The fastest way to blow up a family business is to both try to make the same decision. My brother and I fixed that early: we wrote out separate job descriptions so our lanes never crossed. He makes his calls, I make mine. Add a shared long-term vision and the trust to let each other lead, and you’ve got the whole formula. Divide and conquer beats overlap and friction every time.
@officialchadpetermanTranscript
Going into business with family, the few lessons that I've learned are each of us having individual roles. One thing that we did very early on was we each wrote out our job description. We shouldn't have things that cross over. It's divide and conquer, not overlap and create friction because we're both trying to make the same decision. My brother makes his decisions, I make mine. That has been our key. I think the other piece is aligning on the long term vision of where do we want to take this. Very early on, my brother and I were on the same page with this is where we want to take the company. So we're gonna have to make investments, we're gonna have to make sacrifices all in the effort to attain that vision that we had laid out. When you get into business with family, it can be tricky. I think the key is figuring out what each of you is going to do. Stay in your lane. You make those decisions for your lane. You can obviously ask for advice, but at the end of the day, you gotta trust each other to make the decisions that you set out and set forth to make at the very beginning.
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