Episode 2: Beyond Nepotism: Redefining Success in Family Business

Kirsten Burgess  
Music. Welcome to it's family business the podcast. Join the Burgess family at our dinner table, where we explore the power of connection through stories, laughter and lessons from life and business. Together, we'll reform the way we think about relationships, success and growth. Grab a seat and join the conversation.

Adrian Burgess  
This podcast is brought to you by Pilates Reformers Australia. Your all in one solution for Pilates and wellness. If you're looking to invest in commercial or home Pilates equipment, you need to speak to the experts in Pilates. Visit our website, at pilatesreformersaustralia.com.au, or check us out on social media.

Cheryl Burgess  
Welcome back to another episode of it's family business. I'm Cheryl, and I'm here with our co host, Kirsten and Adrian. Today's episode is beyond nepotism, redefining success in family business. And I'm hosting this today because I don't come from a family business. I actually married into one, Adrian being the child of his parents family business, and Kirsten being the child of her parents family business. So there's many struggles that go along with being the child in the family business, and how that is perceived by other people outside of the business. So one thing we might start off with was, Kirsten, let's start with you. And how did you get sucked into the vortex of working for Pilates Reformers Australia.

Kirsten Burgess  
The Hotel California, as my siblings and I like to call it, yes.

Cheryl Burgess  
Well, the one place you can go to but you can never leave. Yeah,

Kirsten Burgess  
That's right. So COVID was the big thing. I finished school. I wanted to go overseas. COVID happened. Couldn't go. Started trying to apply for jobs. Everybody was obviously closing their doors. And interestingly, Pilates boomed, especially in the home area.

So, you know, the business needed assistance. So it was just like, "Oh, can you just help today? We need help with this..." "Oh, can you just help with the social media? Because, you know, we need to make social media better". And I was like, Yeah well, I'm not doing anything, so no worries. And then, yeah, I just never left, really. I mean, you know, I did my own little things, went to university and did my own travels etc. But I suppose, you know, you become invested in what it is that you're doing. And for me, it was like, 'Well, I like my job, and I get paid enough money that I need to do what it is that I want to do. So why would I go anywhere else' and I can get leave when I want to get leave, and I don't really have to worry about, you know, filling out heaps and heaps of forms or getting approvals, I just kind of go mum and dad. I'm going away for six weeks, and I'll see you when I get back, only

Cheryl Burgess  
If you have annual leave. Adrian, what about you? How did you get into your parents business? KNAB Industries. 

Adrian Burgess  
My mum definitely sucked me into the vortex using Kirsten's words. I was studying accounting, and it was only like three days a week, so they got me to do deliveries for them. So I was driving around Sydney in a truck and earning like $10 an hour. That was the wage back then. Well, no, they didn't pay me enough, but so yeah. And then when I finished my accounting, my mum, who was a bookkeeper, she sucked me in and said, "Come work for us. We'll start up an accounting business." And I thought, 'oh, cool, yeah, straight into this accounting business'. Yeah, that never happened. I drove trucks for like, another two years, and pretty much wasted all my study. But I didn't mind at the end of the day,

Cheryl Burgess  
I don't think you wasted your study, because I believe that you learn different things for a particular reason. So the accounting knowledge that you learnt back then has helped you throughout running your own business now, and, you know, building your own wealth. 

Adrian Burgess  
Yeah, absolutely, it's a good foundation. Yeah, it's, as Kirsten has said many times, sometimes people challenge you because you work for your parents and things like that, which happened to me, people would sort of say, "Oh, you've only got a company car because you work for your parents" or blah, blah. And I was like, Well, no, not really. My parents don't pay me enough, and I get a company car because they probably get some fringe benefits.

Cheryl Burgess  
So, how did you how did both of you deal with friends when they came to you with comments like that, which are just like, you know, they don't understand that you are working not just nine to five, but also nine till nine. They don't understand that you are feeling the downside as well as the upside. So, how do you turn around? What do you say to your friends when they make comments like that.

