How to do business with family

Want to hear the full conversation? Listen to the Journey To Legacy podcast Episode 157 with Rob Ferguson for even more insights and stories from his remarkable entrepreneurial journey.

How to Run a Family Business Without Ruining Relationships

Starting a business with someone you love can sound like the best idea in the world or the fastest way to ruin Sunday lunch.

You trust each other. Then business begins, the lines blur, and a cash flow conversation feels like personal criticism.

So, can a family business or spouse-run business actually work?

Yes, but love and trust are not a business structure. You still need clear roles, decision-making authority, fair pay, performance standards, and a plan for conflict.

Family business advisor Rob Ferguson shared this lesson on the Journey To Legacy Podcast. After leading a business generating more than $400 million in annual revenue and turning around a 100-year-old company involving 17 cousins, Rob now helps family businesses last.

The problem is not family. It is unclear expectations.

In typical companies, employees receive defined roles and standards. Families often leave these details unspoken because everyone assumes they will “figure it out.”

That is where friction begins.

Your spouse expects every decision to be shared. Your sibling believes ownership gives them authority everywhere. Your child assumes joining guarantees a future leadership position.

FamilyBusiness.org explains that governance determines how decisions are made, who has authority, and how disagreements are resolved. That structure protects the relationships behind the business.

Family-first business or business-first family?

Rob asks every family business one important question:

Do you want to be a family-first business or a business-first family?

A family-first business prioritizes the family’s immediate needs, perhaps creating a job for a relative or keeping someone in a role to avoid conflict.

A business-first family hires the best person for each position. Relatives must be qualified, earn market-related pay, and complete the same performance reviews as everyone else.

Neither is automatically wrong. Rob’s company began family-first because he needed a job. Later, he introduced systems and employees so it could grow beyond him.

Can you run a business with your spouse?

Yes, but your marriage does not automatically define your working relationship.

Rob learned this when his wife joined his business. By day’s end, he had fired her. They had never agreed on their roles or decision-making. The job failed, although their 46-year marriage did not.

Before starting a business with your spouse or family member, decide:

• Who is responsible for each part of the business?

• Who has the final say in each area?

• How will salaries and profits be divided?

• How will performance be reviewed?

• What happens when you disagree?

• What happens if one person wants or needs to leave?

You also need a continuity plan for illness or injury. Our article on what happens when one spouse can no longer manage the finances explains why both partners need the full financial picture before a crisis.

Structure protects the relationship

The goal is not to remove the heart from a family business. It is to stop the business from consuming the relationships it was created to support.

Clear roles reduce resentment. Defined authority stops every decision from becoming a family vote. Fair standards earn employees’ respect. Succession plans give the next generation an opportunity to lead, not an automatic title.

Family can be one of a business’s greatest strengths when handled well. The real question is whether you have built a company strong enough to carry the expectations placed on it.

Listen to Rob Ferguson’s full conversation on the Journey To Legacy Podcast, learn more about his work through Ferguson Alliance, or explore more lessons for purpose-driven entrepreneurs on the Journey To Legacy website.

TRANSCRIPTS:

WAYNE:
Rob Ferguson spent thirty years climbing the ladder to become CEO of a four hundred million dollar company before he left to turn around a one hundred-year-old family business, ultimately selling it for over a hundred million dollars. It sounds good, right? He had the house, the Cadillac, the swimming pool. He had won. But when he looked around at the top rung he had reached, he realized something that changed everything. There was always just more ladder left to climb. The top didn't exist. So at fifty years old, Rob decided to step off the ladder and make big change happen.

He started looking at what he'd actually built, what he'd actually learned, and noticed something most business leaders miss entirely. Family businesses create seventy-eight percent of all new jobs in America. They're the growth engine of our economy, and yet the majority are failing because nobody, and I mean nobody, is having the hard conversations about what should come first, the family or the business. My guest today is none other than Rob Ferguson, founder and president of Ferguson Alliance, and he has spent the last sixteen years figuring out how to help family businesses succeed for the long term, both professionally and personally.

