Helping Next-Gen Family Entrepreneurs Forge Their Own Paths

Speaker A: We are all very different human beings and I probably did try to maybe be more like my mother in the business because I thought that was the role I should play and that was not successful. You can't be the best version of anyone else. You can be the best version of yourself.

Speaker B: You are listening to the Exploring Family Business podcast brought to you by Mazars. I'm your host, Natalie Wright, head of family business at Mazars uk. And having worked extensively with family businesses for a number of years, I'm keen to support this valuable sector of our society. At M. Mazars, we believe there is nothing more personal than a family business. Every family and every business are unique. So we look forward to sharing knowledge, insights and practical tips for those navigating the unique issues that arise from being in business with family. Now, on with this week's show. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Exploring Family Business podcast. With Mazars, having the opportunity to take over the family business can be a real turning point. It creates a crossroads where many next gen leaders need to decide what their future holds. Should you follow in the footsteps of those who led before you? And do you maintain that status quo because the business has survived well enough to this point? Or is now the time to leave your own mark? And if so, how do you ensure that you stay true to the values that the firm was built on with while scaling the business for growth in your own vision? For many, the pull of the family business on both a personal and professional basis can bring security, but also expectations. So is this an opportunity you really want? Today I'm joined by Kara Macklin, Founder and Chief Disruption Officer at Caram. Cara, a next gen entrepreneur, grew up in a second generation family business in Northern Ireland. At age 8, she started her first self proclaimed unsuccessful business venture, making jewellery from home. But at 15, she was operating her first profitable business, running buses to local nightclubs. With 15 years then spent in various director roles at her family's multimillion pound healthcare and hospitality business, Cara found a true passion for innovation, disrupting the healthcare industry by creating Ireland's first lifestyle care home and implementing a development programme to support the growth of the senior leadership team. But in 2019, having contributed to sizable increase in revenue, with staff numbers more than doubling and with a number of awards under her belt, her biggest personal and professional decision came when she decided to lead the family business, believing her journey could help other next gen family entrepreneurs make a positive impact. So in 2020 she launched her own business, Caram. She founded Caram with one single goal in mind, helping NextGen family entrepreneurs globally innovate and scale to stay ahead and forge their own path. Cara, thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker A: Lovely. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker B: Just, uh, reading through kind of the background of everything that you've achieved just to this point, I guess, reinforces what I'm sure we're going to be picking up on today. That true entrepreneurial spirit that you clearly have a, uh, business at 8 years old. That's an interesting one. Not something we come across very often. How did that go down at school and with your parents?

Speaker A: Well, my parents started the business, so they're entrepreneurs too. And I suppose I knew I was never going to do a traditional job, although my mother was a teacher first and foremost. But my earliest memory of business was being asked at school what did I want to do when I grew up? And I think that was about eight or nine. And I said, well, I'm going to buy and run Tammy girl. Because that was. I love fashion and style and that's obviously what I was going to do. So that growing up in the countryside in Northern Ireland, that wasn't a usual response and I laughed myself. As you're reading that out, the first business, making jewelry, lost money and my mother very nicely took me to lovely shop I like with beads and I would be pretty creative. But the first lesson there is don't depend on family and friends to sustain your business. Because my mother's friends all bought the jewelry. Um, but once they go, it's like, oh, is there anybody actually going to buy this that likes it? And the answer was no. So that was the start and end of that business.

Speaker B: Brilliant. Great takeaway as well. I wonder, kind of how was it at the time, how did you feel about it not being successful? Or was it something that you looked back on at a later point?

Speaker A: Oh, well, I mean, I look back now and laugh. But, you know, the success for me was, you know, getting to buy all these beads and the fact that it was in inverted comm as a business. I probably was bought a lot more beads by my parents than I would have been anyway. So probably was a bit of a success for me in terms of more was spent on the beads than would have been without it.

Speaker B: And do you think then that you were always destined for life in business? I know you kind of alluded to it there, but was it an expectation or kind of from yourself or even family?

