put them in as long as they are ready to assist you grow your business because it will also benefit them in the future. But if you don't it's best not to, because most times you won't be able to control them and you will always have a soft spot for them and that is not required in a business. So for me I can and cannot depending on how I see them if they are capable or not.
 

Kennysplash

Verified member
Is it ideal to involve families and friends in your business especially when you are just starting up? Do you think they will work harder for you to help you succeed because they will feel invested in your success?
It depends on the family. There are families that will support you and propel you to succeed. They will stand by you and you always see their help and how happy they are for you. But not all families are like that. Some will see you doing something good and will want to bring you down. So you have to know your family well and discern the category they fall into. Not everything you do that you tell them though, and not necessarily every member of the family must know what you are into. You have to apply wisdom.
 

Bookwormlux

Valued Contributor
Is it ideal to involve families and friends in your business especially when you are just starting up? Do you think they will work harder for you to help you succeed because they will feel invested in your success?
Sure, family is bae. You get unconditional support when it is your family members that are helping you achieve something, especially if you were honest with them and made your own personal efforts. It would be very easy for them to support you, but if you ain't making enough efforts to show them how serious you are about achieving your goals, that is when they also would lose interest in helping you.

Family members can help you with money to raise a business, they can also provide you with free services that you would have paid other people to do for you.
 

Doradorwa

Opportunity seeker
I see no reason why your family cannot be part of your new business so far it's amazing you need all the support you can get from people I know she'll have to be your family and your friend before your business associate and your extended colleagues. Your family getting involved in your business it's just like anybody else to me when they ask for service they pay for it because there's an adage that says if family and friends can pay for service rendered to them then the business will grow stronger.... family is family and a friend is a friend and business is business... The concept of bringing them together can never work... there must be a boundary between the both and you as a business owner must be able to define it...
 

Nicklas22

New member
It's very wrong to involve family and friends in your business because because many of family members and friends don't take things serious and they end playing with many things and you know they are family and friends you can't sack them
It's just better not to involve them in your business, if they want to help you they can help by giving you advice and any other support but they shouldn't be allowed in the day to day running of the business
Involving family members in a business is very risky and they might end up not too serious about things in the work place
Just that the advantage of involving family and friends in a business is that some of them might be receiving a lesser amount of salary than a normal employee.
 

Ephy

Active member
Is it ideal to involve families and friends in your business especially when you are just starting up? Do you think they will work harder for you to help you succeed because they will feel invested in your success?
The idea of involving friends and family in your business is not that bad but you should always be careful cause slightly mistake can make you regret. One business man told me that a good business is not done with family or friends but strangers. I didn't believe this but one day I realized whatever he told me was right. Family or friends are the first one's to discourage you with a lot of words that the business will not work out. As to my first experience with online marketing, everyone from my family and friends not even one person supported me all of them always said that it will never work and it's just scam and am wasting my time but luckily enough things didn't work out that much as I expected but they saw me earning some money. They now came to asked for money but not to introduce them into the business. From this experience I learnt that few family members or friends will support you when you have nothing but once you have succeeded all the family members and friends will now all be on your neck so that you can share with them what you gain but not introduce them to the business. So you should always be careful when dealing with them into your business.
 

Tehilah27

New member
Is it ideal to involve families and friends in your business especially when you are just starting up? Do you think they will work harder for you to help you succeed because they will feel invested in your success?
 
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Yugocean

Valued Contributor
It may be right and wrong to add family members and friends to your business, one must first take care of his successor, the successor should be with him at all costs so that he learns all aspects of the business, and the successor is always the family member Happens, we have children who are family. Others can add relatives, but only like employees, or like investors who financially support it; nobody outside family should have authority to take over business, this is must to compel.
 

Seyesystem

Active member
There is nothing wrong in employing members of the family in business since he or her is qualified for the work.But In family business there must be legal documentations of how the business will operate.In business it's good to separate family from business and even in business concept the owner is separated from the business. For any business to be successful you must separate yourself and family from the business. If the owner and his family are not separated from the business there is tendency of the business to failed. There must be boundaries in business. Business is business and family is family. Doing business that involved family or friends you have to give them the proper orientation that this is business outside business you can continue your family affairs.
 

Corzhens

Member
Nepotism is a word that is negative against working with family members. But I believe that some families have ideal relationship among the members so it would be fine. However it is generally frowned upon when a company is managed by siblings or even cousins.
 

GuestHu

New member
They can be helpful if they treat you professionally and consider your business a serious matter. It really depends on an established agreement with them. If they agreed to treat you with respect and do their duty responsibly, then your business will prosper.
 
I strongly encourage you to think about this ugly feeling and follow your gut before investing or doing business with a close friend or relative. This standard practice has two important benefits: In the beginning, it takes emotion out of the equation and helps you to focus on the merits of the opportunity. On the backend, when things get nasty or go bad, you will not hesitate to aggressively protect your interests and go to court if necessary.
 

Jelineex

Active member
I think it's not good to incorporate the members of your family or friends on business. Because it might cause conflict and personal interest on later times. Personal relationship will be compromise. In some instance they are abusive or irresponsible on their responsibilities or duties. If you reprimand them of their negligence they'll hate you for that. ( Ha.Ha.Ha ) It's a big disappointment.
 

Henrywrites

New member
It is not ideal, in my opinion, to involve your family and friends at the initial stage of your business. The reason is that your business is still growing at that point and you will need a lot of people that you can hold accountable when things go wrong. Sadly, in many cases, you won't be able to arrest or ask the police to prosecute your family members. This makes it not pretty okay to involve them when you are starting your business, but it is okay to do so when your business has a solid foundation.
 

Kendy

Verified member
Involving family and friends in business is not an easy venture. It is best to open two business and tender one for the family to run a d you run your own separately. Business is not a place where you compromise although there are still some business that thrive when operated an a family level but I do not support this for myself. In your personal business, when once you partner with an acquaintance, then you should always remain open-minded that anything is uncertain and challenges will definitely occur in the short or long run. I am not outrightly stating that it is sacrilegious to venture into business with family members, my point is that, if you are operating a personal business, then keep family out of but if it is a joint family partnership, then you can go ahead.

You can run or conduct a research to ascertain how many business ventures were able to thrive with the inclusion of family members and you would see that the percentage would be low compared to the ones that was operated on an individual level or a third-party that is not related by blood. Business should always be devoid of sentiments, affiliations and emotional attachments if it hopes to operate on sustainability.
 

Alexandoy

VIP Contributor
In the olden times the so called family business was very popular. One proof of that is the trade or business name that includes the word "sons" like Smith and Sons as proclaimed by the billboard. Most of the Chinese business owners here have a family business where the patriarch is the head and the children are the supervisors of managers. The richest family here has varied business interests and all those are controlled by the family, that is the father and the children.

I don't see anything wrong when you include the family members in the business as long as everyone will be working for the good of the business. Sometimes a family member is there for the freebies only and he would depend on the siblings to work hard. That kind of family member is a liability to the business. With friends, the same is applicable that when a friend is not beneficial to the company anymore then he should be removed.
 
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