In this episode, we explore how your purpose evolves over a lifetime, why every business should start as family first, but needs to evolve to business first if it's going to scale, and also the governance framework that saves relationships while building real legacy. If you've ever wondered whether working with family or a partner is a bad idea, get ready. In today's interview, Rob answers it all. Thanks so much for your time. It's, it really is appreciated. Why don't you kick us off? Tell everybody that's not familiar with you all what you're working on, and maybe a little bit like why they should be listening to you today?

ROB:
Okay. Wayne, first of all, thanks for having me on your podcast. I really appreciate the invitation to talk to some of your entrepreneurs listening. I think what your listeners might find interesting is I, too, took a path of coming out of corporate into being an entrepreneur. I think I've always been an entrepreneur. I grew up in a family of business guys. My grandfathers and my father were all independent business entrepreneurs. And I started my first business like a lot of kids back in the '60s and '70s, cutting lawns, mowing lawns. And I was very successful at that as a young pup.

And by the time I made it to my senior year in high school, I actually had a business with 20 employees. I was... I graduated from cutting lawns to cleaning residential new construction sites. Back in the '70s, Dallas was really growing the suburbs, and I was cleaning maybe, I don't know, five or six homes a week and doing work for some contractors, and then they asked if I could do some landscaping and I, you know, was like any entrepreneur, "Yeah, I can do that, too." And so I started landscaping. And so by the time I was a senior in high school, I was making money sitting in class as the crews were out there getting their work done.

And I had made a decision. I was just gonna get out of high school and just keep on going. And I had some mentors, and I think every entrepreneur will tell you that there's pivotal moments in their cycle, and it's usually around a mentor somewhere along there. And so I've been very fortunate and blessed to have some, several great mentors. And I had this one gentleman, he was a mentor of mine. He was a supplier for me. And he told me, he said, "Rob, you need to go to college." And I said, "No, I... Look at all this money I'm making.

I... what am I gonna learn at college?" He said, "Let me tell you." And I really looked up to this guy, and the reason why I looked up to this guy was for the following reasons. One, he had a Cadillac. Two, he had a two-story house and a swimming pool. I thought he was living the cat's meow. That's what I said... His name was Gary. I said, "Gary, my aspiration is to have a Cadillac, have a two-story house, and have a swimming pool. You got it. I wanna get it." And he said, "Let me tell you." He said, "My parents died in a car accident when I was 14.

I quit school, and I took over this business at the age of 14, and I have been grinding and grinding to get to where I am today, and I'm still grinding." He said, "Rob, if you go to college, it's only gonna take four years of your life, but you will be ahead of me by at least 20 years." And so I was thinking, "Oh, okay. I can beat Gary. I can get even further down the road." So I didn't have the money. The family really didn't have the money. And so I said, "Let me figure out how I'm gonna do this." So I told this story to my high school teacher. He was an architecture teacher, and he had a paint contracting business on the side.

So he said, "Let me buy your business." I said, "Awesome. Let's do that." So that was my first transaction. I think I was barely 18, and he bought my business, and that got me into college. I only applied to one school. It was Texas A&M. And my high school teacher didn't pay me enough for all four years, but I at least got, I think it might have been three semesters, maybe four. Back then, college wasn't that expensive, but it paid for everything, living expenses, everything. So I joined the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M, signed a contract with the Army so they could pay the rest.

So I figured out how to finance, like as an entrepreneur, how am I gonna finance this education that's gonna get me ahead of Gary so I can have my Cadillac and two-story house and swimming pool? And so anyway, I think this is my story that hopefully your listeners might find interesting.

WAYNE:
Rob, I'm finding it super interesting already, right? Coming from a background of family business, right? You said that your family was a lot of entrepreneurs, and then starting your own company so young, selling your first business as, at 18. I don't see very many people that can say that, and so that's really great. Do you think your parents... Or how did they maybe raise you differently that you decide to go that direction, to think that way?

ROB:
It was very important to my parents that each of us was independent. At a very early age, they would teach us about money. I remember it was very important to my dad that, I can't remember how old we were when we got our first checking account, but we were young. We were very young. Maybe 12, something like that. And so he taught us how to manage money, how to balance a checkbook. This was back when you had to do it long-handed. How to write checks, how to pay your own bills, how to save money for church, things like that. He just really instilled that discipline and Dad liked to trade stocks and he would help me do that.