Speaker A: I think no, I mean, family very much. You know, do your own thing and, you know, there was no pressure at all to come into the family business or do business. But you know, I, I did the traditional thing in Northern Ireland, went to school, you know, did okay, did pretty well, could have done different things. But you know, when I look back, a lot of the subjects I pick I wanted to study market and I did a business degree. I would say there was no pressure to come into the family business at all. Definitely not. But working now with next gen entrepreneurs and it's probably something we'll come into in terms of mistakes, there probably is an unconscious expectation that no one realizes. So would I have done something else if I was in a different family? I don't think so. I love business. I love the impact it can have. I love the uh, impact on people, on the economy. I love the good it can do, which is very important for me in business. So I can't envisage what else I would have done. But I suppose it is shaped by my upbringing as well.

Speaker B: With then you went to do a degree in marketing, so I'm guessing you brought lots of different skill sets into the family business as well. That may not have had at the time but did you work elsewhere or was it a step straight into the family business at that point?

Speaker A: So my first role, so actually my degree was business and marketing. And um, I again, you know, I'm, I'm such a geek, I say to myself. So I remember at sitting in grammar school listening to a girl older than me talking about working in Marks and Spencer's in the food department. That in those days still are in my view, but certainly in those days Marks and Spencer's were very innovative and in terms of quality they were way ahead of the market in terms of food. So I remember at 14, sitting, thinking, well I'm going to get that placement whenever I go to university. And I did get it. So off I headed at 20 on my own to London thinking, oh well, it's only an hour and a flight. Yeah. 20 years ago, leaving the countryside in Northern Ireland to go to London on your own to work in a big corporate. I couldn't even find the front door of the building when I arrived. So that was a fair culture shock. So I worked there for a year. Um, then after university I traveled for a while. I came into the business later on I took a year out, um, because I got a scholarship to do my MBA and then came back for a few years and then left completely.

Speaker B: You mentioned the unconscious bias before and just thinking obviously you had some time away. Do you feel was that unconscious expectation Sorry. Towards coming in into the business, was it on both sides, not necessarily just one generation?

Speaker A: It's a hard question to answer. Um, in terms of my parents, I suppose I would have to ask them. But you know, I suppose if I think of my father, you know, his view would be like, why would you go and work for someone else when you've got an opportunity here to make this much bigger and better? And he was very much an entrepreneur, you know, left school at 14, didn't really see the value of traditional education and um, never wanted to work for someone else, which I probably didn't either. So, you know, just from a very inadverted common sense approach. Well, why would you go and make someone else's business better and bigger and stronger whenever you can do it in your own family and ultimately you'll be here.

Speaker B: So once you kind of stepped into the family business then um, what was the integration like? Did you feel that there was any conflict from you entering the family business with other uh, employees or with other family members?

Speaker A: Part yeah. So as my mom and dad started the business and I only have one brother, so him and I started in the business on the first day. We very much decided to take different roles in the business. So him and I were never in conflict, we had different skill sets. I wouldn't say there was ever a conflict with staff, but I have no doubt and I would have seen it in the undercurrent that some staff, I mean the first business that I managed at 24 was the oldest business in our group. So a lot of the staff were in their 50s and 60s and 70s actually and they remember me as a five year old child running around and now all of a sudden I'm in. So you know, it's not easy I

Speaker B: suppose for anybody breaking down those barriers sometimes, especially when there's a personal connection.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And you mentioned about skill sets as well. You and your brother had quite different skill sets. Can you just explain a bit more about that and how you found what you both enjoy?

Speaker A: Well, I suppose in the early days in some ways it wasn't really about our skill sets. You know, in any family and next gens listening to this will know that you go into a role that needs done. Um, my first role was we had an office in one of our businesses in terms of finance and operations that needed sorted out and um, it was a bit of a mess. So I went in just to sort out that office for three months because I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do in life. And all of a sudden I was managing this home of 120 staff. I knew I was managing it one day when a member of staff came and asked me something that they would have asked, you know, a manager or a, uh. So was that the right way to do it? I don't know. You know, when I look back now, would there have been M a more formalized, better way to integrate us, but family businesses, we were a lot smaller than were not formal. And I suppose naturally then my brother and I through the business in terms of developing the business further, we leaned into what we were good at. So I would be very focused on the growth of a business. In terms of the people side, I'm not a good HR person. I don't think any entrepreneur is. But I don't believe you grow a business unless you grow people. So, you know, the culture, bringing M in, leadership training, you know, bringing in a lot of the strategic stuff, innovation, I would have a huge passion for which we'll go on to. So I would have done a lot of. My brother would be more the finance side, you know, so he would have developed the business on a financial side and banks and at a strategic level, they allow the business to grow. And so I suppose that was, you know, some ways that we, we kind of separated the rules.

