Family business: how we do it!

This is a photo of my grandfather Paul Heck in the vineyard with his favorite horse Pinot. Many people ask me how I can work in a family business. We have all seen and heard the unfortunate stories of families that have big dreams for a business and in the end just can’t seem to make it work. Mondavi Family ring a bell on this one?

I think the first and most important things you must do is always treat the family business as though it was not family at all.  You should not run your family business any different than you would run any other business. There can’t be any “cutting corners” so to speak. Everything must be kept up to date and accurate. There can be no favoring, my sister and I both work together and do a variety of the same jobs. Her job is no more important than mine.

You must also try to keep emotions out of the picture, I think this is the hard one. When you build a business as a family there are so many more emotional ties to it. Some people have ego tied in as well, and have a hard time admitting when things aren’t going well. They don’t want to be seen as a failure. But if you can manage to keep these things in tact, you are on your way to being able to work together and succeed.

I myself often wonder what it is about being in business with family that can sometimes make it harder to succeed. I work with my sister, mom, dad, cousin and winemaker Tyler and both my grandparents on some occasion. I guess it can be frustrating when not only does everyone have their own opinion about how things should be run, but because this is your business you are more emotionally tied to it than you would be if you were working for someone else. There is that element of extreme passion to make things succeed.

We have quite a history of family businesses. My grandfather, Paul Heck and his brother Adolf bought Korbel Champange Cellars from the Korbel Bros in the early 1950′s. As a family, they reinvented the Korbel name, producing higher end champagne and even started making still wine and brandy. My mom was the youngest of 3 when they lived at the winery and remembers having a childhood full of family and good times. The family had reached great success, I think both men After reaching great success some members of the family became greedy and suffered from problems with alcohol. However it was after an affair, corruption within the family and money issues that there was no mending the problems that had occurred in the 40+ years of business.

Even though he died before I was born, I have learned a lot from my grandpa Paul. I hope that my sister and I will learn from what happened with Korbel to become positive family leaders with our new family venture, John Tyler. I love working with my family, every day I feel like I am providing a service to the legacy that my grandparents and parents have created.