On Saturday mornings, we'd sit down and we had these green bar graphs sheets, and we would... My job was to graph out how the different stocks were performing. It sparked my interest. And I think Mom came from a point of, as kids, we always had to be productive. So if we were sitting around watching cartoons, we were we were gonna get in trouble 'cause we weren't doing something. So there's a good and a bad of it, right? That kept us productive, but also as a young kid, you just figured out ways to look productive so you could still watch the cartoons or go do whatever you wanted to do.

But I think it was that ethos that my family created of being independent, being good financial stewards, and having a purpose all of that probably drove me

WAYNE:
Nice. Nice. Thanks for sharing that, Rob. You know, I think that's actually really great advice for... I'd say a lot of my listeners are these entrepreneurs, late 30s, early 40s, and so they also have young kids. And so understanding some tips to start early to maybe mold them into mentor-type figures, like how you saw Gary, Might be seeing you as like, "Oh, wow, okay.

This is a nice tip." Funny enough, and if everybody goes back a couple episodes in Journey to Legacy, my previous guest, Rebecca Irey, she told me almost the exact same story, Rob, where her dad traded stocks and she would sit with the sheets, helping him, like, mark and, like, see which stocks they would trade the next day, which is super interesting. Okay, and so you grew up, entrepreneur, sold your first business, college, army, and then what did that lead to? What are you working on today?

ROB:
Then that took me into my first job at a large conglomerate called Weyerhaeuser, and so I had a very fast career inside an institutionalized business. Even though Weyerhaeuser is a family business, family-owned business, but mm-hmm. it's a big mega business. And anyway, my career for 30 years was leading businesses, leading corporate businesses. Myself and four other managers spun a business out of Weyerhaeuser. This management team grew it and took it public. And so we had several transactions along the way. And so that was kinda one career that I had where I was the CEO of that business.

It was a nice little 400-plus million dollar business. And then the next business was a 100-year-old family business, fifth generation, 17 cousins. It was a hot mess, and I came in as the first non-family member to turn the business around. So I had a story as a leader of growth and then a leader of turnarounds. I fixed that business and then sold it. And so I, that was my life for 30 years, kinda career growing, fixing businesses, and that's where I thought I would continue.

And I was introduced to family businesses once again 30 years later, where I was invited to sit on a board of directors of another 100-year-old family business, probably, I can't remember, 50 or 70 shareholders, family member shareholders, that was wildly successful. So I was the CEO of a turnaround organization, 100 years old, 17 cousins, hot mess. At the same time sitting on the board of directors of another 100-year-old family business, highly functional, very professional, 50 to 75 shareholders doing very well. So it was a tale of two cities for me, and that's where I started becoming a student of family businesses.

Why was this family business not successful, and why is this one so successful? And it just intrigued me to learn that. And quite honestly, I started falling in love with family business from the perspective as I started comparing family businesses to non-family businesses, and I learned some things. And I learned things that, family businesses tend to live longer than non-family businesses. Family businesses contribute more to philanthropy in the United States than non-family businesses. Family businesses are the number one employer. In fact, two years ago they created 78% of all new jobs in the United States.

So I learned that family businesses are the growth engine of our economy. I learned that they were the drivers of philanthropy. I learned that they are the innovators. If you think about all the major innovations that have occurred over the last three decades, startups and family businesses in the garage, right? And so I realized this is a real important segment that I've never paid attention to. And so today so again, 16 years ago, I needed a job. I had basically sold my turnaround. I fixed the company, sold it, now I needed a job. And I thought I was gonna go maybe buy a business or something like that.

And I worked with a private equity firm for a year. I gave myself 12 months, let's go buy one, and it didn't work out. So the end of the 12 months happens, it was around Christmas, and my wife says, "When are you gonna go get a job?" I said, "I don't know." She said, "You need to decide to do something." And so I did make my decision there. I said, "Okay I am gonna be a consultant." And so I started my business 16 years ago helping family businesses. Now, I had no idea how to start an advisory consulting practice. I didn't even know how to be an advisory consultant 'cause I had been a business leader, not a consultant.