Speaker B: We were speaking with another next gen entrepreneur last week actually, and she was saying similar thing. Her and her sister had quite different natural skill sets and interests, but actually the way they've been able to complement each other and go their own path, but bring things together just within the family business environment that probably wouldn't have been able to necessarily get elsewhere. So I think that's always an interesting dynamic. You mentioned again about innovation and I know that's a real passion of yours. How did you start to really look at that and focus on that within the family business that you were operating in? Because I don't think it's necessarily something that people would have associated with innovation. So I'm interested to know more about that.

Speaker A: Interestingly enough, Natalie, I hate the word innovation. And if I could find another more, you know, real word, I would because I think it's massively overused. But I'm just constantly in any business looking at how do we improve it. So in my view, that is innovation. I get itchy feet. God love my team when I go away for a weekend. They're like, what you're coming back with next? I have the craziest mind in terms of I come up with 5,000 ideas and three might be practical. But my mind is there is nothing that is not doable. Um, so I go to the extremes of how could we turn this upside down. But I suppose in the early days it was very much how do we keep improving this business? So one, to give you one example, one of my roles that I created for myself was group procurement manager. So it's very simple. We had three businesses, each manager in each site. My parents gave their teams a lot of autonomy, um, which was the right thing to do. But by default then they were all buying from different suppliers. And one supplier, for example, was given us three different prices because they didn't know it was one business. So I looked at that and I just thought, well, in my head this is very simple. If you put this together, this should be cheaper. So with no formal training or no procurement anything, my first phone call to our biggest supplier was, look, you don't know this is a group business. If you know you've so much discount in different places, if you give us 20% discount across the board, I won't ring your competitor. And he rang me back 15 minutes later and said, yes, that's no problem. And I went, oh my God, that's like £15,000 we've just saved now. I had to get a lot more sophisticated how I did our procurement. But um, for me there's just always opportunities, you know, and then that transition through. Okay, how do I then look at. And I didn't really realize it was a process I was doing, but I thought, okay, what do we do to take this business to the next level? I believe any business can be world class. What are people all over the world doing? So in the hotel side, when we were developing it, I led the project in terms of how do we take it to a very different level. So we looked uh, at different industries, different places all over the world. So I suppose the experience over years and then when I get into the care home, the lifestyle care home, in terms of disrupting health care in 2017, I now realize a process that I had created. So that's where I then felt, well, that could be used to help other next gen entrepreneurs and either their own family business or to go off and do their own thing. So it probably evolved. You know, I, by default I'm like a magpie. Any conference about disruption, any, you know, all over the world or speakers or, and then combining that with what I say is very old fashioned, simple ways of doing things in a business to make that happen.

Speaker B: Do you feel that the autonomy that you get them from Perhaps being in a family business at times that you wouldn't necessarily get in a more corporate type business has allowed you to explore more of that innovation as well and create those disruptions.

Speaker A: You definitely do. I think in a family business you get a much broader experience. But one of the things, and you know, most of the next gens I work with are disruptors themselves. So hence they, you know, are tied into the scaling and the innovation piece. What you do find though in a family business is there is a challenge for those people within the family business because they, you know, you've generally got. So if it's second generation, for example, um, one of the founders has to be very entrepreneurial, so they've created a business, then they've got another and inverted commas, very entrepreneurial person coming in behind who potentially wants to shake it up, do things a bit different. That causes challenges and it caused challenges for me and our business in terms of the size of it. And so one hand, yes, you get the breadth of experience that you wouldn't get in a corporate. There's autonomy in one way that you wouldn't get in a corporate. But actually you have to remember whoever the most senior person is in a family in the business ultimately has control and say, so if they don't like, you know, the next person come along who wants to do new things and do it a different way, well, then you don't have autonomy. Um, you know, so I think of, uh, people ask me this question often. I think, well, if you're an innovation director in a corporate, would you have more autonomy? I don't know because I've never been there. But you know, I think it's an interesting one. But definitely, you know, our family business is much more flexible, probably more entrepreneurial than a big corporate by the nature of it.