Kirsten Burgess  
I think I started off with just like, oh well, it's just temporary. You know, I'm I'm just doing it because I'm thinking about my options now. And, you know, obviously it's really hurtful, because you're kind of thinking, 'oh well, why is what I'm doing any less than what it is that you're doing, just because the people that I'm working for happen to be the people that also birthed and raised me'. But you know, I'm still working, you know, I'm still invested in what I'm doing. I'm still putting in the hours that anybody else would put in in any other job, if not a little bit more. You know, especially, like you said, the whole it's nine to nine, it's not nine to five. And there are benefits. I'm not discounting that at all. There is definitely benefits that you get working in the family business over working anywhere else. Like I said, the whole leave thing and all of that is a great benefit especially.

But I think people think that because you're working for your parents, that you can just sort of slack off and you can take advantage of the fact that mum and dad will look after you. And that's not really the case. I think it's definitely like, you know, we said previously, they're harder on you, because you're the child, and there's an expectation. And I always say, if I do something wrong, and dad has a go at me about it, and I'm like, well, x person did it, and you just said, Oh, that's okay, but I got in big trouble. And he's like, but you should know better. You're the child. You should know. You're my child, and you should know. And I'm like, Oh, well, if anybody else was my boss, I wouldn't be trouble about this. 

Cheryl Burgess  
So did that happen to you, Adrian, in your family business, where you were probably hauled over the coals more than any of the other employees? Were the expectations greater on you as the child

Adrian Burgess  
Look, I just remember this one time where we'd gone out with friends on a Sunday night for Christmas drinks, and I'd over indulged, but I'd gotten up on Monday to go to work start at 7:30am like the good employee that I was, and then the late, sort of late morning hangover really kicked in quite badly, and ended up in the bathroom a little bit ill, and I remember thinking, "I'm just gonna go home."  And then dad came and said, "What are you doing?" I said, "I'm gonna go home, mate. I'm not feeling too well." And he goes "like, hell, you are. I know what you did last night. You get back out there." I think that was pretty tough.

Cheryl Burgess  
Tough love. Did he give you some tough love at that particular point he time? Well, you know, I don't think he actually. I think probably one of the downsides of being the child in the family business is exactly that you don't really get sick days. Because unless you're really, really sick, mum and dad are expecting you to rock up and go to work because, you know, you can't just have Monday-itis or not feel like you're going to have a sickie. Yeah? 

Kirsten Burgess  
If, you live at home with mum and dad, aka boss, yeah, you're like, Oh, I'm just a bit tired. It's like, 'so are you vomiting? Are you incapacitated in the hospital? Bleeding', no, no off to work. You're fine. 

Cheryl Burgess  
Very true, very true. Are there times when you think I really can't do this anymore? I really can't work for these parents anymore? All the time, regularly.

Kirsten Burgess  
Yeah,

Adrian Burgess  
Yep, especially well in my case, I had siblings as well, and and that caused kind of quite a few confrontations as well. So the drive to want to leave was strong, and my constant thought, or was thinking about ways that I could get out. But I never thought that I would go work for somebody. I was always, my mind was always, I'm going to start my own business. So that's one thing I think you get from being born into a family business, is your mindset is, well, if I'm not going to work in the family business, I'm going to work for myself. You don't even think about working for someone else, which is probably maybe not a great thing, but yeah, so eventually I did leave and did start my own business. Well, then I went back, but then I left and started another one.

Cheryl Burgess  
So I think when you're in a family business, from what I've observed, especially being married to Adrian for such a long time, is that you develop sort of skills in a family business, which makes you a bit more entrepreneurial than others would be, because you're very ingrained into all of the facets that make up the business. So while you are in the business, you're learning all the accounting and the marketing and the sales and the, you know, administration, all those sort of things you are learning. Whereas when you go and start your own business, yes, you can start doing that out, but as the business grows, you have to start delegating those things to other people. And that's, I think, when all of the children start to come on board. Because you've now gone out on your own and you've done this sort of stuff, and now you've got to bring your children in. So why do you think that you bring the children in?