And I didn't even know how to get started. And the only motivation that I had was I needed a job. So that's how I got started into it

WAYNE:
Yeah. I'm really excited to dissect almost every piece of this puzzle, Rob, right? 'Cause leading a $400 million company as a CEO, right? And then pivoting and restructuring a 100-year-old family business run by 17 cousins. I wanna know how you got a single word in. Like, how did they let you come in and help to restructure it to be able to sell that company as well, and then go on to figure out, like, how impactful family-owned businesses actually are, especially in the US, and then getting to really focus in on specifically helping with consulting and advising for this segment.

And 16 years later, you guys are running stronger than ever which is really wonderful. And so take me back a little bit. Let's keep going with this story. How did you end up as the CEO for this, I mean, a $400 million organization? I can't imagine this was your first job out of the military. Or like, how did this happen?

ROB:
So it was a business that grew. So when I joined the Weyerhaeuser company, which at the time I think they were $10 billion, I was inside of a small business inside of a division called the Specialty Products Division. So the Specialty Products Division, I can't remember, it was $200 or $300 million in size, and the business I was in did about $25 or $30 million, okay, of annual revenue. So that's where I was. And then it was when Weyerhaeuser decided to divest itself of the Specialty Products Division, that meant every business in there was being sold.

So it was, at that point in time, I was the youngest of the five managers to participate in a leveraged management buyout, and I didn't even know what that was, and I didn't have any money. But they said, "Look, we want you to partner with us, and let's buy this $30 million business." And of course, I don't know. I don't... Was I 30? Maybe. I don't even know if I was 30. I said, "Yeah, let's do it." And then they said, "Oh you gotta write a check." And I went, "Oh." This is a trait of entrepreneurs, right? They find a way. So I did what any red-blooded American would do. I went and asked my father.

And I had married his only child, his daughter, and so I remember this meeting very clearly. I went to him and asked. He was a teacher, and I said, "Hey, can I have your teacher's retirement just for a little bit? Would you lend that to me, and I would pay it back to you maybe in five or six years?" He said, "Sure." Yeah, exactly. So first of all, now that I know it, I would never have asked him that, right? And I can't believe he even did it, right? But he did. And so that's what started, right? I just, entrepreneurs are resilient, right? They find a way. They look for a path and so I did.

And so that's when that management team we bought that company. We got a VC out of Canada to help sponsor us 'cause none of us could afford all of that. So we got a VC to help sponsor us. We grew it to about 100 million over a four- or five-year period, and then we sold it to a private equity firm. We grew it again and then took it public, and then that's how that all worked. And then I wasn't the CEO during that entire time. I think when I first started, I was their sales manager, then general manager of a facility, and then a divisional president, and then an operations manager, and then eventually the CEO.

So I had this 25-year career inside of that one business. That's how all of that occurred.

WAYNE:
Sure. Okay. You know, something that's very clear to me here is your ability to figure things out, right? That it's like you hadn't done a lot of this before, but when the opportunity arose, you said, "Hmm, okay, how can I make that happen?" You were first running a lawn mowing business, and then you pivoted, right? And then it was like, "Well, can you do landscaping?" "Sure, I can figure that out." And it's like, okay, well now you decide to go to college. "I can't pay for it.

Let me figure it out." So on and so forth, all the way while you guys then purchased this business, grew it, and now you've said a couple times like that is what entrepreneurs do. Is there a way, or how can people develop this skill? As I said, a lot of my audience are new entrepreneurs. Maybe they don't... They've never been in a family business. Their parents didn't teach them these things. So how can they start to really figure out and practice this skill, almost like jumping before they're ready?

ROB:
It's a reframe of your mindset. The reframe is: turbulence is opportunity. Friction provides greatness. So when you... Look, I'm a big believer that life is never engineered to be easy, but if we can learn how to live easy in life we've conquered the things that stop people from finding a way. So entrepreneurs and leaders, during turbulent times need to stay calm and carry on, and with that reframe of that mindset, that produces resilience, and it's resilience which is one of the core characteristics of an effective leader or entrepreneur. It is critically important to develop that resilience, and granted, it's not for the weak stomach.

It's not roses, unicorns, and butterflies. It takes time, but I think getting grounded into a purpose I think really helps, and clarity as to where you're going and why you're going there, that's where the purpose comes from. That really helps you stay calm and carry on.