Speaker B: And what got you here isn't necessarily what will take you forward. That's something we talk about a lot in episode one. Alan Frost touched on that. But I guess with so much focus on legacy in family business as well, and the inevitable personal and blood links that you've got when you're working with next gen entrepreneurs, how do you help them find their own path then and their authentic self when it comes to thinking about the future of the business and how they want to lead, especially if the previous generation are still involved?

Speaker A: Um, well, if I take the first bit, which is how do they be their authentic selves? You know, we are all conditioned by our parents. Whether you're in a family business or not, and you layer m On top of that, you go into a family business. So there's more. I don't mean this in a disrespectful or a bad way, but that's just life. Then there's more conditioning. So what you need is someone. And I say to people, and, um, you know, you could argue it's a bit rich in terms of what I do, but you cannot disrupt that thinking and that conditioning of your own unless you've a complete outsider to the business and someone who's skilled to help you do it. So either I still have mentors and coaches in my own business. I've had it my whole life. So that's the first thing you need to do. Um, so to give you an example, if I worked with someone and that was a bit of work we were doing, I would say to them, okay, if I gave you three questions, I might ask them, okay, if this business was gone in the morning, what would you do? I would say, what is your earliest memories as a child in terms of what you wanted to do? Because we go back to. They talk about the years of. Not the seven are the most important. And then that's when we start to adapt to the world, you know, going into teenage years. So when, you know, you really dig back into that, you start to realize there's things that people wanted to do and actually they've given them up or forgot about them. And then I would say, okay, think about jobs or roles you've done in the past. People talk about motivation and that. I'm not really a big fan of motivation. I'm more focused on where do people get energy from? So I say, okay, what are the rules? Or what are the things you've done either in the business, out of the business, or somewhere else that give you massive energy that you could do over and over again? So whether it's in sport, whether it's in their hobby, whether it's in. And those. There's a lot more questions. But those are three questions just to give people something practical in terms of today that will help you in terms of how authentic, um, you should be, or to go back to being authentic. I like that.

Speaker B: Um, reframing. So not what motivates you, where do you get your energy from? It totally pivots kind of how you answer it, doesn't it? And do you find then once you start asking those questions, that as people are thinking beyond kind of the here and now, and actually, as you say, going back to what did the previously perhaps have in mind, that they'd want to do what does give them that energy, Are they able to extract that more away from thinking about family expectations and think more about what they want to achieve as an individual?

Speaker A: They are. And, um, you start to open up your mind in terms of not just the business, but what other things. And I suppose the biggest. Well, is it the biggest mistake? One of the mistakes we make in a family business is we try to do it the way our parents did it. And I don't mean that there are certain parts of any business that are absolutely critical never to lose. And you talked about the legacy. So again, that takes work with someone in terms of what is the real core and heartbeat of this business. Um, for me, there's parts of culture there. There's, you know, so for example, our, you know, we were in hospitality and healthcare, but one of our cores that we were very strong at, because my dad's a builder, is our buildings were amazing. Our customer service and our experience was amazing. Our sales and marketing was not strong and, you know, wasn't as strong as some of our competitors. But because the first two were so strong, we live in a, you know, Northern Ireland small place. Our sales and market didn't have to be. Now, that's not to say going forward, that business doesn't have to be much stronger because now we've got online, now we've got people coming from all over the world. But you have to look at what are the two or three really core things in the business. And then firstly, as you know, I had written that in my notes. Actually, the question you asked me first thing is, what got you here won't get you there. So actually, the way any generation before you did it is not the right way for you to do it because the business is not going to survive. And, um, the second way, we are all very different human beings. And I probably did try to maybe be more like my mother in the business because I thought that was the role I should play and that was not successful. You can't be the best version of anyone else. You can be the best version of yourself.

Speaker B: Again, it's coming back to that authentic self, isn't it? If you know who you are and what you want to achieve, that that's going to set you on the right path rather than following someone else's.

Speaker A: But you know what, this seems very simple now, Natalie. Like, I just didn't come up with that overnight in terms of my own. You know, I go through years of, I did this role, I did that role, you know, I did My own coaching training, which was a huge eye opener for me. I, you know, so it's a process that you're learning. It's not just an overnight flick, the switch. Oh, yes, I, I know myself really well and I am. Off I go.

Speaker B: You mentioned that you've had mentors and coaches for years. Was that something that you sought, was a advice you got from someone?

Speaker A: No, I was always very proactive in terms of, you know, I just believe. Well, again, back to the people bit. I just believe if I want to achieve something, go and find the person who's done it the best and got there the quickest.