Adrian Burgess  
I was just going to pull up on that just a little bit and just say that I think if you ever had the opportunity to employ someone who had been in a family business, I think you would be doing extremely well, because I know myself, you know, I started driving trucks, and then I remember my dad saying to me, when I sort of whinged, he didn't pay me enough money. And he said, "Well, you get on the phone, you ring customers and get sales, and then you can take commission on those sales". So I had my notes down. I was cold calling customers on the phone, and then eventually I was driving. Knocking on their doors, doing door to door sales, you know, trying to earn more money. And on top of that, I was doing the bank reconciliations, putting data, putting orders up, and manufacturing as well.

So, you know, you certainly learn a lot in a family business, because you have to, you have to be in jack for trades. What was your question?

Cheryl Burgess  
Why do people bring children into the fall? You kind of like, osmotically, work your way into the business where you kind of, like, you said, it's the Hotel California. You don't leave. You start out just driving the truck, because mum and dad need a hand. You start out, you know, putting up the orders, because Mum and Dad need a hand. You need you start out doing a bit of social media, because Mum and Dad need a hand, and then you end up staying. So, you know, why is that?

Adrian Burgess  
I'm definitely cautious about bringing them in. I want them to have, like, other experiences as well. You know, like Dylan has only just come into the business when he's only just finished school, but I still want him to go and do something else, so he's not just, you know, family business. That's it. You've got to have, even I studied something before.

Cheryl Burgess  
Well, Kirsten has gone to university, and that's increased her, level of education. But also encouraging your children to do that, you are then bringing back more skills to the business. So it's kind of like a catch 22 isn't it? You send them out to learn, and then they bring all that information back to you, so that you can then implement that into your business.

Adrian Burgess  
Definitely. And I know my parents thought the same way. They sort of not that they pushed me to do accounting, but they did need someone to do accounting. Kind of work out well for them.

Cheryl Burgess  
So really, your children, I think what I'm trying to get at is, I think you trust your children probably, yeah, the most, and they will probably, technically, supposedly, give you the most loyalty. So the children kind of come in, not really expecting much, but they give you the most trust and the most loyalty. And so I don't know, do you feel that way? Kirsten?

Kirsten Burgess  
I think it's really interesting, going back to Dylan as an example, who finished school and he had like, three months off, and you were like, just come and do some work here. We need some help in the warehouse. And he begrudgingly came along and worked. And now, 12 months later that he's been in the warehouse, I've noticed a shift in his perspective and his attitude, and now he's putting forward ideas and trying to engage more in how to make the business better, whereas 12 months ago, he couldn't care less. 

Adrian Burgess  
He's also maturing a little bit as well, and that's true.

Kirsten Burgess 
You know, as the child, you'd hear about the business all the time. You know, you and mum spoke about it at dinner, on holidays, everywhere you heard about the business in the car, on holidays. And it's not until really, that you start working in it that you kind of then go, 'oh, this is what mum and dad are talking about every day.' And oh, yeah, you know, I suppose you're surrounded by it, then you're working in it, and then you kind of go, oh, well, actually, I think that we can do this, you know, this will really help us. And like I said, you know, it's your family. It matters. You want it to be successful because you care. And I think that care factor being that it's your family. 

Adrian Burgess  
I mean, my family business was in the printing industry, and I became quite passionate about it. I really had a passion for it at the time, and I think that you guys need to be passionate about this business. And you know, the beliefs in Pilates and how Pilates can help people, how we can help people by, you know, giving them equipment that makes their business succeed and we support them. And you got to be passionate about that. If you're not passionate about it, then it's probably not for you. And you know, you can move on. 

Kirsten Burgess  
I suppose. For me, I always say, I don't know if my passion is necessarily, like with Pilates, but my passion is Pilates Reformers Australia as an entity. And for me, I'm like, I want this business to be successful, and that's what drives me to work hard and try and boost sales, like when I first started, was like, oh, Pilates, whatever. But it was the family business, and I was like, this will succeed, because we will succeed together. And I feel like that's really what pushes me forward. And through that, I've grown more interested in Reformers and things like that. That's obviously grown a little bit, but, you know, I will never be probably as passionate as what Adrian is about wheels and springs and, you know, the runners and how we're gonna make it work. And I'm just like, whatever, you know, you just tell me what it is, and I'll sell it and promote it. 