WAYNE:
Nice. Wow, this is great. There's a lot of really amazing quotes here, Rob. I can only guess, if we were to Google your name, how many quotes cards pop up. But so resilience, I mean, starting out by reframing your mindset here, right? Looking at turbulence, difficult times truly as opportunity, and then you steered it all the way here into figuring out your purpose and getting really clear. I mean, opportunities today are greater than ever. How does one... And it's a tough question that we probably need hours to answer, but it's like, where do we begin to figure out our purpose, getting really clear, and then honing in on that purpose?

'Cause then once you have your purpose figured out, right, then it's easier to go through the turbulent times, to be resilient, to keep moving forward?

ROB:
Let's see. I'm 69 years old, and, that takes some time, and it changes. But I will tell you, even at my early stage my purpose was to have a Cadillac, a two-story house, and a swimming pool. So there was some purpose there. It was driven, but it was very much identity-based purpose, and it was purpose for an 18-year-old kid, right? And so I... and that was my North Star. I was just gonna figure that out. So I held onto that North Star because remember I wanted to beat my mentor, Gary. I wanted to do it before he did, all right? And then, and then I wanted to continue to excel and exceed.

So I had these purposes, but I would have to say they were very internal and identity-based. It was... And it was good. Eventually, my purpose became I wanted to be a general manager. Oh, now I wanna be a CEO. So I was climbing this ladder, and that, my purpose was to get to the top of the ladder. And when I got to the top of the ladder, guess what I found?

WAYNE:
Another ladder.

ROB:
More ladder. Exactly, more ladder. So it was then, and I probably was 50 then, I went, "Wait a minute, there's gotta be a bigger, better purpose than more ladder." So that's when I got grounded. I got off the ladder and got on the ground, and then I found my purpose in helping family businesses because I believe, we... You all talk about legacy on your podcast. I believe that if any legacy I can leave, if I can help these family businesses live longer, be more prosperous so they can drive our economic growth engine, so they can contribute more philanthropy, so they can create more innovation, so they can hire more employees that, I feel...

I can't send a man to the moon. I can't invent some miraculous cure for cancer. But if I can do that, if I can make a small difference in that corner of the world, then I believe I was purposeful for the greater good as opposed to purposeful for my ladder.

WAYNE:
Mm. Sure. Nice. And Rob, let me just say, with the amount of things that you have figured out in your life and pivots you've made, there's no doubt in my mind that if you wanted to get to the moon, if you really were set on it, if you really need to find that cure for cancer, you would find a way. But purpose here is interesting. One thing that I noted is that, you know, purpose changes, Your purpose earlier was, and it might sound funny, but it's to get the Cadillac, to get the two-story house with a swimming pool. That's fine. That's great, right? That is your North Star. That was your current North Star to drive you forward.

Life changes, you evolve, and then you can change your purpose, right? Don't feel pressured, everybody, that today you think, "Oh, I need to figure out my life's purpose, this end-all be-all," you don't know where you're gonna be in five years or 10 or 20. So find what drives you today, right? Get clear on that, and then later on down the road, you can change it, right? Or did I misunderstand?

ROB:
Yep, you got it. That's it.

WAYNE:
Nice. Love it. Well, Rob, let's dive a little bit here into family businesses, 'cause I'm really curious, and I wanna start out with the concept that I hear pretty often. People say that it's, it's a bad idea to work with family or to work with a spouse. Like, why do you think that is? Or where are people going wrong?

ROB:
Oh my goodness. Family business isn't for everybody, obviously, but yeah where people go wrong is they get into a family business without rules. You have to establish what are the rules of the game? How are we going to govern our business? What are the roles that we're gonna have? And so we have to get into that and where I think a lot of family businesses lose track of purpose is in their whole business philosophy. When we start to work with a family business, we ask them one simple question, which is very challenging for them to answer, and that is the following: Do you want to be a family first business or a business first family?

