In Germany there is a name for these businesses. The Mittelstand. In future articles we will discuss the German Mittelstand companies which are “highly focused, achieving unprecedented efficiencies by designing a business model with a razor-thin focus and learning to do the one thing really well.” But here we discuss the family side of the business. For explanation purposes, I will define the businesses first, then take a dive into our family’s approach to business.

What are niche market businesses?

Niches market businesses are enterprises that capture a larger share of a smaller market. Top-tier niche businesses create high value in that same larger share. This makes them difficult to compete with, because:

• The service or product is unique (hard for a new competitor to copy)
• The service or product has deep penetration into the market (hard for a new competitor to get started)
• The existing customers are happy (hard for new competitor gain ground)

How do you create a niche market business? 

That will differ on the market and the product- but here is what I know. Those who are top tier niche market businesses frequently have these common ingredients, and none of these ingredients are fast, easy, or available for immediate acquisition:

• Excellent in details
• Deep knowledge of the customer problem/resolution
• Often family-owned
• Tightly-held companies
• Use as much of their own internal fabrication as possible to control quality
• Value is placed on quality first
• Focused on one product, not many

How Did Byron Integrate Family Into His Business Story? Was It Worth It?

Short version: we took our boys to work, went to meetings, conferences, and introduced them to our network. It didn’t start with the European adventure. Below is a photo of my 11 year old son meeting world-renowned speaker and author Verne Harnish in Dallas Texas in 2022. My son is now meeting my network, and is better for it, and enjoying better prospects for his future because of it.

Below is a photo of both my sons with German company Wohler’s international salesperson at their corporate headquarters in Germany. My sons have had the introduction to leaders in certain fields and now have a platform to begin their journey. Why not? So we take them with us on this journey called life, and into this world called business, and this becomes an easier task for them than it was for me. They can stand on my shoulders, just as I stood on my father’s shoulders, and he upon his fathers’.

While in Switzerland my sons met the third generation owner of a steel foundry where castings are made from scrap metal. This fascinating tour was led by the business leader himself, who was happy to show us how his business works.

What Does Generational Family Business Integration Look Like?

My grandfather gave farming tasks to his 5 sons and daughter after school every day. From milking cows to plowing a field, my dad did family business tasks. And they sat around a common table and ate dinner. My father went to college, but had the added benefit of a trade.

Then in the following generation my father brought me to work, and gave me a trade and college degree. I was able to learn from him, and from my grandfather about the integration of work and life and business and how it integrated. And we had dinner around the family table in the evenings. Now it is my turn, and I have begun passing this same history down to my sons, now in their teens. They have come to work with me and learned the trade, even as they pursue their further education. They know we discuss business around the dinner table, and they have grown up hearing how the business works, and this is life. It is an integration of the stuff called life and the stuff one might call work. There are no hard lines, no boundaries. There is not 5pm shut off, no 6 am turn on. Our generational family business is a mild but determined blend of pursuing the future and present with our business history to prop us up.

My family is 100 years in on the generational business and family integration model. We take our kids with us and teach them life. We permit others to do the same. We slow down and teach other people’s kids as well.

It is time to embrace generational family business integration. How else will the story pass down through time? Shall we hire professional dis-interested tutors or bring our sons to work with us?

How can more business owners and individuals integrate their family into their current story?

By simply extending the invitation. In this heartwarming image below of my great-grandfather kneeling next to my mom we see the essence of working together. Work is good, and so is family, and when a family works together, it naturally passes skills, information, and values from one generation to another. In an age where parents wonder why their child has chosen a totally different value system, or why their child doesn’t want anything to do with the family business, could the answer be right in front of us? “Come along with me to work” could be the simplest sentence to utter and yet have the greatest impact.

Things in a family tend to follow a line. And now my son, some 13 years ago in this image, was captured on film enjoying a short climb up a chimney sweep’s ladder.

The Positive Impact Of Educating Children With Our Customers Knowledge.

People really do like to help other people. When they see a young person, and the setting permits conversation, it is common for older folks to impart wisdom to the younger. And this is just what we took advantage of. I took my sons to work with me when they were out of school- I did not permit them on the roof for safety reasons, but they would carry tools in and out of client’s home, pet the dog, talk to the client. They began to see the world wider and deeper. They learned to evaluate people’s life choices by the outcomes they physically saw by going in and out of dozens of homes and chatting with the clients. You know the drill, old engineer client meets my 11 year old boy and divulges free life-advice for 5-10 minutes. Or a retired school teacher meets my 15 year old son and leads him out to the back porch for a 20 minute lesson on the mammals of Colorado, and the local habitat of the stream behind the house and the name of the distant mountain and its local history. You can’t buy that kind of education in a classroom. And my boys simply grew up talking to adults and engaging in lively conversation. And they have a rounded view of the world provided to them by everyone from a retired engineer to a school teacher. So a big thank you to all those client’s who selflessly poured into my boys. When reflecting on work-life-balance I wonder if the thought ever crossed my mind. No. It didn’t. Work is part of life, and if you are really alive, you are working on something. So it’s bring your work to life and that is the balance.

My dad used to say, “How did you learn to do that skill? Who taught you that skill?” And we would reply, “We just watched you.”

Could passing on the generational integrated family business model be this easy?