Stacy Tuschl is a speaker, business coach, and the owner of The Academy of Performing Arts in Wisconsin. She is the author of the book “Is Your Business Worth Saving?” where she reveals proven strategies for pulling entrepreneurs out of a rut and launching them toward business success.

Should you hire family members to work in your business? Liz asked me this question because she knows that I work with my sister, and Liz was curious if a similar situation would work for her. My sister Jamie is the general manager of my performing arts academies and we have been working together for probably 6 years or more now. So today, I’m going to share with you the ups and downs, the pros and the cons.

Some highlights include:

You need to have specific roles and be very clear of who does what. Don’t step on each other’s toes because that can go very bad very quickly. (minute 3:00)

Pick your battles. I love everything my way and in the beginning I would always say no we do it this way, but then Jamie had said to me that for me to not be involved in everything, I had to trust her to make decisions. And she was absolutely right. (minute 4:00)

Communication is key, but don’t over communicate. You have to trust each other and not oversee everything. (minute 5:00)

Now am I saying yes you should absolutely hire family? No, not exactly. I think there are some family members that can make it work and then some that I don’t think would be a good idea. Do you and your family member that you’d work with have complementary personalities or are you the same person? I can’t imagine working with someone just like me. (minute 6:00)

Before you hire, I highly suggest talking about important things like pay, raises, time off, etc. If you’re at the stage of your business where you’re not making much money yet, do you want your family member to make as little as you do? If so, you should probably make them a business partner and not an employee. (minute 7:00)

There are a lot of reasons you can probably think for not hiring family members, but for me, I could never trust anyone like I trust my sister. I know Jamie always has my business as her number one priority, and she treats it like it’s her business and that is honestly priceless. (minute 9:00)

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My Book:

• “Is Your Business Worth Saving?”

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