And there isn't a right answer or a wrong answer, a good answer, a bad answer, but it needs to be answered. You can't be both, and you have to define what that is. And what I've learned over time is that business first families will break the odds of succession. In other words we know that trying to go from a first generation to a second generation has about a 70% failure rate. We know that. The statistics are out there. We know to go to third generation, only 4% can do that. So the odds are against you. And the reason is because most of the family businesses that struggle are family first businesses.

Not good, not bad, but they're gonna-- family first businesses are gonna have a very difficult time transitioning to the next generation. Why? Because a family first business, by definition, generally speaking, is you're going to put the needs of the family ahead of the needs or wants of a business. And so that means you gotta hire your aunt to be your bookkeeper who can't balance her own checkbook. It means your brother, you're gonna pay him higher than market wages because he needs it. So you're putting the family first ahead of the business, and that's okay. I'm not passing judgment. And there, and believe me, I'm talking in general terms.

There's a lot of successful family first businesses, but I will tell you they're probably not beyond second generation, right? And the reason is that the family's growing, right? So more family needs are growing. Every generation, you got more and more, and so it's really hard. Flip that around. A business-first family. We're gonna put the needs of the business ahead of the wants of the family because the family realizes that if we take care of the business, it's gonna take care of us. And then if we put the definitions in there, kind of the rules, the governance rules of what does that mean?

It means that we're gonna have rules of how we hire family members to be employees. We're gonna have rules for how we put a board of directors together, who can and cannot be on that board. So we build those governance standards in there and then that's how we break the odds of success in generational succession.

WAYNE:
Beautiful. Okay, so this concept of, you know, it's a bad idea to work with your family, to work with a spouse. It's because they don't have clear rules and roles established early on. I mean, even... Is this necessary or is it recommended for even like a startup that's a brand new idea or just getting rolling? Like how early should these rules, roles, governance standards be put in place?

ROB:
Day one, the day you launch your business. So I'll just tell you a true story here. I fired my wife. My secretary... Back then in those days, we could have secretaries. I don't think we have secretaries anymore. But I had, my secretary was pregnant, and she had to leave for maternity leave, and so I needed somebody to fill the slot. My wife wasn't employed at the time. She said, "Oh, I'll do it." And I said, "Eh, I'm not so sure." "Yeah no, I'll do it." I said, "Okay good. Okay, that sounds great." So she said, "Yeah, it'll be fun. We're gonna get to ride to work together, we can have lunch together," and all this kind of stuff.

And I'm thinking, "Okay let's see how that works." I think it was by lunchtime I was... I might have fired her at lunchtime, I'm not really sure. But the reason is I would go in and just say, "Hey, look, I need you to do these three things." And she would go, "Why?" I said, "No, that's not your job is to say, 'Yeah, okay, I'll get those done.'" But she said, "Why are you doing it?" Or she... anyway, the point being was is it didn't work because we didn't establish kind of the rules. We didn't establish what's your role, what's my role, what's your level of authority, what's my level of authority, how are we gonna make decisions around here.

None of that was established, and so I think it was probably at the end of the day. But it, just it didn't work. And we're still married. We've been married for 46 years, so it's still working out good. So that's just a small example of by not setting the rules of the game early on, that's when you get the friction.

WAYNE:
Sure. Wow. Okay. Love that. Good to know. How funny is that, Rob? He's saying, "Well, here's an example. I fired my wife." Like, those roles, responsibilities clearly from day one, I think is really this key. I like it a lot. And then this interesting concept of family first business versus business first family. And so in a business first family, I mean, where... Let me think how to pose this question. I'm curious of, you know, when do you start to hire and expand outside of just the family, right? 'Cause it can't be just only comprised of family. And then, like, does it then change the dynamic? It's no longer a family business.

How does that work, or where does that line get drawn of being able to expand outside?

ROB:
When you make the declaration of your business philosophy, whichever it is, let's say you've declared, "We've slapped the table, we are a business-first family." That concrete is set in stone. Then every decision from there, who I hire, starts from there. So you're not... The question of do I hire family or not, that never comes up anymore. Now it's simply: I need to hire the best person for the job. You see what I'm saying? So you take that completely off the table.

If the family member is the best qualified person for that job, and is willing to work at that job at market wages, and is willing to go through a performance review with their supervisor just like every other employee, then awesome, let's make it happen. But if they're not willing to do that or if they're not the best person, you don't even think about them. You wouldn't think about them. You think about them as family, you don't think about them as an employee.