Speaker B: Great advice. Yep.

Speaker A: Well, I just. In business and in personal life, there's lots of things I want to achieve. So it's kind of like a car, a drive for me. If I know someone that can get me there in one hour, why would I take three hours to get there? But the coaching bit was, you know, when I, my younger days, I, you know, coaching mentors, consultants, all kind of the same thing. Now I realize they're very different and that when the coaching world opened up to me and then I did my training and that as well, that's a whole different ball game as well in terms of the person and your mindset and that authenticity and your thinking. So sometimes you need one, sometimes you need the other, and sometimes you need both.

Speaker B: Guess that takes us nicely into 2019 then. And that big decision that you made to lead the family business and go on your own path, do you mind sharing with us kind of what made you reach that decision and how you dealt with that?

Speaker A: Sure, yeah. So in 2015, I got a scholarship to go and do my MBA in London, go back again. And I loved education when I was there, but the minute I left university, it was the world of work for me. I was never studying again. And to go back years later, the brain was not in the academic world. But I really wanted international experience and I wanted to experience with lots of different industries. And I got a scholarship. So I thought, this is one of the best universities in London. And I thought, this is crazy if I don't take this. Looking back now, the decision to leave the family business wasn't a decision I say it was a process over a long period of time. It certainly was not an easy decision. My whole life was in that business. We had scaled it when I started from about 250 employees, and when I left it, we had about 600, 5,700 employees. Um, it was pretty scary to leave that, um, safety net. But I just kept coming back to the resist, fire and drive and talking about your authentic self that wouldn't go away in me, which was there's other things in the world you want to do. And just from a very practical point of view, you can't be a director in a business turning that amount of money with that amount of staff and only work three hours a week in it and go off and spend the rest of the time doing something else. And the other part, I knew I had a. I suppose I felt that I was very young starting in business so I had so much experience, business experience, scaling experience, innovation experience. And then when I did the coaching training, I think I did it in 2016, I could see how the two could fit massively together. And I suppose a big purpose of mine and um, driver for my business now is if I help more next gen entrepreneurs who wanted a shop and want to scale, I'm going to have a bigger impact in the world. You know, I'm very passionate about helping people who want to use their business to do good. So when I did the healthcare that was probably the disruption that was probably the last trigger for me. When I could see what I did there, I thought, well, if I can do that here and I can help 10 of these people in a next gen circle together from different industries and speed up their journey, my impact on the world and on society, on humanity is going to be tenfold. So that's a very deep driver. But on a very practical level I just felt I had the experience that I could help people.

Speaker B: And again, if you don't mind me asking, how did you balance up, I guess the kind of the professional and business side of making that decision with the personal side because that must have been a challenge as well.

Speaker A: Oh, a nightmare. You're leaving security, you're leaving financial security, you're leaving everything you knew. Big part of which I hadn't realized at the time. And I now realize working with other next gen, your whole identity in a family business is tied into that. So when you leave that it's a bit like, oh geez, that's gone. But the other voice just kept getting louder and louder and louder. And one day I just saw Cara and in the end actually I made the decision very quickly and um, thankfully have never looked back and have never thought, you know, even in the worst days in Covid, which was three months after I started the business I'm in now, I thankfully have never thought, God, I wish I hadn't have left. But no, it was by far And I think it will be the hardest decision I'll ever have to make in my life.

Speaker B: Is there then one piece of advice that you'd really want to give to other next gen entrepreneurs, um, who have reached that point of thinking? Do I stay? Do I change things, disrupt things here, or do I go on my own?

Speaker A: Yes. I mean, I think a couple of the questions that I would ask, um, the first thing is I would say how much autonomy do you have in the business or do you think you're going to have in the next few years and is that enough for you? Everyone's very different. I had a lot of autonomy, but as I got older I probably wanted more and it wasn't ready and the people in the business that I was going to get, so that's the first one in terms of autonomy and control. The second question I would ask is, when you look back on your life, where do you think you're going to add the most value? Is it in your family business or is it somewhere else? And then I suppose the advice I would give on a very practical point of view, which I didn't do, is don't instantly make the decision and just go, you know, put some things in place. So for example, you know, when I transitioned into this business, what I wish I had done was being proactive about getting clients so I didn't leave one. And then the next day be like, well, I've got no income, I've got. So if there's anything you can do, you know, to transition from one to the other, and maybe there isn't, maybe you just, you know, sometimes it's better just to jump because then you have to make it work. I mean, that was a good thing for me. There was no choice. I had to get clients, I had to have an income. But yeah, uh, maybe, maybe think about that as well.