Cheryl Burgess  
As I said before, each person brings their own skills into the business. And so you know, Adrian's, passion is about the actual equipment. Your passion is about the marketing and those relationships that you build with that. So, yeah, it's interesting how that all works together.

So how do you think the work life balance is working as a child in a family business? Does one exist for you? Is there such a thing as a work life balance in a family business? 

Kirsten Burgess  
Yes, and no. I mean, I don't know. I suppose, like I said, you know, you talk about it all the time, and it just becomes a part of your life. 

I suppose, actually, the really good thing, I think, when it comes to work life balance is, when you come home and you want to talk about your day at work, and you're talking to people that actually understand what you're talking about and who you're talking about and what you've been through, you can actually all engage together, you know, it also becomes a social aspect as a family, because you're like, 'oh, you know, can you believe this? And can you believe that?' And they actually care, and they actually know what you're talking about. And I think that's honestly a good thing, you know? It means that the thing that you do every day, from nine to five is important to the people that you then go home and live with.

Cheryl Burgess  
Very true. What do you think one of the perks are of being in the child of a family business, apart from annual leave

Adrian Burgess  
I don't know if there are any perks, to be honest. I'm trying to think of perks that I used to have when I worked for mine.

Cheryl Burgess  
Okay, what are the perceived perks? So people on the outside looking in as you as the child of a family business, what do you think they are looking at and going, 'Wow, they're so lucky that they've got that.'

Adrian Burgess  
I think, well, this is different to Kirsten, because you're a different era. You know, we constantly, every four years, got a new company car, which was always exciting in those days. That was probably the main perk. I think I had, you know, like one week's annual leave at Christmas, and that was kind of it. So I wouldn't say it was holidays for me personally, I don't think I was on a bad wage back then. I mean, it was reasonable. I think, yeah, other than that, there really wasn't any perks,

I suppose, you know when Kirsten was born and we had to have time off and stuff like that, there was no, oh, listen, you don't have any, family leave entitlements or anything like that. It was just like, 'Well, yeah, of course, you go and do what you got to do', and then you can work overtime when you get back. 

Kirsten Burgess  
I actually think, and this isn't just a family business it probably applies to all small businesses, but everything that you do matters, and you actually have a bigger impact, because there's not as many people that are working in the business. And so I think, you know, especially for the family aspect, you know, when we have conversations at home, I personally feel like, Oh, I'm having a say in where and what this business is going to do. You know, I can impart an opinion, and you might not always agree. And we've sat here many times at the table and argued and thought about business decisions, that's for sure. But you know, now and again, when we do have a conversation, it's, you know, it's, oh, yeah, Kirsten, I think that's a good point. And we'll go away and think about that. I think that's a perk, because I kind of feel like, Oh, I'm actually what I'm doing is important, and I'm having an impact and and I suppose also you feel like what I'm doing now is setting up a future from later, and with the hope that,  if all goes well, it's kind of like, well, for my siblings and I, this is our future.

We will run this business, and we're hoping our children will run this business, and we're setting up something for the future. You kind of think, you know what? If all goes well, this is my future, and I know that it'll always be here for me, and I'll always have this security of as long as the business is running, I'll have a job that I enjoy, yep.

Cheryl Burgess  
So in other businesses, there are different levels of achievement, so different stepping stones that you can get to so you can get further, further up the ladder. But such a thing, does it really exist in a small business or even a family business? So how do you feel as a sibling that now, or a child that comes into a family business. Does that bother you that you can't be going well now, you know, eventually I'm going to be the CEO of Fox Studios, because you probably won't ever be that.

Because, for example, you Adrian when you were with your family business. You know, your mum and dad were close to retirement, and when they did retire, they didn't actually give you the head job.

Adrian Burgess  
Now that's a tough question. Or will say a 'hard question'.

Yeah, that's it, yeah. Look, it was different for me because we were in the printing industry, and it was a dying trade, so staff, were phasing out. The whole business was contracting. Is that the right word was shrinking?