WAYNE:
Well said. Nice. Well I like that a lot, right? It's like you are putting in the governance, the rules are there. We're hiring based off of who would be best for this role, meaning just like a normal employee at any company, there will be performance reviews, and if you're not the best, it's nothing personal. It's just business. Easy as that, right?

ROB:
That's exactly right. So I'll tell you another story. My son has been a college football coach for 15 years. He's 38, I think. Hopefully I got that right. And he decided to leave coaching after a 15-year career as a college football coach because he has a new baby, and the first six months of that baby's life, he never saw the baby, right? 'Cause a coaching career is a grind. So anyway, so I said, "Hey come on, move back down here with Mom and I until you figure things out." And then I said, "Hey, why don't... You wanna work for me?" And he said, "Yeah, I'll work with you. What do I do?" And so anyway, I said let's see how it works.

I'm gonna... You're not gonna get to start at the top. You gotta kinda learn your way up." He said, "Sure, sounds good." But this is a guy who is... He's got two master's degrees almost a third one, and he's very smart. He's got his MBA. So I knew he would do well, but I started him at the bottom and gave him a title of business development associate. When he got this business card, he goes, "Wow, that's an awesome title." "Thanks." And then he goes out, and he starts getting out into the world and doing networking. And I remember about three months later, he comes back, he says, "Hey, I finally figured out you didn't make that title up.

That's a real title." I said, "Yeah." And I learned that associate is at the same level or lower than a GA in football." And I said, "Yep, that's about right. Now go get my dry cleaning." And same thing, right? I'm having to drink my Kool-Aid as well. I never thought I'd have my son working with me in the business. But it's been great, but again, he's having to start at the bottom and learn his way up.

WAYNE:
Hmm. And so Rob, if I had to guess, right? You all are running as a business-first family, right?

ROB:
Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. That's right. Absolutely.

WAYNE:
Oh, this is all great. I really appreciate it already for sharing with me. I feel like we can go so deep, but we mentioned legacy a little bit earlier. I'm curious to you, right? Because legacy a lot of times people think of it's just finances, and maybe that's the case for you as well. But define for us what is legacy, and maybe what is the legacy that you're busy working to create?

ROB:
Everybody has their own definition of legacy. I, to me, legacy is the purpose that you fulfilled and left some sort of an enduring mark on the world, in some corner of the world. That's kinda how I see it, and the legacy I'm working towards, or purpose as I said earlier, is just to help as many family businesses as I can become more prosperous and live longer, be able to make more contributions to the greater good beyond just the family or the business. So that's really what it is. Just trying to make a little difference here.

WAYNE:
Make your little difference. And I think you're doing it in a really amazing way, Rob, because I like to think a lot of times about what I call the ripple effect. What you're doing and how you're helping businesses helps more people, who are then able to help more and more. That truly creates a lasting legacy that goes so far beyond yourself. It's, it's gonna be truly immeasurable.

ROB:
Yeah. Thank you. We'll see what happens, but we'll know. We'll know. One thing I wanna come back and talk about, the family first. There is a bit of a nuance here, the family first, business first. 'Cause you told me early on before you started the recording that you have a lot of new entrepreneurs. Most businesses, in fact even mine, started off as a family first business, and that's very appropriate depending upon where you are in your life cycle. So if you remember, I needed a job. Remember my wife came and said, "Hey, what are you gonna do?

What are you gonna get..." "Okay, I'm gonna create me a job." So that was definitely a family first business. That's how I was putting groceries on the table. And so I call that Ferguson Alliance 0.0. It's where I was learning how to be a consultant. I was learning how to transition from being a CEO, who was leading from position and command, to now being an advisor consultant that's leading from influence and experience and knowledge. So that was a big transition. So that was Ferguson Alliance 0.0, definitely family first business. Then, right around COVID is when I really got the hankering to build a business. I wanted to build again.