Speaker B: And for those who do stay in the family business and then decide that's the right path for them. But I guess this is something we come across a lot with, you know, multigenerational family businesses as well. There's a way things have always been done. There's an expectation that that will continue for the future. So when we're using, you know, big impactful words around innovation, disruption, other things like that, how do you work with them to be able to achieve what they want to, moving forward in a way that I guess is still being respectful to the values and everything else that the business has been built on, but allows them to future proof the business, I guess, uh, and make it sustainable for the longer term.

Speaker A: So the two sides to tell you the two types of people I work with. So one is the next gens who are staying in their family business and as you say, want to disrupt it. But they have got autonomy and control. So they're not in the stage where they have to constantly pushing and maybe fighting to get it. Because I'm not the best person, because I actually make their situation even worse because I can see what they can see. So now you're making the dynamic in the mix. Now some people ask my advice, how do you get to that point? But that's not the work I do. And the other part then is next gens who leave the family business to go off and scale their own business. But if I go back to the first people who you've asked me about, you know, we talk a lot today about innovation and disruption and um, you know, the first thing I say to people is, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. You know, people think innovation and disruption is you smash everything and you start a game when you absolutely don't. Actually, um, we can talk about that in terms of what I did with the healthcare. So look at what's working really well. Look at what, you know, back to that. You know, I think the important part in any business is the real core and heart and soul of it. Why did it start? You know, what's in the DNA of this business? And then look at, okay, where are the parts that we need to improve right now? And also look at, you know, I certainly didn't expect Covid to happen, don't get me wrong. But I did say to people about four or five years ago, the change and dynamics of things in the business environment are getting more and quicker. And I mean, I suppose I was lucky. I grew up in an environment in Northern Ireland in hospitality. Uh, my parents had the third nursing home in Northern Ireland. So that was very disruptive. We had those businesses all through the troubles in Northern Ireland. So we were well used to, uh, certainly in the hospitality side. One minute you're selling a hotel in Dublin and you're standing and, uh, a bomb goes off in Belfast. Now the speed that is now happening at is tenfold. So the generations who are older, Covid, Brexit, I hate to say it, but there are more of those things coming quicker and faster in the future. So you need to be looking ahead, otherwise the business will not survive. But do not forget, do not forget the core and, um, tradition and the basic things that are working really well, in the business. So before you start changing anything, be very careful because it could be working really well or maybe it just needs a very slight change. So that would be the two sides of that coin, I suppose, for me.

Speaker B: And you mentioned Covid there, so we will pick up on it. Because you launched your business, I understand, just before COVID as well. So how has that been working through the last two years? And what are you generally finding that's coming up with the next gen entrepreneurs that you're working with?

Speaker A: Yeah, so, uh, I mean, I was in New York to do work in America as well. I nearly got locked in, in Covid. So that was an interesting journey. Um, I came back and being very honest with you, I was probably two weeks in tears going, the hell am I going to do now? And I woke up one day and I said, well, um, young lady, you've done other things before and you have no choice. You need to get on with this. I wanted, you know, I work mostly in the UK and the States. Everyone was locked down. So my only way then to get to those people was social media in terms of building relationships. And so I again thought, right, who's doing stuff online in a very authentic, you know, there's so much stuff online from a sales perspective that is absolutely atrocious. I'm not a sales expert, I'm definitely not an online expert. But one practical bit of advice I would give to anybody is if you don't, wouldn't say it in person to someone face to face, don't write it in a message online. But so I, you know, got mentors in that realm and just reached out and I've been on different podcasts and so building networks and um, people through that and that was a huge disruption. You know, my, my whole background, you know, we're very much relationship building in Northern Ireland and face to face. And so I have to do it that way. What the other part of your question is what am I seeing bosom to seeing? Couple of different things. In the family business space, there's two sides. One, I was seeing some of the older generation who were starting to transition out of the business to allow the next gen to come up. And actually Covid, they panicked and they came back in and tightened the range very quickly. So what you're now, there's a whole wrath of next gen people sitting there who are now frustrated and actually quite a lot of them are leaving or they're going to leave or the other side of it was the complete opposite. Actually. Some of the older Generation Covid was nearly the last straw and they were like, I've had enough now. There's been so many changes in the world. How do you run a business when you're actually locked down? So then very quickly, next gens had to take over, um, which was brilliant. I said the best opportunity for any innovation is a good crisis, so don't waste it. So the initial thing is you have to deal with a crisis, sort out the burning buildings once you can breathe, then start to think about how do we. Because when people are in a burning building, they want to change, they have to do something different. So that's how you get people to come with you very quickly. So that's probably the two main things I've seen.

