Secrets revealed for business success

In a world of mega retailers and corporate giants it is easy to forget that many of the most successful businesses in the nation are still family owned.

Whether they are major players in a given community or mom and pop operations along Main Street, the heads of local companies contend that keeping true to their roots has helped them grow.

According to the Conway Center for Family Business, family firms comprise nearly 90 percent of all businesses in the United States. Thirty-seven percent of Fortune 500 companies are family owned or controlled.

Statistics show that most individual startup businesses do not last past five years, but the average lifespan of family-owned businesses is 24 years. Thus, making it to or past a silver or golden anniversary all the more significant.

While corporate behemoths will look at market share, cultural trends and what direction the wind is blowing on any given day to try and determine their success, family-owned companies, be they large or small, tend to remain true to the basics as far as their strategy is concerned.

T. Baker Smith has been part of the Tri-parish region for almost 98 years. During that time, it has grown from a one man surveying operation to a nationally recognized multi-functional engineering firm.

Kenny Smith takes great pride in how the business his grandfather started and his father nurtured has grown under his leadership as well as theirs. But he constantly comes back to the basics when speaking of what it takes to secure longevity.

“Top of the list would be professional pride,” Smith said. “A passion for what we do. It is not about T. Baker Smith. It is about being engineers and professionals. It is always about building and improving your community.”

Community was a major concern for Smith’s predecessors and a tradition to which he has dedicated himself. “I know it resonated with my grandfather. I know it to this day resonates with my dad. Our big push now, with me, is not only the betterment of the parish, but our survival, the coast,” he said.

According to Smith, any get rich quick ideas do not play in a successful family business. “This is all long-term. Our goals are long-term goals. Our clients are long-term clients. We’re always looking at the big picture. Not a lot of short-term return on investment stuff,” he said.

Bob Watts has been in the furniture business in Houma for 49 years. As founder of Bob Watts and Sons Furniture, he agreed with Smith about service to the community being paramount to longevity.

“You have to have the right prices. You have to have a choice of merchandise, and you have to give to the public until it hurts. By that I mean free delivery, free service and anything that comes up,” Watts said.

It is difficult, according to Watts to know if people frequent large chain businesses more than local establishments when they know what selection is available. For him attracting and keeping customers still goes back to the basics he learned during nearly a half century in business.

“I was in service before I was in sales, and I was known for service. I went into sales about 30 years ago. But I put the whole thing on service,” he said in regards to his longevity.

More than 30 percent of family owned businesses survive into a second generation. The 12 percent that remain viable into a third generation typically do so because they have remained true to the principles upon which they were founded.

The CCFB has estimated that approximately $4 trillion of net worth will be transferred through succession in family-owned businesses by 2040, with nearly $800 billion passed along during the next 20 years.

Net worth is one thing that is considered with the corporate bottom line, but for viable family-owned operations it is remaining true to their roots that has helped them increase their value and grow to be a success.