I wanted to be an entrepreneur, so I wanted to do that with partners. I talked to two partners. One was 30 years younger than me, and the other one was 15 years younger than me. I thought, "Oh, this is gonna be awesome. We're gonna partner together. I love these guys. Gonna be a lot of fun." COVID came, and the youngsters said, "This is absolutely the wrong time to start a business." And I said, "No, this is the absolute best time," right? Adversity brings opportunity. So I did it on my own anyway. So that's when Ferguson 1.0 started and that's when we started moving to a business first family, and we started putting in operating systems.

We started hiring employees. We started putting in structure. And so that was six years ago, and now we're just getting ready to launch Ferguson Alliance 2.0, which asks: can we grow this with and through others? So we'll see how that story turns out.

WAYNE:
Nice. Thanks for bringing that back up, Rob. As you mentioned at the very beginning, family first business versus business first family. You're not saying that either is right or wrong, and what a great distinction here that it can change, right? For you personally, like you needed to start a business to find a job for your family, to put your family first, then as it evolved, you realized and decided, "You know what? Okay, I want to grow the business, put the business first so that it can grow, it can expand, and thus provide for our family." So again, that's a really great distinction.

Interestingly enough, similar to that idea of purpose, this can change throughout your life and career as well.

ROB:
Yeah, and that's what life's all about, right? We have to learn how to deal with change. We have to embrace change and look at change as creating opportunities and not resist or fight it. Humans, we don't like change. We don't like change 'cause we're afraid of what the unknown is. But yeah, you think forward, right? People don't like folks who have prophecy and soothsayers and future tellers because we're afraid of it, but then when we think back of some unbelievable miracles that have happened in creation, we look back and we just take that, "Oh yeah, that happened." But before it happened, it was prophecy.

Now that it's happened, it's, yeah it happened. It's fact. So anyway, so I think we have to look at change in a positive way.

WAYNE:
Yeah. That's, that's wonderful. I love it. Rob, if people wanna learn more about you and about Ferguson Alliance, where's the best place for them to go?

ROB:
Yeah, so go to our website. We got a really cool website. It's full of knowledge and information. It's called ferguson-alliance.com. There's our toll-free numbers there. We have an email address that'll eventually work the way over to me. I'm also on LinkedIn, Rob Ferguson Alliance. You can find me on LinkedIn. So we got a lot of different ways to reach out and contact us.

WAYNE:
Yeah. Rob, thank you so much. I appreciate it. We'll link to everything down below. And my last question for you here, right? Your mentor, right, advised you to go to college. Was it a good decision, and did you eventually beat Gary?

ROB:
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it was a great decision. I saw Gary probably 20 years later and yeah. Yeah. I had the house and the swimming pool and the Cadillac. That all probably came true, but I will say Gary was still very happy and he was still a great mentor and have always had a lot of respect for him.

WAYNE:
Wonderful. Wonderful. Rob, thanks again, my friend. I really appreciate it.

ROB:
Thanks for having me, Wayne. Have a great evening.

WAYNE:
And that's a wrap. Thanks for tuning in today, everyone. One thing that Rob said really stuck with me. He said, "Turbulence is opportunity. Friction provides greatness." And what that means for you right now is this: if you're facing friction or turbulence in your business, if things feel hard, that's not a sign you're doing it wrong necessarily. That's a sign you're doing something that matters. Here are my top three things I want you to walk away with today. First, your purpose will evolve. Rob's purpose at 18 was to beat his mentor, Gary, and to get a Cadillac.

And then his purpose at 50 was to help family businesses live longer and contribute to the economy. Both were great and served him equally well. So don't feel pressured to figure out your life's calling right now. Figure out what drives you today. Get clear on that and give yourself permission to evolve later down the road. Second, family first versus business first isn't about choosing one for forever. It's about choosing the right phase for where you are now. Rob's business started family first because he needed a job. And then six years ago, he made the shift to business first so that it could scale. Know which phase you're in and own it.

And my third takeaway, setting rules and roles for your family company from day one prevents a lifetime of friction. Rules, roles, authority, decision-making, even with your spouse, set it early or pay for it later. If you want to go deeper with Rob and learn more about the framework that's helping family businesses break the odds of succession, head to ferguson-alliance.com and explore the resources there. And if any part of this episode spoke specifically to you, please leave us a review. It truly helps get this message in front of people who need it most. We'll see you next week on Journey to Legacy.