Speaker B: The only certainty is change kind of springing to mind. I completely agree. I mean especially with the latter. We've seen a large number of family owned businesses where the current generation have decided right now is the time to step back. We don't want to go through another crisis like this. And linking back to your other point, these things are coming much more quickly, much more frequently. So you need future leadership in that business that can take it forward and adapt and pivot where they need to. Thank you so much for your time today, Cara. Is there any kind of final words and anything else that you'd like to leave the listeners with?

Speaker A: Yes. I mean you've said that there's, you know, change is the only certainty. But you know, what I don't want to come across, uh, today is people think, oh, change, change, you know, too much change is not a good thing in a business. You have to do it in a structured, measured way, which is obviously the process I do with people. I, I get frustrated when I read these things and people think innovation is this just like, let's go crazy and start, you know, doing all this mad stuff. There is part of the process where you do that, but it's not going to be effective. So that would probably be the, the last bit of advice I would give give, um, to people.

Speaker B: I'll leave your contact details in the show notes. And I understand that you're also looking for participants in a survey at the moment as well.

Speaker A: So at the minute I'm doing research with the two types of people I work with. So nextgens, as you say, those ones who've just taken over the family business, the generation have gone and they're like, right, I've got my hands on this now. I want to scale this and I want to do things very differently. And the Other side is the people who have left. But I'm. And it's not a sales pitch at all. It is very much research, you know, in a very confidential way. You know, a 20 minute conversation with me just around what are the challenges they're facing and um, you know, what are their biggest problems at the minute. So I would really love if there was anyone who resonated with what I said today and, um, would be happy to give me 20 minutes of their time. Would be brilliant.

Speaker B: Fantastic. I'll leave all those details in the show notes and I'm going to close with just two quick fire questions for you if that's okay. Could you tell me your favorite well known family run business and the reason why?

Speaker A: So I hope this doesn't come across as cheesy, but my favorite, one of my favorite leaders of all time has always been Richard Branson because he's a, you know, he was a disruptor way before anyone and his ma. I believe his mind must be so expansive that he believes anything is possible. And I love it as a family business because his daughter is such a massive advocate for doing good in the world. And I suppose those two things are a huge passion of mine in terms of how you use business. So that's why I love them. Not the monetary value and not the media in terms of what they do.

Speaker B: Brilliant. Actually, I think a lot of people wouldn't have even necessarily thought of family, you know, associating it with virgin brand as well. But you're right, I mean, Holly's doing lots of fantastic stuff, isn't she? I do follow her. Uh, and final one, do you have a podcast or book recommendation that you could share with us for Rising Family Business Leaders?

Speaker A: Yes. So I read a lot. My two books I would recommend, I suppose, are on different sides. One is the Magic of Thinking Big. So it's a phenomenal book. Just, uh, again, I believe anything's possible. And the other one, which I've only come across recently is the Disruptive Successor. So actually it's a very good book for those next gens because you kind of smile through some of it because you could probably see in yourself and things in your own family business that have worked or maybe been a bit of a challenge.

Speaker B: So that would be the two great recommendations. Thank you for that, Cara. Again, we'll pop those in the show notes so they're available for the listeners. Thank you very much. And that brings episode three of the third season of the Exploring Family Business podcast with Mazars to a close. If you enjoyed today's show. Please subscribe to the series and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It will help us extend our reach to the family business community. Join me on the next episode when I'll be speaking with David David Baggott, a director in the Mazars Deal Advisory team. David and I will be discussing funding in family businesses in a high inflation post pandemic environment, the difference in funding and debt risk appetites between nowgen and nextgen, as well as the current and future State of the UK M&A market. I look forward to sharing more with you then, but for now, thank you for listening.

Speaker A: It.