Cheryl Burges
Yes, it was contracting.

Adrian Burgess  
Contracting, yeah. In my position, it was, there was no position for advancement. All you could do is hope that sales would grow and there was, you know, more profit, and then hopefully you would earn more money. That was that was it. And then, of course, one day, your parents are going to go, and then you can take it over if you're not in a dying business. And hopefully Pilates is going to continue to go for a long time and continue to grow for a long time. So Kirsten may be slightly different position to what I was.

Kirsten Burgess  
Yeah, no, definitely. And I think it really just depends on on the industry. Obviously, it's not a clear ladder of where you're going to move to next. The lines are a little bit blurred there. But as we've said, when you're in a small business, you're playing multiple roles. You're actually working across multiple departments. I work in marketing, finance, operations, I do it all. So it's not really as clean cut as that. And I think it's enjoyable, because I think personally for me, I like moving across different departments and getting to do different things. And it keeps me busy, it keeps me occupied and keeps me engaged. 

Cheryl Burgess  
No, that's great. So what lessons or life experiences do you both think that you have learnt? Probably, we'll start with you Adrian, because you've sort of learned as the child in the business and then gone off onto your own and started your own business. What life experiences have you taken, taken from that and brought to your new business.

Adrian Burgess  
Hmm, life experiences. Hey, I think you know, like I watched my dad and how he handled his business and mistakes that he definitely made in business, not that he made that many, but he certainly did make some mistakes, and I've tried to learn from that. I think where he let himself down was he didn't get outside help. He thought that he could do everything. This is pre-internet, mind you, he wanted to do everything. And so I think I like to get other people to help me do the things that I can't do, like Richard Branson said, you know, he always hires people that do things better than he can. I read that on a plane once, and I thought that's good. I'm going to do that. So I definitely kind of live by that.

The other thing, I think sometimes my dad did not handle his staff very well, and he wasn't much fun in the office or jovial. So I try and be, I guess, I'm the clown of the office most of the time. I try to keep morale up. I try and keep everyone, you know, happy and interested. You know, sometimes it's that can be challenging, especially when, you know, I've been dealing with a difficult customer, or something like that. It can be a bit challenging, but yeah, that's something I've definitely taken out of it.

Cheryl Burgess  
Okay, cool. What about you, Kirsten, What experiences have you taken out of being working in the small business?

Kirsten Burgess  
You know, similar things to what dad said. I think the biggest thing I have learnt is how hard it is to run your own business and that you're always on. It's 24/7 it's not just I get to go home and that's the end of the day. So I think that's what I've learned. It's like, you know, in future, if I decide to move on and open something for myself, I know how much hard work and dedication it's going to take for me to do that. 

If I was to do something for myself, I probably wouldn't start from scratch. I'd prefer to probably buy something that's already established and work with it from there.

Adrian Burgess  
It's not easy.

Cheryl Burgess  
No, no. So, yes, working in a small business, which happens to be a family business. You know, you're affected by very different influences, outside and also internally, so outside, from, you know, other businesses or the customers that you've got, and then internally, also from the actual family.

And then, you know, if I was to wrap it all up for what we were talking about today. You know, there really isn't a work life balance because it's 24/7 you really are on all of the time. And as a sibling, that is also part of the family business, you can get away with a little bit. You have a few perks and quirks that come your way from the business. But, you know, it's sort of not what everybody perceives it to be. So maybe sometimes, if someone else is in a family business or a small business for that matter, maybe those people on the outside won't look in and go, Oh, wow, look how fantastic it is, without realizing all of the hard work and the drive and the determination that goes into making a successful small business, yeah.

Kirsten Burgess  
I think that's the key message. You know, you never really know what someone's doing, why they're doing it. What's going on behind the scenes. So reserve your judgments. I guess.

Cheryl Burgess  
Well, it's been very interesting having this discussion about children venturing into the family business. So thanks everybody for listening. And I think one of the things that we could probably take away from this is that when you enter the Hotel California, you never leave.

Kirsten Burgess  
That's right, check out anytime you like.

Cheryl Burgess  
Thanks very much for listening.