Persuading a relative to abandon a failing family business

Chain Smoker

Due to a ton of really messy family relationships (it would take a whole book to explain, it's one of those families), my brother was guilted into continuing with a completely unsustainable family business several years back following the death of our father. It never came close to making a profit while my dad was in charge and is so far behind the times that it'd honestly be easier to start afresh than keep it up to date (it's currently surviving on savings and an insurance payout). I was always under the impression we were just keeping it around to humour him because he wasn't equipped to do anything else and got very depressed when it was temporarily closed about a decade back, but apparently I was hugely wrong there.
I'm after spending sizeable chunks of the past few years trying to help out and find ways to get him to come around and end it but it's led nowhere so I'm in the process of cutting myself off from it all. If anything, he's became more entrenched in it as he's after wasting such a huge chunk of his youth on it already. All of his friends have moved away and its next to impossible to meet new ones in the area without moving away for a while first (that's even if he had a second of free time to head out and meet people). There are genuinely no positives to it beyond it being quite a bit of hassle to close up shop.

So I was wondering whether anyone has any stories of their experiences or people they knew's who inherited and were guilt tripped into continuing with a business they've no aptitude, interest or affection towards. How long did it take for them to break from it? What was the straw that broke the camel's back?

Also, if anyone has any tips for how to stop it weighing so heavily on me. It feels like I've to endlessly be playing the role of bad cop, it stresses me out hugely to hear any kind of news from them (cos it's literally always very bad news) and I'm just at the point where seeing I've missed a call from one of my immediate family will be enough to turn absolutely ruin a day. Somehow I've became everyone's emotional support and it has been draining the hell out of me.

orthsquel

I wouldn't have direct experience in this situation, more so that where parents closed the business due to no children interested in continuing it on, however, what does your brother feel about continuing with it now? Is he open to modernising it, or approaching some sort of consultancy group/person to help turn the business around? Is he still interested in keeping it on for his own interest, or because everyone expects him to, or because he doesn't know what else he should be doing?

I think for yourself all you can do is step back and stop being emotional support to everyone, even telling them nicely that you don't want to be kept updated or be there as a shoulder to turn to.

I don't think there's a lot you can really do except try and distance yourself from the situation and not be so available to be the go to person for the shoulder to cry on with every little thing.

Even if your brother is just keeping it on for the sake of it, because he hasn't a clue what else he could do, he needs to realise this himself and needs to realise himself that he's wasting his time. But from what you wrote it kinda sounds like you see it as a lost cause without really saying how your brother or rest of the family see it. If your brother sees it as something he wants to do, then he should really engage with someone who knows about running a business to turn it around and how to best go about it. And it might take an outside opinion (outside of the family) to really identify if it really is a lost cause or something salvageable as a business, and that bit of reality might help to let him let it go if he is struggling with keeping it going for the sake of it. That might be something he might listen to or take on board either way as a business that can be turned around or as a business that is long past its time.

You might want to consider that if he is just keeping it going for a lack of anything else to do, lack of skills, lack of confidence or general confusion in life, he really ought to get support in those areas, like career guidance or counselling. It is possible that he is well aware maintaining the business is effectively self destructive as a backlash against being guilted into taking it on, like a revenge upon the family for it being forced upon him that he is stuck with it and can lay the blame on family, rather than coming to terms that the business should just close.

December2012

Does he have any business mentorship? Financial or accounting advice?

zoobizoo

Get a proper accountant in to look at the books and for them to deliver the verdict.

An accountant will be able to say whether it is a going concern or whether it is a dead duck. They can do cost benefit analysis - eg, even if you were to invest 10,000 in the business, you might only see 8,000 return. It is those figures which cannot be ignored. Very easy to ignore things when you're doing the figures in your head and not including tax / overheads / costs etc.

The accountant could also offer advice - cost cutting / tax etc.

Horrible to see businesses fail (I've had one go) as it becomes part of your identity.